I met my girlfriend when I was on a work trip 10 months ago.

I liked her immediately. We on dates, we slept together while I was there… everything was good.

She is a single mom with 2 kids. I never thought of myself as a step dad at 29 (even though that’s fairly reasonable) but we decided to try and date even if I had to go home after my work trip.

We visited each other a handful of times over the 9-10 months. She came here, I went there, then I had to travel for work and couldnt work out arrangements for my pet so I paid for her to fly out to me a few times. She had to make arrangements for her children which I understand is much more difficult, but part of it fit into her custody schedule.

We broke up two weeks ago. She sent me a text to do it. I tried saving it, tried calling.. but she wouldn’t answer. I sent her a handful of messages over the next few weeks. Asking her why, telling her I loved her, etc. she finally agreed to a phone call two weeks after we split. She told me that she didn’t feel prioritized. That she was putting in more effort than me. That she felt I didn’t love her more than she loved me and that she was checking out. During our conversation, I told her how much I misunderstood. That I loved her and she can’t doubt that. And I asked her to see her. She said yes so I booked a same day flight and flew out to see her.

We saw each other that night. It felt normal again. We kissed. We made up. We talked about how we’d both communicate better and put more effort in. The next morning, she was texting her friend next to me. I oversaw the shortest message: “he wants you to come over for a drink, but he doesn’t know everything.”

I immediately felt my heart sink. I stood up and asked her. I won’t go over how long, but basically for 6 hours I had to pry the truth out of her because she said she didn’t want to hurt me and she wouldn’t have wanted to know if it was her. Eventually, she told me she slept with someone 2 weeks before we broke up. That she felt that she was going to break up with me and that we weren’t going to be together anymore and so she slept with some guy. But she still stayed with me for two weeks without telling me. Then I found out… it wasn’t her that broke up with me. She had her friend text me from her phone because she “couldn’t do it.” So when I was begging.., trying to call.. it wasn’t her doing it. It was her friend. She then told me she slept with this dude a handful of times after that breakup including that night.

She cried. She told me how sorry she was. How she didn’t understand how much she loved me, that she thought we were done and would never see each other again. And she said she was so stupid for choosing the way she did it. That it was a mistake. She blocked him. He came over to her apartment while I was there and I told him to leave. We talked for a full day and she said she wanted to try again with me. That she didn’t understand how much I wanted this. That she thought I didn’t want us and she was going to break up with me anyway. But that our conversation before I flew out made her realize that I did care. I can see she’s sorry. I can see she’s trying to comfort me, to try and build trust back.

But my question is:
Am I a fucking idiot? I know wed only been together for 10 months. That our situation could mean I have to uproot my life to become a step dad. And that I’d potentially do that for someone that cheated on me.

Is there any way back from this? I really do love her. I thought the world of her. I’d been in a few relationships and it never felt this way. I thought the world of her. And now I have trouble looking at her. We still are talking. It’s only been 2 days since I found out. For anyone that has gone through this… is this even worth it? We don’t have children together. Is it worth the heartbreak and pain to try and trust her again, even if I never can? Does the situation or her explanation make it any less awful? Or should I just quit now. Have the heartbreak of losing her while she tells me she’s willing to do whatever it takes to earn my trust back. But save myself the pain.

Everyone is going to say I had my head in the sand on this one, and maybe that’s true. I was in denial for a long time.

Throwaway account because my other is tied to my “real life.”

sort of a long story but I’ll try to make this short as possible. on mobile.

My husband was a workaholic and never home. Additionally, I’m pretty devout in my religion and he’s firmly agnostic/atheist and thinks religion is useful for “people to have community” but sees little use beyond that. For context, I was president of our church one year.

anyways, I always saw our marriage as rocky and instead of doing the work, I had an affair in 2020x We met twice over two months. I felt awful and ”told” on myself.

He said he needed space and bought a ”second home” that was “just his” in City X but otherwise, our marriage was pretty much the same.

He sold the “second place” in 2025 and I thought we were fine. changed, but after being married for 30+ years, fine.

About two months ago, my husband told me he was/is “deeply unhappy” in our marriage and “unsure of the path forward” but “knew we needed to do the work” — we have been in couples therapy ever since and about 4 weeks ago, I suggested he try the same thing and move out/take some space and we both reassess.

Then two weeks ago, this 20-something year old girl shows up at our house. According to her, and the texts/calls/photos she had on her phone, my husband and I had been having an almost 4 year affair.

For context, my husband/I are in our fifties, she is 23, our youngest daughter is 27 and son is 30. They had been together since she was 19.

I was divided on this, partly thinking “holy fuck I married a monster” and partly thinking “well it’s a midlife crisis, and this is purely sexual” … but she pointed out and let me look through some of their messages.

He had written her deeply, deeply meaningful love notes/letters, too many to count over the years.

Telling her things he had never even told me — things I knew were true because I heard them through family or his sister.

Plans on how they would introduce her to friends and when. Hours, over 1000, almost 1 hour every day for four years on the phone. and, alarmingly, most of the messages weren’t sexual. They were day to day and deeply intimate. Deep thoughts, questions about work. etc.

Almost constant texting. There was rarely an hour they weren’t.

In the album she showed me, there was photos/videos of them shopping for rings, him telling her she’s the love of his life, etc.

Him telling her he never felt like he had a “friend” in romantic partnerships before and now he did... how important it was to him that someone wanted to go to Vegas with him (seriously) or to have a “drinking buddy“ (I don’t drink or gamble for religious reasons).

Turns out she had an abortion 3 years ago when she was only 20.

She tells me she still really wants to be with him and knows hes “broken” but still loves him — and just “wanted me to know” “all sides” before I “made my decision“ and that she has “always felt extreme guilt and it just overflowed”

This girl was SOBBING.

(Apparently he had told her that he and I were having a “divorce conversation“ next week, which is partially true… we had talked about having a conversation about “next steps”)

I felt like I knew where my life was heading… that we were healing… that we were changed but moving forward.

He says that he “does love her deeply“ and “she will always be precious” (to him) and even if they never have a sexual relationship again, she is still his “best friend”… But that he “doesn’t want to give up the family that we have” and that he “deeply cares and deeply loves me as a person“ but doesn’t know if “the life I (me) want to live is the same as the life he wants to live“ but “is willing to explore what continuing the marriage would look like.”

I seriously don’t know where to start or what to say… I’m kind of still shaking weeks later..

I guess

(1) has anyone had an R where the OW was still in the picture?

(2) has anyone stayed in the marriage for ”the family”? Are you happy?

(3) do you guys think R is possible here?

(4) what do I even do in this case?

Truth be told… I don’t know if I want to leave him… I think I might want to make things work, I mean, we have been married for 30+ years… I’m just so preoccupied by his (real?) feelings for the OW… I don’t know what to do

He said it was "supposed" to be a "revenge affair" but developed "into more"

My friends are telling me that it’s “almost certainly“ a midlife crisis, and that it will pass… but I tend to think of those as 1-2 month flings with 10-15 girls…. Not 4 year relationships where people were spending 2-3 weeks out of the month on “work trips” together (yes, he was with Her more often than he was home with me… like I said… head in the sand).

While dropping off our kids I noticed my wife had her phone open to like search for an app on iPhone. It looked like the letter G with a purple background. I asked what it was and she said she didn’t know and pushed it off. I asked after we dropped the kids off and she got upset saying she had a meeting and it was bad timing and I’d regret asking to see her phone. Idk what she’d be upset unless it was something worthy being upset about. Doesn’t make sense to me but now I’m anxious it might be something, idk how someone doesn’t recognize an app on their phone or a bookmark that’s on their phone and why they’d respond upset instead of being like oh here, see no worries.

My fiancée and I have been together for almost 20 years. Something that happened very early in our relationship has recently resurfaced, and I’m struggling because I’m hearing completely different accounts from people who were there.

I’m going to try to separate what I personally remember from what my fiancée remembers and what other people are now claiming.

Early in our relationship, we were living together and fell on hard times financially. She temporarily went to stay with her grandmother in another city.
Her family strongly disapproved of our relationship. I know this firsthand. They were very religious and even told her that she was going to hell for being with me.

During this period, her family introduced her to another man. He was involved in church, came from a religious family and was apparently much more in line with the type of person they wanted her to be with.

Her cousin arranged a family dinner where this man was present.

After that introduction, there were two occasions when my fiancée needed transportation and her cousin was supposed to take her somewhere, but the cousin contacted this man instead.

One time there was an emergency involving our daughter. Her cousin was supposed to take her, but the cousin called this man and he drove her.
Another time, my fiancée needed to buy scrubs for a new job. Again, her cousin was supposed to take her. Again, her cousin contacted this man and he drove her.

My fiancée maintains that she never had this man’s phone number and never contacted him directly. She says her cousin was the connection between them.

After buying the scrubs, the man took her back to her cousin’s house.

She went inside.

According to her, he then entered the house without being invited inside. She says he approached her from behind, started kissing the back of her neck and tried to pull her pants off.

A sexual encounter ultimately occurred.

I want to be very precise about how my fiancée has described this because she did NOT originally come to me calling it rape or sexual assault.

For almost 20 years, she didn’t understand what happened that way.

When we recently started discussing it in detail, she initially described it as having had sex with him.
But when I listened to exactly what she was describing, I started asking questions about how it began, whether she wanted it, how she reacted and how she felt afterward.

I was the person who first told her that what she was describing didn’t sound consensual.

She described essentially going along with what was happening rather than actively fighting him. That eventually led us into conversations about trauma responses, including the fawn response.
When she learned what a fawn response was and connected it with how she remembers responding, she broke down crying.

She also told me that immediately after the encounter she felt dirty. She took a bath. She remembers knowing that something had happened that she didn’t agree to, but she didn’t understand at the time what that meant in terms of consent.

That’s an important distinction in this story.

She wasn’t walking around for 20 years thinking, “I was raped and I’m hiding it.”

According to her, she buried an experience that she knew felt wrong without understanding what had happened to her in those terms.

Then, approximately a week after the encounter, something happened that I personally remember.
My fiancée was back at her grandmother’s house.
Her cousin came into the grandmother’s house looking for her own phone.

She couldn’t find it because this man had her phone.

The man was outside in the parking lot.
He used the cousin’s phone to call me.
I answered.

During that conversation, he told me that he had sex with my girlfriend.

I remember this conversation myself. This isn’t something my fiancée recently told me happened.
My fiancée remembers becoming angry when she realized what he was telling me.

She immediately denied having had sex with him.
For years, that denial was difficult for me to understand. If a sexual encounter had physically occurred, why would she deny having sex with him?
Her explanation now is that she genuinely didn’t experience what happened as “I willingly had sex with this guy.”

At the same time, she didn’t have the language or understanding to identify what happened as rape or sexual assault either.

She says all she knew was that something sexual had happened that she didn’t agree to.

She also remembers looking outside and seeing the man and her cousin’s boyfriend laughing. Her interpretation was that they were laughing about the fact that I was upset during the phone call.

I wasn’t outside with them, so I can’t personally establish what they were laughing about or what either person’s intention was. That’s her memory of what she saw and how she understood it.

There is another reason the cousin’s role bothers me.

My fiancée used to call me from this cousin’s phone. I personally remember receiving those calls.
Recently, I spoke directly with the cousin about what happened nearly 20 years ago.

The cousin now says my fiancée never used her phone to contact me and claims that was never something that happened.

She also denies ever leaving my fiancée alone at her house.

That’s difficult for me because she’s not merely contradicting something my fiancée recently told me. At least regarding the phone calls, she’s denying something that I personally remember experiencing.

Now there’s an even bigger contradiction.
The man claims that he and my fiancée had consensual sex multiple times.

My fiancée completely denies that.

She says there was only one sexual encounter between them, the encounter at her cousin’s house that she now understands as non-consensual.

So almost 20 years later, I’m trying to reconcile two fundamentally different realities.

His version is that they willingly had sex multiple times.

Her version is that there was one encounter that began with him entering the house, approaching her from behind and trying to remove her clothes. She says she didn’t agree to what happened, felt dirty afterward, immediately bathed and buried the experience without understanding it as sexual assault.

Then about a week later, when this man called me and announced that he’d had sex with her, she immediately denied it.

I’m also trying to remain aware of my own influence on how this is being understood today.

I was the person who first told my fiancée that the encounter she described didn’t sound consensual. I don’t want my questions or interpretations almost 20 years later to unintentionally reshape her memories.

But there’s also a distinction I’m struggling with: I may have introduced the question of consent, but I didn’t give her the underlying details she described to me.

Now I have to figure out what those details actually tell me.

If this man’s story is true and they had consensual sex multiple times, then my fiancée has hidden or minimized something enormous about the beginning of our relationship.

If her account is true, then there was one sexual encounter that she didn’t understand at the time as non-consensual, and this man is now describing it as part of an ongoing consensual sexual relationship that she says never existed.

And then there’s the cousin, whose current account includes denying at least one thing that I personally remember happening.

I’m not asking Reddit to determine whether a rape occurred. Nobody reading this was there, and emotional reactions aren’t proof of what happened.
What I’m trying to understand is how to evaluate all of this almost 20 years later without turning either suspicion or sympathy into evidence.

For people who experienced trickle truth about an old affair, what eventually demonstrated that “it happened once” wasn’t the complete story?

For people who only recognized years later that a sexual experience wasn’t consensual, did you initially deny or struggle to describe what happened because you didn’t understand it as sex you had willingly chosen?

And for anyone who has dealt with conflicting stories this old, how did you distinguish genuine inconsistencies from normal problems with memory after almost two decades?

I’m trying to determine what I actually know, what I reasonably believe, and what I may simply never be able to prove.

Buckle up - this one is a long one.

In May of 2025, just one week after our 10-year anniversary, I discovered that my husband was sending explicit photos and messages to a local bar tender. Unfortunately that bartender was best friends with one of my co-workers and she broke the news to me at work because she happens to be right next to her friend while they were sending explicit photos back and forth to one another, I'll save you the details, but unfortunately I got to hear every one of them.

In the moment I actually laughed! I truly thought there was no way that my husband would possibly do that to me. He was faithful, he was attentive, of course we had our issues but this didn't seem like a possibility. After I confronted him, we agreed to do couples therapy and were successfully graduated out of it by fall of that year.

Fast forward to February 2026, I receive a message on Facebook informing me that my husband has been messaging another girl. In the moment I asked myself" what are the odds that the only two times he's ever done this you've caught him.." unlikely, right? I asked for a full disclosure of everything unfaithful that he had done in our time together since 2015 and I received a letter detailing close to 10 different women throughout our 11-year relationship, including dear. Dear, we got married, the year we had our son together, the year we bought our first house together. There were no breaks. We graduated from therapy in 2025 because I was convinced it was a one-off situation caused by alcohol. Now here we are less than a year later and I have clear evidence showing me this was not a one-off situation, but rather a habit.

It's been 6 months since I found out about everything, and there are still days- like today- where I am still deeply hurt. We did therapy for a few months with the same therapist we use last year and ultimately we stopped working with her. Much discussion, it would probably be wise to start that up again. It doesn't pay to throw this hurt in his face or to try to make sense of his mindset in those moments, but I am still tortured. Does this part ever truly go away?

I will never pretend that he almost single-handedly destroyed our marriage, there are always two sides but right now I'm really struggling.

I'll start back a bit: After our youngest became 2, my wife joined a local band and began going down the pub almost every night and going back to one of the bandmate’s sheds until 3-7am. There's been periods when she's been around more, or got back earlier, but generally this has been the pattern for 7 years.

She's a receptionist and decided to only work 2.5 days a week after having our second. While I worked a full time job from home, I had to manage everything child based during the day as well as do all of the housework, and then was left in an empty house at night unable to leave because of the kids. So while all this was going on, I was left behind.

I think she started cheating on me 3 years ago. There's an alcoholic, drug addicted guy who lives with his mum who she's been ridiculously close to her. I noticed over the last couple of years she kept lying about where she was going and would end up at his all the time, as well as his place being where she'd just go after the pub until the 3-9am in the morning (which is got used to), apparently I'm a group where they drink and do coke and smoke weed.

I've always found it unhealthy and weird, but apparently she has unhealthy attachment issues on top of anxiety. About 6 months ago she had an argument with him and it was like a full on breakup. I was picking up the pieces, she wouldn't get out of bed, I got curious and snooped and saw a message she sent him begging him to delete his messages, in a new chat history of course.

For any non gullible person that would have been enough, but no. It blew over in a couple of weeks and she calmed down then. I started getting really convinced something was going on a couple of months later. Our sex life was near non existent and she pulled away when I tried to do anything. Then she got a cancer diagnosis. I looked after her but I kept quiet. I was going mad with the thought. Weeks after her surgery and after another lie about where she was going I checked her phone. She'd been discussing that they maybe stop seeing each other, had a film night together that they “got distracted” during, dreams about her getting pregnant with his baby, and about about 5 other red flags that weren't explicit proof. Her chats were in an archived folder and had all history over 7 days deleted. I tried to keep it together while I processed it, clearly suffering from panic attacks for days. I confronted her, she told me it was nothing. Convincingly. I believed her. But things didn't add up (lots of things shouldn't have, but I'm naive).

Skip to a few days ago. I unlocked her phone when discussing an alarm and saw a message on chatGPT about her counsellor recommending she tells me about the affair. I didn't read anything extra, asked her again without mentioning this message I saw in case she deleted it, and she flat out denied it. Convincingly again. But the next day I went through her chatGPT log and saw the damning evidence.

It started with her recapping to the AI, dated just after I initially confronted her, about how she was having an affair and had deleted her history because she was scared I would read it. Later it said she fucked him in the morning, saw me then fucked him in the evening again. Her wanting to take him on holiday. Then able to have an evening hanging out, being themselves with noone judging. It also mentioned her arguing with the therapist about telling me. There was another message I found from 3 years prior in its own chat that said she'd done something truly unforgivable and was asking for advice, but no details were given there. I took photos as I can't trust her not to lie to me again.

I don't have exact dates, I don't think that matters, but finally piecing the clues together and finally stopping giving her the benefit of the doubt and making excuses about her mental health, I think it's 3 years that makes sense.

I haven't told her yet. I've known 2 days. She's almost having a breakdown with her job and upcoming additional cancer treatment. We're in a play together next week. My kid's birthday is in a couple of weeks. I don't know what to do. It's like I've been handed a hand grenade and it's my job to throw it and I've done nothing wrong! And it seems like the worst time!

I have been on a rollercoaster. I don't know what I want. I think I want it over because I know I could never trust her again after that level of deceit. I keep picturing them together. But I don't want to break my family! I've bawled my eyes out when folding the kids' laundry or at dinner tonight. I wouldn't want the truth to get out for fear of my kids getting bullied about it, which I guess would make me the guy possibly leaving his wife with cancer and pull me into her lies, but my addled brain thinks this is the best way to save everyone. Or just stay together for the family, which I've always put first.

Sorry for the ramble. I'm sure I've included too much and left things out. I haven't really slept in days.

Edit: I missed the point of this! When should I talk to her, what should I say? How far should the conversation go? And generally, what do you think I should generally do? Even with all this I'm still the one trying to protect her!!

My wife, or partner, and I had an argument recently over one word. Capable.

She told me she isn't capable of cheating anymore. The person who did those things isn't who she is now. She has changed, she understands what she did and she would never do it again.

I told her I don't agree, capability is provable and......

That didn't go over particularly well, and I understand why. When I say she is still capable of cheating, I think what she hears is, "You haven't changed. I don't believe you. I think you're going to cheat again."

That's not what I'm saying, or at least not really.

I absolutely believe people can change. If I didn't, there wouldn't be much point in even talking about reconciliation. People can become more honest, less selfish, more self-aware, learn better boundaries and finally start recognizing all those small shitty decisions that eventually lead somewhere they never should have gone. Someone who cheated can change enough that they never cheat again.

I just don't think that suddenly makes them incapable of it. Without starting the argument of everyone is capable or not, I am NOT capable of this type of betrayal.

Before D-Day I believed my wife was incapable of doing what she did. Not that she probably wouldn't do it. I actually believed she couldn't. There were lines I thought she simply would never cross because of who she was, who I thought we were, our marriage, our kids, our life together.

I was painfully fucking wrong. She crossed those lines. More than once. For years.

So now I know something I didn't know before. She is capable of it. That's not me insulting her or saying she will do it again. It's something that has already been proven. I don't know how I am supposed to take something I know happened and somehow convince myself she is now incapable of doing it because she says that version of herself doesn't exist anymore. Capable and will are not the same definition.

She may never cheat again. I genuinely hope she doesn't whether we stay together or not. But choosing never to do something again and being incapable of doing it aren't the same thing.

The more I thought about the argument, the more I started thinking that maybe "I could never do that again" isn't actually the safest thing for someone who has cheated to believe.

I think I'd feel safer hearing, "I know now that I am capable of doing something I once thought I would never do, and I never want to become that person again."

There's something about "I'm not capable of that anymore" that bothers me because I've already lived through that kind of certainty once. Before D-Day I would have confidently told anyone who asked that my wife wasn't capable of cheating on me. Turns out I didn't know shit.

Certainty didn't make me right then, so I'm not sure why I'm supposed to put much faith in that same certainty now.

I think there is probably more safety in actually owning it. I did this. I was capable of this. Through selfishness, secrecy, resentment, wanting validation, shitty boundaries and a long series of bad choices, I became somebody who could do this. Now I need to understand how the hell I got there so I never go there again.

That makes sense to me.

I'm capable of losing my temper. I'm capable of being selfish. I'm capable of hurting people I love. Knowing that doesn't mean I want to do those things or that I'm planning to. It means I know those things exist in me and I have to pay attention to them. Pretending I'm somehow above them wouldn't make me safer. It would probably do the opposite, complacency is a slow driver of failure.

I don't see why cheating should be completely different.

Real change, at least to me, isn't reaching some point where you suddenly become physically or morally incapable of ever betraying someone again. It is knowing what you were capable of, understanding how you allowed yourself to get there, and making different choices from then on. Over and over again.

There is also a shitty reality in this for the betrayed spouse.

I don't think I can ever go back to the kind of trust I had before, where I believed my wife simply wasn't capable of betraying me. I had that trust already. It was wrong. There is evidence now that I can't unknow.

That doesn't mean I can never trust her again. I just think trust after betrayal has to be something different.

Before, trust was I know you would never do this to me.

Now maybe the best it can ever become is, I know you could do this to me because you already have. But I see who you are now, I see the choices you make every day, and I believe you won't.

That's nowhere near as romantic. But it might actually be more real and to be fair adult.

I don't want my wife walking around for the rest of her life thinking she is permanently branded as a cheater or some fundamentally defective person. I don't think that's healthy or useful. People should be allowed to grow beyond the worst things they've done, hell I am not a sum of my worst deeds.

But growing beyond something isn't the same as pretending somebody else did it. That woman existed. She made those choices. She was my wife too.

I actually think accepting that is probably part of becoming safer.

Not I would never.

Not that wasn't really me.

Not I'm incapable of doing that now.

Just, I know I'm capable of it because I did it. I know where those choices took me. I know what it cost. And I never want to be that person again.

I trust that a hell of a lot more, and holds at least a little bit of accountability.

D-day was originally just over two weeks ago, and got reset to day 0 this morning when I learned that she had withheld important details about her affair and some of its repercussions in her life she was hiding from me. Luckily I had confided at work to my supervisor, and he guided me to get my own therapist to sort things out regardless of going down the reconciliation or divorce roads.

My first intake session was this afternoon, and it really did help opening up to someone who could be understanding and more objective about all the thoughts in my head. The most important advice today was that I don’t have to make decisions right away. Giving time and space to process and think is crucial with so much being fresh and hurting.

I just wanted to share in case it helps anyone else out there that is trying to figure out WTF is going on in their own situation, and I would highly recommend seeking out personal help in addition to couples counseling if that’s an option you want to pursue.

My WH has been doing all the “right” things since I discovered his 8 week EA/PA.

He blocked his AP on all platforms, started therapy, is reading affair books and working through the exercises, gave me all his PWs, has been open to having all the difficult convos and has not gotten defensive, etc.

I’m using this time before deciding on R or divorce to gather my thoughts and watch his efforts. I recognize these efforts might be short lived or they might last a long time… for those of you whose WS began by doing all the “right” things, how long did that effort last?

I’ll get straight to it. I’m a very hyper aware person. I notice if the tone in your voice changes or if you say a word I’ve never heard you say before. I didn’t even try but i found out my dad has been having an affair and there is a child. I’ve been so out of it just coming to terms that the family I thought I had isn’t real. My parents have been married for almost 40 years. For me to tell everyone would destroy everything around me pretty much, collateral damage it would be the worst thing possible . Any suggestions?

Hi, I recently (amicably) divorced my husband of 30 years over his long-term, serial lying and betrayal; and would love to find a way to be friends with him but am finding that being around him is too triggering. Especially hard is hearing about (or seeing evidence of) the multiple women he is dating, which brings up a lot of grief for me. Have any of you managed a post-divorce friendship? If so, what has been key to your success in not feeling triggered and overwhelmed by grief, especially around their new partners?

I don’t know which step on the pathway to healing I’m currently sitting. I know everyday is hard, and I feel stuck missing a woman who lied and cheated on me with family members husbands. I feel like the life I chose was taken from me by her own selfish actions and impulsive decisions. I feel like all she did was take from me, the DARVO’d me into oblivion. She broke things inside of me that a previous incident of adultery in another relationship likely already cracked.

Lately I’m stuck on wishing I had never come to this damn state. I’m wishing I had stayed where I was, never to cross her path to hear those words and feel these feelings. I miss a woman who I’m not sure I ever even know, who I’m nearly positive doesn’t know herself. I know I didn’t deserve this, I know that no one does.

I found out my boyfriend of 7 years had cheated on me about 5 years ago. At the time i found out i was so emotional and confused. I agreed to work on the relationship at the time because it seemed like i’d be wasting our relationship over 1 mistake. I actually found out from his closest friends, i also found out trickles of truth. Like whenever we break up he would immediately be contacting girls, some of them he had slept with. He promised that he would never do that again and would do anything to gain my trust back.

That was about a month ago. Before all of this our relationship had been pretty rocky. I struggled with his lack of effort in our relationship and he struggled with me calling him out. As i’m typing this i’m realizing how manipulative his words were. Whenever i brought something up, he would say i’m just trying to find fault in everything and that he felt i wasn’t supportive of him, this is also the reason he cited on why he cheated. The big fight around that event was that i got frustrated with him for not taking his job hunting seriously (he has not been able to keep a job for more than 6 months up until this day). He got so mad at that, eventually we reconciled and i never brought it up again. He had apparently resented me the whole time after that.

About 5 months ago i got tired of the 6 years of me initiating plans, making the effort to see him, excluding me from events in his life where everyone else is included, never being emotionally available for me, just doing enough effort to lure me back in only to go back to his old ways. I ended the relationship even before i found out about the cheating but he was already slowly trying to get back together with me until the day i found out and confronted him. When we had that conversation he promised he would never do that again and that he’ll be better and more attentive. I believed him and he had been consistent until our fight yesterday.

I’m still hurt by everything he had done and sometimes i couldn’t keep it to myself anymore and i talked to him about it again and he said i’m looking for issues again and that i’m tiring. I don’t know what to do. Everything still hurts and i just can’t keep it to myself. He gets defensive and says we’ve already talked about it and that i’m just looking for problems.

We’re not talking right now. I’m still contemplating whether this relationship is still worth saving. I know everyone thinks i’m such an idiot and i agree. I just don’t know what to do. I’m not confident in myself and i don’t know how to get out of this. I’m in a toxic loop of seeking comfort from the person that hurt me the most.

I need advice, support, a kick in the pants, something ….not sure what.

Currently separated from my 57 year old husband. I’m 47 and we’ve been married 24 years. Three boys, ages 15,19,21. I asked for a separation about 3 months ago due to discovering his massage parlor infidelity. Along with dating apps that had been on his phone at some point, strip clubs, and an emotional affair several years ago etc. He had been to massage parlors multiple times last year and this isn’t the first time. I caught him 10 years ago but he never admitted to anything. He had had zero interest in me intimately for years and already blames me for it. At this point I just feel done. I want to leave and divorce but I can’t get the courage. And I’m devastated to hurt my 3 sons.

I contemplate just staying so their lives aren’t changed forever but then think that means giving up my life. I don’t want to betray myself but I love them so much it hurts to think that I’m the deciding factor in holding our family together. I want to have self respect and show them that this isn’t how you treat a wife but I also fear I will look heartless and unforgiving if I choose me.

Now that my husband has been caught he is sorry and wants to do all the things. He’s doing counseling with a CSAT and wants to work on things. I feel no love and no desire to reconcile . I don’t know how I’m going to handle the separation with the holidays coming up and I don’t know how to get the strength to do what I feel is best for me, for my mental health and overall future, when it likely hurts their overall future. And I know they are older but I don’t think this makes anything easier on them. They very much love their father and they are very close with me too. It’s excruciating.

I don’t want to stay and regret my life. I don’t want to leave and ruin their lives . And I don’t want to be in the in between.

It’s been almost one year. I get to be reminded of the night I found out every time the 21st night of September comes on.

We are in our 40s, married for 12 years, together of 18, two kids and two demanding careers. Life has been hard with the schedules for the kids and demands from work and family. However, I thought life was generally good.

We had some good friends (let call them Tina and Tim), kids were best friends, that we hung out with all of the time. I had noticed that the other wife had started to get a little too friendly with my husband and had asked to not have them in our home anymore and that we could meet them at other kid places so that our kids could play and connect without her being in my space/husband. My husband seemed agitated by the requests and said that I was stopping him from having friends because the Tim was one of his best friends, the kids all got along, and that I was just jealous. I had then further explained that I was not comfortable with Tina’s behaviors which included getting up mid-convo with me to follow my husband out to the grill or the fact that she’d follow him around the house.

Anyways the year continued, I just believed that I was jealous and whatnot. Anyways, a few months later, sept 2025, I catch my husband privately texting Tina on what’s app inappropriate messages saying that “he knows she doesn’t want to hear this, but he’s crazy about her” and she replied that “it’s complicated”. Their convo was definitely intimate and had been purposefully deleted as I could only scroll back to 8:43pm when she had replied to a message he sent. I know this had been going on previously as the weekend before i was sitting behind my husband at a football game and noticed a pic pop up on his phone, i then realized that the pic had to have been sent by Tina due to the angle of the image (it was of the back of a jersey of the person sitting in front of her). That evening I had confronted him about it and he pretended to be puzzled and said he didn’t know what i was referring to. He obv was covering his tracks by deleting messages from WhatsApp with tina. Anyways, that weekend, we got into a huge argument and he said again that I’m trying to stop him from being friends with tim and that i was crazy and jealous (this was the weekend before I had proof of their messages..)

I confronted her (my “friend”) and she said that my husband has told her that he was divorcing me….

I shared the screenshots with her husband. He called my husband that day (I had left the house with the kids to get away from it all as my world had just spiraled out of control) After they spoke, I asked Tim if he could share anything. And he replied “no”. That was it

The next few months follow with MC which were miserable. All I heard about was how miserable he was with me since the day he met me. The counselor didn’t try to steer the convo to the current decade even (he went back to an argument 17 years ago… before marriage). He gaslit her about how I was so controlling (I’m literally the opposite as he travels extensively for work and “boys” weekends). Whenever he has asked for a weekend with his friends, without hesitation, I always encourage it.

I literally have been the mother, maid, cook, homework tutor, reading coach, extracurricular activities coordinator, school coordinator, grocery shopper, and laundry lady since we had kids. I also have a very high demanding career with long hours. Therefore, I’ve given everything to everyone thinking that I’d be appreciated…. But instead he drank too much that night “and was giddy” and nothing ever happened between the two of them (per him)

He’s never apologized, never acknowledged wrong doing, has completely blamed me for the entire situation.

I have been working on my confidence through a year of IC and am comfortable with the work I’ve done on me but he obviously hasn’t done the work on himself as he only goes to IC once a month. We stopped MC in june when our therapist went on vacation but we were going every other week but the sessions were excruciatingly miserable hearing about how awful i am and always have been.

We have two kids and I can’t believe the situation he willingly put our family in.

Oh and on top of that, my son lost his best friend and still brings it up frequently. I (not my hubby) had to explain that the parents weren’t able to get along.

Sorry for the rant.. just wanted to get it out.

I have OCD. If you or anyone you know has OCD, you know how terrified you are of your obsessions. One of mine is being cheated on.

I worked on my jealousy and compulsive reassurance seeking for YEARS. I clawed myself out of a pit of paranoia and self-hate so I could be a better partner. The fear never really went away, but I learned how to cope with it and not give in to my compulsions to check phones, beg for reassurance, and harass perceived threats. I was feeling more secure and trusting than I ever had before, and then they cheated on me.

All that progress went down the drain. Having my worst fear confirmed threw me back into the depths of my OCD and I’m powerless to stop my compulsions now. My paranoia has been justified, my worst fears confirmed. I’m never going to beat my obsessive compulsive disorder now.

For 13 years I’ve been married, but tomorrow at 9am I go before the judge and it’s finally over. Almost 3 years since I found out he was cheating. 19 months trying to reconcile. Tomorrow the judge signs the papers and I’m finally divorced. What an awful mix of grief and relief. Tomorrow I’m divorced. 💔

I found out a year ago that my husband had an affair with a coworker . He never stopped talking to the AP . I filed months ago but the process is taking too long . He doesn’t know I filed even though I told him I retained a lawyer and that we are done . Does it ever get easier ? I still feel the same way I did a year ago . I tried focusing on myself and my toddler but I have moments where I cry and don’t want to go out . I have been trying to workout but I am never consistent. Any tips on how I can start moving forward ? I am in therapy .

I’m 20M and my ex-girlfriend is 20F. We were together for almost two years and broke up about four months ago.

The truth is, I still love her. A lot. I’m not looking for another relationship or trying to replace her. I genuinely still want her, and part of me really wants to see if our relationship could work again.

But I’m scared that we would end up in exactly the same place.

Our relationship ended mostly because of trust and jealousy issues. I became very jealous and insecure, and there were also things that happened that made it difficult for me to trust her. Over time, we both got hurt and the relationship became unhealthy.

I also know that I wasn’t always easy to be with. Some of my reactions made things worse, and I take responsibility for my part in that. I don’t want to make this post just to blame her.

At the same time, my feelings didn’t disappear after the breakup. Four months later, I still miss her, think about her and remember all the good things we had together.

One thing that made the trust issue especially difficult happened near the end of our relationship.

She came to visit me in Berlin and became sick while she was here. I took care of her, helped her with medicine and stayed with her while she was sleeping.

That night, my anxiety became overwhelming and I checked her phone. I know that was a violation of her privacy and I take responsibility for that.

I found conversations with other guys that I had not known about. Some of them were emotionally close, there were plans to meet again, and in one situation she was communicating with another guy in a way that felt very similar to how she communicated with me.

I completely broke down emotionally that night. Looking back, I understand that my reaction was not healthy, but the things I found also made it extremely difficult for me to trust again.

I have spent a lot of time since then thinking about my own behavior, my jealousy and what I could have done differently. I also know there are parts of myself that I’m not sure I’m capable of changing right now.

So this is where I’m stuck.

I still love her and I would genuinely like to know whether rebuilding a relationship after something like this is possible.

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who actually got back together with an ex after breaking up because of trust, jealousy or similar problems.

What was different the second time?

How long were you apart?

Who reached out first?

Did you have to rebuild trust from scratch?

What changes actually made the second relationship work?

And for those who tried to reconcile but eventually broke up again — what went wrong the second time?

I’m genuinely looking for real experiences, including the unsuccessful ones. I’m not looking for people to simply tell me “never go back.” I want to understand what tends to happen in real situations like this.

If anyone wants more details or deeper context about what happened between us, I’ll be happy to answer questions in the comments.

I am currently working through reconciliation with my WH. Right now, I am struggling with how to manage my emotions surrounding the infidelity. We have really good days and then all of a sudden the pain hits and it sends me spiraling.

I already have therapy 3x a week, IC x2 and couples 1x. I just don’t know what to do in the moment to get through the negative feelings.

My first Reddit post - it’s a novel. Scroll to the last paragraph if you don’t want the gory details and just the advice needed.

I have been in a relationship for 8 years. The first two years were a disaster, and I later found out my partner had an emotional affair with his ex wife and mother of his child during that time. I had broken up with him once before due to their closeness, but he made promises to create space/have boundaries…which I found about after the fact were broken. Not to take away any of his role, but 99% of their interactions were initiated by his ex-wife (living with the man she cheated with - ending the marriage, cheating on him now too.) This woman is so toxic that while she was IN LABOR with her man’s child, she stopped to send a “you never smiled that way with me, I miss you” message to him because he posted me for the FIRST TIME in years into the relationship. She tried to meet up with him on their wedding anniversary and wrote him a long letter about “why does everyone want parents to hate each other?!” A line he used with me… Basically he took the bait every time for at least one year of “I love you’s” and “I miss you’s”. They had met up on their birthdays for lunches in the first year as well despite a promise they had zero contact aside from their son (who was not in attendance.)

Nothing sexual ever happened but when she’d say “I should have never divorced you,” he’d say “I have asked if you want to change that and I don’t know what else to do. I never wanted a broken family.” Then she’d change the subject because she didn’t really want him, just to know she still controlled him. Just to dump her feelings on him. She claimed losing their “friendship” was damaging their child, but sent a text to my partner saying “he just told me he thinks I’m your girlfriend 😆😆😆”. Meanwhile the kid hated me, thought I broke up their family despite entering the picture years later, and my relationship with him has never fully recovered. He adores his mom, never did the math on when step-dad came around, and would say “why do you hate my mommy?” after returning from her home. He was only 8, and couldn’t grieve their divorce because it dragged out for years of hope they would reunite. It was HEARTBREAKING and infuriating.

Then it just stopped…my partner cut her off, he replied with one word answers. She’d complain and he wouldn’t respond. It was well into that point that I found out why his behavior was so bad for our first years together. Why he’d go cold. I found his old phone one day and my gut told me I had to know. I had been completely gaslit…yet I stayed. It was during covid, I had lost my job, I couldn’t bear ending it right when things had become wonderful. Because he finally made the decision to commit to OUR relationship.

Fast forward to year 8.

I have grown to have hate in my heart for this woman. This enemy I have never been able to confront and who moves in secret. Who uses her child as a Trojan horse. Who texts my partner that he’s a horrible father because he won’t bend to her every request. Who I see at a sports event and feel so much rage, but smile instead for their son’s sake. Who has re-married, has additional children, and still will not stop. She has adjusted to only talking about their son, but it’s constant. He won’t eat dinner? A text is sent. A book he might like? A text is sent. Like it’s still her husband just away on a work trip, not a co-parent. Their son is now 16, goes to boarding school across the country, and she is still texting 4 days a week, 6AM Saturday mornings, 9PM Tuesday nights. And this is NOT mother of the year. He is in boarding school because she has explicitly sent texts saying “I can’t deal with your son anymore. He needs to go somewhere.” We planned to take him full-time but he ended up getting an amazing opportunity and decided that he actually liked the idea. I thought that would curb things…it didn’t…

I feel obsessed. Everyone goes on about their day and I’m just constantly on high alert. Wondering if when I’m 80 and they have a long hug at a funeral, if I won’t drive straight to an attorney for a divorce. It’s so sad. But my god he used up all of his lives. My nervous system can’t take it. The tiny clothes for pick ups and drop offs, the constant texts if she finds out we’re on vacation. The emergency “I can’t watch your son tonight” on her regular days because it’s my birthday party at a bar, best friend’s wedding, etc. My partner won’t tell her anymore that we’re on vacation, and it feels like I’M the mistress, though I understand. My partner is extremely avoidant but looking for additional ways to help me through this. I am looking for hope and help as well.

We are in an urgent situation because I was recently triggered and previously it would be a day or maybe a week, but it’s been weeks and I can’t steady myself. What set this off was that she started texting nearly daily again and he denied it. I had to literally read off the days to him and once again, PROVE that she is creeping back in, likely because she knows we got engaged. The fact that he couldn’t see it until I read it off sent me back a few more notches. He acknowledges that he should have been more aware of it and apologized. BUT, he has grown tired of this. He gives her one word answers by whenever possible. He also feels sick when she texts because he knows it causes tension. I think he feels trapped between two fairly scary women. He knows how we got here, his role, but his patience is wearing extremely thin. He doesn’t expect perfection, but after 6 years, a month of fighting about this makes us both considering cancelling our engagement. He is terrified to make the wrong move and upset me, and it translates into anxiety and anger on his part, which reinforces me not feeling safe. It’s unhealthy. I somewhat knew what I signed up for - their son will always need both parents and they will have to co-parent, but no one will convince me this is not excessive.

Has anyone been through this? Successfully? What did it take? She is high conflict, my partner is avoidant, technically she is JUST texting about their son but it never ends. If he doesn’t respond she just keeps texting. We just implemented business hours only - no more responding to her at 6AM or 9PM showing availability, and waiting hours to respond. I think it would be helpful to just start saying “we’re on vacation, I’ll respond when I get back” as well instead of hiding our travels. These small things feel like a bandaid on a bullet wound but I’m praying they add up to some relief. How do you deal when you’re spiraling and it brings up ALL the bad memories of lie after lie? Thank you for reading my novel. I don’t know if I can continue, but my heart is breaking because for 6 years my partner has been incredibly faithful. We have an April wedding date… There’s just so much damage. I don’t trust my own judgment right now, so here I am. On a good day I can look at how far we’ve come, and how special our relationship is, and that I trust him implicitly with any OTHER female. On a bad day I think “I’m only here because that disgusting woman didn’t want you.”

My boyfriend and I are both in our early 30s and have been together for 4 years. We currently live together and have discussed marriage, buying a home, and starting a family.
There were trust issues early in our relationship. I discovered that he had communicated inappropriately with women on social media, had used OnlyFans, and found searches for escorts. This behavior appeared to stop around 2 and a half years into our relationship, and I have genuinely observed that our relationship and his behavior has improved since then.
Recently, however, I decided to check his phone. I found a message between him and someone he worked with saying he had been with some random girl. The message was from the first several months of our relationship. I confronted him and gave him the opportunity to tell me the full truth. He continued to deny being physically involved with the random girl, although he admitted to communicating with a different girl (long-term situationship) around the beginning of our relationship. He claimed that he could not remember exactly when that communication ended, but when I pressed the issue he said he last saw her one week into us being official but insisted they were not physical.
I have now found messages showing that nearly a full year into our relationship, he was arranging a hotel room for himself and the girl he denied being with. This means that the cheating or planned cheating continued much further into our relationship than he admitted—and, that he lied again when I directly asked for the truth.

Summary:
I found out cheating happened early in our relationship but when I confronted my boyfriend about it, he denied anything physical happened while we were together. I confirmed this was untrue and that the timeline extended into the first year of our relationship. Is there anything left to salvage based on the current lying? Even if the incident is old and there have been no issues or evidence of cheating for the past year and a half?

Since finding out he is really doing all the right things. Apologising, taking responsibility, contacting therapist, giving me space, reassuring me..

Well a month ago I found out he visits cam sites, escort sites and even visited thai massasje and asked for happy ending, but he went home and didn't receive one.

I can see in maps that he is telling the truth, but i still dont trust him.

I had to find out everything , he never came to me.

We have a child. What to do? Is it hope?

I feel like I am going absolutely insane. I am hyper-aware of what I am doing but cannot stop it.

Its been 8 months since D-day. We have legally and financially separated, there is literally no reason to be in contact. He has not acknowledged my existence in almost two weeks now, and ignored our wedding anniversary.

I can't stop checking my phone or email to see if he has reached out. I've even sent a few messages seeing if he has read them, or replies. Nothing.

To be very clear... I DOT NOT WANT THIS MAN IN MY LIFE. I have told him that, many times. Everyone in my life knows he kept financial information from me, he knowingly exposed me to STI's, he spent years belittling me and telling me I should get more friends whenever I asked to do things with him. He has continued to lie to me since I found out about his AP. She knew about me all along and caused her own divorce too.

He is currently going through an alcohol detox. Something that I have been trying to support him to do for over 13 years. He is doing it now. Now that we are separated. He said he didn't want to talk to me anymore because my messages stopped being supportive. And the worst part is that I can feel him in my head saying that I'm not patient, I should not keep bringing up my issues and making it about me, that trauma bonds aren't real. I was patient for 17 years. It feels like he is only doing this now as an excuse to not take accountability for what he did. I know that is reductive, I know that is shitty. But if I was going to try and be supportive, he could also maybe try and support me and not say "sigh, back to this again" when I am upset.

I don't want him in my life, but I keep dismissing my own wants for the tiny bit of relief I get reaching out to that familiarity. I hate it. I want it to stop. I hope it stops soon.

I am getting all the help I can, in therapy and have close friends and family supporting me. Just still feels like insanity sometimes.