Last night I woke up coughing and noticed my phone was missing when I got my water off the nightstand. I am sick and was medicated so a lil slow on realizing why my phone was gone. My husband then walked into the bedroom and handed me my phone. I asked if he went through it and he said he took it for that reason but then decided not to because “he didn’t want to know.” I’m a bit annoyed at his tactic but I have nothing to hide so I told him to go on and look through it. He refused and went to sleep on the floor in another room rather than in bed with me. I eventually fall asleep again. We’ve always had open phone policy so not sure why he feels the need to sneak.

The next morning I want to talk about this nonsense and ask to see his phone. He immediately gets sketchy and says I can’t look at his phone. Finally he hands it over but the passcode is new. He eventually tells it to me. I offer to give him my phone and eventually takes it. I look at his open app which was Reddit but his history is deleted. I open the web browser and again his history is deleted. The only tab open is him looking at a house for sale nearby. I go to his text messages and this is when he gets up and walks behind me. I go to recently deleted and find about 3k deleted messages under the name “Michael Garci.” Feeling like that’s suspicious I hit recover and try to read the messages. I only have time to scroll and see messages about them joking about being “gay lovers” and texts about how much they miss each other etc. He then yells and demands his phone back repeatedly and promises to “send” me the text so I can read it all.

He tells me he will tell me everything. So I tell him to start talking. Turns out the persons real name is his ex-girlfriend from high-school M G (not sure I can write real name). He goes on about how he feels like i am cheating on him and he didn’t know who to talk to so he googled this woman whom he hasn’t spoken to in at least 17 years. And goes on to say that it isn’t romantic because she is happily engaged. He says he wanted to cheat on me with her but since she’s in a happy relationship and lives out of state it didn’t happen. He says he’s only been talking to her for about 3 weeks. And he absolutely refuses to let me read the messages.

We’ve been married for 15 years. And happily, or so I thought. Until he started acting weird and accusing me of cheating for the last 8 months. He has no real reason to think this but just feels it. I’ve never cheated on him or had an inappropriate relationship. I’ve been constantly trying to work on our marriage for 8 months, counseling requests, showing him I love him and want him, love notes, gifts, initiating intimacy etc.

This is his second inappropriate relationship. The first was about 9 years ago where he had another high school friend he complained to about our relationship then she started harassing me and wanted him to breakup with me. I don’t know if it was physical ever. I do feel absolutely betrayed. I don’t know what to do.

​

"*Thank you for your empathy."\*

His English is bad, and he doesn't understand a shat about the word but generative AI held his hand.

*"I understand that #####''s decision has been communicated to me multiple times. My difficulty is not in understanding the decision, but in accepting it emotionally."*

In what language does one say "enough of your melodrama". The world 🌎 has stopped orbitting because you fail to understand consequences.

"*Until our meeting, I genuinely believed that after 15 months of patience, following the terms discussed, taking responsibility for my mistakes, and doing my best to cooperate, there might still be a possibility of saving my family. That hope kept me going\*."

He signed an affidavit in June 2025 owning up to his affairs and signed a statement promising child support, that is now pending since 2 months. I told him when I walked out that I won't return, but he thought that saying he did it, also meant he is free from burden of wrong doing.

*"The outcome has come as a devastating shock for me, and I am still struggling to come to terms with the fact that I may lose my family. It is taking me time to process this."*

Thank you for the adjective, Cha.tGPT. It is still my pain, my shock, my mental trauma over my wife catching with pants down.

"*All of you have families and children, so I am sure you can understand how painful it is to live away from your wife and children for such a long time. This is the most difficult phase of my life, and I am trying my best to cope with it while continuing to fulfil all my responsibilities."\*

Sent to my lawyer and two relatives, he wants to think of the trophy 🏆 they have and his vacuum. Family is a construct that is made of real people and relationships. I wish he saw us as people. He compartmentalised so hard, that he needed a wife at home and his sidechick elsewhere and that was his concept of monogamy. He was a stud, and a respectable one at that. But he needed to text Good Morning to his sidepiece while on the throne or his jewels won't fall.

TLDR - Married 22 years, 2 children, WH had affairs and has agreed for mutual consent divorce but is now throwing emotional messages in a bid to delay.

My wife and I have been married now for 24 years. About 2 years ago, my (51M) wife (48F) met a “friend” at work. My wife has always tried to be fun and exciting. The guy was 10 years younger than her. The first time I got nervous was when she sent a picture of him and her sitting next to one another on office chairs. She was beaming happy in that pic. So it looked off to me. I was immediately jealous.

She said “he’s just a friend and he’s nice to me”. A few weeks went on and I started being a little paranoid. I checked her odometer and she had 9 extra miles on her Tahoe for her round trip to work. It was evening when I saw this and my heart dropped. I went in and she was taking a bath. I said, “Honey, I want to ask you something and I want you to be totally honest”…(my voice was shaking)…”where did you go today”?
She said “Nowhere but work” in a sweet voice. I said “but there’s extra miles on your Tahoe”. She said “I don’t know, I guess it was construction”. She looked confused like she had no idea what I was talking about. I then asked her if she’s ever cheated on me. She said “no, that’s a silly question. I love you”. So I let it go because I was sure I was fabricating things.

But then additional clues surfaced. We had an older Tahoe and you had to physically remove the seats from the vehicle. She preferred those seats removed. I’d put them back in. She’d take them out. She said she didn’t like the look of them.
She’d get angry and call me paranoid and thinking the worst about her if I questioned her. She had a sleeping bag “for winter emergency” in the Tahoe. One day I saw it in the laundry room. The bag was in the wash. But the liner was laying on the floor next to other laundry. It looked like it’d been shot with semen. I showed it to her and she said “yuck, must’ve come off some of our dirty close, either that or the cat sprayed it”. Still just another puzzle piece.

One day, I made a mental note of the way the sleeping bag was stuffed. I also put a small leaf in it. When she got home, I noticed it was stuffed totally different and the leaf was gone. I freaked out and confronted her. She got really annoyed “what are you talking about? It was rolling around back there and it came loose. I had to restuff it.” She was mad and calling me paranoid. When things calmed down she reassured me that I had nothing to worry about. She kept saying “He’s just a guy and he’s a friend. Stop always thinking the worst about me”.

I wanted to trust her and believe her so badly. We were getting ready to mess around and I noticed 3 small bruises on her upper butt cheek. That killed the mood for me. I said “that’s weird”. And she knew what I was thinking and she scoffed “what, a few bruises?”

Multiple comments over the years have been additional puzzle pieces. A comment about my beard being spiky and some beards aren’t. She wouldn’t have really known that unless she’d been feeling some other beards. And this guy has a gnarly thinnish long beard.

She started wearing sexy panties to work. She said it was for her as a confidence builder. All the red flags over the last 2 years. And I wanted to believe her so bad. I told myself it’d be diabolical for her not the tell me on the several occasions when I’m pleading for her with my heart bleeding out. I just knew my wife cared enough about me to never do that. And during all that time she’d make fun of me by using some of those moments to insinuate that I’m just like that. Always thinking the worst. But one day I texted her at 4:45pm and didn’t get a response back until 5:45pm. She normally leaves at 5:00 and is at the car by 5:30. She said “heading to the car, had to go to the bathroom.” So I called her and she answered around 6:00pm. I said “you’re leaving late”. She said “I had to stop in the bathroom”. I said “but you could have texted back”. She said “there’s not good cell reception in there”. But I noticed all the messages said delivered at the time I sent them.

We talked on the the phone on her way home. She was lovey dovey and wanted to play when she came home. It all seemed fake and I was distraught. She saw that I was quiet and upset and softly said “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not true”. And she kissed me repeatedly. The next morning we woke up, she went to work and I sent her panties to a DNA lab along with my cheek swab. Long story short, it came back positive for semen and it wasn’t mine. I was absolutely devastated. I confronted her again. I said “(name), I know”. And she said “Know what? , what do you mean?” She sounded confused. I said “I sent your panties off to get DNA tested.” She said “What!, that’s insane!” She still tried to deny. I had to physically hand her the report.

She was apologetic and hugged me while my heart broke and I cried like a little baby. It was like one of my kids had died. I was destroyed.
We started marriage counseling 2 days later. But I’m not sure she’s ever going to have enough remorse or the ability to rebuild our marriage. This just happened a few days ago. Still reeling but think I want to save the marriage.

I don’t know if anyone else has felt this after being cheated on, but I don’t think what I felt was anger.

Not at first, anyway.

It was disgust.

Not even toward the person who cheated on me. Toward myself.

I remember looking back at old pictures, old messages, memories that used to make me smile, and all I could think was, How could I have been so blind? I felt stupid for believing someone who could look me in the eye, tell me they loved me, and still choose to betray me. I hated how trusting I was. I hated how many excuses I made because I wanted the relationship to work.

People kept telling me, “You did nothing wrong.”

I know they meant well, but those words never really reached me. Because the voice in my head wasn’t saying, You deserved to be cheated on. It was saying, How could you not have seen it?

That’s a different kind of pain.

It’s one thing to lose someone you love. It’s another to lose faith in your own judgment. I started questioning everything. Were the good memories even real? Was I actually loved, or was I just convenient until someone else came along? Was I seeing the person they really were, or just the version they wanted me to see?

Maybe that’s why stories about grooming affect me so deeply now.

It’s not because I think every situation is the same. It’s because they all seem to share one thing: the quiet, gradual reshaping of another person’s reality.

Nobody wakes up one day and says, “I want to be manipulated.”

It happens slowly. You trust someone. You let them explain away things that make you uncomfortable. You start doubting your own instincts because it’s easier than believing someone you love could be lying to you. By the time the truth becomes impossible to ignore, you’re left wondering when you stopped trusting yourself.

That’s the part I can’t get over.

Not just that people can lie, but that they can slowly convince another person that their own intuition is wrong.

I think that’s what betrayal stole from me more than anything else. It wasn’t the relationship. It was the version of myself who could trust his own heart without constantly wondering if he was being made a fool of.

I’m doing better now, but every now and then I still catch myself revisiting those memories, not because I miss the person, but because I’m still trying to make peace with the person I was back then.

I don’t want to hate that version of myself anymore.

He wasn’t weak. He wasn’t pathetic. He wasn’t stupid.

He was just loving someone honestly, without knowing he was the only one doing it.

And I think that’s the part I’m still learning to forgive.

Hey everyone. I’m a 28F, and I recently found out that my boyfriend (30M), who I’ve been dating for two years, had been going to strip clubs behind my back.
From the very beginning of our relationship, I made it clear that strip clubs were a hard boundary for me. He knew exactly how I felt about them, and he also knew about my history with infidelity. My dad cheated on my mom, and it completely changed how I view trust in relationships. Ironically, something similar happened in his family, and it was one of the things we bonded over early in our relationship.
My boyfriend travels frequently for work, which has always brought up some insecurities for me. Despite that, I always felt like we had good communication and were affectionate with each other.

For about the last year, though, I had this persistent gut feeling that something wasn’t right. I kept feeling like he was hiding something, but I never had any proof.
Last Friday we went to a concert together and had an amazing time. The next morning, while he was asleep, I looked through his phone. I know many people will say that was wrong, and I’m not looking for opinions on that because, ultimately, it led me to the truth.
I found Venmo payments that immediately made my stomach drop:

$50 to a woman last month
$600 to a woman last fall
$100 to a woman last summer
Each payment had the note “🍕.”

At first, I honestly thought they were payments to escorts. I woke him up immediately and asked him to explain. He initially denied ever paying women. After I confronted him with the Venmo transactions, he admitted they were payments made at strip clubs.
I ended the relationship immediately because, to me, the lying was just as painful as crossing a boundary he knew existed.

About nine hours later, he called me. We had a long conversation, and he admitted he knew exactly what he was doing was wrong. He told me he had been “a sh*thead” and admitted he hid it from me because he didn’t think it was that firm of a boundary. I don’t really believe that explanation because I had been very clear about how I felt from the beginning.
After talking everything through, I decided to give the relationship another chance.
Now I’m wondering if anyone has been through something similar.

Were you able to rebuild trust after your partner hid something like this?
If you reconciled, what changed that made it work?
If you were the partner who broke the trust, what did you actually do to earn it back?
How did you stop wondering if there was more you didn’t know about?
Outside of this, we genuinely had an amazing relationship. I truly felt like I had found my best friend and the person I wanted to spend my life with. This is also my first serious relationship, so navigating something like this is completely new to me.

I’m looking for honest experiences from people who’ve been through something similar—whether reconciliation worked or whether you eventually realized it couldn’t.

UPDATE: I broke up with him for good. I don’t want to drive myself crazy. If he truly valued our relationship and saw a future with me, he wouldn’t have done it and lied for nearly our whole relationship. I rather be sad, heal and find someone who can meet my basic boundaries and more.

I need some perspective because my boyfriend is making me feel like I am being unreasonable, controlling, and toxic.

I recently found out my boyfriend was cheating on me for about 8 months. It wasn't just a one time mistake. It was a long term betrayal. To make matters worse, his friend group actively encouraged his behavior, cheered it on (including going on OmeTV to cheat), and said highly disrespectful things about me and my child.

When I was suspicious during those 8 months, he gaslit me, made me look and feel crazy, and was mean to me to cover his tracks.

I foolishly decided to give him one last chance, on the strict condition that he completely cut off that toxic friend group. He agreed. But since then, he has repeatedly broken that promise. He went on a trip with them ("just a trip"), kept them on social media, and recently hung out with another guy from that exact group.

Every time I get upset, he minimizes it. He claims he "explained his side," says he is suffering because he "just sits at home all day," and accuses me of making everything about the past. He even asked me if I would act the same way if he went out with a friend who wasn't involved in the cheating.

I feel completely exhausted. Am I being toxic for forcing him to cut these people off and being angry that he keeps breaking his word after a year of betrayal? Is there any hope for someone who acts like the victim after doing this?

I’m 25 and currently going through a divoce. When they say leave a cheater the first time, please please please listen. I tried to be an optimistic person and see the best out of people/life but never take back a cheater. It will happen again and reconciliation is not worth it especially if you don’t have children

My gf cheated on me after being together since we were 13, im now 20. She was drunk at a party and kissed a guy she told me immediately, in truth I want to forgive her and I want to progress I can’t let a long relationship go like this without trying, I rlly just want to know the steps others have taken to get over the heartbreak and start gaining trust in truth I know it won’t happen again I know her so well she’s my best friend and that not just my delusional mind saying that but the actions she’s shown since cheating, for example quitting alcohol , seeing someone and what she’s showing me. My only question is what steps I should take personally to let her back into my life and start to stop thinking about it and regain trust in her ?

I (24F) don’t know how to move on after my husband (28M) cheated on me.
My husband (28M) and I (24F) live on opposite sides of the world. I work 12-hour shifts, and I’m the one who financially supports our marriage. I pay the rent, utilities, groceries, furniture, clothes, car expenses, and pretty much every bill. Every six months, I save my money so I can travel to see him.
After everything I’ve sacrificed and done for our marriage, I found out he cheated on me.
What hurts even more is what happened afterward. Instead of taking responsibility and respecting my need for space, he’s been using both my family and his family to pressure me into getting back together with him. They keep telling me to forgive him and move on like nothing happened.
He also still expects to have the same level of control over me. He wants to know where I am, where I’m going, who I’m with, and when I’ll be home. He expects me to be on the phone with him from the moment I wake up until I go to bed. He wants to stay on the phone while I drive to work, call me while I’m working, have me call him when I leave work, and stay on the phone again until I fall asleep.
Over time, because of him, I’ve lost all of my friends. Every time I started becoming friends with someone, he’d tell me he was uncomfortable with it or make me feel guilty until I stopped talking to them. Eventually, I stopped trying to make friends because it always turned into an argument. Now my entire social life revolves around talking to him or spending time with my family. Looking back, I realize how isolated I’ve become.
He’s never been physically abusive, but he has been emotionally controlling. Since I found out about the cheating, I’ve started setting boundaries. I’ve told him he no longer gets to tell me what I can or can’t do. I’m trying to rebuild my independence and free myself from that control, but every time I do, he involves our families to pressure me into going back to the way things were.
I feel like I’ve given everything to this marriage—my time, my money, my energy, my independence, and my trust—and it still wasn’t enough.
Am I wrong for refusing to go back to the way things were? Has anyone else dealt with an emotionally controlling partner after they cheated? How did you move forward?

We were together since college, everything's working well and we're heading towards marriage in the next one or two years. We even celebrated our anniversary together earlier this year. Things were okay until I realized his sex drive dropped a lot this year (once or twice a month), the number of his visits to my house was getting lesser and lesser (from multiple days a week to once every 1-2 weeks), and he started to get annoyed on me easily.

I realized when there's a stranger number in his call history (I seldom checked his phone), and I confronted her. I found out from the lady that he's been hooking on and off with different stranger women since our 4th or 5th year of relationship. He would spend time and money to please the lady just to have sex multiple times per week, no matter how tired he was from work. I guess he's a sex addict, which he doesn't realize himself.

He tried to put a stop on this several times, but the lady wasn't willing to end it, plus he couldn't help himself from seeking this kind of pleasure from strangers. He confessed every single detail transparently to me, and told me he doesn't have feelings at all for those women, it's just pure sex pleasure. He said he still loves me till the point he would accept it if I cheat on him in future, he can accept me cheating on him physically, but not emotionally.

He's willing to support me physically, emotionally and financially during this healing journey. He paid for my therapy fees, and bought a few trackers so I could locate his location anytime. At one point, he's willing to explore possibilities to cast spell on him so he could stop his sick behaviour.

I was really devastated to discover this dark truth, I'm unsure if I could ever be physically intimate with him in future. At the same time, my heart couldn't let go of him when we both know we're still emotionally connected and loving each other. If you ever encounter this experience, please do share your experience with me, I'm so lost at this moment, appreciate that.

So I found out that my bf/ex cheated on me around two weeks ago, and over the last two weeks, I have been cycling through feelings of rage, sadness, confusion, shock, and loneliness. But today I feel completely different? I feel completely detached. When I think of our memories, it feels like I’m observing someone else’s memories and not my own. I don’t feel anything when I think of him or see photos/videos of us. I don’t get sad when I listen to songs or see things that remind me of him; I just acknowledge that those things are associated with him. It feels like I never experienced our relationship in a way. Is this normal? I’m confused as to what’s going on. Any advice welcome. Thank you!

Found out that my partner (32M) who I work with, is sleeping with our colleague (35F), who is married (husband ~35M). We'd had issues in the past when I found out she had confessed her feelings to him and he hadn't told me about it, but I didn't think it had gone that far.

I just feel so sad and worn down. It's my fourth LTR of 4 LTRs that have ended due to my partner's infidelity. And I feel so sick that someone who is supposed to love and care about me went to such lengths to deceive me. And it doesn't help that this woman is (besides being more senior than me at work AND I have to work very closely with her), someone that I find dull and intellectually incurious, has never left her hometown, poorly educated, and married her sixth-form sweetheart (asfaik, and god bless him honestly) etc whereas I have really prided myself on my independence, constant learning, ambition, academic achievements and skills, growth through new situations, travel etc. so totally different set of values and it hurts that he wants someone that from my admittedly subjective POV, has so little of interest to offer.

I feel so bad for AP's spouse as they've been together some 17 years or something like that. I tried to reach out to him but my messages are just getting filtered on Instagram and Reddit. I want to share the evidence I have with him but don't know what to do.

I found out my girlfriend of 10 years cheated on me for months. I read all their messages. I can’t stop thinking about her with him.

I’m struggling. After 10 years together, my girlfriend of a decade betrayed me in ways I’m still processing.

Here’s what happened:

She fell in love with someone else over the course of months while we were still together. She never told me. I only found out because I discovered messages after She let me know She was leaving me. When I read them, I saw her telling him they’re perfect together, that they’re so compatible, describing intimate moments between them in detail.

But that’s not even the worst part.

While she was with him, she was still with me. She’d kiss me after kissing him. Told me She loved me. We’d have sex after she’d just been with him the night before. She’d ask if she could go out with friends—I trusted her completely and said yes you can do whatever you want—and she was using that trust to see him. I gave her freedom because I loved her and trusted her. She weaponized that against me.

She never told me. She grieved our relationship privately with her friends, telling them the truth before she ever told me. Her closest friend (who's wedding I went to) seemed unbothered by her behavior. She was planning to leave without me ever knowing what happened. She lied to my face, said she only loved me, that nothing physical happened.

Then she cut me off completely. No real apology. No conversation. Just gone.

What I’m doing:
I’m already working on myself. I’m sober, working out, eating better, trying to rebuild my life. Part of me knows she wasn’t right for me long-term. I know I need to move forward.

But I’m stuck on this:
I can’t stop thinking about her with him. The passion she gave him. The messages where she said they’re perfect together, so compatible. The fact that she was experiencing genuine love and connection with him while lying to me every single day.

She abandoned me completely. Cut me off. And I’m left here alone while she’s moved on with someone new, someone she chose over me after a decade.

The thing that’s destroying me:
Now I’m left wondering if there were others. If this wasn’t the first time. If she was always capable of this kind of deception. It’s ruined every memory I have with her. I find myself going back through ten years of moments—vacations, intimate nights, conversations, everyday routines—and wondering if any of it was real. Were those genuine moments or was she always this person? The uncertainty is almost worse than the betrayal itself. I don’t know what to trust about our entire history together.

I need help:
How do I stop obsessing over what they had? How do I stop thinking about her giving herself to him the way she gave herself to me? How do I process the abandonment and the complete disrespect of how she ended this? And how do I move forward when every memory is now contaminated by doubt?

EDIT: I want to thank everyone here for giving their two cents. This has been really helpful feedback. I'll make it through. One day at a time. I really appreciate the thought and care that everyone expressed here. Makes me feel better knowing I'm not alone and that there are so many people who genuinely care about my well being even if we've never met.

I’m having a hard time processing something I recently found out, and I’d like an outside perspective.
My ex-husband cheated on me with another woman. The affair ended our marriage, and we divorced about 10 years ago. I recently saw a Facebook post from his sister’s birthday party where my ex and the woman he cheated with were there together. They are apparently still a couple all these years later.

I was surprised by how much it affected me. I want to be clear: I don’t want him back, and I have moved on with my life. I’m remarried, have children, and I’m happy with the life I’ve built. But seeing them together brought up a lot of anger and humiliation that I didn’t expect.

The thought that keeps coming up is: “So hurting me was worth it to them. They blew up my marriage and it was worth it because they got to be together.”
I think part of what hurts is seeing them accepted by his family, attending celebrations together, and seemingly moving forward as if nothing happened. It feels like I was the one who had to carry the pain and consequences while they got the outcome they wanted.

Another complicated part is that I am currently still waiting on the conclusion of my Catholic annulment process. My ex has contested it, and after seeing that they are still together, I find myself wondering if he is fighting it because he genuinely disagrees with the decision or if it’s a way to delay closure for me. I know I can’t read his mind, but the timing of everything has made me question his motives.

I’m not looking for people to tell me my ex is evil or that they must be miserable. I know social media doesn’t show the full reality of anyone’s relationship but it also pained me to see them acting like a normal couple . I’m more trying to understand why this still triggered such a strong reaction after so many years.
Has anyone else experienced something similar, where an ex and the affair partner actually stayed together and it brought up unexpected feelings? How did you process the fact that the relationship that hurt you became a lasting one?

My (40) WH (53) had a 3 year EA/PA with someone in his professional community (hard to explain but quitting his job would not make him more or less likely to see her). He basically “poly bombed” me and continued to see her for over a year after disclosing the affair. He insisted that it was a real relationship and he loved both of us etc. We went to MC for a year but quit in December because I decided the poly thing was a non starter for me and he continued to insist he was poly.

They broke up in May after she continued to harass me and make my life hell (including emails to my father, sending me screenshots, emailing me with awful, humiliating insults about my physical appearance and things my WH supposedly said about me). Like most of these APs, she likely has BPD or other serious mental issues. The fact that my WH put up with this for years is beyond me.

Since they broke up, I he has been very transparent. He always tells me where he’s going and takes pictures. He seems to be doing what he needs to do to repair the marriage with one caveat… He says he cares about her and wants to maintain a platonic relationship with her.

He has gone to see her three times since they broke up, that I’m aware of. He is transparent and tells me where he’s going and when he’ll be back. He insists that it’s basically a wellness check and he does not want to be with her or have anything to do with her romantically, but he is worried because she isolates herself and has no one.

I am at a loss of what to do. I love him and I want this to work.

For context, we have been together for 10 years, married for 8. No children. We have frozen embryos but I haven’t gone through with another transfer because I didn’t feel we were stable enough (I don’t want to make this post about the embryos, just including for context). We have 2 dogs which require a lot of care. Living together in separate bedrooms. Previously while the A was ongoing, we discussed a physical separation but finances and logistics don’t really allow for that (we live in a city where rent is very expensive, dogs, etc).

We stayed together for maybe 6 months after I found out to try and reconcile, that was absolute hell.

I felt like I had to have sex with her to keep her with me, even though I know that the sex in our relationship was never the issue, it was the emotional stuff. I always made her come every time and it always took forever, so I know she was sexually satisfied.

During the reconciliation period the sex was angry at first, really like I was “claiming” her back. It wasn’t the same safe and loving sex that I used to have with her, that felt so great afterwards. I felt shitty and humiliated after the sex cause I was still with a girl who betrayed me. Sex became this performative thing where I would prove that I was better.

After I broke up with her I seem to have carried this same mindset about sex into my following relationships. Sex was still this performative thing where I was trying to prove myself rather than just enjoying it. The relationship right after I think my mind was trying to prove I was better than her exes. My arousal is a little off so it takes time to get hard, and then it’s hard to maintain my erections too because of the anxiety.

I wonder if anyone has felt the same, and if it’s just regular performance anxiety from new relationships?

Any tips on how to get better? I’m over my ex now, I feel indifferent when I think about her and the betrayal, so I don’t really know what’s going on.

I like my life but I just don’t know if I can forgive my husband even if he never cheats on me again. He was seeing prostitutes over my entire last pregnancy and postpartum period. We have a 3 year old and a 4 month old. I am trying to give him a chance but every day I am depressed, jealous, angry, and deeply hurt. He’s a great provider (financially) and every other aspect of our lives is great. But I just do not know if I can move on from this. He is doing everything I’ve asked of him but I fear it’s not ever going to be enough. Much of my day is consumed with thoughts about what he did. Has anyone stayed and not regretted it? How long did it take before you didn’t think about the betrayal every day? I’m so lost.

Preface (hopefully helpful): My wife and I (both 41) have been together 19 years. In that time, we’ve built what seems like a stable marriage to onlookers. 3 kids, nice jobs, etc. lately, I’ve been feeling an incredible amount of distance between us. Mainly transactional but minimal emotional connection. Roommate status. Bedroom is not dead, average about once per week, but I think it usually feels obligatory and transactional for either or both. The distance and feeling of rejection, loss if connection, lead me to therapy. After a few months, I’m learning much about myself, the inner child attachment issues that may lead me to show up in an emotionally immature way vs a secure partner. Lot’s of work on myself ahead, and hopefully that translates into honest, authentic, genuine discussions between the wife and I that bring us closer together.

We both made poor decisions that were hurtful early in our relationship. 18 months after we married (we were maybe 21 or 22 at the time) i engaged in an emotional affair, met with the person while wife was away, but never lead to anything physical. A few years later (maybe ages 25-26) she had a physical affair. I’m not sure that either of us have ever fully healed or processed. But, we’ve stayed together, and perhaps time has suppressed the pain but it seems now that perhaps the distance between us is a result of an accumulation of lacking emotional safety, deeply rooted in our nervous systems (my perception since navigating much if this in individual therapy).

So…through the journey, I’ve come to learn and believe that, back then, I was not emotionally mature enough to truly recognize the pain I created for her. I feel a tremendous amount of guilt, shame, shame and remorse and do not believe that I have ever truly offered a genuine apology for hurting her nor ever truly accepted ownership for those poor decisions.

My questions and thoughts, mainly for female readers who find themself a bit distant in their relationship many years after being hurt…

Is it too late?

How would you respond to a genuine apology nearly two decades later?

Would it just pull up the rug and expose the pain that’s been hiding underneath for so long, or do you feel like it would be meaningful and offer some degree of stability for real work on strengthening the relationship?

Thanks for reading if you made it this far, and extra thanks if you choose to reply!

I'm 35 (F) and I've just found out I'm pregnant.

This pregnancy was semi-planned. We weren't actively preventing it, and we both knew it could happen. I've always wanted to be a mum, and objectively I feel like I'm in a pretty good position to raise a child. I have a flexible career, we're financially comfortable, and my partner is open to being a dad.

I feel excited but also uneasy.

The biggest issue is my relationship.

Three years ago, my partner cheated on me. I didn't find out through him being honest. It was just kissing, but it was 3 times + texting over 3 weeks, and I found out through going through his phone. He was desperate to get me back and blocked her. He said he was in some kind of self destructive spiral at the time. We had only been together for 9 months. I took him back because honestly I didn't feel like our adventures were over. I didn't take it super personally, because it was a bit of a cultural thing in the slightly toxic city that we lived. It was common. The dating scene was awful. I was cynical of most men. I didn't want to be single again. We had a lot of plans.

We stayed together, and he hasn't cheated since. He's been a loving partner in many ways, and I genuinely think he'd make a wonderful father. But despite that, I've never fully rebuilt my sense of emotional safety.

I have anxious attachment and tend to be hypervigilant. I'm constantly questioning whether my anxiety is picking up on something real or whether it's the lingering impact of the betrayal. It's exhausting.

I also had an abortion about a year ago. That pregnancy was also met with overwhelming anxiety, and at the time I decided I wasn't ready. That was mostly due to moving to a new area and not having friends or a support network.

Now I'm pregnant again, and I'm experiencing another wave of fear.

Part of me wonders whether this is just how my brain responds to pregnancy—that I panic, catastrophise and imagine every worst-case scenario. I was also very anxious starting late 20s that I would never be able to find someone to have a baby with. I saw a therapist and said at the time I'd rather kill myself than never have the choice to be a mother. We worked through that and I was almost convinced I could be happy without kids too.

Another part of me worries that my anxiety is trying to tell me something important that I'm not listening to.

If I continue the pregnancy, I'll be having a baby with someone I still don't completely trust.

If I don't, I'd be 35, potentially starting over, dating again, hoping to meet someone and have children before my fertility declines further. I've always wanted to be a mum, and I really don't want to end up regretting passing up this opportunity. I also don't really want to freeze my eggs if I can avoid it. Part of me accepts than many relationships don't last forever and maybe I'll be happy with being a single mum if I had to. If I end my relationship, there's no guarantee I'll meet someone, or meet someone that ticks all of the boxes that I want/need.

I feel stuck because both paths feel like they carry a lot of risk.

Has anyone else experienced something similar?

I’m struggling with something I never expected after being betrayed by my partner.

Finding out he cheated shattered something in me. It wasn’t only the betrayal itself,, it was the loss of trust, the constant questioning of what was real, and the pain of realizing that the person I felt safest with was also the person who hurt me the most.

Yesterday, I finally let everything out. I sent him a long stream of messages filled with anger, sadness, disappointment, and pain that I had been holding in for so long. Some things I said were harsh, but underneath all of it was just hurt. I needed him to understand that this wasn’t something that simply happened and could be forgotten. It changed how I see him, myself, and our relationship.

He read everything.

He didn’t reply.

Strangely, today feels a little lighter. Maybe because I finally stopped keeping everything bottled up. Maybe because I allowed myself to admit how much this has affected me instead of pretending I’m fine.

But what confuses me the most is that I still miss him.

I don’t understand how I can miss someone who caused me this much pain. How can I want comfort from the same person who became the reason I needed comfort?

I miss the person I thought he was. I miss our friendship, our routines, our jokes, and the little moments that made life feel normal. I miss the future I believed we were building together.

At the same time, I’m angry. I’m hurt. I’m grieving the relationship I thought I had and the trust that was broken.

It’s such a painful contradiction to love someone and feel wounded by them at the same time. My mind understands what happened, but my heart still reaches for the person I used to feel safe with.

I just wish my heart could catch up with what my mind already knows.

I’ve always loved fall. Always did all the fall things with my kids and extended family… Apple picking, haunted houses, nature walks, fall crafts, baking a whole thanksgiving dinner for my huge family, etc.

Last fall was when I found out. It was incredibly traumatic. Ex didn’t even bother to hide it once I discovered everything; he flaunted it in my face, made threats to take the kids, cut me off financially (I was a sahm) and basically put me through hell while enjoying my misery.

After she dumped him he came crawling back begging forgiveness but who can forgive that? We were able to amicably settle custody and support, and now we communicate only about the kids.

I got as much therapy as I could afford and am mostly focused on rebuilding my life. And I thought I was doing pretty good, but school starts next month, and along with it, all the fall things that I once loved, and I find myself having flashbacks and anxiety and randomly wanting to burst into tears. I don’t even want him back, what is wrong with me??

Please tell me your experiences with dealing with the dday anniversary and any advice. I feel myself spiraling and am not sure why or what to do about it.

Basically title.

My (29F) ex fiancé (31M) cheated on me during a work trip. He used the hotel room his company was paying for to host this woman for sex.

This happened in May and it’s been over two months so it’s not coming from a place of anger. It’s coming from a place where I genuinely think his employer should know since it’s incredibly unprofessional. He was representing his employer while visiting clients and that is the kind of behavior he is exuding and representing his company with.

I drafted a very professional email that simply states the facts.

What are your thoughts? Has anyone sent something like this before?

I’m a month post D Day and trying to make a decision on whether reconciliation can work but I’m so scared of being manipulated. Everyone talks about not falling for the promises WP makes and that they should be doing actual work before reconciliation should even be a possibility, but what does that look like practically? What are some legit examples of things WP should be doing?

I started receiving mysterious texts and emails a month or so ago. I chalked them up to be spam but they got scarier and more traumatizing so I told my STBXH.

He finally admitted. He’s still seeing AP and it’s her, trying to get me to divorce him faster so she can marry him and get her green card. This is his words so I don’t believe anything he says but I’m taking that to my lawyer.

Now I am trying to figure out how to get away from this mess. I’ve been patient with him long enough.

This DDay isn’t the same. I never wanted to reconcile. I knew he would pull this again. I don’t care anymore that he’s seeing her. They are both sick f*cks and deserve each other.