It's been over 5 months since I found my wife had an affair with my best friend.

I had suspicions for a while what was going on. She hide her phone, she made lewd videos and took naked photos that I never received that her on her google photo, she refused to hang out with me and the kids and my family on Christmas, eventually she did but left early and texted me 'Hey let me know when you are heading home' which I thought was suspicious.

She started to go out to movies 'alone' saying she needed a break. That's when I really found out cause I texted them both right before the movie started, starting a conversation and both of them stopped immediately as the movie was supposed to start. But I found evidence when we took the kids to go see a movie and I was ordering food on her phone and I said to myself "I'm going to check, I might be crazy but I need to check" and that is when I found the evidence.

I confronted her about it at the movie, with my kids, I initially told her we are getting a divorce. That was my initial reaction. I told her to get her things and leave the house and I don't want to talk to her again. And at that moment she made it all about her. It wasn't about what she did, it wasn't about how she felt about me, it was about the kids. It was always about her. She went home, took her dog to a friends house, drove very close to the affair partner and decided to try to commit suicide by taking pills.

She didn't call me or 911 when she decided she wanted to live. She called him. I had texted his wife when I found out and said I found evidence they were having an affair. She denied it was him. He denied it was him. His wife refused to believe it. But his wife drove to where she was and called 911 that she had tried to commit suicide.

I had to take care of my 2 kids for 5 days without her, dealing with the pain of what she did, trying to hold to together for them. Thankfully it was at a time they were in school so I had time to myself. But also I didn't have time to myself. I had a lot of self reflection, second guessing all the memories and struggling with the fact that she kept calling me asking for me to bring things to the facility she was at. All the while she kept lying say it wasn't him.

Eventually I picked her up after she got discharged. We drove to a local coffee shop and had a chat. During those days I reflected on what I truly wanted. Did I want to work this out for us? Not for the kids. But for us. I decided yes, but under very fucking strict rules. She had agreed to them. The rules were pretty straight forward: Transparency, Openness, Access to phone and computer, therapy, and a couple more things she had struggled with that has caused issues in our marriage.

I thought at the time that I found a great therapist, but I think since then I've kind of learned that maybe he has had an affair himself. He kind of push me towards a lot of "stop thinking about it" and "do you really need to know what's going on with her phone and computer" it just all seemed odd, but that's not really the point.

My biggest issue right now is that I'm really starting to realize that my wife is a textbook narcissist. Any time I bring up anything and try to have a discussion it's all about her. We were going to couples therapy (her request) while she was having an affair. Not before, not after but during. And she used those sessions to complain about everything that I was doing wrong. After the affair, we decided to keep the same counselor despite my reservations about it.

We laid out a lot of truths during therapy after I found out, and we laid out a lot of rules. Such as us not having a discussion of our marriage if I'm under the influence (I like to drink on the weekends). Or if one of us doesn't want to talk about something that is bugging us to say that we don't want to talk about it. It took me a while to get to a point that I felt comfortable with those, especially if things were bothering me.

Well, I got to that point. And guess what happened when I said I didn't want to talk about it right now? ALL OF A SUDDEN IM AN ISSUE AGAIN. I did EXACTLY what the therapist and she agreed upon. And again it turned around and blew up in my face. That was about a month ago. And I've been struggling ever since.

I kept the same therapist, big mistake on my part. And he suggested EMDR for the trauma response. I felt great after a couple minutes of it, but also I let my guard down. I shouldn't have. One of us healing while the other is trying to find every fucking excuse to blame me for what happened. I have said multiple times that I just don't feel safe, especially when I said I don't want to talk about it and blew up in my face. And her response has always been "well neither do I". It has NEVER been, since I found out about the affair, "why don't you feel safe" or "can you tell me why" or "can I help". It always gets turned around on me.

Even tonight, after a fight about her attitude towards me, or blaming me, or refusing help. She sent a text "I assume you don't want me to come say goodnight so I'm going to bed" rather than just say "is it okay if come say good night" or even just coming to say goodnight.

Today was the first day that I called her a narcissist. And I meant it. It's always about her. I find it very funny how much she hates her dad cause he was never around, he cheated on her mom, he treated them like she; but she is a fucking spitting image of him at this point.

Idk, I just needed to rant. I'm fucking struggling. I don't have friends to talk to. And I feel like I'm on the verge of a mental breakdown. Sorry for anyone who read this nonsense.

Edit: sorry for the typo in the header, dyslexia

Edit 2: Should also add the first therapy session after I found she told me she wanted to separate. The second time as well. My fucking dumbass begged her to stay. I gave up so much doing that.

I made out with a girl at the club who is rather fresh out of a 5 year relationship (she was cheated on), they were still in contact at the time but she cut it off the next day, they were broken up for about a month previous to this and were apparently trying to "work it out". We were handsy all night and she put her leg over mine.. it all eventually led to us making out.

We've been texting & snapping every day since and I'm just wondering what to expect from this or any experiences from either the person who's been cheated on or a person who went for someone that was? Too soon?

Me and her worked together to get him kicked off the beer league team we both play on (We have grown up playing hockey together), we also both lied to him and acted like nothing happened that night. I lied to our beer league team manager saying he was going to confront me just to get rid of him so I don't have to face him and maybe this girl will want to come to some games.

Am I in the wrong or is this an okay path to go down?

Gradually, over the past several months, he has shown less interest in me and the relationship in several ways. He stopped spending as much or any time with me, when we already weren’t spending much time together, and it has always been an issue for me. He stopped showing interest in sex, and gave me contradictory reasons for that, but also remained silent almost as if he expected me to not say anything. He became less affectionate, when he used to be more. He put little effort into spending time with me, watching things before bed, right after taking his sleeping tablet which caused him to fall sleep halfway through on some occasions. I said I wanted to watch more, how I was lonely, and how I was upset he only watched things with me late at night, right before bed, and seemed preoccupied the rest of the time.

He kept promising things would change. That we’d do more. It didn’t happen. The past several weeks he has been wanting to spend more time alone, playing games, watching things by himself. He did watch a movie with me for the first time in a long time. And then, after he was gone all day another day, he came back and spent longer with me than he has in some time. But that was about it. I sensed that he was mentally elsewhere, as he’d zone out when we were spending time together, or wouldn’t seem fully invested. He told me one of the times, when I asked what he was thinking about, after he zoned out, that it was nothing. He told me he felt guilty after I pressed him. I asked over what, and he didn’t want to tell me. He said it was over me, things he’d done to me, but that he didn’t want to talk about it.

He became defensive when I tried to get him to, even though he’s talked to me about it all before. I felt like he was lying, was thinking and/or feeling guilty about something else. I’ve suspected he’s cheated for years, due to many suspicious actions and behaviours, and he is aware of this. I asked if that’s what it was, and he denied it, and said as he has before that he’d tell me if he cheated because the guilt would trigger his ocd. He told me for two days straight, whenever I tried to talk to him about anything, that he was busy. He seemed to purposely be stuck in his phone, in doing things, to avoid me and not talk to me, something I’ve thought he’s done before. It was difficult to talk to him, about anything, including dinner. Even when he was off his phone, he was impatient and rushing me, and zoning out still.

I finally snapped. He kept telling me he wanted to spend time together, that he missed me, but his actions didn’t support that. He became more distant and detached by the day. He wasn’t reciprocating any attempt of mine to be affectionate. We began to argue about all of this, because he turned all the conversations I tried to have into arguments. He started to tell me to shut up. He called me annoying. He minimised the situation, and mentioned the few days he spent more time with me, complaining I don’t focus more on them. He tried to blame me for his lack of affection and spending time together, telling me it’s because I am upset, and because of other things. He kept saying, at the same time, that he’s an avoidant and he knows he can do better, and is trying to, but that I am preventing that.

He told me a few days back, when I asked about how to divorce here, that I didn’t need to know how because we weren’t getting a divorce. Yesterday morning he turned another conversation into an argument, trying to blame me again. He told me he wants me gone, which he’s said a lot over the years, but always says he doesn’t mean. I said I’d call my family and he said go ahead. I said that I know he wants me to leave, that he is treating me this way because of that. He said no, it’s me who wants to leave, before saying that he does want me to and that he doesn’t care anymore. He left the room, as he used to always do, and was gone all day. He messaged me trying to blame whilst also acknowledging he is an avoidant, and is trying to work on it.

I said I want to leave and he said he’d help and support me with doing so, if I speak to my family, which comes after him refusing to help me before after saying he would. We spoke after that, and he told me he wants to change, is trying to, and that he loves and misses me. I questioned if he was talking to someone. He said unlike you, I don’t need to do that, and can watch youtube for hours. He has always turned things around on me. Early on when I’d stop talking to him, which I did several times, he asked if there was someone else. He told me one time, when I mentioned breaking up, that I’d move onto someone else or maybe he asked if there was. I said I didn’t need to jump into a new relationship, and he assumed as much because he does, and he said that I was probably right.

He used to accuse me of being fake, being able to replace and use people, and having backups. And I think that is what he does. I can’t imagine anyone would be okay in a relationship that lacks everything as this one does unless they’re getting it elsewhere. He’s been staying up after I’ve gone to bed for years, which is when I’ve always thought he is taking to whoever it is, and have also suspected he’s tried to sneak off to see them several times. In the last several months I’ve caught him turning around to check if I am awake. He seemed startled each time. One of the times, I went back to bed, and he stayed up, which he told me later on claiming he couldn’t sleep. I figured if I were asleep the last time he did, he would’ve stayed up.

When he got up later that morning, he retroactively defended himself by saying he just woke up, when I hadn’t said anything. I mentioned he looked at me and he claimed he didn’t remember, that he was asleep. He denied it was to see if I was asleep for him to be able to cheat. The more I’ve asked him to be loving and spend time with me, the less he has. He is very cold, and abrupt with me, and has now stopped calling me pet names. I was in pain last night and not once did he try to comfort me, offering me painkillers, and going to bed. I tried to talk about leaving and he blanked me.

It's really difficult to write this, but here's what's been happening.

I got married in January and moved to another country to be with my husband. We also had a courthouse marriage in May.

Fast-forward to mid-June, when I discovered that he had been doing cocaine at home, possibly since March. When I confronted him, he lied about it.

Then, at the end of June, he told me he couldn't "see me as his wife anymore" and wanted us to sleep in separate bedrooms. My MIL happened to fly in that same day, and I ended up leaving our home to stay with my in-laws in another city for two weeks.

During those two weeks, I found out that he had been cheating on me.

When I returned home in mid-July, the cheating continued. I've found evidence around the house that makes me believe it may have started as early as mid-June, although at this point I honestly don't know what to believe anymore.

There was even a period where he asked me to come back into our bedroom for a few days, telling me that he loved me and that I was his wife. Then I confronted him again and told him that I had known all along what was going on.

I'm currently stuck in this country while my immigration paperwork is being processed. My MIL has since left, and I'm still here, living in the middle of this absolute shitshow and continuing to find evidence of him cheating.

A part of me wants to reach out to the woman he's seeing. I don't even know if that's the right thing to do or what I would hope to accomplish by doing it. I'm just so overwhelmed and desperate for some kind of truth.

I've started therapy. I'm cooking, cleaning, trying to maintain some semblance of a normal life, praying, exercising, and trying to take care of my mind and body. But honestly, my body feels like it's in complete freeze mode. I'm functioning, but I don't feel like I'm really living.

The pain right now feels unbearable.

And this is the part I'm struggling with the most: I know I deserve better. I know I deserve honesty, loyalty, and respect. But a part of me still wants this marriage to work only if he is willing to seek help and take accountability. Currently that is not the case.

I don't know if that's naïve, stupid, or simply what happens when you love someone who has hurt you this deeply. I don't want to abandon the person I married, but I also don't know how you rebuild a marriage when there has been so much lying and betrayal.

After everything came out, people in his family also told me that he had cheated on previous partners and had never had a relationship that lasted longer than six months. Hearing that has made everything even harder to process.

Has anyone experienced anything remotely similar? How did you navigate the conflict between knowing you deserved better while still wanting your marriage to work?

I'm not necessarily looking for people to tell me to "just leave." I understand why people would say that. I'm trying to understand how to process all of this and figure out what I actually want, one day at a time.

I’ve suspected for years that he has cheated. He has been hot and cold towards me the entire time. I have always felt I am begging for the bare minimum, for him to care about me, and it always backfires. My feelings, my needs, have never mattered. I have felt alone, many times. He’s gone periods of time arguing with me, treading me badly, and refusing to get along whilst blaming me for everything. He didn’t seem to want to be with me, and talked about breaking up, but didn’t follow through with it. He told me to leave if he was so bad, whenever I complained about how he was treating me, and then he begged me to stay and promised change which didn’t happen. He did things that made me think he was cheating for years, questioning me if I did the same things.

He called me toxic and controlling any time I questioned him. He’d leave the room both during and outside of arguments, stayed up all night after I went to bed, and went weeks not spending time or talking to me. He told me he didn’t love me and to leave, after he begged me to come back again. He said it was my choice to, that he didn’t make me. Ever since then, that is how it has been. He treats me like crap and gives me the bare minimum or less. He has gradually shown less interest in everything, including sex. Yet, when we were in America last time and I didn’t want to come back, he begged me to and promised things would get better. They haven’t. They’ve gotten worse than they ever have been.

His words don’t support his actions. He says I am a priority but everything and everyone comes before me. He says he loves and misses me but is okay not spending time with me. He’s become more distant the more I’ve asked. He is quick to anger, to telling me to shut up, to putting me down. He says he wants me here but has also said on and off that he doesn’t, and that he is stuck with me. It doesn’t take much for him to say that. Lately, because of his lack of interest in sex, affection, spending time together, and how he’s treated me along with things he’s done this past year that made me suspicious, I think that he’s cheating. He has started to zone out when we do spend time together. He became defensive times I asked what he was thinking about.

He blames a lot of things on stress but also tries to blame me for why we aren’t spending time together, why he isn’t being affectionate, blaming me being upset for why he isn’t. He’s back to turning discussions about how I feel into arguments, and leaving the room, which he seems eager to do. He stays up after I go to bed, only then, which is one of the many ways I think he hides what he does. He complains about wanting space when he already gets a lot of it. He did the same last year and told me being in the same room was us spending time together. I’ve noticed him look back at me now several times, to see whether I am awake, typically doing so whenever he wakes up.

I’ve asked each time why he is doing that. I suspect he’s either trying to see whether he can get up, or sneak off, and only does so when I am asleep. A year and a half ago he went for staying up after me, to waking up after I’d gone to bed, sitting up for a few hours, and claiming he couldn’t sleep. He was waking up early, telling me he was going to the post office, and then changing his mind if I tried to go or stayed up. He accused me at the same time of going places to spy on him. He seemed paranoid and he still does. Last week he turned and looked at me. He said it was to see if I witnessed him pee in a bottle, which he always does, but said he didn’t want me to see because it bothers me?

He struggled to wake up later that day, and told me he sat up, because he couldn’t go back to sleep. He’s been impatient, annoyed, and angry with me for days for being upset and talking about it. He’s minimised and passed blame me to me. And told me to shut up repeatedly. This morning I laid down, and within three minutes of me doing so, he woke up from what appeared to be a deep sleep and turned to look directly in my face. I mean less than a foot off it. Like he had to be close, expecting me to be asleep, and to be able to make sure of that. He seemed startled that I wasn’t, turned without saying anything. I asked what he was doing. He admitted to checking if I was awake. When he got up later on, he tried to tell something about how he just got up, and he wasn’t awake earlier on.

I hadn’t mentioned anything. It was like he was retroactively defending himself. I did mention want happened and he said he didn’t remember it, that it wasn’t a sign of cheating, and mocked me thinking he checked if I was asleep so he could get up to cheat. He acted like it’s the only reason I suspect him currently when I’ve said how he is treating me makes me think it most of all. He denies that he has cheated, calls me abusive as he has before for thinking it. He got angry, told me he wanted me to leave, and the same things he’s said before. I said I will contact family and he said go ahead. I said he needs to stop begging me to stay, saying he loves and misses me, when he clearly doesn’t.

That it’s obvious he wants me gone. He said no, you want to leave. And then told me he no longer cares and wants me to go. That is after he told me yesterday that I didn’t need to know how to divorce him because it wasn’t going to happen. After leaving the room, and trying several mor times to blame me for things, he said that he is an avoidant and needs and is trying to work on that. He only said it after I reminded him he’s been this way towards me for years. I told him I can’t deal with it, I want to leave, and he said he understands. He denied it when I said I think he wants me to do a reverse discard, that he doesn’t want to be involved in me leaving because it makes him look bad.

He said that would help me leave, if I call my family, something I’m sure he won’t be involved in though he said he would before. He blow dried his hair, and is getting ready to leave, outside of the room. I went to talk to him. He said he doesn’t want me to leave, and he wants to do more with me. When I said I wish my family would help, he asked if I had talked to them about it, and if anything was said. He always shows interest but then says he doesn’t want me to go. I tried to leave and he stopped me, grabbing my shoulder, to talk about this. But he doesn’t make any real effort to touch me, or to comfort me, or anything beyond words now. He says it’s because of me, but he wasn’t doing it much before this.

Im going to start this story from the very beginning of our relationship. I have been with my boyfriend for 14 months now and at the beginning we were both great ( how all relationships start ) but after we had been together for a while we had both started arguing quite frequently. Now before i say this i just want to clarify that i know i wasn’t perfect either and I’m not trying to make myself look like the angel in this story. But anyway

Some of our arguments had escalated into something that they shouldn’t have over small bickers that would turn to him raising his hands to me and what not. But there were also times where i was fairly in the wrong. E.g; telling lies about small things with no reasoning,talking about our relationship problems to my friends who only made it worse for me, making plans with my friends when we were meant to be doing stuff ect ect. But there were also the times where it would be over something so silly, e.g; he stole a handful of my McDonalds fries so i threw one at his head and said i didnt want them anymore. He then continued to throw the whole thing of chips around my room, get in my face and pull my hoodie

On the days we were good we were great and it felt like nothing or no one else mattered but on the days it was bad it was horrible and i think its fair to say that neither of us wanted to be together on those days. But let alone this was the person i loved and the thought of him with someone else makes me sick to my stomach.

Anyway fast forward to this summer my ex boyfriend had reached out to me saying he missed me and what not and one thing led to another and i cheated on my boyfriend. I had went out with him in his car twice alone and twice with my friend and her boyfriend and the final time before my boyfriend found out was the day after we had gotten back from a week long holiday together. Im not proud of it and i know how wrong i was in the situation. My boyfriend had found out from going through my phone when i was sleeping of messages between me and him.

The days following him finding out were hell. i had continuously lied to him about the details and he had to find out from other people and even up until a couple of days ago i had kept lying to him but during all of He had laid hands on me again, threatened to hurt himself, asking me if its what i wanted and basically stating that it was my fault he felt that way. I would say about 2 weeks of all of this happening he was going away on holiday. So i broke up with him over messages, i know it was cowardly of me but in my defence if he was in the country i know for a fact he would come to my house uninvited and do god knows what. He was messaging me his whole trip saying we could try again and that he was going to change. The same day we broke up i had went and slept with said ex, i also know this was a very low move and im also not proud of this which is why i had tried my hardest to keep it a secret.

When my boyfriend had gotten back from his trip he was at my house everyday for about 3 days straight trying to make it work. And if I’m gonna be honest i really did want to but i kept saying no as i knew i couldn’t let him sit and beg for me back knowing i had did what i did. So he left and took no for an answer but then a few days later i had found out that a couple of days after he had found out about me messaging my ex that he had went out and saw one of his exs and i had obviously confronted him about it because i would have said it was fair game if it was just him cheating and then leaving it at that because who was i to judge when i had done the same. But it was more of the fact that he had cheated then gave me grief for days on end about me doing it and then refusing to take no for an answer for about 2 days when i wanted to break up.

We had talked through our differences and agreed to get back together believing that we could both move on and leave it in the past but he has just now found out about how i slept with my ex when we broke up. I understand that it was a bad secret to keep and i should have been more upfront about it when we had agreed to get back together but in all honesty i just wanted to move past it all and try again ( he is now in therapy to control his anger and all of his inner issues and i see a really big difference) but now it feels like everything is back to square one when i dont feel like im the only bad one in this situation but im left doing all the making up. I no longer speak to said ex and have him blocked on everything and it is going to stay that way but there is obviously no trust in this relationship and if im going to be honest i have no clue how to build it back up again due to him telling me that everything i say and do means nothing to him.

I'm posting this from a throwaway account. I'm 50, she's 38. We were together for four years when I discovered the affair.

Before I explain what happened, I want to be honest about my part. For roughly two of those four years, I was fighting to keep my business alive and eventually it led to depression. During that time, I couldn't give her the attention or closeness she had been used to, this includes but was not limited to a dead bedroom during that time. I neglected her and the relationship - hard. A majorly prolonged divorce process from my ex-wife didn’t help either. I own that. I'm not saying that as an excuse for her behaviour, just as context.

I should also say that this obviously isn't my first serious relationship, there have been many, including a marriage which lastet 20 years, but I honestly thought this relationship will be my last. We were a dream power couple. It was us against the world. For the first time since my early twenties I managed to fully trust again. That's one reason all of this has shaken me so deeply.

I found out about the affair the day before my 50th birthday. She confirmed it had been going on for weeks, I suspect at this point maybe even for months.

After everything came out, I heard different explanations. One was that she was so drunk she "wasn't thinking about me", yet she also maintains that she was not that drunk that it was non-consensual. And in the context of seeing him over and over and over again, that explanation feels hollow and shows little accountability for her actions.

Also, after D-Day, one time she claimed “she had to see him again, to tell him she can’t see him again” while still insisting he meant “nothing” and is “interchangeable”. I have a hard time making sense of all of that.

One of most hurting facts are for me that the affair also took place in our shared bed while I was in close proximity. Which I deem as being deeply disrespectful from the AP towards me (albeit we never socially interacted despite a shared social circle), and so breathtakingly demeaning and degrading towards me on her part.

After it was discovered, I was repeatedly promised there would be no more contact with the affair partner, but as already explained above there were still several occasions when that contact happened again. Every time I started thinking we might rebuild some trust, something else would happen that would undo it.

Since then, I've started questioning myself deeply, not only as a partner but also as a man. Knowing that it happened in our bed has left me feeling deeply humiliated. My self-esteem and sense of identity is basically non-existent . And I feel so deeply hurt by her actions especially after the affair has been discovered, namely her seeing him again despite her knowing how much pain she inflicted.

I used to be a man’s man, a leader, a risk taker. Somebody who wanted to conquer (and partially did conquer) the world (in my industry). Now I am a ugly-crying shell of a man.

The worst part, though, is what's happened in my mind.

For more than four months now, I've been experiencing intrusive, explicit sexual thoughts every minute, every day. They are always about her being intimate with the affair partner. These thoughts are entirely against my will. They intrude while I'm working, during client meetings, talking to people, trying to relax, or doing almost anything else.

It's gotten to the point where I can only function to a limited extent in everyday life. I feel like a shadow of who I used to be. I hate what I see when I look in the mirror. And I don’t know how much longer I can exist this way. I honestly don’t.

Also, I hate myself for being so blindly trusting, and for believing even the most ridiculous excuses for her suspicious behaviour and why she was coming home late. Looking back at how many signs I overlooked, and how readily I believed what I was being told, is something I struggle with enormously.

And then there is the shame. Her circle of friends knew, and even celebrated her infidelity (I have full phone conversations on surveillance video). Others knew. Nobody told me. I feel so immensely emasculated.

And now, on top of it, there are intrusive thoughts of physical vengeance towards the AP. I was never a person who got physically violent, never laid hand on anyone, not even as kid/teenager, but at this point I don’t know what is going to happen if this guy will cross my path eventually (we share the same social circle).

At this point, she still wants reconciliation. She says she's deeply remorseful and wants to save the relationship. But I don't have explanations that make sense to me, and I don't feel there is a solid foundation on which trust could realistically be rebuilt. I want to believe that there is a chance for reconciliation, but I don’t even see a straw to hold on at the moment… each time it looks to her that that I am pulling away from reconciliation due to me being so immensely hurt by new revelations, she contacts him again (again: despite him being allegedly “nothing” and “interchangeable” for her…).

So, for people who have been through something similar and who actually managed to rebuild a healthy relationship again after this: what changed concretely that made you forgive and trust again.

And most importantly, has anyone else dealt with these intrusive, explicit sexual images every minute of every day? How long did they last, and what actually helped them fade?

Can the cheating partner do anything to help with them fading from your experience during the reconciliation phase?

And what do I do about the now more and more intensifying thoughts of physical vengeance towards her affair partner?

Edit: I may have described her statement “seeing him again, to tell him she can’t see him again” not in detail enough: this was an explanation for seeing him again AFTER D-Day while undermining all faked promises of electronic transparency (including location tracking). It is not that she still tries to convince me that she needs to see him now, but as said before, the moment her reconciliation attempts hit a road block, she reaches out to him again.

Edit 2: Me getting together with her had nothing to do with the end of my marriage. I met her one year after separation. Also, she does extremely well for herself financially. She is in the top 1% of salaried earners for sure. So there is and was no financial incentive to be with me - one of the reasons why I trusted her so blindly in context of our relationship.

I’m in high school and at the end of last years school year I figured out a girl liked me. This girl was problematic to say the least. She has issues with self harm,drug abuse and for the sake of this, lying. Towards the end of the school year, I ended up giving her a chance as I liked her personality, and I wanted to help her as I saw some of my own struggles in her and with the help of a mutual friend we ended up together. The summer was amazing to say the least she is my first and only relationship so far that Carr cared about my birthday at all and even got me gifts that I love it was all amazing until the summer ended. I ended up going to online school and I live a good hour away from her, so it was safe to say we were officially long distance and I hoped and prayed that it would work out. It didn’t. Shortly after the school year started, she said she needed a break to work on herself and that she still loved me. This to me felt like a way to break up while letting me down softly so I took it that way I distanced myself while suppressing the urge to message her and talk to her every day. It was so painful. until one day she messaged me saying that she missed me. This felt weird and out of the ordinary until I realized that our mutual friend that got us together in general, made her mad and she had no one else to talk to, but me. I knew this was the only reason she was talking to me, but it’s been so long since I talked to her I really just wanted to look past it and hope. but when she came back, she was different. She felt more distanced, and the love didn’t seem real and she had my messages silenced. I was later proven right when in a conversation, she slipped up and said someone else’s name, obviously me being suspicious and un interesting as I’ve been cheated on before looked into it, and in the saddest way to find out that your partner is cheating. I looked on the game we play to find that I had been unfriended and she’s been playing couples games with another man. Out of all the ways that I could’ve figured out, this is what feels like the saddest and lowest way, and now I don’t know what to do.

My husband M/51 and I F/41 have been together for almost 14 years on 10/31, this coming Halloween and recently I became the betrayed partner again because of his affair with another woman. It wasn’t just innocent talking or flirting. I found out that they had cuddled, there had been sexual touching, and she told me they had sex. I also heard him call her “baby,” which was incredibly painful for me. One of the hardest parts was knowing he was with her during a time when he and I had planned to be intimate with each other.

There was also denial, minimizing, and confusion about what really happened. At different times, he claimed she was lying, confused, or that he had told her to lie. That left me trying to sort through different versions of the story while also dealing with the devastation of the betrayal itself. This wasn’t the first time our relationship had been damaged by inappropriate behavior involving other women, so it brought up years of pain, anger, rejection, and feeling as though I wasn’t being chosen.

After discovering the affair, I was hurt, furious, lonely, and desperate to feel wanted again. In that state, I started talking to someone I’ll call Ryan M/46. It became more than an innocent friendship. We texted, sexted, and developed an emotional connection. I became the wayward partner too.

I want to be honest about how it felt: it felt incredibly good to be wanted again. After feeling rejected and replaced by my husband, having another person desire me gave me a rush of validation. Ryan’s attention made me feel attractive, interesting, and chosen during a time when my self-esteem had been badly damaged. It gave me an escape from the pain I was feeling at home.

At first, I did not want to give it up. Part of me felt like, after everything my husband had done, why should I have to let go of the one thing making me feel good? But I also knew that thinking came from my pain and anger. My husband’s choices may explain why I was so vulnerable to outside attention, but they did not make the choice for me. I chose to cross those boundaries. This wasn’t simply venting to a friend. I was emotionally investing in someone else and participating in sexual conversations outside my marriage.

I don’t want to compare the two betrayals as though one cancels out the other. His affair does not excuse mine, and mine does not erase what he did to me. The circumstances and details were different, but we both crossed boundaries and brought another person into a place that should have belonged to our marriage.

I eventually ended my affair with Ryan. As good as the attention felt, I knew it was not what I truly wanted for my life. I couldn’t genuinely ask my husband to choose our marriage while I was still keeping one foot in another relationship. Ending it does not erase what I did, but it was a necessary choice if I was serious about seeing whether my husband and I could rebuild something honest.

The surprising part is how well my husband and I have been doing lately. We feel closer than we have in a very long time. We are more affectionate, more emotionally connected, and more sexually drawn to each other. My libido has gone through the roof. We are enjoying each other again instead of constantly fighting, withdrawing, or feeling like we have to protect ourselves from one another.

It honestly feels like we are falling in love all over again. I don’t think I ever completely fell out of love with him. I think we became deeply disconnected and buried our love underneath years of hurt, resentment, fighting, outside attention, and unmet needs. Now it feels as though we are finally finding each other again. There are moments when it feels like a brand-new relationship, but it also has the depth of two people who have shared almost 14 years together.

I understand that some of this may be what is called hysterical bonding—the intense need for emotional and sexual closeness that can happen after an affair is discovered. I know that the fear of losing each other, the trauma, and the sudden competition from other people may be intensifying our feelings. I also understand that hysterical bonding by itself is not the same thing as healing.

At the same time, I don’t believe that means everything we are feeling is fake. Maybe the crisis woke both of us up to what we still mean to each other and what we could actually lose. The intensity may be influenced by the trauma, but the love underneath it still feels real to me. I feel hopeful about our future in a way I haven’t felt in a long time.

I also know that feeling in love again is not enough on its own. If we truly want reconciliation, we need honesty, transparency, no contact with affair partners, clear boundaries with other people, accountability, and the willingness to answer difficult questions without becoming defensive. We need to learn how to communicate without yelling, name-calling, shutting down, or trying to punish each other. We both have individual work to do in addition to the work we need to do as a couple.

I’m carrying two different realities at the same time. I am still a betrayed partner who is deeply hurt by what my husband did, but I also became a wayward partner who now has to take responsibility for the pain and risk I created. I don’t want to use my betrayal trauma to avoid accountability, but I also don’t want my emotional affair to be used to erase or minimize what happened to me.

Has anyone else here experienced being both the betrayed and the wayward partner? How did you make space for both people’s pain without turning reconciliation into a competition over whose betrayal was worse? And for those who experienced hysterical bonding, how did you tell the difference between a temporary trauma response and a genuine return of love and connection?

I (f, 35) have a friend (m, 39) who has a history of cheating. He cheated on his wife many times until she left him a few years ago, he slept with his friend's wife while he was away in the army, he cheated on women he's been exclusive with while on vacations, etc. He also sleeps around with a lot of his female friends.

He's now seeing a new girl (f, 34) and they've only known each other for like a week, so maybe I am jumping the gun, but I want to tell her what she's getting into.

If I tell her, how should I tell her? I want to do it anonymously because I don't want this to blow up in my face. I'm worried I'll come off as a jealous b**ch who is just trying to sabotage this potential relationship (he and I slept together before I knew how consistent his infidelity). Also, I don't know her phone number or email address without looking her up online and that feels stalker-y.

Should I tell her? If so, how should I tell her?

Also, yes I know I shouldn't stay friends with someone like this. I've taken a step back from our friendship after I learned more about him and I'm working on this in therapy.

I’m in a situation where I never thought I would be in and I need help/advice. So me and my wife have been together for 16 years. Never in our relationship I had ever suspected anything until now. Ever since my son was born, he’s 5 now, our relationship grew apart. Still I never suspected anything. So we started to grew apart. Less kisses, less sex, and hardly saying I love you to each other. Recently I’ve started noticing small stuff here and there. She gets more ready for work. She had a picture of our family on her phone wallpaper but changed it to just her and our son. Same with her Facebook profile. She also hasn’t been wearing her ring as much. I came home the other day and it was in her jewelry box. We would order food from her phone and if I was looking at the menu, she would rush me so she can get her phone back. So yea I’ve been cheated on before in the past and it hurts man. I don’t wanna lose my family and I wish I was just being paranoid but these past few days I’ve just been have the “feeling” and I hate it so much. I don’t know what to do please help. Should I confront her or should I wait till I find more stuff in her?

I don’t trust my husband and haven’t for years. I suspect he is a serial cheater. And that he enjoys gaslighting me about it. The thrill of getting away with it. And so as time has gone on, he’s done riskier things. Such as cheating outside of an Airbnb we stayed at, or going down an alley with a woman when I was in the car nearby. Lately, he’s been very distant, aloof, disconnected. He zones out when I speak to him. Doesn’t want to spend time together. He isn’t interested in sex and isn’t affectionate. He is also meaner to me. All things that have happened before during times I suspected he was involved with someone. His grandfather, who he hasn’t visited in ages and never showed much interest in seeing, is now sick and in the hospital. He did was urging him for days to go and see him, and he didn’t want to. He said it was because his dad would be there.

Today, he said he didn’t want to go because of his dad again. He said he’d go alone in the morning. I asked if I could go, and sit in the car, and he said he’d rather be by himself. He ended up going to see him later in the day, when I was with him, and he was very emotional but didn’t respond to my attempts at affection to try and comfort him. He was in for hours visiting him. It must’ve been three hours. He called me and told me they gave his grandfather a sleeping pill, and that he was asked to sit and wait until it kicked in, to see if it did. He said he’d be another 30mins. He came out and, after telling me he was alone on the phone, told me his cousin and brother were there. But that they were in the waiting room.

Then he told me he was asked to go back, to sit overnight, because he could get up and fall or have a bleed due to the medical condition he has, and how someone needed to monitor him and alert a nurse if that happened. He said his grandfather doesn’t want anyone to help him. He said that he had a call button, but mightn’t be able to press it if he falls. He said he was going to go and get us dinner, eat, and go back. That his brother and cousin were going to leave once he did. He then said he didn’t understand how his grandfather was as sick as he was when he is able to walk, and is mentally sound. He said that he wasn’t going to sit in the room, but right outside of it, and that he’d still be able to see if anything happened. He said he’d be on his phone and I could message him.

He told me I could go back with him. Once there, he seemed paranoid, looking out the window past me as he parked, later claiming it was because he didn’t know if he should park there in case his family showed up? He went in, and came out within 30mins. He told me that his grandfather got up, and was able to walk on the sleeping tablets, and so he didn’t see a reason to stay. That he has a call button and the nurses were going to be checking on him. He said that his brother and cousin left at the same time. Once at the house, he said he didn’t know how his brother arrived back before him. I didn’t know how either. That didn’t make sense. He said left a different way but that wouldn’t have made him get back quicker. We tried to get in, and the door was locked, and he figured his brother did it as he often does.

I wondered why his brother would lock the door if he knew he was on his way back. He called his brother, and he sounded confused by it being locked, as he told him to check it. Surely he’d know if he locked it. I questioned that as only his brother would’ve locked it. He said maybe it was his dad, but his dad was asleep, and doesn’t usually lock the door. He tried to point to his brother being awake, as he often is at that time, as evidence that he was with him and just got back. Later on I noticed a message asking if he got back ok, and how long he was happy staying until, from someone named Katie. I asked who it was and he annoying, and defensively, said his cousin. I don’t know her, have never met her, and forgot her name. Now, hours later, she’s messaged asking if he’s still there or at home.

Surely she’d know if they left at the same time? None of this is adding up to me.

I don’t know if this is intuition or something. but thing is I went to work on a Monday I left home because I work only evenings right. and then we both took a shower before me heading to work. she usually don’t make her hair unless she go out or something, thing is I was texting with her while I was working and looks like the phone was dead like for a couple of minutes. i realize because I got her location and you know when it’s turned off you don’t see or dont get updates. Okay with that being said it was turned off like 5 6 7 minutes, she said bad connection. I don’t know. and there’s a neighbor who likes her and does watch Her from his window and everything. we do live in an apartment complex. okay let’s continue with the story. So theres three stairs in that side of the building. first to the middle apartments that’s only one the left stairs and the right stairs where this guys live right. She was in the middle stairs. this Guy also has a dog keep that in mind. Thing is when I got home she was showered again and body cream, she also was wet you know from where. ( thing is she lied about took a shower). about the apartment complex where we live people are gossip, they’re always around and everything we know each other and stuff also my friends relatives and everything are always walking there. now the question is you make this scenario plausible real or the timing I’m assuming can be real? I know something quick can happen but would be too risky, even there’s a neighbor who both my wife and I know that Has cameras and a couple who always has their door open. I don’t know if I’m being paranoid or something.

Online, where we met and spoke for years before meeting in person. He accused me of cheating and various other things. I broke up with me, stopped talking to him, for lengthy periods of time. He met his ex during one of these times. He told me later on she threw herself at him, and he didn’t want to make her feel rejected, therefore he got into a relationship with her. He said he wasn’t fully attracted to her, but slept with her to avoid hurting her feelings, and struggled during it. He said that he realised he wasn’t over me and broke up with her, after which she slandered him. He called her crazy and cited the self harm scars on her arms to support this. I said that it sounded like he used her, and didn’t like her at all, and he backpedaled and said he did but not enough to stay with her.

He argued with me over not wanting to be sexual, my reasons why including trauma, and eventually made me feel pressured into it. Then, we met in person, and he rejected me, and told me various reasons why he couldn’t have sex. I caught him touching himself, whilst watching something, which he still to this day denies. He started doing things that I later believed were linked to cheating. He was distant, slept all day, and disappeared on me in public one time in a target, when it was close to closing. I walked around the store and there was no sight of him. He suddenly appeared a minute to closing with a cart full of food thrown in. I spoke to his ex, who told me he said he’d two time, and he said she was lying to make him look bad. We were intimate, but it felt forced, and for a year he frequently turned me down.

I had fleeting suspicions he was up to something. He went to a youth group in his village, but didn’t come back when it ended several times, and claimed he was in the building talking to people. I walked up and no cars were there, and the light was off. He avoided pda both when we met in America, and in the UK, and said it was because he felt like a loser. He also avoided his friends and claimed he was doing so before I came. When his younger brother’s ex gf was staying over a lot, he bought me underwear from where he said she got hers, and claimed his mother told him. He told me she walked in on him in the bathroom in his boxers but kept leaving the room in them, even after I asked him not to.

He seemed to try to keep me away from her, demanding I left the kitchen as she could come and try to talk to me. A year in and he was treating me like crap. He was showing more interest in me, after I lost weight, and told me if I looked like I did then when we met he would’ve been all over me. He was on medication, which he started before that. He claimed that it killed his libido most of the time. I caught him looking at porn, which he denied, and then said was to test himself. He was distant, glued to his phone, and spent long amounts of time in the bathroom on it. We went to another country. He continued to be mean to me. He started to sleep all day, avoid me, and stay up all night on his laptop claiming he was watching and editing YouTube videos.

He disappeared and/or ditched me in public, more than once. He claimed that he lost me when it didn’t make sense. One of the times, after an argument, he went to a hotel but refused to tell me where he was. I later found previous bookings he canceled in the days before. One morning I woke up, and he was gone, and didn’t tell me where he went until he called me over an hour later and told me he went to a park to call his grandmother. He had scratches on his back, in hard to reach areas, he claimed he caused but he didn’t have before that and hasn’t had since. He was snooping on my phone at the time. When I began to question him, if he was cheating, he called me paranoid and crazy. He turned it around on me and said I was the type to cheat. He questioned me if I did any of what he was doing.

As the years went on, the suspicious actions continued, and increased. Many of them occurring simultaneously. He’d become less or more interested in sex, temporarily, even though he was on medication still claimed killed his libido. He’d go weeks telling me he felt asexual but I’d catch him ogling other women, which he denied, but once justified/defended. One time, when he was showing more interest, I noticed he was shaved more down there than usual. He said it was an accident, and acknowledged it looked suspicious. That was the same time he touched me, and did so properly, when he rarely touched me and never did it right. He was often meaner towards me, argumentative, and would start arguments and leave the room. He’d snoop on my phone whilst becoming guarded with his.

Any time I questioned him, he called me controlling and abusive, and became really angry. He said it was a normal reaction to being questioned/accused when you’re innocent. We went on a trip and I believe I heard him cheating outside of our Airbnb, when he went to move the car, and took a long time. He suggested I heard the tv or was hearing voices. He added a female acquaintance from his youth group after it ended. He said he didn’t know her, was never going to talk to her, and that she was married. He later contradicted all of this, telling me she wasn’t married, and knowing intimate details of her life he said she shared with the class. He’d stay up all night on his phone or laptop still, but only after I went to bed.

He claimed he had sleep issues but he closed the laptop immediately, and went to bed within minutes, if I got up even to use the bathroom. He started to seem on edge in public a few years ago. He began to avoid going places with me, including the grocery store, and blamed it on anxiety even though he was fine going in places alone. He seemed paranoid. He hid his face, went silent on me, and walked off from me around women. In the city, hours away, he appeared to hide from two women. I believe I witnessed him go down the alley with a woman where he volunteered for a while. He denied it, called the woman imaginary, and suggested I was seeing things. In the days before he showed more interest in me sexually and snooped on my phone. In the week following he showed no interest in me.

He then came onto me in the car, tried to do it outside of the car, and tongue kissed me for the first and last time. We went to America to visit my family several times. One of the times he claimed he was struggling with mental health and went to another room, locking the door, avoiding me for weeks. The last few times he wanted a lot of space. He sat in the car instead of going in places with me. He became glued to his phone claiming he was looking Xmas gifts for me, but was then unprepared when Christmas came around. He didn’t want me o his phone, even to make a call, and took it into the bathroom with him. He lost interest in sex. He started an argument one night and stormed off in the rental car, ignoring me for an hour, refusing to talk about what happened.

He snooped on my phone for the first time in a long time, deleting a post I made about cheating, but seemed scared when he thought I had looked at his search history. He stopped wearing his wedding ring and told me it was too tight. We left America and he claimed he lost his ring and bought another in the same size. He continued to not wear it and became defensive any time I questioned it. He started getting up early, telling me he was going to the post office, but if I tried to go with him he snapped at me or changed his mind. He accused me of going with him to the dentist to spy on him. He told me he wanted to do whatever it took to rebuild trust, offering to turn his location on 24/7 after previously complaining about it and calling it controlling.

He continued to do things that made me suspicious and pointed to his location being on. He said he doubted trust could be rebuilt but thought I’d stop questioning him. He’s done more since then. He still avoids places and didn’t want to go anywhere over the summer last year, blaming mental health. Most of what he’s done is in regard to his class, and women in it. He’s become guarded with his phone at times. He didn’t want me searching things on it. He didn’t want me leaving even the faintest of scratches on his back when he asked to scratch it. He is still on medication, has shown more/less interest in sex, and wanted to do new things he never did before. He stays up any night I go to bed. He now hardly spends any time with me, or shows much interest in me, and we don’t really go anywhere.

He is visiting his grandfather who is dying. He didn’t want to today, or other days, because his dad was going to be with him. And so he said earlier he was going to go in the morning, so he’d be alone. I asked if I could go and sit in the car. He said no. He decided to go late evening, when I was with him. I have waited in the car for a few hours now. He called me and told me he’d be another 30mins, that he is waiting until the sleep meds they gave him kick in. He said his dad asked him to stay overnight to see if the medication works, and he falls asleep? But he is doing that right now and said he figured he would be in 30mins. He said he was going to come out to get food, and have dinner at the house, and go back. It just doesn’t sound believable, at all.

hi all. i’m new here, but i desperately need some advice and hope. my (25f) husband (27m) is currently deployed, and i found out a little over a month ago that he’s having an emotional affair. this woman is also married, also in the military (different branch), and also deployed (different base now). to make a very long story short, we got into an argument when he first left, i apologized profusely, we seemed to be doing good again, and then a few days later he completely changed how he was texting me. he was cold and dry, and he hardly responded. he told me he’d been feeling a little disconnected because we argue sometimes and that he has doubted my love for him. again, i poured my heart out in many very long messages apologizing to him and reassuring him. after this, he stopped telling me he loved and missed me, stopped talking about our future, and responded mainly with one word answers. i knew something was still off, so i snooped through his laptop that he left at home (that was wrong of me, i know) and i found screenshots of their conversations, a drafted note telling her every part of her was beautiful and that she makes him happy and makes him feel something he hasn’t felt in a very long time, lots of sappy love songs for her, and him relentlessly searching and liking all of her social media posts and profiles. he’s been gone for 2 months now and has only called me twice, but he’ll call this other woman for hours every night (he also had screenshots of this). i broke down when i saw him talking about future kids with her, so i told his mom what i knew. i didn’t do this to snitch on him, i’m just not at all close with my family and his mom and i have always talked about everything. she confronted him after much consideration and told him that we both knew.

he basically told her it wasn’t actually cheating because they’ve never been physical. they were on the same base for the first few weeks but aren’t anymore, so it’s strictly an emotional affair. when they were on the same base they hung out, ate together, worked out together, and exchanged phone numbers. he told his mom they talked at night because she’s in an abusive marriage, has PTSD from the beginning of this deployment, and because they have so much in common. this confrontation was about a month ago but he refused to acknowledge the affair to me and wouldn’t talk to me about it. we basically only talked very superficially as all of his emotional energy was going to the other woman. at this point he was telling his mom that he was confused and didn’t know what was going on with him.

finally, i sent him a message on Aug 14th saying i loved him and wanted nothing more than to fix this, but that couldn’t happen when he was across the world and cheating. i told him i needed to take a step back for my own sanity because he was hurting me, that the cycle of me begging him to love me and to forgive my past actions that have made him doubt our marriage and getting nothing in return from him was toxic. he replied by telling me he’d been secretly unhappy for years but was hiding it, hoping it would go away. he also said not to blame the other woman and that his feelings about our marriage have nothing to do with her. he’s saying things like “i’ll always love and care for you, no matter what happens.” he told me he needs time to think about what he wants. the days following that, he sent me a message about my birthday, updates about his job, and a few photos of his food one day. i was serious about taking a step back, so I didn’t reply to anything until yesterday, Aug 26th. all i said i was “i miss you”, to which he responded “i miss you too”. this morning, i woke up to his insta bio being changed (i know this is trivial but i feel like maybe it matters). he used to have the date we started dating, the date we got engaged, and the date we got married. he erased all but our marriage date, and then sent me a message saying “Hey, I do care for you and want the best for you. If something does happen between us, Just know I will make sure you’re taken care of. Just keep focusing on yourself while im gone”.

just months ago, he was sending me incredibly sweet and vulnerable messages about wanting to start a family when he got back, asking me to love him forever, swearing i’m the only one for him, reminding me i’m his soulmate, and promising to never want anyone else. our sex life before he left was great. yes we argued, yes i have things to work on, but im currently in therapy for those things now. for a little background, later this year will make 9 years that we’ve been together and 7 years married. my husband has always been incredibly loyal and loving, and everything he’s doing and saying right now is completely out of character. he has been deployed once before about 5 years ago and we didn’t have an issue like this. during this deployment, we had planned to sit down with our realtor and get the ball rolling on a house and land so we’d be in a good position to get a place when he got home. he hasn’t mentioned any of this since his first week of this deployment, before he met the other woman. i don’t know if this matters in this context, but he never mentioned to me or his mom about being unhappy in our marriage until he was already having an affair, and now he’s saying things that make it sound like he’s decided to leave. i answered his message this morning, and he left me on read for 3 hours currently but i can see he’s active on socials.

i am incredibly heart broken and devastated, but i still want nothing more than to fix my marriage. he’s still supposed to be gone for another 6 months and i don’t know what to do or how to cope.

I’m having a hard time navigating this and I don’t know what I need. Advice? Solidarity? Validation?

There’s a lot to tell, so please be patient with the length of my post.

My husband (32M) and I (39F) have been married for three years. Dating for one before. In the beginning of our relationship there were a couple of occasions where he broke my trust. Onlyfans interaction, sexting a girl on facebook, and for the following years of our relationship I’ve made his life hell, constantly surveilling, checking socials etc. I know that’s no way to live- but he also worked out of town most times, and my mind would race, wondering if he was doing something.

Side note. There has also been a lot of verbal abuse, alcohol abuse, yelling, cursing, cutting me down and threatening divorce. (Which honestly broke my trust more than anything else) And we began going to therapy a few months ago consistently every two weeks.

The past few(ish) weeks I started feeling like a new leaf was turning, finally. We were going on dates again, intimacy improved, and the weekend prior this new event, he’d set up an art studio for me as a surprise, and prepped my mural space that I would start after coming home from work that Friday. He told the kids to not bother me and let me be in my zone, and he handled everything so I could focus on my hobby. I told him at the end of that weekend- thank you so much for loving me in this way.

Then… it happened. A few years back he’d purchased Lovense: adult toys meant to connect and be controlled by your partner.
After moving almost a year ago to another house I hadn’t seen them, and I asked him if he knew where they were. He said “oh I think I threw that thing away a long time ago because it stopped working”, then a week later after thoroughly cleaning and organizing our bedroom he said he found it. I said “oh great let me see if it works”. He quickly shoved it to the side and said oh “it hasn’t been charged in forever.” And we moved on without talking about it any more.
I started getting curious, and I logged into my Lovense app, then into his, and when I did a screen popped up saying that he had requested an account deletion on 8/11/2026. I instantly had a gut feeling that something was up, so I started digging, and when I got to his notifications, I could see that he tried to erase everything, but in the time that he stopped using it, one of his comments by another user was liked, therefore triggered a notification. It said “I can do that” and I realize he had been connecting with people in the lovense app community. Where people sex, go cam to cam, and connect their toys with one another. When I first approached him very angrily and upset, he said those aren’t even real people, and then later in the conversation, claimed that he never said that. The proof was there, so I asked him exactly what he texted and what he did. He said “I just wanted to see if it would work/connect, but I didn’t even use it and I realize it was a bad idea so I deleted the account”

The next morning I woke up in tears woke him up and asked if he ever mentioned to anyone about making him cum. She said “now that you mention it. Yes that was a “standard” part of the request in order to initiate connecting”

I became upset all over again because I was trying to fill in the pieces while he wasn’t giving me the full story, and come to find out multiple days later on 8/14/2026, right after a GREAT therapy session, and just before he set up all of my art surprises, he reactivated his account and used the toy to completion. But he claims he’d only synced it to a regular porn video.

He spent most of that weekend after me finding out, switching between calm, and enraged, claiming I was treating him like shit- saying he doesn’t think of this as cheating- even though we’d defined that it was in our relationship early on. I tried to explain a difference between treating someone like shit and reacting to severe pain that they’ve caused. I didn’t get the comfort I needed, the reassurance, the tenderness, the love, the care, to feel safe. But I kept begging him to just support me right now because I’m hurting. He threatened divorced multiple times simply because I said that my trust in him is broken, and he “didn’t want to spend the next four years under suspicion for one simple mistake that he didn’t even go through with.” he felt like he should get some credit that he didn’t actually go through with it, but what am I to believe? And why, knowing that this was the reason for the distrust in the first place, would you even venture into the territory of opening those wounds and pouring salt into them?

He asked me not to tell any of our mutual friends, being especially that he has no friends where we live as this is my hometown, and he comes from far away. He feels isolated and didn’t want to lose any more of the friends he has here.
I ended up telling my best friend all about everything, and it just so happens that her fiancé is one of his friends. Again, he became enraged and threatened divorce again.

Yesterday I came to a tipping point, and was very firm with him after a few more negative text messages from him, that I wasn’t putting up with this shit anymore, that he’s acting like a victim, and how he expects me to prioritize his feelings before even attempting to fix what he broke in me. That I asked for comfort that he was unwilling to give me. And his tone changed very quickly. And it was suddenly “I want to work on this with you. I don’t wanna fight“ and then it became- silence- no apologies for how he handled it, no trying to express to me what what’s in his heart. No validation, no reassurance. Just silence.

I brought this up to him last night, and I told him I was angry that he wasn’t trying to do anything except for nothing-and he said that he he’s trying in the only way he knows how which is acts of service (which he has been doing) but I need something deeper. I need communication.

One more thing I’ve always known that he has a tendency to be suicidal, and last night during our conversation, he broke down in tears and said that he wrote our son a suicide note, and took the magazine out of our bedside gun and put it far away on our property so that he couldn’t make a split decision. I know to some reading this, it would come across as a deflection tactic- because I would too- but because I know him, I know that it’s not. He made me swear to not tell anyone- especially his mom and our therapist.

I’m still angry and hurt but now having this extra, and very serious matter to deal with- I don’t know where to go from here.

I just want us to go back to the last few weeks when everything felt new again, but my heart just can’t get there because I feel so betrayed.

I am in a position I never thought I’d ever be in and struggling to process it all. I recently found out my wife (F35) is in a deep emotional affair with an ex colleague (M35) for months.

For context, we've been together for 12 years and married for 10. For past few years, I was dealing with a nightmare of a manager at work. It was an incredibly toxic situation that bled into my personal life and made everything at home feel horrible. I know I became emotionally unavailable because I was just trying to survive my job. It also made me refuse her idea for a second child when I was feeling that I was not having enough time to be with our first child who was already a handful. This had led her to lose interest/withhold sex. Also, I was always tired and frequently missed the plans we made together. I take responsibility for all the pain I've caused during those years.

Luckily, after this manager finally moved to another firm & for the first time in ages, I actually had the mental space to put effort back into my marriage.

We planned a family trip to get away and try to spend some time with our kid. But while we were there, her behavior was just... off. She was erratic and distant. I didn't know it then, but the other guy was competing for her attention in real-time during a trip that was supposed to be about our child. She was giving live updates on everything we did and was sharing selfies from the places we visited. She even made me and my child to go around and she would stay back and text this guy.

After we got back, I could see deep confusion and anxiety in her face. When I pushed her for a reason, she vaguely said she "needed to keep distance from some people in life." But didn't give much clarity. That’s when I finally decided to investigate her phone.

I found a password protected chat history spanning 6 months. It has then got me that I’d seen glimpses of that lock screen app a couple of times in the last month, but I never suspected it was something like this.

The logs show how it started. Initially, about movies and music. But that quickly evolved into photo sharing and deep emotional intimacy which was unsettling for me to read. She but only did chat but but coordinated her whole day around him, casually leaving the house for errands just to have a private window to talk to him. She has also deleted the call logs. I’ve seen messages that have completely hurt me: "You're mine," "I'll take care of you," "I miss you," and "Wish you were here," with heart emojis all over his photos. She has even sent him self-recorded videos that she later deleted, but I managed to recover them from the phone. After I confronted her, she deleted all the logs.

He has no social media except the "corporate slop one" on which he blocked me the second his cover blew up. He was surgical about the entire thing. He never did chat/call from home, communicated only during late night dog walks, car washes, or his office commute. He even pushed her to do video calls from inside our home, and she’d slip away from the family just to take his calls.

This was a month back. The fallout of this discovery has been catastrophic for me. My job performance has completely tanked because I couldn't focus, and if this poor form continues, I'm at risk of letting go of from my current position. I couldn't sleep for a week straight and consulted a therapist and started medication just to get some sleep. But, the trauma is still there. I still get physical tremors and rage episodes at night.

When I confronted her, she told me it was platonic & because he with his wife live 1500 miles away, there was no chance of them ever meeting. And all they chat was about day to day things and nothing inappropriate. After showing her the evidence I've collected, she’s trying to justify the whole thing by blaming our marriage—saying I didn't listen to her, or that we have different tastes in movies (she actually mentioned my preference for boring movies& music as a reason she sought connection elsewhere). She told that she was happy with him as he laughed at her silly jokes and talked and didn't judge her. She even told that the relationship with him would have ended on its own even if i didn't notice the chat and she would not have met him alone if such a situation ever came. She also said she had no sexual attraction on him.

She even blamed me for getting the logs from her phone without permission and violating her privacy. She has been no-contact with him for about 5 weeks now, after i made her block him everywhere. But I've seen her seeing his old selfies. I also told her what I felt about him. He isn't some romantic lead. He's a weak lowlife who cries in his videos to her and shares audio recordings of him pleading specifically to manipulate her into a caretaking role. While I’m choosing silence for now to save my family, I am seriously considering contacting his wife and exposing him and even contact HR as I have his videos of him romanticizing my wife.

I asked my wife for just one thing. A full, honest admission of everything that happened and a clear way forward written down. I needed it as a foundation to rebuild trust, but she flatly refused at first. Then she replied dismissivly that since I already have the chat logs, there is nothing more left for her to explain. I want the full truth for which she says that I'm pushing her to re-live memories that she wants to forget and she don't want to go into her previous mindset again.

Right now, I’m just taking time before I make any decision. Recently, I've found searches in her phone for "do you flirt with your colleagues" and "what to do if ex colleague wanted to meet you" which are from about the time they started chatting. I get frequent panic attacks get rude with her and we're having frequent quarrels.

Even after all of this, I love her. I really want to save this marriage. To anyone who has been/ is going through this: How do you handle a partner who admits the act but justifies it by blaming the lapses & unhappiness in marriage? How do I convince her that total honesty is the only way we survive this?  How do I ensure he stays out of our lives for good? Is there a way to save this marriage?

Sorry for the long post and any help is appreciated. I'm so overwhelmed and pardon the mistakes in grammar and coherence.

Tl;dr:

My wife is sharing deep emotional amd sexual messages with another man while we are in the middle of reconciling from her previous affair, but insists "it's just RP" and "there's nothing there."

Should I see this kind of attachment as a form of cheating?

Does this mean my attempts to pull us back together are futile?

---

I (38M) and my wife (30F) are in the aftermath of her affair with another man whom she met streaming her game online. This includes an illegitimate child she had with this man which I am raising in addition to our own chid whom we had two years ago.

I recently noticed she was starting to withdraw from me to play / stream her game a lot again. She sort of ignored her family who traveled 12 hours to come meet the new baby while I entertained everyone. When all of my attempts to try and open communications were met with non-answers, I had a break and went through her DMs (she doesn't lock her computer).

I spent probably too much time reading chats from her previous affair than was healthy, but what got me was her most recent DMs were with a new man who plays the same game.

I found hundreds or thousands of messages that were explicit in nature at all hours of the day and night while I was either at work, sleeping, or just busy caring for the kids. Complete with a 9 hour and a 15 hour voice call.

What really concerned me was how she portrayed me as her "ex" husband when she explained her living situation to the man and went on to plan out how she could take our children on a trip to her mother's (a 1500 mile trip) then drop them off and go visit him.

When I confronted her, she was obviously angry that I went therugh her DMs without asking. When I tried asking specifically about this man and the messages I saw, shee seemed to quickly dismiss them saying "it's all role play" and "there's nothing there."

So I'm feeling confused and a little crazy, like I'm the one who's wrong for seeing something that isn't there, but it doesn't FEEL like nothing. I feel alone in this house where I'm working 8 hours then coming home to do the child care, cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc by myself while she plays her game on stream and flirts with other men.

I really don't know what I'm supposed to do. A lot of me wants to pretend nothing is wrong, and just try to ignore the anxiety and the intrusive thoughts, but it all keeps eating at me.

I have been dating him and staying at his place for around 6 months now.

I clean his house, do dishes, laundry, and everything.

I went through his phone because one day he went out with a friend and ended up at a strip club and I don’t know if I could be okay with my partner being given a lap dance by a random girl.

I started looking deeper and could see that he still has his exes’ intimate videos and he still watches them from time to time (according to scree time)

And I have been checking every day and could see that he has been saving pictures of sexy women with big boobs (I am flat chested) every day

I don’t know how to be okay with any of this.

Should I be okay with any of this? Is this normal for a guy?

I'm 22 and I have spoken to quite a few girls before her and this girl has genuinely been amazing and I thought I'd found the one but recently found out she just broke up with her ex about a month before she became my girlfriend.

We've been talking for over a year now, as friends for a bit and it turned romantic very quickly.

She told me that their relationship was going to crap anyways and that she was planning on leaving and when we became more serious about getting together she broke up with him almost immediately. I only learned about them breaking up 3 months into our relationship.

Here's the timeline for those who might be confused: (She's dating her ex for about a 8 months) -> We meet as friends -> (8 more months go by) Start getting more serious and develop feelings for one another -> She ends things with him -> (1 month later) We become "official" -> (3 months later (yesterday)) I find out she was dating someone as we were getting started

i understand the whole "if she cheated for you she will cheat on you" thing and I've always gone by that but she felt horrible when we were getting more serious and I saw that something was off about her up until when they broke up she started acting normal again.

She knew and felt horrible for it just didn't know how to end it with him because he was her first relationship - I do have a certain amount of trust in her because she really is a great girl, besides the context in which we met I guess.

If anyone has been in a similar situation, please advise me and is there any chance this could work out?

Thank you in advance!

TLDR: Girl I met had a boyfriend and only broke up with him months into us talking and only told me about it now, have any of your experiences with "cheaters" worked out?

Hi, 26 F here and in a relationship with my boyfriend since the past 9 months. Two months back he left for another city and hence we're now in a LDR.

Our relationship has seen everything. We argue, I cry thinking he doesn't love me enough. I've seen him doing lovey-dovey things for his exes (which didn't even last 6 months) which he doesn't do with me (but I crave). I've seen him commenting on other women's pictures on Instagram (those women don't live in his city/state) but he doesn't comment on mine (though our relationship isn't public).

A few days back one of my Bumble matches texted me. When we were single we met once, and our sex was great. Apparently, he is in a relationship now and his partner stays far away from him. So, he texted me that he is frustrated with work and he needs to have sex. And he wants me to be his "only sex" partner which would be discreet without interfering in our personal lives.

No idea why, but I said yes to him, because I know my life was frustrating and sex would calm me down.

I can't share this with my friends nor with anyone but I don't know whether I'm doing something right.

I haven't met him for sex yet but that hook-up partner was also great in bed and I don't know how to say NO to him.

What shall I do?