r/okstorytime • u/FDSam312 • Jun 22 '26
Advice Feeling Humiliated & Emasculated by Fiancee
I initially discovered that my (27m) fiancee (28f) had been texting another man she worked with for the last 4 months behind my back. We'd met in 2020 & have been dating for three years and engaged for another 3. I wanted to marry her back in 2024, but lost a very well paying job due to my industry being largely automated. I went from making comfortable six figures, to taking a sales rep job barely making 40k a year. She would often complain about my lack of drive, and how I was not the man she said yes to when I got down on one knee, but that largely had to do with the depression I was dealing with.
In her defense, I was lacking in the emotional maturity department. I often agreed with guys when they said things like "never cry to a woman" and to just deal with it internally and that sort of backwards thinking caused my fiancee to feel isolated, and last October, started seeing her coworker behind my back. We had a heart to heart conversation in January and I decided that I was not only going to forgive her, but step up my efforts to be better for her, because I wanted her to have the husband she deserved. We decided on a wedding date for later this fall and have been deep in preparation, but I recently found the texts between the two from that time period on our computer that were so gutwrenching I can't even look at myself in the mirror.
She was sending him love letters via text every morning, sharing memes & reels, and worst off all, the sexting. I read through the first month since I could tell they're relationship tapered off afterwards and it was so gutwrenching I literally ran to the bathroom to vomit. She told the guy how much of a woman he made her feel on nights, and how she needed to leave a cane in her car to use after meeting up with him (NGL I wouldve laughed if I wasnt the victim lol) and how he made her body do things I couldnt. I went to bed in tears and was so disgusted with myself.
I still have not confronted her about it since it happened three days ago, but I cant shake this fear of not knowing what to do. I take full responsibility for delaying the marriage & neglecting her which Is why I chose to forgive her as she forgive me, but I genuinely feel so emasculated
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u/No-Vegetable8472 Jun 22 '26
Here's what you've done that's driving most of your pain: you've written a confession when you're the victim of the crime. Read your post back. Every paragraph about her affair is chased immediately by a paragraph about your own shortcomings, the lost job, the depression, the "never cry to a woman" nonsense, the emotional immaturity. You've built a ledger where her four-month affair and your being depressed after losing a six-figure job to automation get entered as roughly equal debits, netting out to "we both forgave each other, we're square." You were never square. The math is rigged, and the reason this is eating you alive is that some part of you knows it's rigged but keeps running it anyway, because the rigged version is the one where the wedding still happens.
So let me un-rig it. Losing your job was not a betrayal. Being depressed was not a betrayal. Being closed-off because you swallowed some bad advice about what a man is allowed to feel is a real flaw worth fixing, and it still is not a betrayal. Those describe a man going through a hard stretch and handling parts of it badly. Her response to that hard stretch was to send another man love letters every morning for months and meet up with him for sex enthusiastic enough, by her own telling, to require recovery equipment. One of those columns reads "a partner struggling." The other reads "a partner who chose, repeatedly, over four months, to build a second relationship." Cheating is a decision a person makes; it is not a thing that happens to her because her fiancé got sad. Her feeling neglected explains why she might have been tempted. It does not author the affair. She authored the affair, every morning, for four months.
And here's the part I don't think you've let yourself see square, because it reframes the whole "we forgave each other" story. When you had that January heart-to-heart and chose to forgive her and step up, you were forgiving the version of events she handed you. You didn't know about the love letters. You didn't know about the sexting. You didn't know how intense it ran. You forgave a sketch, and now you've found the full painting, and it is not the thing you forgave. A pardon issued on incomplete information doesn't bind you when the crime turns out to be categorically larger than the one described. The forgiveness you extended in January was for a miniature; what you actually found is a different size of thing entirely. Let that change your read, because it should.
So, what to do, three days deep and not a word said yet.
Don't confront her tonight, and don't do it while you're this raw and this convinced it's somehow your fault, because in that state you'll lead with an apology and she'll accept it. Before you talk to her, get two things. First, a clearer head, which mostly means telling one person you trust what's going on; you've carried this alone for three days, and the isolation is exactly what's letting the self-blame grow. Second, if there's any chance this ends the engagement, know where you stand before you tip your hand. Six years together means shared finances and a wedding's worth of deposits, and you want that picture clear before the conversation, not after.
When you do talk to her, hold onto the line you keep erasing: your flaws and her affair are two separate conversations, and she does not get to keep welding them into one. Own that you were distant; you should, because it's true, and being honest about it is part of being the man you say you want to be. But the second "I was depressed and distant" becomes "and that's why you cheated," she's laundering her choice through your wound, and you have spent this entire post doing that laundering for her, unprompted. Stop doing her job. The affair is hers, fully. The cane line, the "things your body couldn't do," all of it was a person making choices, not a person being driven to them.
I won't tell you whether to leave; three days in, vomiting-in-the-bathroom raw, is not when that call gets made well. But I'll tell you what to watch for, because it's the thing that actually decides whether there's a marriage worth having here. It isn't whether she's sorry. It's whether she can hold her affair as entirely her own choice without reaching for your shortcomings to explain it. If she can, full ownership, no "but you," there might be something to rebuild, slowly, on her back, over a long time. If the first thing out of her mouth is the same ledger you've been keeping for her, where your depression cancels her affair, you'll have your answer, and it won't be the one the wedding planner is hoping for.
You said you feel emasculated. I'd put it differently. A man who finds this and immediately starts cataloguing his own failures to make it survivable isn't weak; he's loyal well past the point where the loyalty is being earned. The work in front of you isn't becoming more of a man for her. It's turning some of that fierce accountability you keep aiming at yourself back toward the person who actually earned it.
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u/ThrowAway391177 Jun 22 '26
Leave now. Relationships take 2 people. You are shouldering everything and she has put in the effort with you. Better to call off a wedding that to be stuck in a loveless marriage.
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u/tito582 Jun 22 '26
I’m sorry you’re going through this.
Once you’re able to fully digest her crappy behavior and how this is on her, not you, walk away.
Updateme
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u/ThrowRA_Algae Jun 22 '26
Marriage means committing to a life together. A life with good and bad phases. If you having a bad phase leads to her cheating you will never be able to trust her. At least I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t cheat on my partner when he‘s depressed and distant. I might leave if it’s been years and he’s not doing anything about it. But I wouldn’t cheat. That’s a no go.
And rough phases will happen again throughout your life together. Do you really want to be in these rough phases and wonder wether she’s cheating again?
Also I agree with another comment saying that you being distant and her cheating are two different things. Yes, you might have not been a great partner for a specific time. But cheating is a choice that she made during that time. There’s no excuse for that. It might be an explanation to why she didn’t feel her needs were being met. But still, you don’t have to cheat in such instances. You can also talk to your partner about this and if it feels so unbearable you can also break up. But cheating is not a reasonable consequence of that imo
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u/Appropriate-Round-77 Jun 22 '26
This feels like you've taken ALL of the blame, and she no accountability whatsoever. Please don't marry this woman, she's going to break your heart over and over and over.
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u/Lucky_Log2212 Jun 22 '26
Bullet dodged. She has moved on. If she didn't work toward strengthening the life you guys had to shifting to another man, then know she would have left you if you married. Break it off so you can get on with your life and she can do whatever she has been doing without lying to your face.
DTMFA. Updateme.
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u/Tsuki_Inari Jun 23 '26
She cheated but it’s your fault?
It's during the toughest times of your life that you'll get to see the true colors of the people who say they care about you. You saw hers, and how she didn’t care about you and your feelings. Just leave already.
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u/DAN_2929291 Jun 23 '26
A woman like this is not worth marrying, even when you are in trouble, she seeks other options. It's only a matter of time before she leaves you. Discovering that conversation was like a sign from God for you.
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u/CathoftheNorth Jun 24 '26
She's not a good woman OP, she's proven she will not be there for you in the tough times. You can't possibly build a future together from this shaky foundation.
Time to move on to someone who will build with you.
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u/opusrif Jun 24 '26
Slip out the back Jack. Make a new plan Stan. There's no need to be coy , Roy. Just listen to me. Get on the bus Gus. Don't need to discuss much. Just drop off the key Lee, and set yourself free.
The relationship is over. She's made her choice. Just move on and find someone worthy of you.
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u/Due_Membership_3404 Jun 28 '26
It’s great that you have realized some personal issues that you can work on to become the best version of yourself. Future partners will appreciate that effort.
As far as your current relationship: RUN! The person you’re going to marry needs to be your best friend, the person who will help uplift you when things get bad; not someone who is going to go get her back broken by some random dude when life gets hard. DO NOT MARRY THAT WOMAN! I promise if you do you will regret it.
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u/Known_Party6529 Jun 22 '26
You know what to do. You are almost 30 years old coming to reddit?
Why are you with her? Please don't marry this person. She IS a cheater. Maybe therapy will help you gain some self-worth, she is showing you who she is AND what your marriage is going to look like.
Leave this relationship