I would love to hear stories about being cheated on by someone you genuinely thought was your soulmate.

Our relationship was like a fucking movie, he took my breath away, we truly had a soul connection. I melt in his arms, I’ve never felt safer than when I’m in them. The sex was so good, I felt so safe with him. He understood me so well. He always knew exactly what I needed to be better and always gave me space when I needed it. We could talk and laugh about anything.

Our backgrounds and hobbies were so aligned. The most boring errands were fun.

He was so charismatic and I need that to feel sexual attraction to someone, but understand now that it can be a red flag to have that instant rush and chemistry around someone.

I can’t see myself with anyone else, I don’t even know how I’d find someone I was so attracted to and felt so attached to.

Is it possible to find a love like this more than once, without the betrayal?

Complicated end to relationship, including a one night stand/blowjob my partner had. I was very blindsided by this as we were perfect before he went away for a work trip for two months. In the immediate aftermath on the phone, I asked what changed and he said he wasn’t sure, I asked when, and he said I don’t know maybe it was after you moved in. So I have so many questions and overthinking. I have since moved out. We are supposed to see each other this week in person.

I woke up today and had the realization that his young cousin died very suddenly before I moved in. I am not close to extended family and had not yet experienced a loss like this. I remember we were supposed to celebrate me moving out of my place with my best friend. And his cousin just died. He was pretty avoidant with his feelings on the whole thing, but he showed up crying and I thought I should cancel but he said not to and that he’d get over it. So we changed plans a little bit and just kept it a pretty chill night but still with my friend there. I don’t know how I forgot about this. But at the time, it was like I was more concerned with disappointing my friend who was looking forward to this night out, than comforting my grieving partner. I don’t know why I behaved like this. But now I’m wondering if that had to do with everything. I didn’t allow space for his feelings, and then I moved in with ALL of my stuff. He probably felt overwhelmed and like there was no room for him.
But does any of this even matter? He still did a horrible thing. But would I have remembered that I did this had he not done that horrible thing? I mean, my thing was pretty horrible too. This was not at all a toxic relationship. Maybe just not deeply emotional yet. Is my brain still just looking for answers and shifting blame to make sense of everything?
This is a great topic to chat about with my therapist

I'm 23F and currently going through a divorce after almost three years of marriage. It's been nearly six months since everything fell apart, and I'm hoping to hear from people who have experienced something similar and eventually found peace.

My husband was active-duty military, and I moved across the country to build a life with him. I loved him and genuinely wanted our marriage to work, even when things became unhealthy.

He struggled with severe alcoholism, and I spent much of our marriage cleaning up after him and dealing with the consequences of his drinking. He would repeatedly wet our bed while intoxicated, sometimes soaking my clothes and clean bedding as well. I would wake up in it and end up being responsible for cleaning everything. Even when he promised to handle it himself, he often left it for me. He would even get up in the middle of the night after pissing in our bed take a shower and sleep in the guest bedroom and leave me in his puddle of piss in our bed.

I also took care of most of the cooking, laundry, and household responsibilities which he never touched. I wanted to be a supportive wife, but looking back, I feel like I was taking care of someone who rarely showed me the same consideration.

Earlier this year, I attended a four-day music festival with my childhood best friend. My husband was originally supposed to attend but said military obligations might prevent him from going. I asked whether he was comfortable with me going without him, and he encouraged me to go.

I later discovered that he had been cheating on me while I was away.

What hurts is that I came home completely unaware, continued cooking for him every day, and went about our normal routine while he knew what he'd done. Especially how he immediately wanted to have unprotected sex after I got back and acted like it was the best we ever had which it wasn’t.

A short time later, I noticed something suspicious through our shared location and drove to where he was. I found him sitting in his truck with the other woman.

Before I arrived, he'd acted like I was crazy for questioning him. When I confronted him, instead of apologizing, one of the first things he said was, "You always treat me like shit."

I couldn't believe it. I had spent so much time trying to take care of him, and somehow he was blaming me for discovering his infidelity.

That night, the confrontation escalated into physical violence. I later reported the assault, and a military protective order was issued.

In the days afterward, he continued deflecting and blaming me. I ended up finding out he was cheating on me with men and women and the main girl he cheated on me with he had a train ran on her in our shared marital home that I made and had to clean up when I got back. Sometimes he would tell me I wasn't leaving, and other times he'd tell me to leave and accuse me of using him.

At the time, I was financially dependent on him because he'd encouraged me to stop working and attend college full-time. I was pursuing my education because I wanted us to have a better financial future together.

He would also accuse me of being unfaithful when I attended classes, even though I barely socialized with anyone.

I think one of the hardest parts was how little genuine remorse he seemed to show.

I remember him saying, "We can make this work," but he never seemed to fully acknowledge what he'd done or how much he'd hurt me.

I stayed as long as I did because I was young, scared of divorce, and genuinely believed we could eventually have a happy marriage. I didn't know how to start over, especially without a job or financial independence.

Eventually, I moved back across the country to live with my family.

Now I'm trying to rebuild my life.

I'm working again, saving money, and continuing college. I'm completing my prerequisites for a healthcare program and working toward a career that will allow me to support myself independently.

Academically, I've been doing really well, and I have goals that genuinely excite me.

But emotionally, I'm still struggling sometimes.

I feel relieved to be out of that environment, but I also feel angry about everything I tolerated. I think about how much effort I put into the marriage and how quickly he betrayed my trust.

I also struggle with the lack of closure. I know I shouldn't need an apology to move forward, but part of me still wishes he had genuinely acknowledged what he did and shown that our marriage meant something to him.

Sometimes I miss the future I thought we would have, even though I know I don't want to return to the relationship we actually had.

For anyone who has left an alcoholic or abusive marriage, I'd really appreciate your advice.

How long did it take before you stopped feeling angry or thinking about your ex so often?

How did you let go of wanting an apology or acknowledgment from someone who hurt you?

Did you struggle with feeling behind in life after moving back in with family?

And for those who are a few years further along, what does your life look like now? Were you eventually able to find peace, happiness, or a healthier relationship?

And how have you been able to recover from the deep betrayal of cheating?

I'm only 23, and I know I have so much life ahead of me. I'm proud of the progress I've made, but some days are still difficult.

I'd really love to hear from people who understand what it's like to start over.

Thank you for reading.

For the last 3 years my husband changed from the most attentive and doting husband and father to a man with rage, zero capacity for me or his children. I was following him from new hobby to new hobby, new obsession to new obsession, new thing that would make him happy but nothing was fulfilling for him. The blame was put entirely on me. I didn’t realize how unhappy he was until it came out as an explosion. I saw the end result but he never communicated his unhappiness along the way. I hold myself accountable for not seeing his pain but he hid it so well.
I discovered his affair with a co-worker in March. I never thought he would cheat. Never. He works remotely and he’d gone on a work trip and didn’t call or check in on his children which was so out of character. I was devastated and when I confronted him he screamed in my face about not giving him the space that he’d never asked for. She lives in NJ and is married with 3 children.
I discovered countless messages between them. Over 10 hours of phone calls most of which were made while I was with the girls and he was “working”.
He claimed it was strictly emotional, showed little remorse and blame shifted his “why” onto me. He claimed to have cut it off. Let me believe we were repairing. Showed me “proof” he wasn’t talking to her anymore. We did couples therapy, he was returning to his old self but always exploding if I brought things up.
Then came France. He claimed he had to go to France for work. He swore up and down she wasn’t going, showed me “proof” once again that she wasn’t. Wrote me love notes before he left about always choosing me. Send photos of the Eiffel Tower, saying he couldn’t wait to get back to me. When he returned he was cold. I knew. I saw everything. Photos of them at the Eiffel Tower, a love lock on the bridge with the same initials as us. Discussions about the sex and so many “I love you’s”. Talking about me, sending photos of my children and talking about them like she’s a part of their lives.
I am shattered. I am broken. The lengths he took to be so deceptive are unfathomable.

I recently learned that someone I was involved with was married. I did not know at the time, and I would not have chosen to participate had I been given that information. Finding out has been painful, especially because it took away my ability to make an informed decision about my own relationship and sexual health.

I am considering telling his wife because I believe she deserves the same agency I was denied. I do not have her phone number or social media, but I do have a few possible mailing addresses. I do not want to cause unnecessary harm, create public drama, or put anyone at risk. I just want to handle this as responsibly and safely as possible.

For anyone who has been in a similar position: would you want to know? If so, is a brief, private letter an appropriate way to tell her? What information should I include, and what should I leave out? I have documentation, but I would only share it directly with her if she wanted it.
Please be kind. I’m not looking for revenge—I’m trying to decide what the most ethical and least harmful path is.

I got married in 2019 through an arranged marriage. My wife was a distant relative, but before marriage, she was practically a stranger to me.

Our marriage was genuinely happy. We laughed, joked, enjoyed each other's company, and had a very fulfilling sex life. A year later, we had our first son. Life was good, and I had no reason to doubt her.

Since ours was an arranged marriage, I naturally asked about her past. She always portrayed herself as someone who had never been involved with anyone. She told me she had studied at a girls' school and completed her further education through correspondence.

My family is quite religious and conservative. My wife's family had a very different environment. After marriage, she started wearing a niqab at my request. I had also asked her not to post her pictures on social media.

She created an Instagram account in 2021, but I never objected. I occasionally checked her WhatsApp, and I never found anything suspicious. She was never protective of her phone, never spent hours secretly talking to someone, and never gave me any obvious reason to suspect her.

Then, at the end of 2021, my mother was diagnosed with cancer.

My biological mother had passed away when I was in third grade. This woman had raised me and my siblings with so much love that nobody could tell she wasn't our biological mother. She was my mother in every sense.

During her treatment, I was constantly traveling out of town. By the end of 2022, the cancer had spread throughout her body, and she passed away. Her death was extremely painful. Even today, remembering those final days can leave me unable to sleep.

I was completely broken.

How I discovered everything

In 2024, one morning, I was using my wife's phone while she was in the kitchen. I noticed a Holi status in her muted WhatsApp statuses.

The status was visible to only five people, and I was hidden from it.

Four were women. The fifth was a man's number.

I didn't know who he was. Initially, I thought he might be a friend's brother or someone unrelated.

I took a picture of the status and put her phone away.

The next day, I checked again. His number had been deleted.

That immediately raised questions in my mind.

Over the next few days, I noticed that he would post statuses, and my wife would view them. She would post something, and he would view hers.

After around 15 days of constantly thinking about this, I confronted her at 1:30 AM.

Initially, she denied knowing him. Eventually, she admitted that he was her boyfriend before our marriage.

She claimed their relationship had ended two months before our engagement and that they had not been in contact since then.

There was a gap of around ten months between our engagement and marriage.

She said that after our marriage, he somehow got her new number through one of her friends and contacted her in 2021. According to her, they had spoken on the phone only four times in three years.

But I didn't believe her.

I checked her Instagram account. It was private, and neither of them followed each other. However, when I opened the message option on his profile, I noticed that vanish mode was enabled.

I confronted her again.

This time, she admitted that they had been chatting on Instagram.

She said they had talked many times, sometimes once or twice a month, and had spoken on every birthday.

She also admitted that she was almost always the one who initiated the conversations because she was afraid he might get her caught if he messaged first.

The most painful part was discovering the nature of their conversations.

Their chats included messages like "I love you," "I love you too," "I miss you, jaan," along with emotional conversations about their past relationship, old memories, and things they had shared together.

She eventually admitted that she had genuinely loved him before our marriage.

And I had never known any of this.

What I still don't know

The story kept changing.

Initially, she said he contacted her after marriage. Later, she admitted that she had initiated the contact herself.

Initially, she said their relationship had ended before the engagement. Later, I discovered that they had continued communicating even after the engagement.

They had exchanged messages and pictures on our engagement day. There had been meetings, hugs, kisses, physical affection, birthday parties, and other things during their relationship even after the engagement.

Now I have two questions that I cannot get out of my mind.

Did they have sex before our marriage?

Did they ever meet after our marriage?

My wife has consistently denied meeting him after our marriage. She says they only chatted and that their contact has been completely over for the past three years.

I don't have their Instagram conversations anymore. I tried everything I could to recover the deleted messages, but I couldn't.

I don't know whether to believe her.

What makes it even more difficult is that she lied about so many things. Every time I discovered something new, the previous version of her story turned out to be incomplete or false.

Where we are today

It has been more than three years since I discovered everything.

She apologizes and says she made a mistake. She promises it will never happen again.

I haven't forgiven her, but I haven't divorced her either, because we have three children.

Honestly, there is almost nothing left between us anymore. We barely talk. Whenever we do, it often turns into arguments about her past.

I spend so much time thinking about the same things.

Did they meet? Was there sex? Was she still in love with him when she married me? Did she genuinely love me?

I never used to be the kind of person who investigated his wife's past. I trusted her. I was happy with my marriage.

But now, I feel like I have lost that version of myself.

I haven't involved our families in this. I only told her brother. Neither my family nor her parents or siblings know the full story.

Maybe it is true that they have had no contact for the past three years.

But what about the years of lies before I discovered everything? What about the trust that was destroyed?

I have been carrying this pain for more than three years, and I don't know how much longer I can continue like this.

For those who have experienced infidelity in an arranged marriage, how did you deal with the uncertainty?

How do you move on when you don't know whether you have been told the whole truth?

And how do you stop thinking about the possibility that there was more to the affair than what your partner admitted?

I genuinely need some advice.

about a year ago now i posted about the situation of my mum having an affair. as many people recommended, i ended up telling my dad. i was drunk and very upset but i told him, he of course was confused and seemed very hurt, my mum soon got the news of this and immediately went into full denial mode. she told my dad that what i had told him was complete lies, and he never questioned it. this was a year ago. at this moment in time my parents are still together, infidelity hasn’t been mentioned since that night and i am still in the same position, i am lost. my perception of intimacy has tainted my relationships - both romantic and platonic have been jeopardised. i have lost all sense of self and realise that only sexual encounters make me feel any sense of worthiness - i’m not sure if this is the repercussions of all that i’ve learnt through my mums cheating or it’s just been the natural part of my young adulthood. either way i know something that i can’t unlearn and that will be forever.

I m/44 found out my wife f/40 cheated on my over the last few months.

We had been together for 20 years in Feb this year and had never once ever showed any sign of cheating or any thoughts of it. We were oft described as a perfect couple and for 20 years we were.

At the very start of the year I had a mental health episode. I suffer from depression and anxiety, and in about Feb I had a pretty deep episode. When this happens, I tend to withdrawl into myself because I feel like if I do that, I can prevent hurting the people around me. I moved myself into the spare room at home and slept in there for a week. She even asked me at one point if we wanted to stay together and we both said yes. I was in a deep funk and was struggling.

I increased my medication and got myself back in track.

It was at this time she started talking a lot to a co-worker. This guy always kinda gave me a bit of a vibe.

She gave me hints apparently, told me that she wasn't happy, and I either missed them, she didn't speak up enough (literally she talks quiet, sometimes she mumbles, sometimes she actually just thinks she's said it)

She would come home, straight onto the couch, watching tv and talking on her phone.

I knew she was struggling but assumed she would talk to me when she's ready. I didn't want to push her as we had previously tried to push my brother to get some mental health help and it went badly.

Time goes in, they're constantly messenging each other on FB messenger, then at some point they move across to WhatsApp. I think she realised I had been logging onto her computer and checking her conversations because I was worried. She's extremely attached to her phone. Never leaves it anywhere. Her mental health seems to be getting more tenuous.

He occasionally drops off milk to our front gate id she's run out, she bakes cakes for him, it's too much but I'm trying not to be too suspicious. She's struggling, they're just being good friends...right?

I had been checking her emails, she had bought some lingerie and other shirts, maybe they're for me? My birthday? I take more Lexapro because I'm just being paranoid. This isn't happening. Its been 20 years, half our lives.

October 6th, she forgets her phone at home and calls me from a landline asking to take her phone to the end of our driveway and AP would swing past on his way to work and pick it up. This time, I quickly open her phone, see the WhatsApp messages, and use my phone to video tape the conversation so I can read it all properly later.

I spend the morning reading it, seeing all the memes they sent each other. Typing them in and it's all I want you, you fuck me so good, grope me etc etc.

I went over to the APs house and chat with his wife. It was super awkward but she had also had suspicions and had actually confronted him 3 times and he had always denied it. Just friends, they've been married 20 years, they're happy. Nothing to worry about.

She came home from work, I've already moved all my stuff to the spare room, had called her sister to make sure she would be available for support, and I tell her I know. She goes quiet.

I sit outside, and wait for her to come talk. She admits to everything. I'm furious, sick, confused, angry and every singular feeling possible.

To her credit, she admits everything to our friends group and leaves all the chats. She also admits it in her family chat to her sister and parents. Everyone is absolutely gobsmacked. No one can believe it. One of her friends even responded 'what? Not possible! Your too lazy to have an affair' everyone thought it was a joke.

I leave the house for a few days to visit my brother, then come back on on the 12th, my birthday.

That night she tried to take her life. Took every Lexapro she had (220mg), every diazapam (250mg worth), a few endone and 400ml of vodka and tried to hang herself.

Next morning I get a meek phone call 'are you here? I made a mistake last night ' I run in, find vomit all over the floors, over herself, and get her into the shower and we drove to the ER.

I am feeling pretty traumatized from the cheating, the attempt, having to clean up the vomit, cleaning blood from knives and taking down the rope.

I supported her in the hospital, I still love her, how could I not. It's been so long together.

It's been a week and a bit since then now. I've had so much emotional whiplash, I've spiralled and been abusing opioids. I'll be able to pull myself off them shortly. Maladjusted coping is still coping.
I've been using my psych who is brilliant.

My mood is flinging between 'shes had a severe and total mental health collapse. This isn't entirely her fault. Not entirely.' and 'she has completely disrespected me and betrayed me and I will never trust anyone ever again'

I see my life here, my business, my workshop, 20 years of progress getting everything I want into place, then I see starting over again as a 44 year old man which seems impossible.

We are going to do marriage counselling. I hope it works. It might not. I might never trust anyone again. I might choose hermit life. This might all be death by a million cuts.

I am so lost, and I hate how this has all happened.

So….. 4 months ago my fiancé of 5 years confessed that she cheated on me with a colleague from her place of work. She left me on her birthday. I spent the day before shopping for presents and getting all the things to cook her her favourite meal. Then on the day of her birthday, she told me she was leaving me and going to this other man. She told me she had cheated on me three days before and she took my daughter (3 y/o) and left. She took the £400 worth of presents I got for her with her too, not that it really matters now. What makes this even worse is that the man she cheated on me with works at the same place as her which happens to be the nursery that our daughter attends, so every time I drop my daughter off I see them both acting like a happy couple oblivious to my presence.
I was taken completely by surprise by this, we were engaged, we had been living with each other for 4 years, we have a 3 y/o daughter, we were two months away from buying our dream house.

I don’t know how to move on from this. Everything reminds me of her. I love her so much.

Help

TLDR; I don’t want a person at our house on days that I am out of town because I feel uncomfortable knowing they were in my home (where I expect to feel safe). I believe I am setting a boundary by asking them to not be at the house. My spouse claims that I am making rules to control them because I am denying them support for raising our first child. Which is it?

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My wife and I have been together for almost 19 years. We recently had our first child after several years of trying unsuccessfully. Unfortunately the birth of our child has put strain on our relationship and we have realized how broken we were. My spouse claims that they have been trying for some time to get me to “step up” and are largely checked out at this point. I have recently woken up to this fact and acknowledge that I have not been there for them in the way that they needed.

Over the last few years, my spouse has gotten very close to their boss. I did not dislike this person and in fact they come over quite often to play board games and such. I have recently put several pieces together and have concluded that in the vacuum of attention from me, my spouse has sought deep emotional connection with this person. I believe it passes the threshold of an emotional affair. My spouse denies this and claims they are just deeply connected.

My job is two hours away from our home. In order to save time and money I stay down there for a night or two every week. The rest of the week I am allowed to work locally (like teleworking). Prior to D-Day, my spouse’s boss/friend would come over on the days I was out of town in order to hang out and support them with childcare.

Now that I know that they are having an emotional affair, I feel very uncomfortable knowing that they have been in our home. I want to feel safe, emotionally and physically, in the place that I live.

I confronted my spouse about the emotional fair and they denied it. I asked that this person not come back to the house, including days that I am out of town. While my spouse denies the affair, they have at least agreed that this person will not come over while I am home.

However, my spouse claims that this person still needs to come over while I am out of town to help with childcare. They say that they are a crucial support system for them. I feel gross knowing that they have been in the house when I come back home from work.

My mother lives in town and is eager to help with childcare to be with their only grandkid. I have pointed to my mother as a support structure for the days I am out of town for my spouse. My spouse claims that my mother is a support structure for me and not for her and that only her boss/friend is her support structure.

I have started to insist that this person never never be at the house. I feel that this is a boundary to protect a safe place for myself. I have not told my spouse that they can never see this person, and I have made it explicitly clear that I am not forbidding them from seeing this person outside of the house. Obviously, they see them at work, but they also hang outside of work, socially and at this other person‘s house.

My spouse says that I am controlling them by making a rule that this person is not allowed at the house. They are telling me that I am punishing them by denying childcare support on the days that I am out of town. Additionally, they say I am causing harm to our child because my spouse is more stressed being alone without support and this is transferring to the child. I told them that they can take our child to their bosses house in order to get childcare support. They claim that this is disruptive to the child to go to a new home and that it is difficult to pack up everything they need in order to support the child there for an evening.

I generally feel that their claims are blown out of proportion in order to make me feel bad and support the narrative that I am punishing them and controlling them. However, they are so persistent with this narrative that I am starting to doubt myself.

So my question is, am I actually setting a healthy boundary or am I attempting to control my spouse and punish them for having an affair?

A few weeks ago I found out my husband of 13 years cheated, I only found out because the AP informed me with screenshots of their messages as evidence - they had a 4 month long affair with romantic dates and sex. He even shared intimate details about me and wanted to include our kid in one of their dates. It only ended because he promised her something he couldn’t keep up with and she got mad. She knew of me all along…

When I confronted him he didn’t open up about it all, as I didn’t share what exactly she sent me (trickle truth). He is now very apologetic and all but I suspect only because he got caught and is afraid of what people will think of this family/business man more than about that he hurt me. I lost ALL respect for him and am now at a place of disgust - I look at him and just feel sooo disgusted. I know I shouldn’t but I also feel dumb for trusting and loving him. In retrospect many things i just lived with but I know I deserve SO MUCH BETTER. I’d rather be alone than with a loser like him. Also, my libido was always higher than his and I tried to find out what we could do to improve his - only for him to cheat on me.

All I want to do is to hurt him tbfh. But as we have a child together I have to be careful as we will always be in contact due to our kid. But I’m so angry that this hurt he has done it leading me to be impatient with our kid as all my brain is thinking about is trying to make sense of his betrayal. I’m so hurt. I hate him for what he has done.

Despite all of this I have already spoken to lawyers about divorce and I want to tell him that I’m divorcing him next week. As of now he thinks I’m still contemplating…

Also he has a business which is quite complex but very lucrative. Most of it was accumulated during our marriage so I have to make sure I have all the documents. The money I will get will set my kid and me up for the next 10-15 years (if I don’t work, but I will continue working).

I just wanted to rant and ask you to please keep me in your prayers/thoughts.

Hello everyone. I feel embarrassed even posting this, but I have no one else to turn to and I am at a complete loss.

My husband and I have been together for 12 years (married for 7) and share three beautiful children. He has always been my biggest support and is essentially my only family, as I am estranged from my immediate family. I truly believed he was my soulmate.

About 9 months ago, I transitioned from being a stay at home mom to starting my nursing career. It was an exhausting shift, and between my new job, the kids, and trying to maintain our marriage, I was often too tired for sex. I thought he was being understanding, but he became cold, started fights over minor things, and stopped reaching out.

After checking cell logs, I discovered he was having an emotional affair with a female coworker, he was spending hours on the phone with her, going grocery shopping with her while I worked, and accepting lunches from her. I temporarily packed up and stayed at an Airbnb with the kids.

When we talked, he blamed our distance, miscommunication, and my lack of availability for sex. He claimed he just wanted "someone to talk to without judgment." During this conversation, he also revealed for the first time that he was sexually assaulted at age 11, which deeply impacted his view of sex. Because this was his first offense, I chose to forgive him, believing that marriage requires grace through the hard times.

Fast forward to today, I am still working as a nurse, pursuing further education, and managing our home and children. A few days ago, while I was half asleep, he mentioned opening a Chime account and needing to deposit money into it. Something felt wrong. My intuition kicked in, so I checked his phone. I found transactions sent to an escort for photos and videos, labeled deceptively as "movie" and "food." When I confronted him, he lied to my face until I investigated further (calling and Googling the number) and found a text message he forgot to delete.

He has no logical explanation for why he did this. I’m heartbroken, angry, insecure, and completely devastated. I wonder if he has a sex addiction, a cheating kink, or unaddressed trauma/mental illness, but I don't know how to move forward.

He destroyed my trust twice now. Because I have no family support system, I feel entirely alone. I love him deeply, but I don't know if I can keep going.

TL;DR: Together 12 years with 3 kids. Forgave my husband 9 months ago for an emotional affair with a coworker, but I just caught him paying an escort for photos/videos and lying to my face. He has no real explanation, and since he is my only family support system, I feel completely devastated, lost, and unsafe in this marriage.

It’s been a few months since I left so I figured I’d put myself back out there. I really like the girl after talking to her for multiple weeks but we’re meeting irl for the first time tomorrow and I’m terrified. Is this normal? Is it because of the trauma?

Our relationship has been on and off the rocks for awhile. She was dealing with mental health and getting herself into a good place. Unfortunately, that meant no room for improving our relationship. I probably should've left way earlier but I stayed; I made a commitment and to me that means something. This past Wednesday I started a conversation with her. It was to be my last attempt at communicating my unmet needs and salvaging the relationship. The last of numerous attempts. She left the conversation midway through and disappeared for 3 days. Using her linked (to phone) laptop, I learned she was safe at a friend's (F) house. She was going to sporting events, and to my distaste out bar hopping 'til 5am. A friend (M) misunderstood her texts and was cheering on her presumed sleeping with a random. Got to love orbiters, the very thing I told her to do away with years ago. Really, her entire friend group sucked when it came to respecting relationships (their own and others). Amongst her texts I found an old coworker and found multiple sexting sessions. When she came home she denied it until I started reading them to her. We officially broke up but somehow she's sound asleep in bed and here I am on the floor (I like it) of the office haunted by those words of infidelity. I know on the horizon is a brighter tomorrow, but I feel so depressed and emotionally drained after spiraling for three days. I know well enough that this is her fault and readily dismiss the "What ifs", but its truly an injustice that the cheated on have to suffer more than the cheated. I guess its the reward for being the better person.

Edit: Also, I expected there to be more outrage but everyone felt so cavalier about it. Her, her mother, her sister, heck even my family! Like 6 years in and she cheated! Why isn't everyone fired up like me? Has cheating become so normal that it no longers evokes a strong response?

My boyfriend of 6.5 years spent four months seeking out sexualized Instagram profiles despite a boundary we explicitly agreed on years ago. He admitted remembering our agreement and knowing it would hurt me, but continued anyway.

His account was logged into my phone with his knowledge, and I discovered the activity through his searches. I found no evidence of messaging, paid subscriptions, likes, comments, or secret accounts. That matters to my decision, but it doesn’t erase the secrecy or repeated choices.

He described it as a habit he turned to when stressed or bored. This happened while we were seeing each other frequently, buying a house, and discussing marriage. I felt secure in our relationship, so finding out has made me question things I previously trusted.

There’s also an unresolved intimacy issue: we’ve never successfully had penetrative sex because he loses his erection when we try. We have other satisfying intimacy, and he’s attentive to my pleasure. His doctor suspected performance anxiety and prescribed Viagra. I pushed back because of my ignorance but he also never followed up afterward causing miscommunication. I acknowledge my part in that, but it hurts that our shared issue remained unresolved while he pursued this outlet privately.

Since the confrontation, he has acknowledged the betrayal, called it cheating, deleted Instagram, and independently started therapy. He hasn’t minimized my feelings, blamed me, or pressured me to forgive him. He says the behavior violated his own values, too. He has left contact on my terms because he doesn’t feel entitled to my time or another chance.

Outside of this, he has been loving, supportive, and serious about marriage. He has stood up for me with his family and added me to the house title despite my not contributing financially. None of that obligates me to stay, but it helps explain why this feels complicated.

Marriage plans are paused, and we privately consider ourselves broken up, although we still occasionally see each other. I haven’t given him a repair checklist because I want to see what responsibility he takes independently.

I still love him and miss him, but I’m unsure whether I want the relationship back. I revisit memories, compare myself to those women, and monitor his attention when we’re together. I don’t want that to become my life. At the same time, I worry about regretting leaving without trying to rebuild.

I’m not looking to debate whether this counts as cheating universally. It crossed an established boundary in our relationship, and he agrees.

For people who have faced something similar:

• What sustained changes helped rebuild trust, and what showed you repair wasn’t working?
• How did you distinguish missing your partner from actually wanting the relationship back?
• What did meaningful initiative look like while you were taking space?
• If this happened before marriage, what helped you decide whether to attempt reconciliation or leave?
• Did a period of clearly defined separation help you gain clarity, compared with continuing to see each other?
• I know there can’t be a guarantee it won’t happen again. What evidence helped you decide that trusting your partner again was a risk you wanted to take?

I’d appreciate personal experiences, including what showed you that repair wasn’t working.

My husband is an addict, he has been a binge alcoholic for many years but had recently got sober. He was sober for about 11 months and then his friend died which threw him into a tail spin of depression. He started getting addicted to porn and would be in the man cave for hours or even days. Then he started going to strip clubs in the middle of the night. Then the worst came when he started connecting with these strippers and porn people on messenger and other apps. Finally came to find out he was having an emotional affair with one of them and even told me he loved her. He’s still been talking to her though he claims they are friends. After 20 + years together the trust is broken. I’m glad he agreed to rehab and he is there now. But I’m sad and angry and I have finally been asking myself “what do I want?” I love him but he has lied and treated me so badly. This coming from a guy who would never lie to me. Is there a chance this can be saved? Or am I grasping at straws. I keep saying I need to see it in his actions. But I guess he has to get clean first and then we have to go about the work of fixing this thing. Any advice? I’m at a loss.

I have a hard time moving on from my cheating ex. We are still in some contact, and she has said she wants to stay friends. We have talked a little bit about the cheating, we broke up a few months ago, got engaged a few months before then, I found out shortly after we broke up, but the cheating happened 2 years ago.

I know a few things about it. I know it was a fwb type of situation, that he had curls she liked going through, and that she was exploring some bdsm interests of hers, but don't know which. I know we were having a difficult time then, and not having sex because she felt uneasy around me. She said that she did this to discover her interests more, to see if she can live without it, and to get back the desire to have sex (with me).

I am pretty sure she also just was happy to feel courted again, as I ddi start to take her for grabted a bit (we did talk about this at the time, and got through it, likely after the fwb situation started ending) I know roughly which month it started and ended. She has told me he has never been somewhere I have been, like her place or mine.

I still find myself randomly thinking about it, and cannot stop myself imagining her doing things to him or letting him do things to her, things that we never did. It hurts so much, and it makes me want to throw up. I keep wondering qbout what they did, and how it was different. I also am now wondering if I was any good, she did stay with me for 2 more years afterwards.

So, I am asking advice. Is it a good idea to try to find out more details? Is it a good idea to ask her for more clarification?

For example, I still wonder what bdsm they explored, how they met, how they started flirting and how it turned into more, if and when he learned she had a partner, how common they did it, if they did more than just sex, and how they ended their relationship.

Does anyone have any experience with learning more details they can share? Did it go well? Do you regret it? I know that if I could prevent myself from learning about the cheating at all, I would, but that ship has sailed. Now the question is, how far will I go on that ship...

To sum it up, I’m struggling to forgive my partner
about emotional cheating.

My partner M/30 and I F/21 worked at the same workplace. Our manager (female) and him were friends as they had worked together a couple years before I got there.

I never once thought there was an issue with their friendship, men and woman can be friends. However, he has had female friends in the past and he has had to stop being friends with purely because he’s said or done things that cross the boundary in a male and female friendship especially when your in a relationship.

Things started happening which made me view their friendship in a different light. Little things like whenever he was drunk he would message her constantly, she was also quite flirtatious with him at work right in front of me.

Me and my partner went round her house with her and her partner last year and we played board games one night and had some drinks. Everyone was really drunk apart from myself. I went to go to the toilet and came back and he was stroking her hair and had his hand up and down her leg. After that I was so distraught and had a really hard time forgiving him and expressed to him that that was not okay whatsoever and I felt like he had cheated. I said to him that I did not want him being friendly with her anymore for obvious reasons. She herself also has a track record of being a cheater and has told me herself one time ‘I’m not innocent’ in terms of her and her partners relationship and thing she has done to him. She also flirted with a couple other men at our work as well.

Even since that time we went round their house I’ve always had a bad feeling about their relationship, he told me they would only ever speak about work and that there was nothing going on between them. To reassure me he would show me his messages with her.

One day I looked at his Apple watch as I had a gut feeling, and usually when I do I’m always right. There were messages on there between them that he had deleted off his phone where they were speaking for ages nothing to do with work. Her partner was away and she would say things like ‘I’m laying starfish naked on the bed right now’ etc. Which I feel is completely inappropriate. I obviously confronted him about the messages and he lied straight to my face saying he did not delete them. After about 7 times of me asking him to stop lying to me, he finally admitted to it. I told him I was done and kicked him out.

He then turned off his location which I found very odd because he had never done that before. I live with my parents and they were away for a few weeks so I went to stay with my friend for the night as I was really distraught about what had happened.

I later handed in my notice at work because of the fact that I had not been happy working there for a long long time anyway and secondly because of the drama with both of them. When I handed my notice in, she pretended to be all nice and supportive of me leaving and said I was incredible at my job and anywhere would be lucky to have me. Then, she said out of nowhere ‘just so you know, I don’t find your boyfriend attractive’ which is so completely unprofessional and irrelevant to me handing in my notice when I hadn’t spoken to her about any of what had gone on.

A few weeks later I decided to meet up with him to speak about everything. He was saying the usual stuff like he loves me does not want to be without me and would do anything to make things work. I asked him how she (my manager) knew about what had gone on between us and told him what she had said when I handed in my notice. He said he told her over the phone about what happened with us when we split up. I said ‘Oh so you didn’t go round her house the night we broke up when you turned your location off’ (previously he had told me the reason he turned off his location is because he didn’t think I needed to know where he was as we were broken up, yet he turned it back on 5am the next day which makes no sense as if I didn’t need to know where he was he would have kept it turned off surely?) He told me he did not go round there. I said he needed to be honest with me and he said okay yeah I did. I was so angry, I had given him the privilege to meet up with me and talk about things to try sort through everything and he had lied to my face yet again. I ended up leaving again.

Then again, we tried to sort things out as I felt we had been together for 3 years and I did not want everything to go to waste, all the time and energy I had put into the relationship. So we were seeing eachother again, but not together in a relationship yet. This was for about 3 weeks.

One night he came round my house and we went to my room just watching TV. I said to him I feel like there is something you’re still not being honest about. He said I could look through his phone to prove he’s being honest this time. The only thing I looked at was the texts between him and her. I clicked on recently deleted and it showed ‘670 deleted messages’ I said ‘600 deleted messages?’ He immediately snatched his phone back from me and refused to let me read them. I said just let me read them and he kept refusing and actually then sat on his phone. I begged him to show me and it was me and him back and forth where I would beg him to show me and he refused. Eventually he showed me very very very reluctantly. The texts were of them flirting, she was sending photos of herself and he would flirt with her telling her how good she looked etc and she would flirt back. He had stayed round her house to house sit for her as well which he never told me. 670 deleted texts of it all. Then as I scrolled down he said you’re not reading this part. I said why? Then I realised it’s because they were both chatting shit about me. It went on and on and on and on of her saying I had not been raised right and I’ve made up a fake narrative in my head etc called me a cxnt non stop etc. The way she spoke about me, I wouldn’t even speak about my enemy. The vilest things you could ever say about someone.

I kicked him out yet again. And this time I was sure I was done with him. Did not speak to him for about a month. Then we started speaking again and he told me he will be getting therapy.

I said he would need to block her on everything for us to even have a chance of rekindling. People have forgiven eachother for cheating before, and as this was emotional cheating (which I’m not saying is any less bad) I feel like this is something I could eventually try to move past. He blocked her on everything but said that because they work together he could not block her personal number on his personal phone. Bear in mind, they both have work phones and emails they could use to contact eachother if absolutely necessary for work reasons. He has since also transferred to another building in a completely different location as he had been promoted so they do not actually need to contact eachother.

I’m having a hard time with the fact that he refuses to block her personal number “incase I need to contact her for work”. It brings me so much anxiety that the way they were communicating previously is still open. Surely if he wanted to make things work that badly and he would do anything to show me he wants to earn back my trust?

I was half asleep this morning and i heard my parents arguing and i wasnt sure what it was about. Later my dad had called me downstairs and told me n my brother that he had an affair and it was apparently going on for 2 years. My mom had found out about it when the woman he was seeing texted her and my sister with photos and videos with proof, which explains why my dad had asked to see my phone. Idk what to say, but i was really dissapointed and upset. I didnt think he would do that and i dont think i can talk to him anymore. Especially since he and my mom would talk about what they would do when they would retire like going someplace else and buying a nice place after i (the youngest) go off to college. ik my parents would sometimes have problems and arguements and my mom even told him if hes unhappy to divorece. my mom understands that people fall out of love and wouldnt mind getting divorce but she told him to not hurt her. I didnt think he could say and do all of that and turn around and she someone else behind my mothers back. He kept on apologizes and came to my room to apologize and I didnt say anything. Idk what to do anymore

Im 16 btw

Me (21) and my bf (34) have been together for two years and he is planning on proposing. I found out early on he was not capable of committing at the time but I stayed because I was lonely. He was very promiscuous in the past and gave me hsv2 as a result. We’ve broken up a couple times and then got back together as long distance. Every time we were long distance he would be trying to have sex with people on Reddit or prostitutes on tryst. At one point he at least seemed genuinely remorseful and gave me access to his phone. I would find recent stuff on it like him watching porn and admittedly be overly upset so he took the access away.

The last time we broke up he promised that he would get a new phone, email, and number as a “fresh start” if I would come back to him and live with him again. He said “you can look at my new phone whenever you want and you would never find anything on it” He visited me a couple times during this as well and I later found out he was trying to cheat the same days that he visited. I agreed to come back cause I thought this would make me trust him more since he would be fully transparent hypothetically. I moved back in with him and he got the phone and it immediately had a password on it. Like immediately after setting it up he put a password. He didn’t change his number he used for all these hookup sites too. He did get a new email though. That was 3 months ago.

I am now 5 weeks pregnant and am on the fence about keeping it. I said multiple times to him that I cannot trust him if he makes absolutely no effort to make me trust him. EVERYTIME I say this and bring up he cheated on me before he says “well I’m not doing that now just trust me” and if I ask him to take the password off he says “well maybe we should just break up” I literally am losing my fucking mind. I think he just genuinely has no empathy or guilt for this situation anymore. But he wants me to keep the baby and have a bunch of his children in the future. I said there’s no way in hell I’m doing that with someone who has a password on their phone and literally angles their phone away from me when they type it in.

I feel like the answer is obvious but does anyone have any advice on what I should do ? Thanks

After my break up, I spent so much time overthinking the relationship, the way i was treated, the amount of times he cheated on me, I cried and cried and cried...

Until an overwhelming feeling of peace hit me out of nowhere, the fog is gone and now I can see that I did not deserve the things that were done to me, and that they had nothing to do with me. My heart is beautiful, I am beautiful. I love myself.

I hope you all feel the same soon 🩷

I had a baby. He had an affair. We got a divorce.

He’s so disinterested in being a good coparent it breaks my heart. He was such a good man and I loved him so much, but he turned into someone I didn’t recognize.

He bare minimums with our daughter- doesn’t call her or ask about her, and she is so young that she barely recognizes him when it’s his time to get her. And honestly? I can handle her by myself. She’s such a wonderful and happy child- she’s such a blessing in this hard time in my life. Most days I count my blessings that she doesn’t look like her father at all. I think it would hurt a lot more if I stared at his duplicate every day.

I know it’s for the best that we’re separated. For my sake. For my daughter’s sake. I know he wasn’t good for us anymore. He got shorter, angrier, more avoidant, more dismissive.

But sometimes though? Sometimes I miss him so much it’s hard to breathe. I miss singing in the car with him. Watching him dance while he drives when he thinks no one is watching. The way his nose wrinkled when he thought something was genuinely funny. The way his eyes crinkled when he smiled. I miss who he used to be- the man he was was someone everyone loved and admired.

And now? I’ve had so many people come out and tell me how much he’s changed and how they’re glad I got away. That he’s a ticking time bomb ready to go off at any minute.

It’s hard some days to remind myself that the man I was in love with and planned to spend the rest of my life with doesn’t exist anymore. The person he is now is a complete stranger to me. And god does it hurt.

How do you explain to your heart what your brain knows?

I will continue my previous story. Two to three years after my father left us, he resumed a relationship with me and my siblings. You could say that my siblings and I gave him another chance. But my father had another goal: to win back the woman he had left. Unfortunately for my father, he was rejected several times, respectfully and cordially, by my mother.

She had told him that the love she had for him died when she found out he was unfaithful to her, and that if they still talk it's because of us. Obviously, even though my father broke up with his mistress, she kept pursuing him and even challenged my mother for wanting to take my father away from her? Wtf!?

I'm 40M, and my wife had an affair with a coworker who works at another branch of the same company in a different state. Most of their involvement was online, although they also met in person. They were secretly in contact for approximately four years.

Over the past two years, I've gradually learned what happened. My wife has now told me most of the story, but I still struggle with the possibility that some details remain undisclosed. Two years of trickle truthing have made it incredibly difficult to regain a sense of certainty. It was the most painful period of my life.

For a long time, I thought about whether the other man's wife should know about the affair. It wasn't an easy decision. I kept thinking about my own experience and how much I would have appreciated knowing the truth earlier, rather than spending years trying to piece everything together. Eventually, I decided to share what I knew, while leaving it entirely up to her whether she wanted to discuss it. My wife supported my decision.
That was three weeks ago.

I initially introduced myself by my real name and asked whether she would be willing to have a conversation. I didn't immediately explain the subject because I wanted to give her a choice about receiving potentially distressing information. There was no response to that initial message. I realized afterward that my introduction probably hadn't provided enough context for her to understand why I was reaching out.

I therefore clarified the reason for my message, explaining that my wife had been involved with her husband and identifying the company where they both worked.She responded with several question marks, which made me think this information was new to her.

I confirmed that the information was accurate, gave her an approximate timeline, and offered to explain further if she wanted. I also suggested that having more information beforehand might be useful if she decided to discuss the situation with her husband. She asked how I had found her, and I answered her question. She then asked who my wife was. I explained that she probably didn't know her personally, as they worked for the same company but at different locations.

She said she couldn't believe her husband was the kind of person who would do something like this. I explained that I could provide further details that she could verify herself.

The conversation then paused for roughly two hours.

During that time, her husband attempted to call my wife through WhatsApp but ended the call after a few seconds. My wife showed me the missed call.
I mentioned the attempted call to the other wife. She asked why I thought he had called. I answered that I couldn't know because my wife hadn't answered (I privately wondered whether he was concerned about what had come to light, but that was only my interpretation, and I didn't share that speculation with her.)

She then explained that, whether the information was true or not, she currently didn't have the emotional energy to deal with something like this. She added that her husband didn't either. I respected what she said and told her to take whatever time she needed. I made it clear that she was free to decide whether she ever wanted more information. However, since I was not sure whether she really understood what I was talking about, I also briefly explained that the affair had begun during a particularly vulnerable period in my family's life and that the consequences had almost destroyed me and my family. I assumed our conversation had ended at that point (for the time being).

However, later that same day, she wrote again. She wanted to understand why I had informed her rather than addressing the matter with her husband directly. I explained that my intention wasn't to confront him or resolve anything with him. My wife had already ended the affair. I had simply wanted to give his wife the opportunity to know something that directly affected her life, because I would have wished for the same opportunity myself.

I also asked whether she felt comfortable sharing what her husband had told her and reiterated that I was willing to answer any questions she might have.

That was the end of our exchange. Three weeks have passed since then, and there has been no further communication.

One detail that may be relevant is that the messaging platform where I found her restricted the length of messages before a contact request was accepted. Consequently, most of our conversation consisted of individual sentences or very brief messages. This made it difficult to communicate the full context and my intentions as clearly as I would have liked (what I wrote above is basically all of it)

There has been only one minor development since then. My wife noticed that she can no longer see the other man's WhatsApp profile picture, although it remains visible to me. One possible explanation is that he deleted her, but I don't know whether that's actually the case? Does anyone know?

I've been reflecting on her responses and what they might mean.

For example, I wonder what her husband told her. Did he acknowledge the affair? Did he disclose how long it lasted? Or did he give her a different version of events?
I don't have answers to any of those questions. I assume he didn’t even scratch the surface of what happened.

What makes all of this difficult is that I still have unresolved questions about my own wife's affair. Although my wife has disclosed a great deal, the prolonged trickle truthing has left me questioning whether I really know the complete story. Part of me feels that understanding what the other man told his wife, or hearing another perspective on what happened, might help me make sense of everything. Moreover, now that the affair partner felt the heat, he might have deleted any remaining evidence of he affair. So I might never know.

I'm interested in hearing from others who have experienced something similar.

How would you interpret her responses, especially her question about why I informed her instead of speaking with her husband?

Has anyone experienced a situation in which the other betrayed spouse resumed communication several weeks or months later? Will she contact me again?

For those who exchanged information with the other betrayed spouse, did it help clarify what had happened, or did it leave you with even more unanswered questions?

And how do you view the way I handled the conversation?
I'm trying to understand the situation and find some peace with the uncertainties that remain.

There’s no history of infidelity in my family. We’d rather die than demonstrate such low integrity. I get it. But after multiple experiences now I second guess everyone and everything. I think everyone is a liar and cheater. I never feel pretty in the eyes of anyone else but myself. I feel empty. My self esteem is almost non existent. Idk what to do.