u/ashlynnk

25 days ago I posted about the conversation my dusty, cheating husband had with our friends. I have barely talked to either one of them since my husband went to see them (I don’t know where they’re at, mentally, and I need some space).

In sort of a major plot twist, I have been in regular communication with my husband’s girlfriend’s husband, and recently there’s been a shift in our communication. Less “them” centered, more about us, and things have… progressed. He’s 8 years younger than me, and we’re trying to be mindful of the sensitive situation, but we both agree there are feelings there worth exploring.

My divorce will be final in July and his in August. Our spouses do not know yet, but our social lives are so ingrained with the gym community that they will eventually find out.

Both of us have clauses in our separation agreement that say we call freely date other people, so no concerns with a divorce fallout. I think we both sort of got blindsided by how this all played out, including between us.

25 days ago I posted about the conversation my dusty, cheating husband had with our friends. I have barely talked to either one of them since my husband went to see them (I don’t know where they’re at, mentally, and I need some space).

In sort of a major plot twist, I have been in regular communication with my husband’s girlfriend’s husband, and recently there’s been a shift in our communication. Less “them” centered, more about us, and things have… progressed. He’s 8 years younger than me, and we’re trying to be mindful of the sensitive situation, but we both agree there are feelings there worth exploring.

My divorce will be final in July and his in August. Our spouses do not know yet, but our social lives are so ingrained with the gym community that they will eventually find out.

Both of us have clauses in our separation agreement that say we call freely date other people, so no concerns with a divorce fallout. I think we both sort of got blindsided by how this all played out, including between us.

Just over two weeks ago I posted about how well I was doing, but my best friends (a couple) reached out to my ex (he was their best friend too) to get closure and seek answers.

My husband went and spoke to them in person… For three hours. The cliffs notes are I was the perfect wife, the perfect stepmother to his children, I checked “9 out of 10 boxes” but something was missing and he had been unhappy for YEARS. Sir, we have only been married for three. He has accepted this was the level of happy he was capable of being, until he met Dillan. She had what he was missing. He’s happy talking to her, he’s happy spending time with her, and he understands he’s in the “thrill” part of the relationship. Divorce was inevitable because he wasn’t happy, Dillan was just “rocket fuel” on the situation.

You guys. This man had multiple surgeries to try and make a baby with me, the last one being 8 months before he blew up his life. He let me put my name on a car for his daughter two weeks before I found out (I’m not on the loan anymore). I have given him >$25k to help pay down his debt, I’ve taken our family (him and his kids, we don’t have one.. Thank God) on multiple family vacations, including one to London the week before Christmas and a month before I found out.

He has never once, not once, told me he was unhappy. I was even more furious than before to find out that was his excuse. I’d rather it have been “We got complacent, our marriage was a little boring and I got in a little over my head with someone at work and I didn’t know how to make it stop.” It was no longer him on trial, it was our marriage, and our friends believed it.

I haven’t sent him a thing outside of package and mail logistics since he left my house, but I wrote him a text the following day:

In no world do you deserve access to my thoughts, but I’m going to break my rule and let you have this one.

You don’t get to say you were unhappy for years like that explains what you did. I was stressing about your finances, taking care of our family, fighting for our marriage, and trying to have a baby with you. If you were that unhappy, you owed me the truth before Dillan, before the lies, before letting me keep investing in a future you were abandoning.

You didn’t leave because you were brave. You left because a work crush gave you an exit, and you rewrote our marriage to make yourself feel better.

I know what I lived. I know how hard I fought. And I know you let me fight alone. If this is the version you believe, how dare you let me do everything I’ve done for this family while you couldn’t even have a conversation with me.

You know what left with you when you walked out of my house? Your problems. I spent years fighting for you because I loved you. I spent years trying to fix your problems, and instead of partnership and loyalty, I got lies, pain, and utter betrayal. Your problems are yours now. Until you figure out how to fix them, your unhappiness will find you in this relationship, and the next, and the next, until you get too tired to run from yourself. But all you’ll have left behind you is destruction.

I was unhappy because I was carrying you, but I loved you and I was ready to fight for us. You were unhappy and made my loyalty out to be something you had to survive. I was trying to keep our head above water before I found out you were the one drowning me.

You do not get to use private unhappiness as an explanation for public betrayal. Not with me.

——————

I’m still ok. It’s been an emotional few days… the hardest since this started, but I’ll be ok.

Just over two weeks ago I posted about how well I was doing, but my best friends (a couple) reached out to my ex (he was their best friend too) to get closure and seek answers.

My husband went and spoke to them in person… For three hours. The cliffs notes are I was the perfect wife, the perfect stepmother to his children, I checked “9 out of 10 boxes” but something was missing and he had been unhappy for YEARS. Sir, we have only been married for three. He has accepted this was the level of happy he was capable of being, until he met Dillan. She had what he was missing. He’s happy talking to her, he’s happy spending time with her, and he understands he’s in the “thrill” part of the relationship. Divorce was inevitable because he wasn’t happy, Dillan was just “rocket fuel” on the situation.

You guys. This man had multiple surgeries to try and make a baby with me, the last one being 8 months before he blew up his life. He let me put my name on a car for his daughter two weeks before I found out (I’m not on the loan anymore). I have given him >$25k to help pay down his debt, I’ve taken our family (him and his kids, we don’t have one.. Thank God) on multiple family vacations, including one to London the week before Christmas and a month before I found out.

He has never once, not once, told me he was unhappy. I was even more furious than before to find out that was his excuse. I’d rather it have been “We got complacent, our marriage was a little boring and I got in a little over my head with someone at work and I didn’t know how to make it stop.” It was no longer him on trial, it was our marriage, and our friends believed it.

I haven’t sent him a thing outside of package and mail logistics since he left my house, but I wrote him a text the following day:

In no world do you deserve access to my thoughts, but I’m going to break my rule and let you have this one.

You don’t get to say you were unhappy for years like that explains what you did. I was stressing about your finances, taking care of our family, fighting for our marriage, and trying to have a baby with you. If you were that unhappy, you owed me the truth before Dillan, before the lies, before letting me keep investing in a future you were abandoning.

You didn’t leave because you were brave. You left because a work crush gave you an exit, and you rewrote our marriage to make yourself feel better.

I know what I lived. I know how hard I fought. And I know you let me fight alone. If this is the version you believe, how dare you let me do everything I’ve done for this family while you couldn’t even have a conversation with me.

You know what left with you when you walked out of my house? Your problems. I spent years fighting for you because I loved you. I spent years trying to fix your problems, and instead of partnership and loyalty, I got lies, pain, and utter betrayal. Your problems are yours now. Until you figure out how to fix them, your unhappiness will find you in this relationship, and the next, and the next, until you get too tired to run from yourself. But all you’ll have left behind you is destruction.

I was unhappy because I was carrying you, but I loved you and I was ready to fight for us. You were unhappy and made my loyalty out to be something you had to survive. I was trying to keep our head above water before I found out you were the one drowning me.

You do not get to use private unhappiness as an explanation for public betrayal. Not with me.

——————

I’m still ok. It’s been an emotional few days… the hardest since this started, but I’ll be ok.

Just over two weeks ago I posted about how well I was doing, but my best friends (a couple) reached out to my ex (he was their best friend too) to get closure and seek answers.

My husband went and spoke to them in person… For three hours. The cliffs notes are I was the perfect wife, the perfect stepmother to his children, I checked “9 out of 10 boxes” but something was missing and he had been unhappy for YEARS. Sir, we have only been married for three. He has accepted this was the level of happy he was capable of being, until he met Dillan. She had what he was missing. He’s happy talking to her, he’s happy spending time with her, and he understands he’s in the “thrill” part of the relationship. Divorce was inevitable because he wasn’t happy, Dillan was just “rocket fuel” on the situation.

You guys. This man had multiple surgeries to try and make a baby with me, the last one being 8 months before he blew up his life. He let me put my name on a car for his daughter two weeks before I found out (I’m not on the loan anymore). I have given him >$25k to help pay down his debt, I’ve taken our family (him and his kids, we don’t have one.. Thank God) on multiple family vacations, including one to London the week before Christmas and a month before I found out.

He has never once, not once, told me he was unhappy. I was even more furious than before to find out that was his excuse. I’d rather it have been “We got complacent, our marriage was a little boring and I got in a little over my head with someone at work and I didn’t know how to make it stop.” It was no longer him on trial, it was our marriage, and our friends believed it.

I haven’t sent him a thing outside of package and mail logistics since he left my house, but I wrote him a text the following day:

In no world do you deserve access to my thoughts, but I’m going to break my rule and let you have this one.

You don’t get to say you were unhappy for years like that explains what you did. I was stressing about your finances, taking care of our family, fighting for our marriage, and trying to have a baby with you. If you were that unhappy, you owed me the truth before Dillan, before the lies, before letting me keep investing in a future you were abandoning.

You didn’t leave because you were brave. You left because a work crush gave you an exit, and you rewrote our marriage to make yourself feel better.

I know what I lived. I know how hard I fought. And I know you let me fight alone. If this is the version you believe, how dare you let me do everything I’ve done for this family while you couldn’t even have a conversation with me.

You know what left with you when you walked out of my house? Your problems. I spent years fighting for you because I loved you. I spent years trying to fix your problems, and instead of partnership and loyalty, I got lies, pain, and utter betrayal. Your problems are yours now. Until you figure out how to fix them, your unhappiness will find you in this relationship, and the next, and the next, until you get too tired to run from yourself. But all you’ll have left behind you is destruction.

I was unhappy because I was carrying you, but I loved you and I was ready to fight for us. You were unhappy and made my loyalty out to be something you had to survive. I was trying to keep our head above water before I found out you were the one drowning me.

You do not get to use private unhappiness as an explanation for public betrayal. Not with me.

——————

I’m still ok. It’s been an emotional few days… the hardest since this started, but I’ll be ok.

We aren’t official yet, but it’s been quite a journey. 95 days ago I was in a really rough place, I can’t tell you how many times I door dashed Panera Mac and cheese and ate it in bed. Some days I barely even got out of bed, and forget about the gym.

My husband signed the lease on his apartment on Valentine’s Day, I went to be with friends and he spent the day with his girlfriend. She came to the gym, around my friends, to hang out with my husband that day which made everyone uncomfortable. This was the catalyst to him being fired from his coaching position, though that would take another month or so to happen. He told me he could not afford to move out on his own without the $35,000 we had negotiated for him since he had so much debt. I dragged my feet a little on that, but he finally got his check on April 10th.

Since April, things have genuinely been looking up for me. I’m constantly traveling for work, so that’s helped. Q1 was quite possibly the worst 3 months of my personal life, but professionally I had the most success I’ve ever seen (a miracle, honestly). I’m on target to double what I made last year, I’ve been checking things off my bucket list, taking trips to do things I’ve always wanted to do, but was too expensive with 4 people. I’ve lost 45 pounds, and I’m pumped full of Botox (no shame here 😅). I see my oldest step daughter almost daily because she still gets the school bus off at my house, I see the youngest at her games and events when I’m around and able to attend. She gives me big hugs and tells me she loves me, her dad is there but I don’t acknowledge him at all. The last time I saw him he looked miserable. Arms crossed, gaze forward, stoic while I was laughing and joking with the kids and his first ex.

His girlfriend makes $19.75 an hour (him too, but he does have retirement/disability from the military) and stays at his apartment when the girls aren’t there. They know her, but I’m not clear on the nature of that relationship since I don’t ask. They’ve told their mom they don’t understand why they’re together, and my husband has given his girlfriend the nickname “Dillan the Villain” and calls her that in front of the girls. Honestly, that upset me more than I care to admit. I’m glad they can make a joke about imploding everyone’s lives, including the children. At the end of the day, he’s only hurting how the girls perceive her too since he literally pulled the rug out from under them as well. He’s riddled with debt and I’m waiting for the money I gave him to run out.

Overall, I’m ok. I constantly get compliments about how great I look, that I’m glowing, that I look younger (probably the Botox!). He was also always striving for the greenest grass in the neighborhood, so I made it my mission to make sure I accomplished that… and I have! By myself, and he gets to see it when he picks up his daughter from my house. I’m toying with the idea of a divorce party at our wedding venue for fun…

Ultimately, I kept the house, the dogs, the friends, the gym, my dignity and success… I don’t know if he’s feeling as good as I am in this moment, but I feel like a weights been lifted from my shoulders. I do have my moments, but they’re fleeting. Just know there’s hope on the other side.

We aren’t official yet, but it’s been quite a journey. 95 days ago I was in a really rough place, I can’t tell you how many times I door dashed Panera Mac and cheese and ate it in bed. Some days I barely even got out of bed, and forget about the gym.

My husband signed the lease on his apartment on Valentine’s Day, I went to be with friends and he spent the day with his girlfriend. She came to the gym, around my friends, to hang out with my husband that day which made everyone uncomfortable. This was the catalyst to him being fired from his coaching position, though that would take another month or so to happen. He told me he could not afford to move out on his own without the $35,000 we had negotiated for him since he had so much debt. I dragged my feet a little on that, but he finally got his check on April 10th.

Since April, things have genuinely been looking up for me. I’m constantly traveling for work, so that’s helped. Q1 was quite possibly the worst 3 months of my personal life, but professionally I had the most success I’ve ever seen (a miracle, honestly). I’m on target to double what I made last year, I’ve been checking things off my bucket list, taking trips to do things I’ve always wanted to do, but was too expensive with 4 people. I’ve lost 45 pounds, and I’m pumped full of Botox (no shame here 😅). I see my oldest step daughter almost daily because she still gets the school bus off at my house, I see the youngest at her games and events when I’m around and able to attend. She gives me big hugs and tells me she loves me, her dad is there but I don’t acknowledge him at all. The last time I saw him he looked miserable. Arms crossed, gaze forward, stoic while I was laughing and joking with the kids and his first ex.

His girlfriend makes $19.75 an hour (him too, but he does have retirement/disability from the military) and stays at his apartment when the girls aren’t there. They know her, but I’m not clear on the nature of that relationship since I don’t ask. They’ve told their mom they don’t understand why they’re together, and my husband has given his girlfriend the nickname “Dillan the Villain” and calls her that in front of the girls. Honestly, that upset me more than I care to admit. I’m glad they can make a joke about imploding everyone’s lives, including the children. At the end of the day, he’s only hurting how the girls perceive her too since he literally pulled the rug out from under them as well. He’s riddled with debt and I’m waiting for the money I gave him to run out.

Overall, I’m ok. I constantly get compliments about how great I look, that I’m glowing, that I look younger (probably the Botox!). He was also always striving for the greenest grass in the neighborhood, so I made it my mission to make sure I accomplished that… and I have! By myself, and he gets to see it when he picks up his daughter from my house. I’m toying with the idea of a divorce party at our wedding venue for fun…

Ultimately, I kept the house, the dogs, the friends, the gym, my dignity and success… I don’t know if he’s feeling as good as I am in this moment, but I feel like a weights been lifted from my shoulders. I do have my moments, but they’re fleeting. Just know there’s hope on the other side.

We aren’t official yet, but it’s been quite a journey. 95 days ago I was in a really rough place, I can’t tell you how many times I door dashed Panera Mac and cheese and ate it in bed. Some days I barely even got out of bed, and forget about the gym.

My husband signed the lease on his apartment on Valentine’s Day, I went to be with friends and he spent the day with his girlfriend. She came to the gym, around my friends, to hang out with my husband that day which made everyone uncomfortable. This was the catalyst to him being fired from his coaching position, though that would take another month or so to happen. He told me he could not afford to move out on his own without the $35,000 we had negotiated for him since he had so much debt. I dragged my feet a little on that, but he finally got his check on April 10th.

Since April, things have genuinely been looking up for me. I’m constantly traveling for work, so that’s helped. Q1 was quite possibly the worst 3 months of my personal life, but professionally I had the most success I’ve ever seen (a miracle, honestly). I’m on target to double what I made last year, I’ve been checking things off my bucket list, taking trips to do things I’ve always wanted to do, but was too expensive with 4 people. I’ve lost 45 pounds, and I’m pumped full of Botox (no shame here 😅). I see my oldest step daughter almost daily because she still gets the school bus off at my house, I see the youngest at her games and events when I’m around and able to attend. She gives me big hugs and tells me she loves me, her dad is there but I don’t acknowledge him at all. The last time I saw him he looked miserable. Arms crossed, gaze forward, stoic while I was laughing and joking with the kids and his first ex.

His girlfriend makes $19.75 an hour (him too, but he does have retirement/disability from the military) and stays at his apartment when the girls aren’t there. They know her, but I’m not clear on the nature of that relationship since I don’t ask. They’ve told their mom they don’t understand why they’re together, and my husband has given his girlfriend the nickname “Dillan the Villain” and calls her that in front of the girls. Honestly, that upset me more than I care to admit. I’m glad they can make a joke about imploding everyone’s lives, including the children. At the end of the day, he’s only hurting how the girls perceive her too since he literally pulled the rug out from under them as well. He’s riddled with debt and I’m waiting for the money I gave him to run out.

Overall, I’m ok. I constantly get compliments about how great I look, that I’m glowing, that I look younger (probably the Botox!). He was also always striving for the greenest grass in the neighborhood, so I made it my mission to make sure I accomplished that… and I have! By myself, and he gets to see it when he picks up his daughter from my house. I’m toying with the idea of a divorce party at our wedding venue for fun…

Ultimately, I kept the house, the dogs, the friends, the gym, my dignity and success… I don’t know if he’s feeling as good as I am in this moment, but I feel like a weights been lifted from my shoulders. I do have my moments, but they’re fleeting. Just know there’s hope on the other side.