r/Infidelity

Well the title says it all. I’ve had a hunch this week (Wednesday) because I always set his alarms for him when he’s falling asleep for bed but that night I was doing it & he he asked me what I was doing on his phone when he saw it in my hand. I thought that was a weird thing to say because he never cares if I have his cellphone. We’ve been together for years & the last time we broke up, 3 years ago he was seeing this a girl named Jessica. They had sex & it was unprotected because she was claiming she may be pregnant by him (I saw his messages with her in 2023) I was also seeing other people. We both decided we wanted to get back together for our then 8 year old & leave the past behind. Back to the present, I decided after the comment he made I was going to look at his phone that night & see what made him act so funny. Sure enough his Instagram app was deleted, which is WEIRD we always message one another funny videos on that app & we both actively use it to talk when he works so no reason to delete it.. sure enough I re install it & open it & there she was. Jessica with a message thread. 2 unread messages waiting, the thread had disappearing messages turned on. So I could only see that day. I saw flirting between them both, him saying “I’m sorry I couldn’t see you but I’ll try this Sunday “ & another of her sending a pic of her body. Then he sent one of himself. Clothes on. THIS TIME. I immediately started crying & freaking out. I just couldn’t believe what I was reading. I felt gut punched. He was making plans to see her? Why? My baby shower is this Saturday. Anyway I confronted him & he said it was a mistake & a “hiccup” & he doesn’t know what he was thinking. He said it was over with. I had no choice but to believe him & go to sleep. Or try. I didn’t sleep much that night. Next morning, he left for work at 5am. The usual. I checked his Instagram on his laptop to see if he really meant he was not going to speak to her & guess what? He messaged her and said “sorry my girl is on me” she said “yea I know” & then he literally said “I do want to see you & be intimate trust me but I don’t think it’s possible & I don’t want to hurt my fam.” She said “I’ve waited 3 years for you & I’ll wait months or years anytime you want to come back but you always do this to me. I still accept you & I had a hard time getting over you after 3 years.” He said “I accept you too but it really can’t work unless it’s discreet” when I tell you reading that absolutely made me spiral. I could not believe instead of breaking it off he was just apologizing for ME catching them & saying it can’t work UNLESS they hide it better.” Then she sent him her phone number and said to use what’s app to talk. Then the messages went silent. Of course I know they took the conversation to what’s app. I’m not an idiot but I did not have access to that app since it’s on his cellphone & he was working at the moment but I cried so much & could only imagine what they were talking about now. Not only that she knows about me & that I am about to have his baby I’m due November 20th & she still wants to talk to him & is more than willing to be sneaky with him. They both make me feel like I’m a big dumb idiot pregnant girl who is crying trying to keep my family together & they’re acting as if I’m the issue.. anyway I confronted him AGAIN after work & he said the usual he’s “sorry” he doesn’t know what he’s thinking but how hurt I was really is hurting him & he doesn’t want to lose me so he really is done with her & he is really cutting her off. Again I have no other choice but to let it go. I’m pregnant almost due, no job, we share a jeep suv & he drives a my gold Camry to work (it’s not in the best shape bc he doesn’t take care of it) but the jeep was gifted to us by his sister for our Family & I take great care of it. I do all the maintenance & keep up with the oil changes, keeping it clean, etc. but it’s technically not mine. I can’t move anywhere because I don’t have any money & I can’t stay with my parents because my sister is currently moving in with her again to save money. There’s no room for me. I feel very trapped. But that’s not the end of it. I knew he wasn’t done talking to this girl Jessica because she actively seeks him out when he doesn’t reply (in the past I saw this) & she just went radio silent? I didn’t believe it. Well last night I checked his photos and he had 3 photos that were saved from what’s app. One his a selfie of him at work that I never got. The other is his work site, & the last was a nude of his hard penis. THAT IS WHEN I WENT CRAZY. I began to sike out. He was in bed & I woke him up & said I knew you weren’t telling me truth why are you sending her these pictures why are you naked? Why?! Why! WHY!!! & he took the naked pic of himself when I was at my best friends house & it was in OUR bathroom. My thing is, what were they texting about for him to become so aroused ? She makes him so sexually aroused that he took a picture and shared it with her & we’ve had makeup sex 2 times after the first argument because I was so emotional & I just wanted to feel loved. But no, he wants her. It feels like I am now the issue & im getting in the way of them seeing each other & it feels like he is going to see her one way or another now. I mean I can’t keep stalking his cellphone everytime I see now it’s escalating into something more & more & im looking like a fool. I want advice now. I know I want to break up with him. I know this means he doesn’t love me because I cried so much my belly became so tight. I didn’t eat or sleep much this week & I even felt suicidal last night. What do I do? I have no options & it feels like that’s why he chose to cheat on me right now because I am stuck & I can’t leave because I’m so pregnant. I feel so betrayed and sick. I can’t even look him the same anymore. He apologized again but I don’t trust a word he says. He seems to really like this girl & I feel like I am the problem. Please someone tell me why he would do something like this to me when I’ve been loyal and pregnant. That’s all.

Well, Reddit, I don't really know how to start because I'm new here. However, since I'm on the spectrum, my therapist says I need to vent sometimes. I don't have anyone I fully trust, so who better than a bunch of strangers on Reddit, right?

This is part one of my saga (lol). Sorry for any typos, but English is not my first language.

So, when I (35M) was in high school, I had a good friend (who was 14F at the time). We spent a lot of time together, but even though we were the same age, I was two grades ahead. When I got into college, we lost contact because I had to go to classes in the morning and work in the afternoon and evening.

Then, in 2019, I was living in another state and was about to finish my PhD. I was scrolling through social media and saw her in the suggestions. I instantly hit follow, and the very next day, we started catching up. A week later, we clicked so much that I realized I was completely falling for her. We still had a lot in common and spent a lot of time video chatting. I’m a professor and she is a lawyer now, so we had a lot to catch up on and talk about.

In November, she came to visit me for a long weekend and, boy, none of our plans worked because the sex was so good that we didn't even leave the house. I already had plans to come back to my hometown after finishing my PhD, and once everything was settled, I got a job as a professor at my former high school and moved back. In December, we took a two-week vacation with my family at our beach house. It was amazing. We spent a lot of time together, talked a lot when we were apart, and just before the pandemic hit, I got my dream job at the university in my hometown.

I really didn't see any red flags. We spent almost every weekend together at my apartment or at her mother's house. We traveled and went on dates (before the lockdown).

But in October of 2020, something happened. She came to my apartment and she was... just off. She was really distant and sad. I asked her what had happened, but she said it was just work stuff, so I didn't press. The day after, she was worse and started crying while we were watching a documentary. That's when I pressed her to tell me what was going on.

Then, the truth came out. She said, "My boyfriend of 8 years broke up with me yesterday morning."

I was in shock. Boyfriend? 8 years?

She told me everything. His best friend had seen us holding hands and kissing in the street, took pictures, and sent them to him. He ended things right then and there. I was paralyzed while she talked and cried her eyes out. I just left the bedroom and went to the kitchen without saying a word. I opened a bottle of wine and stayed there all night, asking myself, "How?"

I revisited all my memories looking for signs or anything that could make that story make sense, but I couldn't find anything. Her family had welcomed me into their house, we had a full relationship going, and she always messaged me when we were not together... None of it made any sense, but for me, that was the end. I despise any kind of cheating, and being the unwitting object of infidelity left me catatonic.

When the sun rose, I stopped drinking after the third bottle, woke her up, and told her to grab her things and leave. I never answered any of her messages or picked up any calls. I was done. Yes, I was crushed, but I didn't feel the need for any closure or explanation.

Then, two weeks later, I received a follow request from a guy I had never seen before. He messaged me to explain who he was. It was him—"The Boyfriend." He told me not to worry, that he didn't want to fight or anything, but wanted to meet me for coffee over the weekend. He seemed like a nice guy, so I agreed.

We met at a coffee shop downtown and he introduced himself.

"Yeah, you know who I am, so let's get straight to the point because I'm very uncomfortable with this," I said.

He asked me questions, and I told him everything. Then I asked him how her family could be so complacent with all of this. He didn't know. But he did tell me that she lived with him part-time because he lived in a rural area, and when she had to work, she stayed with her mother. He is a climber, so he travels a lot to the mountains with his buddies. That's why she had so much time to spend with me without either of us suspecting a thing.

He was a really nice guy, but that was just too much for me. I apologized, even though we both knew it wasn't my fault, but I respectfully asked him not to contact me again because the whole situation was overwhelming. I was numb, and to this day, I don't know how someone can do this kind of thing to someone they claim to love.

We were together for 3.5 years and we started dating in high school. Once we went to college, we did long-distance for about 3 months and then mid-distance for about 3 months (I transferred closer to home, not for him). Well, about a month into school, he cheated on me with a girl named T. After he cheated on me, he and T did nothing after that.

Over the summer, I broke up with him for unrelated reasons because he was low-key becoming a shitty BF, and I was just confused and heartbroken because he was never like that. After we broke up, we were in limbo, talking but not together, and we would hook up.

Well, we both went back to school and stayed in touch. One day we were talking, and he admitted to cheating on me last year. I was DISTRAUGHT. Everything suddenly clicked into place about why he was a shitty boyfriend. I went no contact with him after that for about 2 weeks, and one Friday he texted me saying he missed me and that it was the worst mistake of his life.

We are still kind of talking, but I was wondering if anyone has gotten back together with their ex after cheating. I am not planning to go back anytime soon, but I honestly am just wondering. He was a massive part of my life, and he's also my best friend.

I never thought I would be posting here. It still hurts even now. I caught my spouse having an affair with someone he met in a subreddit here. He has Reddit for a long time. I just let it go because I thought this app was harmless. But it turns out it’s not. This is where he found his affair partner. I can open his phone. I don’t see anything. Nothing on Messenger. But I don’t know. I just have this feeling. A woman’s instinct. My gut was telling me something was off. Until one night, it was like something pushed me to open his email, and that’s when I saw it. He was emailing his Reddit account to his mistress. He probably delete it after they talk. Then the next day, he will create a new account and email it to her again. What an effort just to cheat. I'm in tears as I type this. I can’t believe he would do that. 💔

Throughout mine and my husband’s relationship he has done several things such as saving girls nudes, deleting messages with girls, adding random girls and most recently I found out he made an OF account using a hidden email( which I discovered while he was in navy bootcamp) which he made while I was pregnant with our first child. I feel betrayed and like I have been cheated on multiple times but since he’s never done anything physical (that I know of) I feel like maybe I’m exaggerating. I think it’s also important to state that I have set boundaries in which I stated any of the above mentioned things would make me uncomfortable. I suppose my question is would I be able to say my husband has cheated on me.
….. I know this may seem stupid but after years of being gaslit I don’t know what to think anymore.

So been with this woman for 3 years, engaged and all that. Last weekend she said she was going on a last minute girls trip out of town about 3 hours to the next city over, no worries have fun and be safe.
Fast forward 48 hours, she’s not where she is supposed to be. Instead of going to the next city over she is 7 hours away and out of state in a tiny town over the border that just so happens to be the same town an ex of hers lives, has been there since day 0 and is still there.
I confronted her (she’s been gone for A WEEK now) she believes she did nothing wrong and insists she didn’t technically cheat and went there to work a job that just so happens to also be at his place of business.

Maybe I’m being dramatic (don’t think so though) but spending a week out of state with an ex, regardless of purpose, and lying directly to my face seems like enough for me to terminate the relationship. She’s right I technically can’t prove they were physically together but c’mon right? Also, hasn’t bothered to apologize either, not that it matters at this point.

I know I’m not in the right for doing so, but I checked her Instagram dms and turns out for the last few months of our relationship she was texting an ex (who had cheated on her) romantically, like saying how their going to move in together and how they love each other and all that, it was also revealed that they had sex while her and I were still together and also how there’s this other guy she’s been helping sneak in to her room in the middle of the night and there were messages about how they made out and gave each other hickeys when he would sneak in.. the ex doesn’t know so not only is she lying to me but to the ex and the other guy. I’ve blocked her on everything and do not intend on seeing or talking to her ever again. I feel guilty for snooping but man am I glad I did, I dodged a real bullet. She had broken up with me a while after her and her ex had sex saying that she wanted to focus on school and herself, well It’s good to know that was a goddamn lie and she only said that to not be accountable for doing sensual things with other men. Looking for some insight and words to help me get past this, thanks.

Quick bio: my ex who I was with for 10 years (married 7 of those) cheated on me and left me for his affair partner. We have two little girls together (4 and 6 yrs old). He is 34 his affair partner (who he married just 1 year after our divorce) is 25. They are having a baby together. They also moved 14 hours away so my kids have seen their dad 6 nights in the last 2 1/2 years.

I just so badly want to see them fail. I spiral constantly wondering what the fuck I did to deserve being a single mom.

So anyways those of you who married your affair partner I’m curious what your emotions were. Like did you feel bad? Do you tell people the truth of how you got together. Are you still with the affair partner?

They work at a fire department and everyone thinks they are just the best people and I’m over here knowing the truth about them and I just want everyone to hate them as much as I do.

My(26) gf(29) already had a long history of cheating. We were giving it one more try.

I saw the Bumble icon on her phone.

"I installed it because I forgot to delete my profile from the last time we were on a break (4 months ago)" she said.

"Alright, can you open the app and let me see your last conversation, to make sure the timeline is right?"

She proceeded to give a long list of excuses on why she wouldn't show me the app, all of which made no sense, while swearing she didn't talk to anyone when we were together. Even calling me controlling at one point.

I told her, if she wouldn't show me the app, I would end it. She started crying and begged for just one more night with me (while claiming there was nothing to hide there).

She then tried to bribe me with sex, but before we started she asked if she could not have to show what's there if we slept together.

I got up, got dressed, and sent her home.

She left screaming that she was innocent, and how no one would love me as much as she does lol.

Good riddance, I think im finally done.

A long history... I'd say at least five years of no intimacy with my wife we are both in our fifties. I felt rejected for many years and was told that somehow she got re traumatized (history of childhood trauma), and as a result sex left the scene. No real conversations, no serious attempts to work on the issues, no appropriate trauma informed sex therapy but mostly avoidance, blame and defensiveness. Then 3 or so years ago she had mental crisis, declared she did not want to be my wife and got involved in a long distance emotional affair that turned into physical. She filed, dismissed, filed again. The second time around I was done with it and moving on. But a few month after filing she asked for reconciliation, I agreed.

It's been a year since and not even a hint of intimacy, tenderness, touch or affection. Why? Because I have to create safety, you see I get to be responsible for her inner sense of safety while she is making little effort to help me heal from the betrayal.

I'm emotionally exhausted and have a difficult time to see light ahead, while she says she wants a healthy marriage but feels unsafe, unloved, not respected (which to me flips the situation 180). Any uncomfortable conversation (conversations a couple must have to heal after betrayal) becomes an overwhelm for her, she shuts down and leaves me alone with my pain and my grief.

Anyone can relate or had a similar experience?

[supprimé]

I (39M) need to get this off my chest and figure out where the hell to go from here, because I feel like I'm losing my mind. Some of you might remember me. I posted here before looking to hook up while my wife (37F) had just had our baby, and I got fucking roasted for it. And honestly? I don’t blame you. At the time, I left out the history because I was still trying to protect her image, even anonymously. Looking back, that in itself speaks volumes about how twisted our dynamic has been.

So, living out here in Ohio, I’m finally ready to share the rest of the story.

I've been with my wife for 12 years (legally married for 2). Last summer, I discovered she was cheating on me online with two different guys. I'm a naturally dominant person sexually, and finding out she was giving herself to strangers online completely flipped my world upside down.

The signs had been there, like acting weird with her phone, taking forever in the bathroom, staying up late. It all clicked on a trip for my parents' anniversary at a casino when I accidentally saw photos of her bent over on her phone. Later, I caught her taking mirror nudes, which forced me to check her Telegram, where I found everything. When I confronted her, she flat-out denied it and gaslit me. The breaking point happened on the way to a baseball game when I caught her texting one of them again, broke down crying, and eventually confronted her after a few drinks while trying not to ruin the night for her sisters and nieces who were with us.

Where things stand now is a mess. We now have an 8-month-old daughter. She looks and acts just like me, which is the root of why I feel confident I'm the father, but the deep-seated distrust from the affair still makes my mind wander. On the surface, we actually get along really well as co-parents and friends. It almost feels like we're dating again in some ways. But she shows zero affection or desire for anything sexual. When I try to initiate (which isn't often, because I respect that I'm not owed sex and I'm not a pest), I just get the standard "maybe later, not in the mood." I don't get angry; I just internalize it and fall into a quiet depression.

Being rejected at home, combined with the unresolved trauma of her betrayal and knowing what she freely gave to other guys online, has made me look elsewhere. Even after getting dragged on here previously, I’m still active on subreddits like random act of muff dive because I crave that physical validation. I know that makes me a hypocrite or a piece of shit in the grand scheme of things, but getting turned down at home drives me to look outside of it.

I don't even fully know what I'm looking for by posting this. Just validation, advice, or a reality check.
Am I completely fucked here? Can a guy actually exist long-term as a dedicated dad, a friendly co-parent/husband, and a redditor seeking out random intimacy on the side to cope with a dead bedroom? How do people survive this kind of wreckage?

I’ve been with my fiancé for many years.
Over the last few months, I found out he’s been cheating on me throughout most of our relationship with multiple women. He denied everything for months until I started finding undeniable evidence of multiple affairs.

I ended up reaching out to some of the women because at that point I couldn’t believe anything he told me. I honestly hate that I even had to disrespect myself like that, but he would deny even meeting these women when I had evidence right in front of me.

I feel like I found out the person I spent years building a life with had a completely separate life I knew nothing about.

I broke up with him, but somehow I’m still considering reconciliation. He’s remorseful now, says he loves me and wants to change. He is looking into sex addiction therapists.

I know exactly what I would tell another woman in my situation, which makes me feel even more stupid for struggling with this. But this is the only serious relationship I’ve ever known. Our lives and families are completely intertwined and it’s hard to just shut off years of loving someone.

Has anyone here actually rebuilt after long-term/serial cheating? What did your partner do that made you believe they had really changed?
And for anyone who tried to reconcile and eventually left, what finally made you realize you were done?

Please don’t judge me for even considering staying. I already feel stupid enough. I’m just really sad and having a hard time accepting that the person I thought I knew might not have existed the way I thought he did.

sorry for this criminally long story but the reason why i‘m posting this is bc i‘d like to know if this is normal. this is my first ever breakup, it honestly emotionally drained me so much which is why i hope someone can look at this from an outside perspective. am i overreacting when i say this is not healthy behavior? i‘d love to hear any thought you have on this, and i can answer any questions you have too.

here is some context: last year (feb-apr), i was in montreal where i met a guy. we met in february and made it official in march, and when i left montreal, he told me he wanted to try long-distance. even though we weren‘t together for a long time at that point, we had a pretty deep, meaningful connection and neither of us expected that. we did long-distance, and in august he broke up with me bc the long-distance was feeling like a job to him, that his work + the relationship is exhausting him and that he can‘t put in the effort i needed from him. he constantly reassured me that it had nothing to do with me, i deserve better and that i will always hold a special place in his heart etc.

after the breakup for the first two weeks, he would text me every day (pretty much exactly how we would when we were together), calling me pet names, telling me he loved me (which confused me but at the time i didn‘t know these weren‘t healthy boundaries). he confided in me that he is talking to new girls on insta, telling me he‘s having a hard time talking to them bc he still thinks about us (like dude no one is forcing you but wtv). he even gave me their insta bc he wanted to be honest with me (again, no boundaries here but this was my first breakup so i didn‘t know any better). after around two weeks of this, he sends me this long-ass goodbye paragraph where he says he has been going on a few dates with this new girl and that it is time for him to move on from me („it‘s time for me to flip the page on this one“). again, he says i mean a lot to him and he will never forget what we had blah blah. this broke my heart at the time because i felt like i was being replaced/discarded for a “better“ girl, and that he would rather put in effort for a different girl than for me. i removed him on all my social media and removed him from our shared notes and shared playlists as a way to gain back control over the situation and bc i felt like it was the right thing to do.

this is the important part: pretty much since we broke up, he has been dating the same girl. they apparently made it official in december after dating since september. since our breakup, he has periodically (every few weeks to few months) reached out to me for different reasons. most of the time, he would ask how i‘m doing, or ask about how things were going in my life (like if i had moved apartments already). on holidays like christmas he would text me and also thanked me for the good times we had. i always gave him minimal answers and never initiated new questions. any type of contact we had through texting was initiated by him which naively kept me hopeful for a long time.

also, he would make public (?!) spotify playlists that were clearly directed towards me. the titles either had names we called each other, phrases we used when we were together, or were related to meaningful memories we shared. keep in mind they are public for everyone (including his new girl) to see. (it‘s one thing to privately make playlists about your ex to process it but to make them public while your gf is clueless to what they mean?? i think that‘s disrespectful to her). over time he would either change the title of the playlist to a different reference to me or add songs that we used to listen to together. i never reacted to this externally and just pretended i never saw it. it has been over six months since the breakup (three months since he made it official with his new girl) and he still has public playlists about me. one detail: i had a playlist with a subtitle that said „fleeing my country as soon as exams are over“ meaning i was going to montreal during my break. shortly after, he made the title of one of his playlists about me to „show a sign when u flee“. he also recently asked if i was going to be in montreal soon to which i answered yes (nothing else was said). also, he has recently viewed some of my insta stories (even though i removed him) and every time he did, would block me after (bc of guilt? to stop the urge? to hide it from his gf?). i know these are just small things but i‘m trying to point to the bigger picture: he is being emotionally dishonest. am i overreacting for thinking this is unfair for his new girlfriend?

at this point this is what i think: he is trying balance his conflicting needs (= staying emotionally attached to us while enjoying something new) which is emotionally immature to do. it makes it harder for me to move on bc it feels like he is still emotionally invested in us. and it is not fair for the new girl since he publicly is showing lingering feelings towards me.

(21F) This is just to let off steam. I am not looking for comfort, sympathy, or validation. I know what I did, and I know I brought the consequences on myself.

I engaged in a sexual encounter with someone knowing full well he was in a relationship. It was a selfish choice, and there is no sugarcoating or excusing it.

The secret started to leak after I mentioned it to a couple of friends who spread it after our friendship fallout. The guy then knew I broke our promise not to tell anyone and so driven by guilt, I initially made an agreement with him to take 100% of the blame: to claim I "made it all up" so he could play the victim of fake rumors and in that moment of anxiety, it just felt like taking the fall was the price I had to pay for leaking it.

When the moment to confront his girlfriend actually came, I refused to go through with that lie and not protect him anymore. So I stood in front of her, owned up completely, apologized for my part, and gave her 100% honesty about what happened. I accepted the responsibility and the embarrassment that came with it, while he refused to take a single ounce of accountability and kept denying everything to her face.

Now, the public backlash has hit me full force. I’ve been exposed and shamed on IG, my name is being dragged, and the social fallout is brutal. I deserve it all.

All that has happened has forced me to look at myself honestly, I am dealing with the immense guilt of what I did. I fully accept taking the hits but I cannot deny that it is also difficult to go through, but I feel as though I do not deserve to feel that way especially after hurting someone that did not deserve it. I just want people to know even if it’s just from this post alone that I am genuinely doing the work to be better. This was a huge lesson in my life, and I hope that once college is over all of this will pass. Maybe not fully forever, but I know someone understands.

I have been with this guy for 1 year in an exclusive and committed relationship (or so I thought). We have recently discussed marriage and he said that he wanted to propose to me soon. Last weekend I found out that he never deleted his dating app after we became exclusive and that he has been matching/flirting/messaging with new women behind my back. When I confronted him he denied at first, and only admitted when I showed him the evidence. I broke up with him on the spot.

Now he has been texting me everyday insisting that what he did was not cheating since all he did was “flirting around” and he never planned to meet with anyone. To him, no meeting means no cheating. He even told me that when he’s at work (he’s a nail technician), he flirts/banters with his customers too so why did I make such big deal and terminate the relationship over some flirting? 🤦‍♀️

What he did was absolutely cheating and I was right for breaking up with him, right?

not really suprised and depressed, im actually more excited to finally have the reason to get rid of her from me. she cheated with a guy on discord, found her chat with a dude and she sent pics and sexting and shit. im already suspected her to do stuff behind my back irl and online but i dont care much to look for evidence, but funnily enough it came unto my hand

not looking for simpathy and a side to decide, just want to know how do you deal with this kind of thing

my boyfriend and i were together for 8 months, and after 8 months i found out about his porn and sex addiction. I had no idea he had the extent his sex addiction went to throughout our relationship and he cheated on me the whole time. it happened to be a coincidence i found out, when i caught him somewhere he shouldn’t be one night. the 4 months following, i tried to reconcile. we were on/off. one day good, the next 3 days are bad.

he started CSAT therapy and group therapy. Goes 4x a week, but still very much struggles to give up porn and fetlife. Hardest part was that he would sit there and convince me that he is going to change, he only wants me, he wants to marry me (he had given me an ultimatum at 8 months to either marry him by end of 2027 or we were done bc i was still trying to figure out if i wanted to marry him or not), he wants to have children with me and “give me the life i never got” (classic i got lots of childhood trauma and he weaponized it). His words sound like what every girl wants their knight and shining armour to say. But what’s different is, my brain knows something is off. Something isn’t sitting right, something about this performance isn’t real. I should FEEL soothed and i should FEEL like i believe him, but i never did. it was a temporary bandaid that made me feel better until the anxiety and rumination came back.

During those 4 months i felt dreadful. I couldn’t focus at work, i could barely eat right, think right, be happy. i went into a major depression and anxiety spiral, and thank god for my support system and therapist, as i wouldn’t have been able to get through this without them. I had to be honest with everyone, as i was not going to hide his behaviors to protect his image. but, it made reconciling feel humiliating even if most people weren’t judging me for it. all i can say is those 4 months felt like a fever dream of trying to grasp what reality really was like the 8 months prior, my whole reality was distorted and nothing felt real. this relationship didn’t feel real. i would look at him and instead of seeing my lover, i saw my enemy. a spy who got in just to break me from the inside out. and i know, it’s his addiction, he wasn’t out to get me, but it felt like it. it felt personal and it hurt, a lot.

i took space, and spent a lot of time thinking about what it is that i want in life, and a partner. how do i want to feel with a partner, how do i want my partner to be spending their free time, how do i want my partner to treat me in my face, but also behind my back? and i realized, he didn’t fit the qualities of the man i want. yes, to my face he is a very sweet, empathetic, loving man. he does everything i ask him to. but i also know now, that he has his own demons, and his mental prison is his own, i cannot live in it with him.

i chose to leave. it broke his heart that i wasnt willing to do couples therapy or give him another chance even though he was “doing everything right” (but who really knows what’s going on behind the scenes). i can’t live in the constant doubt, rumination, low self esteem, and sadness all the time. staying helps him, because he has an accountability partner and someone to come home to at the end of all his acting out. but what do i get? a partner who lies, cheats, and makes me feel less than the absolute beautiful human being i am? at the end of all my hard work to reconcile, what do i gain? a man who already cheated on me once? no thanks.

he’s crying, begging, waiting for the day i come back. he literally says so himself. and honestly im not coming back. he would have to completely reinvent himself and fix his issues for me to ever consider him again.

honestly ive been feeling so much more relieved since i left. i’m starting to find happiness in the little things i always did, like taking walks, walking to my favorite honeysuckle bush just to smell it, the gym, spending time with my cat. i lost joy in all these things because of everything he did. people do not change without consequences, and even if i stayed, he wouldn’t face the consequence of his actions to the fullest extent. i’m leaving for his own good too, because i know he would never leave me.

leaving is hard, it took me 4 months to come to this decision and it’s really hard. but it was the right choice, for me.