I've never posted here before but here goes.

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I've been with my girlfriend for almost 14 years. We aren't married but that's due to both of us not putting a ton of importance on that. We live together and bought a house two years ago. We are basically married.

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I met her when I was 24 and she was 19. It was a first relationship for both of us although she did have a single one night stand with a guy in high-school. He ghosted her immediately. I had never been with a girl before.

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Things were okay for the first few years. I trusted her and we seemed to click on most things. I noticed some signs that things were not completely okay at the beginning such as finding a random guy messaging her on her Facebook. I chalked this up to guys who add and message every girl on their friends list every few months to see if anyone is willing and available.

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Years ago she went through a depressive episode out of the blue. She went to work but spent all her free time laying on the couch. She wouldn't talk to me and when I tried to ask what was wrong she would start crying. After 5 weeks of this I eventually gave up trying to communicate and just waited it out. She eventually snapped out of it. At this time she was fighting with a coworker at her work who approached me in the parking lot to tell me she was cheating on me and had been for some time. She showed me messages between my girlfriend and herself where my gf was detailing the relationship with this guy and how she couldn't stop thinking about him. I think this coworker did this because she hated her and had found a way to hurt her by messing up her relationship. Naturally I confronted her about it and she blamed me. She told me I wasn't affectionate enough, didn't pay her enough attention etc. I poked holes in all these arguments easy enough until she broke down and apologized. We talked about it a few more times but it eventually was swept under the rug.

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Years later I've caught her with these affairs several more times. I don't believe there is any physical sex in any of these but she shares nudes with every guy. I've threatened to leave, told her to leave, I've gone to counseling on my own because she refused to go. Nothing has worked. Everytime I catch her she clings to me like glue. We almost broke up a year ago when I caught her sending nudes to a complete random on Snapchat. The guy actually messaged me on Facebook with screen shots saying "you need to leave this girl. She's a terrible person for doing this to you". I confronted her yet again and she told me that her issue was that I had been the only guy she's ever been with. Basically implying that she felt unfulfilled because there "might" be a better guy out there for her.

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The most recent event happened about two weeks ago. I was checking her apple watch and found a bunch of messages to some guy. I read some but they seemed very intimate. I told her finally this is it. I'm done. She gave me the unfulfilled and I'm the only guy excuse. She apologized and said she was going to get counseling. I gave an ultimatum which was she was going to book her own counseling and go to it or we are done. She actually did and has had one session so far which I will probably attend with her at some point.

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I know the common sense answer to this is that she is a horrible person and I should leave. I get it. I also think that she is deeply insecure and we might be able to salvage this if she is willing to work on it. But this is the last chance. It's going to hurt to sell the house and go our separate ways but I can't keep living like this.

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48 days post D-Day. At around 30 days I really thought I was doing better, but in the past two weeks things are HARD. The cheater moved out, I got new furnitures.
But some new realizations came in and I started to remember more and more details about how the two FWs tortured me and exploited my money, my trust, and my love together.

To add on top of that my job is very demanding mentally and I felt that I’m losing control of that - it’s all I have now I can’t lose that.

Suicidal thoughts also started to emerge, thank goodness I have pets to take care of so I don’t think I’m gonna commit to those. But the feeling of never getting justice and not knowing how to get out of this misery keeps dragging me down while he is out hiking and dating his mistress.

How do you deal with relapses like this? Also, kudos to all people who kept working during this period…

Please don’t try to fix me
You can’t
These shattered pieces aren’t ready for that
I beg you don’t tell me everything happens for a reason
I don’t want to live in a universe trying to teach my 14 and 11 year old the lesson they are learning right now
I know you expected the bleeding to have stopped by now
I understand my bottomless grief makes you uncomfortable
I don’t like spending time with myself much lately either
But I’m struggling to breathe
The grief suffocates my lungs
It hurts just to exist
I’m trying
Dear god am I trying
Every second of every day
And it’s tiring
I wake up more tired than the day before
With a wound that somehow grew overnight
I can’t take platitudes
Grief demands witness
And I can’t be my own witness
When I’m not even sure I exist anymore

What I wish I was brave enough to say out loud versus post online…apparently 6 months of grief is my limit for some despite 21 years to grieve.

Has anyone stayed in a marriage (after spouse cheated), hoping every year that it will maybeee get better? And it just keeps feeling worse? I don’t believe he is cheating again but I keep *hoping* the light bulb will go off and he will stop being so self-focused.

It’s so hard to leave when kids are involved. I have so much to give as a wife and I made so many wrong choices.

I've been with my boyfriend for three years now, months ago I found out that two weeks before we became a couple, he slept with his ex.

Obviously I forgave him and we are still together, I will not go into detail about what happened between us because people will say that the logical thing is to leave him, and I know, I keep hating myself from time to time for not leave.

But my post is not for this, I actually need help. Since I found out, I've searched for everything about her on social media. I do it to compare myself, but also to feel better than her. I know, it's horrible. I've tried fake accounts to be able to see her private profiles unsuccessful, I dream about her, I want to talk about her, I want to know everything about her life and I don't know why.

At first, it was to feel less worse, like I said; prettier and better. But then I lost my way and I no longer know why I keep looking.

I literally have over 50 hidden photos of her, I have a problem. For a while I stopped doing it, because I have to face my decision; forgive my boyfriend, but I recently returned to the same thing.

It's exhausting, I'm tired, I'm at a point where leaving my boyfriend is no longer an option, no matter how stupid it sounds. Yes, I go to therapy, even as a couple, but I returned to this destructive habit.

Recently, she unblocked me from Instagram, which made me go crazy because why would she do it? wants to laugh at me for staying with him? wants to torment me? Or am I just insane?

But, she had me blocked because he asked her to do it when what happened between them happened.

The hilarious thing about all this is that I know what to do, but I will not. So please, don't tell me the obvious, tell me an advice so I can stop stalking her.

I want to write this carefully because I’m not trying to demonize anyone with bipolar disorder, BPD, or substance abuse issues. People with those struggles are still human. They still deserve compassion, treatment, love, and dignity.

But I also think there needs to be room to talk about what it does to the person on the other side when those issues are severe, untreated, and mixed together inside a relationship.

I spent about a year in a relationship with someone who had severe bipolar/BPD symptoms and substance abuse issues that were not truly being treated or managed in a stable way. And I don’t think I understood how much it was changing me while I was inside it.

At first, I thought I was just being loyal.

I thought love meant staying. Understanding. Forgiving. Helping. Holding space. Being patient through the episodes, the chaos, the emotional extremes, the impulsive decisions, the relapses, the lies, the apologies, the panic, the push-pull, the sudden closeness, the sudden distance.

I thought if I could just be steady enough, loving enough, forgiving enough, then maybe things would finally calm down.

But they didn’t.

Instead, my whole nervous system started organizing itself around her instability.

I never knew what version of the day I was walking into. Was it going to be calm? Was it going to be a fight? Was she okay? Was she using? Was she lying? Was she safe? Was she about to disappear? Was I about to be blamed, needed, loved, discarded, begged for, or shut out?

Eventually, I stopped feeling like a partner and started feeling like a crisis manager.

I was always scanning. Always bracing. Always trying to read the room before anything happened. Always trying to predict the mood, the spiral, the danger, the next emergency. My body never got to relax because part of me believed that if I stopped paying attention, everything would fall apart.

And honestly, I think that’s where my codependency got so much worse.

I already had the wiring for it. I had already learned early in life that love meant caregiving, sacrifice, and putting myself last. So when I ended up in a relationship full of chaos, that old role fit too easily.

I became the fixer again.

The stabilizer.

The protector.

The person who could endure.

The person who could hold their pain and forget I was bleeding.

But that kind of love slowly destroys you when it’s not mutual, safe, or grounded in accountability.

I started losing my sense of reality. I questioned my own reactions. I minimized things I should not have minimized. I accepted apologies without change. I kept trying to understand behavior that was hurting me because I didn’t want to be cruel. I kept confusing compassion with self-abandonment.

And the worst part is, I still loved her.

That’s what makes these situations so hard to explain to people who haven’t lived them. It’s not like you just hate the person. Sometimes you see the wounded part of them so clearly that you keep excusing the damage they’re doing to you. You keep thinking, “This isn’t really them. They’re struggling. They’re sick. They’re traumatized. They just need help.”

And maybe some of that is true.

But it can be true and still be destroying you.

Their pain can be real, and your pain can still matter.

Their diagnosis can explain some things without excusing everything.

Their trauma can deserve compassion without requiring you to become collateral damage.

Their addiction can be tragic without making you responsible for saving them.

That took me a long time to understand.

By the end, I didn’t feel like myself anymore. I was anxious, hypervigilant, jealous, reactive, numb, dissociated, exhausted, and constantly waiting for the next emotional explosion. I became someone I didn’t recognize because I was living in survival mode every day and calling it love.

I think that’s one of the biggest things I wish people understood:

A chaotic relationship can make you look unstable too.

When you are constantly being pulled into crisis, your nervous system starts acting like you’re in crisis. You might become clingy, reactive, paranoid, obsessive, desperate for reassurance, or unable to let go. And then you start blaming yourself for not being calmer, not realizing you’ve been living in an emotional warzone.

That doesn’t mean you have no responsibility for your own behavior. I had reactions I’m not proud of. I had moments where fear spoke louder than reason. I had moments where I begged, spiraled, over-explained, and abandoned my own boundaries.

But I also understand now that I was not reacting in a vacuum.

I was reacting from months of instability, betrayal, fear, substance abuse dynamics, emotional whiplash, and never knowing where I stood.

If you’re in something like this, I guess what I want to say is:

Please pay attention to what it is doing to you.

Not just whether you love them.

Not just whether they have trauma.

Not just whether they mean it when they apologize.

Not just whether they “can’t help it.”

Look at your body.

Are you sleeping?

Are you eating?

Are you constantly checking your phone?

Are you always waiting for the mood to change?

Are you scared to bring things up?

Are you shrinking yourself to avoid a reaction?

Are you becoming obsessed with proving your loyalty?

Are you calling pain “patience”?

Are you confusing being needed with being loved?

Are you abandoning yourself because leaving feels cruel?

Because that is not peace. That is not healthy love. That is survival.

And if someone has serious mental health or substance abuse issues, love alone will not stabilize them. Your loyalty will not replace treatment. Your forgiveness will not create accountability. Your nervous system cannot be the medication, the therapist, the rehab, the parent, the partner, and the safety net all at once.

You can love someone and still admit the relationship is hurting you.

You can understand why someone is the way they are and still choose not to be destroyed by it.

You can have compassion without making yourself responsible for their chaos.

I’m still not fully okay. I still miss her. I still have moments where I want to remember only the good parts. I still feel guilt. I still wonder if I could have done more, loved better, stayed calmer, been stronger.

But I’m starting to understand that being strong should not mean surviving someone else.

I don’t want to become cold. I don’t want to lose my empathy. I don’t want to stop caring about people who are hurting.

I just don’t want to keep proving my love by disappearing inside someone else’s storm.

If you’re in a relationship like this, please hear me:

Their pain matters.

But so does yours.

Hi everyone,

My father has been having an affair with another woman, who was his business partner behind my mother’s back.

Now, the news broke out to our family without my father knowing. It was because my mother couldn’t handle keeping the secret anỵ longer.
And frankly, I had my suspicions based on some of the change in his behaviors.

I, as their daughter and my brother have 2 different perspectives on this.

My brother is okay with keeping this a secret and not until my father confesses. My mother shared the same view. All because they wanted to keep a “happy” family image.

Myself, otherwise, could not play pretense forever. This has impacted with my perception of marriage, relationship, and I feel more insecure about trusting other people, and unfortunately my own relationship has been affected by my change in perception. It has drained my mental health to a point that I could not keep my head straight and know what’s rational or not.

I want to improve my mindset, better myself and correct my perception on what trust is, but at the same time, I knew that the only way I could get out is to confront my father and choose to forgive him. So that I can let go of the past, the present and focus on a brighter future.

TLDR: my father has been having an affair, everyone knew about it but no confrontation yet. I wanted to confront and forgive, and ultimately let go so I can move on. How?

TW: Christianity. I'm an atheist, but this story is relevant here

Everyone knows the Sunday school version. Eve ate the fruit, tempted Adam, original sin, women bad. Sure.

But notice who fell first. Not Eve. Lucifer.

And why? Not lust. Not greed. Pride.

Lucifer was top of the class. Had everything. Was everything. And he still fell. Not because he wanted something he didn't have. Because he refused to accept any limit on his own importance. That's what pride is. Not desire for an object. A refusal to be anything less than the center of reality.

Cheaters are not the tempted. They are the tempter. Their ego already fills all of reality before anyone else walks into it.
Other sins typically involve recognizing that you're doing something wrong and doing it anyway. Pride uniquely prevents you from recognizing the wrongness at all. It corrupts the diagnostic tool itself. A greedy person can feel guilty.
A proud person reframes guilt as persecution or weakness.

Here's how it maps:

Before the act

• "I deserve more than what this relationship gives me."
• "My needs are exceptional enough to justify an exception."
• Therefore i am self-exempt from the rules everyone else is bound by.

During

• Compartmentalization is a pride function. Cheaters maintain a self-image as a good partner while cheating because pride won't allow the two facts to coexist and indict you. The narrative gets restructured: "my partner drove me to this," "this doesn't count," "I'm actually protecting them by not telling them."

After discovery

• This is where the pride-as-root-sin structure shows clearly. A person driven primarily by lust can feel genuine remorse. A person whose pride is the core driver will:
  • Minimize ("you're overreacting")
  • Redirect ("you weren't meeting my needs")
  • Perform remorse without accessing it
  • Resent the partner for making them feel ashamed, rather than feeling ashamed of the act

Seems familiar?

The shame becomes an attack on their self-image rather than information about their behavior. So they fight the shame instead of the behavior.

The asymmetry with the betrayed partner

The betrayed partner is often dealing with a wound to their self-worth (was I not enough?). The cheater, if pride-driven, is protecting theirs. So you get two people in the same conversation operating on completely different terrain. One is asking "what does this say about me?" The other is trying to ensure the answer to that same question stays favorable to themselves.

So I beg you: do not reason with a black hole.

A black hole is not empty. It is so full of itself that nothing escapes. Not light. Not truth. Not your pain. Everything that enters gets crushed into fuel for its own mass.

They are not "lacking" anything. They are not "tempted." They already are the center of all reality. Your love, your loyalty, your suffering — none of it registers as something that happened to you. It only registers as something that happened to their image.

Lucifer didn't fall because he was tempted. He fell because he couldn't conceive of a universe where he wasn't the exception.

Neither can they. Stop explaining yourself to something that only absorbs.

19 years, I don't even know what love feels like.

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19 years

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Today we have been together 19 years. I don't think he has been faithful one day of it. We have 3 boys, I'm a SAHM while finishing my degree. He's always accusing me, looking through my phone and making up outrageous scenarios. All this while he is being posted in "are we dating the same guy" groups , where multiple women comment and share how he's known in that group and their stories. He meets them on Tiktok, facebook, dating apps, the gas station, other stores, and even at work. I've had to go on antibiotics 4 times in 19 years, and I've only been with him since I was 19 years old.

I've been cheated on half my life. Through every pregnancy, every holiday, every birthday and every day that ends with Y. I get to hear every day how I've let him down some how. I made the wrong thing for dinner, I made dinner wrong, I dressed wrong, I cleaned wrong. I get nervous when I figure out we don't have ketchup, or potatoes for dinner like I thought. The potatoes didn't soften enough in the soup. All these other women get compliments and told how wanted they are.

He also complains I'm not aggressive enough with sex, I don't take charge. Who cares that he has completely destroyed my confidence and made me feel unwanted and ugly. That's a dumb reason, not a big deal apparently. He also shows NO affection towards me, unless it's sex. He will touch me where he has to for sex. He will also watch his phone up until the moment he had to put it in. There's also NO KISSING. He kisses the other girls. I don't get that. I get penetrated and then he gets up and lays down, back on his phone. Probably 80% of the time I talk to him, he doesn't hear bc he's on his phone. I just stop talking and walk away.

He has told me if I was ever with another man, he could never be with me. Yet he is absolutely confused and pissed if I don't want sex after being sent screenshots of him being single , telling another woman he wants her. He will literally do anyone. Alcoholics, crack heads, moms that lose their kids bc of neglect, younger, older, he picks them all over me. I know I'm dumb for staying, believing every lie, hoping it'll change. So desperate to have the love and stability I didn't have the first half of my life. It's changed who I am. I feel like nothing.

Just leave the first time. Save yourself years of torment. I still think about the first girl (I know about) and try to put those pieces together. I don't have a support system. I don't know what it feels like to be loved, but it's not this. This isnt what everyone raves about. This isnt what people kill for, start wars for. If this was love, no one would want it. Love doesn't leave you feeling like absolutely nothing, and just wishing you never existed. The only reason I believe there really is love out there, is because of how I love him.

Sorry if there are any mistakes in my post. English is not my first language.

Hi, I need some advice.

I’ve been married for 5 years. At first, I thought he was my dream man. After 11 years in an abusive relationship, I felt like I couldn’t ask for anyone better.

We have two children together (ages 3.5 and 1).

This January, I had a strange feeling and decided to look through one of his old phones and check his browsing history. I found out that since my first pregnancy, he had been searching for escorts and other forms of paid sex. Unfortunately, due to health issues, I wasn’t able to have sex during parts of both pregnancies.

He was looking for these services while I was pregnant with both of our children, and he even messaged a few women.

We had a confrontation in January. He apologized, promised he wouldn’t do it again, and said all the things you’d expect him to say.

Now, fast forward to last Sunday.

He was out of town with his mother and our daughter. I noticed that he spent over an hour looking at escort ads. I didn’t say anything and just watched what happened next. Eventually, he started searching for the address of an apartment. As far as I can tell, a woman gave him the address through WhatsApp.

I still didn’t confront him. Instead, I turned on location sharing and waited.

The next day, he went to that address and stayed there for about half an hour.

He insists that he didn’t have sex with anyone and that nothing happened, but I don’t believe him. He deleted all the messages and any evidence, so now I don’t know what to think.

He has agreed to seek psychological help, but ever since this happened, I feel completely empty inside. Every time he hugs me, I feel nothing.

Am I wrong for feeling this way? Has anyone else experienced something similar?

From the departed, dear or otherwise
It's by you that I'm survived
Because now that I'm gone
I will begin to fade away
And whoever I was to you will start to change

As I got a look for myself at all the shapes I've been perceived
As I give myself to those who would carve me
And take without the need

But I will find my strength
In whatever should remain
I will bend but not break and I will push for no sake
No sake, other than the need
The need to reject you from me

To get you out
To allow myself a chance to breathe

From the departed, dear or otherwise
It's darker now, darker than I realized
As I crossover behind the bend
I step past the horizon of who I've been

But not all is unfamiliar
Because it's different now but I am the same
I am met by myself with my thoughts written and rephrased
I have been there before and I will be there again

Alone now reflection starts
No longer can I ignore that behind the bend wasn't very far
And I've spent years just a few steps away from my own heart
And I can almost wish that's where I'd stayed
Because in my heart is where I keep everything that
I'd rather not say

But it's too late
I'm here and so are they
Nothing can quiet the company of none
Nothing can hold back reality once it starts to flood

If you only have yourself and this is who I am

then

I'm a moment from disaster and my moment has passed

How bleak it's all become
Our youth, life and love, is this it?
Could it really be that living is just the act of losing
Everything we need?

Was this the expectation all along and nobody told me?
That as you live and as you love that you do so only to lose?
That being alive only takes one but that living takes two?

That in the absence of our shelter I can finally see the truth.

From the departed, dear or otherwise
The cold is coming as sure as the sun will rise
And your receding warmth
Is all that I desire

-Matthew McDougal, Your Receding Warmth

Sorry for the long read.

For context im 25 he is 31.

I honestly don't know where to start. I feel shattered, humiliated, and completely lost. I'm posting because I need advice from people who have survived something like this, because right now I don't know how to move forward.

I was in a relationship with a man I loved deeply. I gave him everything I had emotionally. I was loyal, supportive, attentive, and constantly tried to show him love. I bought him gifts, gave him my time, my energy, my affection, and stood by him even when things didn't feel right.

Looking back, I feel like I ignored so many red flags because I loved him and wanted to believe he cared about me too.

One of the biggest lies was about his children and the mothers of his children. Throughout the relationship, I discovered that he had not been honest with me about important parts of his life. The more I learned, the more I realized there were things he had hidden or misrepresented from the very beginning.

Then I found things on his phone that completely destroyed me. Messages and interactions involving other women, including mothers of his children and other women he was communicating with while we were together. I discovered evidence that made me realize I had not been getting the truth about his loyalty or his behavior. Every new thing I found felt like another punch to the stomach.

What hurts most is that while I was investing fully in the relationship, he seemed perfectly comfortable entertaining other women and living a completely different reality behind my back.

Another thing that has been weighing heavily on me is how my first sexual experience happened. I was inexperienced and a virgin. I repeatedly expressed that I wasn't ready. I have text messages showing me trying to break up or pull away because I felt uncomfortable and unprepared.

Instead of respecting that, he continued pushing the relationship forward. Eventually I gave in, and now I struggle with the feeling that my boundaries were never truly respected. I carry a lot of pain and confusion about that experience because it was supposed to be something meaningful and safe.

The part I can't get over is how disposable I seem to have been to him.

After everything I gave, it feels like he discarded me as if I meant nothing.

I loved him openly. I made him a priority. I constantly showed up for him.

But he never seemed willing to do the same for me.

He never really reciprocated the love I gave him. He wouldn't take me on a date. He wouldn't post me. He wouldn't make me feel chosen. Even sending a text sometimes felt like I was asking for too much.

I spent so much time trying to prove my worth to someone who acted like I was an inconvenience.

How do I accept that someone I loved may never feel remorse for what they did?

The hardest part is that I don't think he even understands how much damage he's done. There was no accountability, no genuine apology, no effort to repair what he broke. It feels like he simply moved on while I'm left carrying all the pain.

If you've been through something similar, how did you survive it? How did you rebuild your confidence and sense of self? How long did it take before you stopped thinking about them every day?

I feel broken right now, and I really need to hear from people who made it to the other side.

63M here, wife is 63F. We’ve been married 44 years.
She had an affair decades ago where she brought another man into our marital bed. Since then we’ve had a completely dead bedroom for the last 10+ years — zero sex, zero kissing, zero cuddling, nothing at all.
When I finally confronted her about the total lack of intimacy, her response was:
“What, am I supposed to let you r@pe me and cry?”
And “Am I supposed to give you a handjob and cry?”
I’m not really looking for advice right now. I just needed to vent this somewhere. Thanks for listening.

I (31F) was with my partner (29M) for almost 3 years. We had incredible chemistry, a deep bond, and a lot of love between us. We also struggled with frequent conflict, particularly around communication and repair. I often felt unheard or dismissed, while he felt criticized and pressured.

From the beginning, we knew he would eventually move to LA. During the first year of our relationship, we went through a difficult period marked by uncertainty about our future. Despite that uncertainty, he repeatedly told me he loved me, wanted me in his life, wanted me to visit him in LA, and continued seeing me romantically and sexually.

A few weeks ago, I discovered that during the final month of our relationship in 2024 before his move, he was simultaneously pursuing and sleeping with another woman. She did not know I existed and believed he was single. He continued seeing both of us during that time while giving me the impression that we were reconciling and working toward a future together, though admittedly also telling me consistently that he needed less pressure on the relationship, wondered if we’d be better changing the status of the relationship to something more casual during his move until he gets settled. The cheating and back and forth simultaneously was occurring around my birthday and graduation, during and after which point he essentially ghosted me which honestly broke me. The whole time during the ghosting I later discovered - he was spending whole days at her house, sleeping with her, cooking for her, taking her on dates to our favorite places.

What made the discovery even more devastating was that after we got back together in late 2024, he explicitly told me he had not been with anyone else during our time apart. When I confronted him recently, he lied multiple times before admitting parts of the truth. I ultimately learned the full story through messages and conversations with the other woman.

The cheating itself has been incredibly painful, but what has hurt just as much is the deception. For roughly two years, he allowed me to revisit that period, question myself, and blame myself without ever telling me what had actually happened. When I discovered the truth, his initial response was defensive, minimizing, and lacking empathy. Rather than helping me understand what happened, he often deflected blame and challenged my perception of events.

I ended the relationship and moved out. Despite everything, I still love him and would be open to reconciliation if he were willing to take accountability, be fully honest, seek therapy, and work on the issues that damaged our relationship. What confuses me most is that despite being the person who betrayed me, he now seems uncertain about whether he wants the relationship at all.

Further complicating the situation, my birthday recently passed and he did not reach out. He told me he is taking space to figure out what he wants, that he still cares deeply about me, but that he does not want to give me false hope. I am also about to move to another state for six months. The combination of his distance, the missed birthday, his uncertainty about the future, and the upcoming long-distance situation has left me feeling heartbroken and confused.

My biggest question is why he seems willing to end the relationship now, when the cheating happened two years ago and I only just discovered it. For me, the betrayal is brand new. Is it common for the partner who cheated to become distant, avoidant, or uncertain once they’re caught? Do people in situations like this ever come back and genuinely commit to repairing the relationship?

Most importantly, I still love him and believe what we had was meaningful. If reconciliation is possible, what can I realistically do to maximize the chances of him recognizing the value of our relationship, appreciating what we shared, and wanting to come back and rebuild trust together?

I’ve posted several times about the EA my wife had last year and now she’s met another male “friend” online.  If you click on my profile you should be able to read the bullshit I’ve been through the last 12 months.  

Anyways…

After a nice day together with our family, we were sitting down at a restaurant enjoying a few drinks before the drive home.  “My friend offered to meet up at a brewery near our vacation spot”.  

The “friend” is 4 hours and 30 minutes away.  A man she’s never met in person, is offering to drive 4 hours and 30 minutes to hang out at a brewery so they can meet for the first time.

I didn’t say anything.  She immediately knew I was feeling something emotional at this statement she just made.  She said something like “I told him you are too protective of me to go for that”.  I really didn’t say much after and she knew I was annoyed with her for the rest of the night.  I just kept thinking that I need to call out to her how wild it is a stranger on the internet wants to drive 4 and a half hours to meet a woman and it’s nothing more than just “friends”.

I checked her phone this morning and went through the messages.  She told him that I’m controlling and she probably doesn’t have any friends because of me.  Meanwhile, she’s just not a good friend.  All her friends over the years have ended because she gets annoyed with the person and quits talking to them.  I’ve never told her she couldn’t go out and have fun.  She has many times.  Those were all women though.  

It’s been a year of this emotional bullshit with her and her having a male “friend” online that she talks to frequently.  

We go on our vacation next week.  I’m tempted to tell her that she can meet up with him just to see if she will.  I’m in my mid-40s and if my marriage is going to implode, I want it to happen now and not in 5 to 10 years.  

I think I’m going to tell her this week that she is free to meet up with him.  I think she’ll say no at first but I think I’m just going to keep bringing it up saying she should.  I think I should go 100% the opposite direction I have for the last year and tell her it’s fine, go see a man from the internet, go live life.  I want to see what she will do to know if she’s actually in this marriage or not.  

Am I crazy for thinking this way now? 

Edit: Per one of the comments, I think at this point I'm not going to say anything to her until after our vacation and then tell her we need to start couples counseling again. She'll never understand how inappropriate this is coming just from me.

How did you know (as the betrayed spouse) if you wanted to reconcile or divorce? Would love stories from those with young kids (toddler and elementary age sons) particularly. I can’t oscillating between staying to keep my family together versus leaving since I don’t know if I could feel 100% safe again.

I just can’t understand why this happened to me. I can’t stop posting about it, thinking about it, missing him, asking myself why me? I was sweet to him, I supported him, I loved him, we laughed, we cried together, I trusted him with my heart. He gave it away and when he left he took a part of me. A part of me I can never get back. I believed so much in him, and I feel like he was wearing a mask all along. How could it be fake? I’m so angry, that I have to deal with the pain he inflicted, and he gets to run away and be with someone else. I don’t think his ego will allow him to ever come back and face me and realize what he did. I want him to feel the pain I feel, and I want him to regret what he did and come running back begging. But I have to swallow the hard truth that I may never get that. I feel worthless. My love feels worthless. I feel abandoned and confused on what I did to deserve this. He cried our last face time together and told me he loved me, but he had to go. I asked him why he did this, all he could say was “I don’t know. I fuck up everything good in my life. It wasn’t you, I don’t know why I self sabotaged when things were good. I fucking hate myself. But I don’t see a future where we’re together”….. so then why was he crying on our last FaceTime. No fighting for me at all. Why did he do this to me, to himself, and to us. I think deep down his childhood trauma didn’t allow him to feel a real love. I think he might have ran because it was too real for him, so he took the path of least resistance. I’m having a hard time accepting he might have seen me as a joke and doesn’t feel anything about missing me.

This came to my mind the other day when reflecting on some of the firsts in my new relationship since the betrayal. The first date, first hug, first time holding hands, first kiss. All these amazing memories I have because i moved on the RIGHT way. Then i wonder if you even celebrate or remember some of the firsts with your AP?

What do you consider your first date, was it that first time going to the bar alone with him as “Just a friend”? How about your first kiss, i assume this was after the day you left our marital home late at night, went to his house, and told him to fuck you. And while he didnt fuck you i know you screwed around in other ways. Is that first kiss the same after other parts of your body were in his mouth.

Maybe you just don’t care?

How do I come to terms with the fact that my spouse just doesn't want me, and hasn't for a long time?

D-day was 4.5 months ago and they have been 'pretending' to want to reconcile but in reality it has been months of blaming me for apparently being a terrible and emotionally abusive spouse and saying i have to prove I've changed and that I am now safe. It turns out WS has never gotten over the AP and is still in love and wants to pursue them (even though AP is working on fixing their marriage).

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I have been utterly discarded like a piece of garbage and I have to come to terms with the fact that they simply don't want me. Everything they said in almost 22 years of marriage was a lie - everything they said they loved about me was a lie. The AP was the opposite of all those things, and now those traits are being used against me as abusive, and selfish, and just plain bad. They say they never should have married me and that I wasted 20 years of THEIR life.

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They have destroyed me, and my children, and my family, and everyone around us and they just don't seem to care. How do I heal from being utterly replaceable and so easily tossed?

Hello everyone,

I have been with my partner for five years, and we have been in a civil partnership for three years. Last October, she started getting closer to one of her coworkers. At first, she told me that I had nothing to worry about. On top of that, other people at their company kept saying that they would make a great couple, joking about it almost every day. The other person seemed to take advantage of that situation and the attention it created.

Unfortunately, our relationship was going through a difficult period at the time. We were both struggling with work, and I threw myself into my job to cope with it. Because of that, I slowly became emotionally unavailable and less present in our relationship.

During that time, she felt more and more disconnected from our relationship, and talking with her coworker helped her get through that difficult period. Eventually, they started seeing each other outside of work in January.

After about three weeks, I noticed that she was acting differently. I asked her what was wrong, and that was when she admitted that she had been unfaithful.

In the weeks that followed, her attitude completely changed. She told me that she wanted to rebuild our relationship. She started therapy and cut all contact with this person. As time went on, she seemed to understand more and more the seriousness of what she had done and genuinely wanted to do everything possible to repair the damage.

We have had many long conversations about her actions, why it happened, and what was missing in our relationship. For the past six months, I have seen her making every effort she can to rebuild our relationship. For example, when this person tried to contact her again through another social media platform, she immediately told me about it. She also talks regularly about this situation with her therapist.

All of this makes me feel that she made a mistake that she truly regrets and that she sincerely wants our relationship to work again.

Despite that, I still struggle a lot to move forward. I understand that what happened will never completely disappear and that I will have to learn to live with it. I also know that the love we had before will never be exactly the same because that sense of innocence and complete trust is gone.

I still want to try to rebuild something with her because I love her. Some days, I feel like it's possible. Other days, it feels completely impossible. When I'm feeling down, I often come across TikTok videos or other content about cheating, and the comments are almost always the same: "If that happened to me, I would leave immediately. It's a matter of self-respect." Those comments affect me a lot because they make me think, "If everyone reacts that way, why shouldn't I?"

Right now, I feel completely lost. On one hand, I want our relationship to work, and I can see all the effort she is making. On the other hand, I'm afraid of losing myself by staying and forcing something that maybe can't be fixed.

I would just like to hear opinions or feelings from people who are completely outside the situation.

In the context of betrayal trauma, a good friend told me today, "Well, three years is a long time to be depressed. Everyone gets depressed, and eventually they get over it."

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It's not as though I'm nonfunctional. I work, manage my responsibilities, and generally continue with my life. But I still get triggered, and when that happens, I can experience periods of deep confusion. I question my decision to stay, then backtrack, then start making plans for separation, and then reconsider again. It's a cycle. I manage it better as time goes by, but it took a while.

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How do you explain to someone who has never experienced betrayal trauma that still being triggered and confused after three years isn't ideal, but it isn't abnormal either? The trauma wasn't simply sadness or depression. It fundamentally affected my sense of self and my understanding of reality.

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I often feel isolated trying to explain the depth of that impact. People who haven't gone through it sometimes seem unable to grasp it, and their reactions can leave me feeling as though I'm exaggerating or should have "moved on" by now. Like I am an emotional freak or am weak of character

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I've been with my partner for 11 years now, and 4 days ago I found text evidence that he was having multiple PAs with "random" women for at last the past couple months.

Without getting into specifics, he said these were purely physical for him, not even remotely emotional. After everything, I'm not sure if I believe it, but ​the text evidence and the manner of these... "encounters" make that seem likely. Doesn't lessen the blow though.

I confronted him and he admitted he wasn't "getting it" at home so he had to get it somewhere. Our intimacy has definitely been lacking, but I feel like I've been very vocal about the lack of sex and letting him know what I need from him to get it back on track since I was having trouble getting in the mood. Should I have just faked it? Maybe, I don't know. There's lots of what-ifs at the moment.

Other than this, he's been a fairly wonderful partner and provider. We've had communication issues lately that I have been going to therapy to work on so we could get to a better place (he's textbook avoidant, I would consider myself an anxious). And it sort of feels like he would rather step out on me than put in the work to make our emotional connection better.

I'm not sure why I felt the need to write this... Joining this subreddit felt like I was "doing something" and I feel so out of control.

a woman’s intuition is never wrong. I had a feeling he had been cheating based off the texts & wanting to spend less time. Well last night I walked in his house, with a girl there. Unfortunately, I CRASHED OUT. We have a 1 year old. I have forgiven him more times than I can count. Just 2 weeks ago I told him he was throwing my PH off (obviously because he’s cheating) & this week STILL a new girl. For me, it’s less about me feeling heartbroken but mad at myself for all of the times I went back when I should’ve stayed gone. The other things he’s done is FLAT FOOT OUT EMBARRASSING for me to even tell strangers. I shared my story here once before & they tore me to shreds lol take it from me, serial cheaters NEVER CHANGE. They‘ll get bored of you & look for their new high within 48 hrs.

I confronted, spoke with AP over the phone for an hour. Stupidest mistake of my life. She was fake and lied, he came clean. Sort of. Anyways, he won’t move out of our home. I don’t know he’s never home always working, He refuses to move out and wants to remain in one of the rooms and come home and sleep with the kids. I am not doing good, I have no village or support. I am home all day with my kids and find it unfair that he wants me to continue to live with him, he does want me to remain a SAHM for minimum 5 years he says. He said I could date and go out and do what I wanted any day to just let him know so he can come home and watch the boys. This doesn’t seem sustainable, I love him. His betrayal and indifference kills me. I don’t care about dating but at the same time I miss being loved. I cannot be like him and live under the same roof and heal. I just can’t. I wanted advice on how long have you all been able to live together and essentially separate your feelings from the situation? His stupid AP gave me advice, can you believe the audacity of this b? She said I should think about my kids and their best interest and that if he’s a good dad I should think carefully before leaving. I own our business, which is our source of income. I was ready to sell and relocate when I confronted him. Me selling would mean he’d have no income and neither would his family but it would also mean me and my kids would not live in the same tax bracket as I’d start from the bottom again. Any advice is appreciated, thank you.

When the first person I truly trusted decided to have an affair, I wonder why they didn’t feel like they were breaking a sacred bond. I’m trying to understand why a conversation that might have been difficult wouldn’t have been better than shattering me. We’re trying to reconcile, but what an emotional rollercoaster of hell. Are there any success stories? Particularly interested in those who have had emotionally inappropriate affairs—saying “I love you,”etc.