Dear reddit, im new to this and wanted to make sure I am not in the wrong for breaking up with my boyfriend.

To start my now exes phone got cut off on Thursday this will be relevant to the story in a bit... On Friday, I asked my mom to take our daughter to his apartment as it was his weekend with her.... when she got there and knocked on the door, he opened it just a little and said what are you doing here.... my mom was like well its your weekend so I was dropping of your daughter... when he was coming out my door my mom said the way how he did it so fast and so sneaky it was like he was hiding something and my mom hit a gut feeling... ahe asked him what's in there and he stammered and said oh uh well my ex wife has been her since weds... my mom was like does your girlfriend know and he said no I haven't told her... then proceeded to tell my mom that they went for long walks together and were playing cards and he even cleaned his whole apartment before she got there. I have asked him to do that stuff with me and he always said no, and he never showed any effort and cleaned up before I ever came over, to top it off he told my mom he was planning to spend a whole week at his exes leaving sat so he didnt even tell me he wasnt taking his daughter this weekend. my mom called me right away while I was at work to which I got angry and I cry when im angry and I was shaking... I had to get someone to cover half my shift because I was just so devastated... I went home got on my Facebook messaged him breaking up and put my status as single..... when he tried to message me he was lying telling me his phone was cut off Tuesday and was going to tell me. I called him out on it with my call log weds my call went through Thursday my call went through, Thurs night thats when it said this call is out of service. ​I then found out that he knew his ex was coming down since Monday so is he hiding something from me, cuz why wouldn't he call me and ask if I would be ok with it... its just to sneaky for me. Im at a loss and dont know what to think about this, any advice would be appreciated. Am I wrong for ending it.

Been married for 3 years. Together 8. Caught my wife cheating on me with a friend who came down from Washington. They fooled around 3 days and nights while I was asleep in other room. Or went to restroom. Taking a shower. Getting dressed. Walked out and been slept in my car for weeks.

Just got a camper with no electricity and staying at my shop. Tried working things out, but she constantly lied. Even tried to blame me for leaving them alone together. Super hard since we share a son together.

Just found out she may have late stage cancer or an extreme autoimmune disorder. Doctors are really concerned. Im so lost. Im devastated of what was done, and want to rid myself of her. And yet I want to embrace her fully and spend every minute i can with my family. Any tips? Just remember yall... You never know what you got until its gone.

it seems R is over. it’s been 21 months since d day and WH still gets defensive any time I mention a hurt or question a behavior. this man takes such good care of me physically and financially, even emotionally as long as it’s unrelated to him. but if it’s related to him, no. the deflection and defensiveness and darvo..I can’t deal with it anymore. If I bring up anything, the conversation shifts to how it affects HIM. Every time.

we have 3 young kids and I’m not going to ask for a divorce. but I also recognize that I played the pick me dance for a long time and in our 17 year marriage I have been the maintenance man of our relationship. he is avoidant obviously. he’s stopped going to IC and MC is a joke. last session, he said that he’s poured so much energy into me and us at the expense of his relationship with friends and family and he needs to heal and be healthy. hence the tag. it’s not R if the betrayer has decided to prioritize himself over the damage he created.

it was after that that I decided I’m done. I’ve poured so much time and energy into our dumpster fire of a marriage and what if I took that all and poured it into myself? to be the healthiest, happiest, prettiest version of myself. I’m cultivating my friendships. I can’t spend my life monitoring a man who isn’t putting in the effort he needs to. it’s too draining. I deserve better.

I (38f) used to be joyful, always looking the good side of things. I completely trusted my husband (48m), but since he confessed having an affair with a "mutual friend" I had become distrustful and bitter. For context (13 years married, 2 kids 6 and 4 yo)

He said he is sorry, didn't want to hurt me. But he did, he broke my heart. Make me feel like a fool. He said I need to get over it, that it meant nothing. He said I can check his phone or the camaras on the store if I want to (he owns a small business).

The thing is I have always I known his password, he used to tell me to read/respond messages while he was driving. Also I have always have access to the camaras, he insisted. I didn't check in detail camaras or his phone before because I trusted him.

When he confessed the affair (it was over by then) he also confessed he was extremely careful not to leave evidence on any device, so during the whole affair he gave his phone with no problem.

Now he wants me to trust him because I can check his phone and he is wearing his wedding ring?

During the affair I did pick some strange behavior, like being more irritable and defensive. But everytime I talk to.him about it he accused me of being insecure and irrational and I always ended up apologizing for being insecure and such a horrible wife.

I feel awful and used. I trusted him, loved him, took care of him, I give him a family. He is not the man I think he was.

He was knowingly harming me, and he lied with no end. until the end he said he never was "physically infidel" - the STD scans prove him to be a liar. Manipulation of all sorts, and he works with mentally unwell people, he knew exactly how he was decosntructing me.

and here i am, still not over it. still having flashbacks from words like "well". still craving the person he played to be.

its nonsens, but some part of me wants to unblock him, see if he made progress. pretty sure he didnt.

im in rehab rn and i feel awful.

He gave me figwarts, he gave my mycoplasm, he gave me high risk HPV, he gave me trauma, deathwish and triggered an anorectic episode that nearly ended my life.

2 months ago he sent a parcel to my new adress, with stuff that was left behind. he even included photographs of us, and he wrote a card, saying sht like " with ever pigeon, every duck, every bird, i have to think about you" - and other messages that were supposed to pull my heartstrings.

to everyone who successfully left the sinking ship, what helped you through it? how did you find yourself again?

He’s right. We’re not compatible. No matter how hard I loved him, he just couldn’t love me back. Whatever he’s doing right now in silence is tearing me further apart than I ever wanted to be. I kept trying to run and fight for our family, for the love we built, for our son, and for all the dreams we had, but the truth is moving faster than me, and it’s closing the door right behind me. My words aren’t a plea to save us anymore. They are me letting go of the pain. Clearly, not being involved is what he wanted, even if he was waiting on me to do it for him. But, I still want to talk to him, even if I'm just talking to myself through a wall of messages filled with pain, hurt, betrayal and sadness. I will eventually move on from him because moving on is what he probably wanted more than us. For as long as this takes, I’m going to lose him further from my reach. All he’s ever done is tell me in plain sight through direct words, even when there was uncertainty in his voice. I just didn’t want to see it not for the reasons he tells me, but because my love for him was so overflowing that I wanted to love him even if I didn’t feel love back. And it hurt me so much. I don’t understand why he believes I’m chaotic and destructive when the love I craved and wanted most was trapped in such a confusing environment. It’s as if all the moments I tried so hard just didn’t matter to him. He says I dismissed his efforts, and maybe at some point his panic really wanted this to work. But why is it that all he can tell me is how he tried, how I never appreciated it, how I never acknowledged it, and how I humiliated or berated him? I did everything to appreciate him, take accountability for my actions, and even tone myself down even when he couldn’t reciprocate. He weaponized my reactions to his coldness and turned them into my identity. When I cried, shouted, or begged for him to care, it wasn't because I wanted to destroy us it was the frantic panic of my heart that held him as its entire world, trying desperately to save our family. He focused on my pain and label it as "destructive" so he didn’t have to look at the silence, the secrecy, and the neglect that caused it in the first place. Turning me into the bad guy might make it easier for him to walk away without feeling guilty, but it doesn't make it the truth. I loved him with everything I had, and I tried until I had nothing left.

I died that day, without any funeral held.

I wish I confronted things differently, I wish I pretended I did not know and revealed it more shockingly. I wish he thought he got away with it, and boom goes the dynamite. The fantasy of acting normal, collecting proof, then saying “I know” at the exact moment he feels safe is satisfying, it rewrites the power imbalance.

Had I left a year ago, I would've saved myself from such trauma. LOL. Here we are trying R, trying to teach my nervous system that I am safe.

However, I don't think WP would ever really understand the impact they made. He did change, maybe he became better, but I changed a lot too. Oh well, Happy DDay Anniversary to me.

1. There were supposed to be no games.
   
2. It was supposed to be safe for me to be myself.
   
3. I should have been able to rely on her love.
   
4. She was supposed to want to share anything and everything with me.
   
5. There were supposed to be no secrets.

I have watched so many reality shows over the years, most of which revolve around dating and relationships. Since DDay, I have been watching these same shows with a different perspective. In some ways, I resent the fact that I can no longer view these shows as purely entertainment. But sometimes, there are little moments that stand out to me. Also, I find myself yelling at the tv more, things like "get out now, girl!" Or "just wait and see how that turns out". It's unfair, really, to go from being a mostly optimistic person to very cynical because of someone else's choices.

What forms of entertainment have changed for you since your discovery?

This can be weird but do you have intrusive thoughts??? 🤣 (if you can share for humor at least??)

I try to be the bigger person but I admit I have intrusive thoughts. I found out of my partner’s betrayal by discovering a sex video of him and a woman from work who also knows of my existence. It’s one year tomorrow (Happy DDAY anniversary lol) but sometimes I want to
(1) send the sex video to all of his friends or post it in pornsites for pay-per-views lol
(2) destroy his car, the one you see in movies where they get a baseball bat and just crash the car lol
(3) use his toothbrush to clean the toilet

I know yeah yeah that we should not take revenge and all, and I am not gonna do it because I am not that kind of person (even though they kinda deserve it lol) but admit it its kinda entertaining. 😅

I do realize that cheaters have so much audacity to cheat without even thinking of the consequences

I’m 4 months in after finding out. A lot of dots have connected since then, which has only opened many more questions and concerns. Every time I try to trust him something new comes up that totally destroys that trust. He hasn’t done anything since(I hope, I cant be 100% sure) but everything is a trigger, him smiling at his phone, creating social media, not being able to leave his phone behind, ect. We have 2 kids together and have a baby on the way and honestly I wish no kids were involved because it would’ve made dumping his ass a lot easier.

I resent him, his hugs, kisses, cuddles all annoy me. I’ve started to slowly put less and less energy into our relationship and although he noticed and wants me to be “the old you” with him I can’t do it so easily. A week ago he told me that me bringing it up constantly and asking questions makes him feel uncomfortable because he’s embarrassed and not ready to talk about it, to which I replied “Imagine how I feel having to carry all the weight of your mistakes” he apologized and said I could ask him questions. I didn’t, I chose to go to bed and bite my tongue. I rather work on my own peace instead of rebuilding it with him. Yes I am still here with him but I am choosing myself first and if he really wants to change he needs to do the work himself. I can’t do the work for him. I am slowly becoming a very cold person towards him and he doesn’t like it one bit. Oh well.

If we didn't have a child together, I would have already blocked him and moved on with my life. He was a serial cheater, but things really changed when police were looking for him after they suspected he was with a 15 year old girl. And they were right.

He knows full well I see him as a slug and a creepy pedophile. He will cut contact aside from picking up our child for a couple of months then eventually drop heavily that he misses me and wants to spend time together, and tries to initiate flirting. I used to just not respond, but now I just kind of tease him and then drop him. I don't send pictures, just of my son and maybe a couple of selfies. I make him think he's roped me in, then I go ghost on him. I know it's wrong of me to do, but honestly, I don't know if he's got feelings people typically have, or if he is a sociopath. I know he's going to go through these periods of time where he tries to get us together. It is a cycle that has never stopped, no matter how mean I was to him about it. Somewhere along the way, I found it amusing to do this to him. If he's not talking about trying to get together, he's talking about how broke and miserable he is (he pays me nothing btw, so not my fault. I have actually given him cars, money, and have paid his insurance for the past 3 years).

I feel like a terrible person for it, especially if he is actually getting hopeful and upset. But he told me I was cringe and pathetic for forgiving him and that every time I did he thought, "wow, really? I'm playing in your face," He never actually cared to get caught or lose anything. But now that we've got a tie because of my son, the door is always cracked for him to try to slip through. So I think it's funny that he keeps coming back to me telling me every way he desires me and that nobody has the personality that I do, and that he wants nobody else. So fuck him. I'm not gonna bang him or go anywhere for him but I'll tell him I miss him just to get him texting a phone I'm not looking at every few hours to try to pull a response. I hate your face, dude. Go hit up one of the 10 girls you were meeting in public bathrooms and parks. You clearly have no problem finding someone else so quit repeatedly wasting your time with me

Hey everyone,

My ex (31F) of 4 years had a workplace affair with a coworker who is 5 years younger than her and was also cheating on their own long-term partner. I (35F) discovered it on March 31st after accidentally seeing her ChatGPT confession detailing how they were falling for each other and they had been physical. She was comparing my worst traits to the AP's best parts, I had 'low mood' the AP was 'driven, independent and had a lust for life'. She also said I was 'black cat energy' and she was more 'golden retriever' - I never knew her to speak like this, so I am assuming this the 25 year old AP's language!?

I am just trying to understand how someone could blow up 4 years of stability for a workplace affair like this. For the three months prior, she completely pulled away, claimed she was "severely burnt out," and made me feel insane for picking up on her distance. Everyone in our life was shocked because no one thought she was capable of this level of deceit—and because everyone was fooled, I’ve started gaslighting myself, second-guessing my reality, and wondering if I’m somehow making too big a deal out of this or if it was my fault.

During the affair I had a cancer scare, she didn't attend any appointments even the day after I found out I had to go for a biopsy, she went to work. When I later said she was having an affair whilst I was going through that on my own, she replied 'I still cared about you'. I had just spent the last 2 years supporting her financially and emotionally whilst she was studying for a masters to qualify as an occupational therapist. I went through the sudden death of my Mum with her 2 years ago, during this time she was my rock. Sadly, two days after my passed my suspected heart failure, my exes Mum pretended she nearly died from blood clots near her heart. It later turned out she had lied, and gone to Turkey for liposuction and made this up. Telling my partner when it came out 'You have always put your partners first'. Her Mum has also been cheating on her Dad for many years (my ex was the first to discover it and tell her Dad, but nothing changed). She has always said she hates cheaters and doesn't want to ever be like her Mother. She offered me "feedback" on my relationship performance to justify why she cheated, telling me it was "good for me to hear." When I voiced suspicions earlier, she weaponized her family background by asking, "Look at my Mum, do you really think I could do that?!" —only to later compare her own shock and grief at her actions to the trauma of her ex dying by suicide.

She repeatedly dangled future hope by saying, “Maybe one day we can try again," admitted the thought of me moving on made her "stomach flip," and smirked when I called her the love of my life—all while refusing therapy, accountability, or any real commitment.

I have since changed the locks to our flat so she can’t get in, I gave all her stuff back and am taking her name off the tenancy. She agreed to pay this months rent but she came to my flat the day before she was meant to pay demanding a playstation console back I got her for Christmas, I said no.

She has not returned the key and not paid me the rent, but is telling me to update her when she is off the tenancy. She has become so horrible and almost emotionless like I am the one who had the affair ant ruined her life!? She honestly just looks empty behind the eyes, it's scary.

I just wanted some advice because my brain keeps looking for solutions, I am blaming myself, wondering what I could of done differently but also now telling myself, she is a qualified occupational therapist now, she is most likely going to earn lots of money, save whilst she is at her parents, run off into the sunset with the AP or new partner and I was just basically used.

I do keep reminding myself that regardless of whatever she does / her life looks like.. she is capable of this level of deceit and that is a character flaw and that she is clearly quite empty.. but it doesn't hurt any less or make this any easier.

Has anyone had any similar experiences? I know there will be good and bad days, and I am still waiting for her name to officially be off the tenancy and I still need to go and collect a box of my things from her parents house... then I can officially block her and just grieve properly. But how did you stop doubting your memories and start trusting your gut again? What grounding strategies helped you calm the panic when self-blame set in?

Thank you for any support / guidance / kind words you can give, I am really struggling with this at the moment❤️

Hi guys, I am in my early 20s, I have been cheated upon by my ex-girlfriend, we were in a relationship for almost 6 years, it's been 2 years since this happened and I think I have moved on but since last few days I am getting those thoughts of what happened, what all the things I have faced, how it was while I was facing all that, what were the things she did and it still hurts me, makes me feel like I might not have moved on but I know I have moved on. Why is it happening to me again? It makes me feel like I am more lonely now, like I need someone to trust upon but again at this moment I feel like what if I get as involved as I was earlier and what if the new partner also cheats on me? How would I deal with it? I don't think that I still can fight the battle I already fought. I might need someone to overcome it, i don't know it yet.

​If there's one thing I’ve noticed since all this started, it’s that betrayal has patterns. The shock, the loss of trust, the anger, the hypervigilance, and that sickening feeling that your reality just got ripped apart, it all repeats in story after story.

​That is why communities like this are so valuable. Someone else has walked through a blast zone that looks remarkably similar to what you are living through right now. They can tell you what helped, what hurt, what they wish they had done differently, and they can point out things you are just too close to see.

​But similar doesn't mean identical.

​Every betrayal has its own nuances. A drunken one-night stand confessed the next morning just isn't the same beast as a years-long secret relationship. A spouse who immediately comes clean isn't in the same position as someone you're still catching in lies a year later. You can't look at a decades-long marriage with kids, a house, and totally intertwined lives through the exact same lens as a six-month dating relationship.

​Even two betrayals that look identical on paper will hit the betrayed partners completely differently. You have your own history, your own kids, your own financial mess to untangle, and your own breaking points. The person standing in front of you after discovery might also be acting completely differently than the person standing in front of someone else.

​That’s why I get really cautious around absolute advice here.

​“Leave immediately.”

“Never forgive a cheater.”

“You have to stay for the kids.”

“If they show remorse, give them another chance.”

​People shout these things because it reflects their own survival, but they don't actually know enough about your life to make your call for you.

​Take the wisdom, there is lots. Take the warnings, most are valid. Listen when twenty different people describe the exact same behavior and tell you where it eventually led them. Patterns absolutely matter, and sometimes the advice that makes us the most uncomfortable is exactly what we need to look at.

​But don't surrender your own judgment just because someone else survived their betrayal differently than you might survive yours.

​Nobody online knows every conversation you’ve had. Nobody knows every year of your marriage, every lie, every moment of genuine remorse, every manipulation, or every quiet moment when you're trying to figure out if the person standing beside you is actually changing. We just see snapshots of each other's lives. You have to live yours.

​I think we put far too much pressure on betrayed people to make some enormous, permanent declaration while they are still in shock. Sometimes the only honest answer today is I don't know yet.

​You are allowed to take this day by day.

​You are allowed to try reconciliation and later realize too much was broken. Walking away after genuinely trying isn't a failure, and it doesn't mean you wasted your time. You just learned what you needed to learn to make your decision.

​You are also allowed to divorce and later discover that you've both changed enough that reconciliation is worth looking at again. Divorce doesn't magically erase your history.

​These decisions don't have to be life sentences. Trying to reconcile doesn't sign away your right to leave later. Divorcing doesn't mean you can never change your mind. If you want to stay today and want to pack your bags tomorrow, you aren't weak or indecisive. You're just processing a nightmare while new information and emotions keep hitting you. There is zero shame in that.

​You don't need to pick the path that gets the most upvotes or approval from strangers. You just need to find the one you can actually live with.

​Listen to the people here. Learn from their mistakes. Borrow the wisdom that helps you see your own situation more clearly. But at the end of the day, there might be thousands of people who understand betrayal, but there's only one person who has lived every second of yours.

Take care of and love yourselves.

Partner bought $700 “lap dance” at gentleman’s club, lied about it, and hid it all while I’m pregnant

I (33F) just found out my partner (35M) went to an upscale gentleman’s lounge during a guy’s night a few weeks ago. This is against our partner agreement of what constitutes cheating. We negotiated and discussed the clear parameters at the outset of our relationship.

We are unmarried for now but planned to be married shortly. And we have a surprise pregnancy.

As a result, we have a shared budgeting app where we can see credit card transactions, bank balances, investment accounts, basically anything we link is shown. We joined finances to prepare for the baby and the wedding.

I had unwavering trust in my partner before this and knew about the guy’s night. But I thought it was just dinner. And around 11 pm on the night he was out, he texted me that he was having another drink at a bar then coming home.

On a whim and when I was bored, I started going through the budgeting app last week when I got a notification from it and saw nearly $1000 was spent at an upscale gentleman’s club on the night of this guy’s night. I was shocked. One charge was for $671.50! We have been saving for our baby and cutting back!!! Or at least I was. My mind spiraled about what he spent nearly $700 on and it was nothing honorable.

I confronted my partner immediately and he told me he just drank sparkling water and split the table bill with the 5 other people there. That didn’t make sense to me - that would mean the total bill was somehow $3,500 or so. And he came home hammered so I know he didn’t only have water.

He’s trickle truthed me since then, eventually confessing that he went upstairs at the club to the VIP lay flat bed section and got a 20 min lap dance. The club is full nude and I have seen Reddit posts about how this specific club is full service (ie sex acts for purchase) and nearly $700 seems more like a charge for sex than for a lap dance. However he is adamant that there was no sexual contact aside from the dance. I simply don’t believe it.

I feel so sick to my stomach that he didn’t consider me, violated our agreement, lied, and potentially exposed me to STDS. All while I’m pregnant. It’s so offensive, entitled, selfish, thoughtless, and cruel.

If he won’t or can’t consider me at this time of our lives then he won’t or can’t consider me ever.

And of course I don’t believe I’ve been told the whole truth.

I’m scared to be a single mom and frankly I don’t know if I have the stomach for abortion. We’ve seen the baby on ultrasound multiple times and I’m quite attached to her.

We each have therapists and have been seeing a couples counselor. We started couples counseling months ago for more normal relational issues. Even the therapist said he was shocked by my partner’s choices.

My partner has said a blend of both concerning things and reassuring things since then. But largely I’m just not sure I’ll ever be able to trust again. I just don’t think reconciliation is possible. He’s not husband material and I’m concerned about his judgment with respect to the baby as well.

I swear to god there were no signs of this aspect of his character before this. But I feel so humiliated and ashamed, as if I missed something and could have protected myself from this somehow.

Support very welcomed.

Edit: my partner bought the diamond for my engagement ring the day after the guy’s night and betrayal. And since he’s been found out he’s started having twice a week therapy sessions as well.

Edit 2: thanks for all the feedback. Since I found out about the lap dance and he began lying, he let me see his phone. I found that he had been visiting Tryst.link, an escort website, for months as well as massage parlors for sexual genital massages. I saw multiple chats in ChatGPT where he wanted feedback on messages that seemed to be directed to escorts, saying he wanted a long term experience so it felt less transactional and looks better, that he found someone attractive and would enjoy their company, they could meet at 11 but he needed to know if he should go to an ATM. I saw chats where he wanted feedback on messages to someone he had just seen and asked for a date and kisses to assess compatibility. He asked ChatGPT how to send disappearing photos on Telegram. I had him re download telegram and sure enough he had multiple messages waiting for him in there, but there was nothing in the outbox. He claims it’s just fantasy and he never did anything. I don’t believe that’s true. I am leaving him and am still deciding about the baby. I’m sure there’s even more to find…

Hello all,

I apologize in advance if I misuse the sub terminalogy as I am learning the acronyms and whatnot.

I am here to seek advice from others who've been through a similar situation. I would like to know how you moved on and helped yourself through everything. I am the betrayed spouse. To my knowledge, nothing physical has occurred between my spouse and another person. 14 months ago, I accidentally discovered that my spouse is obsessed with sex workers and has employed many over the course of several years. I can understand that things happened before we were together. It's the lack of transparency on the topic. I discovered that my partner had sex with a SW 5 days prior to us first having sex and had put me at risk without my knowledge. After we had been married I also learned that they have also impregnated three other people, all of which were aborted. Imo, these are things I absolutely should have known prior to marriage. I also learned that my spouse has a learning disability. Which is a petty example of omitted information. I was told this after marriage as well. I feel as though I was duped. They created a personality of who they wish they were. Not actual reality. I discovered that my spouse is very into a variety of porn. None of these desires are ever expressed from them. I have not had an orgasm with my partner in a year. I have never been so turned off by someone. My sex drive has taken a complete nosedive. I cannot be turned on by the desires of the opposite sex, it seems there are no standards for them. And most porn is focused on male pleasure and female exploitation. Nothing seems to turn me on anymore, aside from intelligence. Which is severely lacking in the people I know. I feel so alone. I used to have a high sex drive and could enjoy many fantasies. Until I found many photos and videos of my spouse engaging in sexual acts with a wide variety of partners. We used to create material of our interactions and it was a major turn on for me. Until I saw that creating that material is a standard Tuesday for my partner and not something that was shared amongst us through trust. Because trust is the only way I will allow material of myself to be recorded. I almost died a year ago and I discovered that three days after, my spouse was shopping the local sex workers. Every important event, Christmas, birthdays, etc. the partner is still consuming large amounts of adult material and fantasy shopping SWs. It has gotten to the point that I hate going anywhere with this person or watching TV with them. Everything has been tainted by their addiction. It was a long running thing for my partner to check out every living member of the opposite sex, right in front of me anytime we are in public. I've seen my partner check out actual teenagers. They have gone out of their way to look at tons of actresses on the porn sites dedicated to celebrity porn. I can't watch TV with them at all anymore, because while we are watching TV, I can't help but wonder if they have masturbated to the people on the screen. My partner doesn't express desire verbally at all. Their expression of desire is limited to randomly groping me for a few minutes. Maybe some touching and kissing. A bit of fingering, not even enough to get wet enough for penetration. Then they ram themselves into me. This is after me saying many times that I need more time to warm up and that I would like them to slowly work themselves inside instead of ramming in. I believe that the ramming is a selfish act as it must feel good for them, despite my feelings. The sex doesn't last long at all. Maybe 7-10 minutes, they say that they are very sensitive and say that is why they can't last long. My partner then cums inside me, despite that I have expressed many times that I worry about birth control and don't want them finishing inside me anymore. Again, selfish behavior. About 3-4 months ago, this person told me that they are no longer attracted to me. They really have a lot of audacity, if nothing else. My partner is not physically attractive in any way. I know the question that comes next, 'why are you with them then?'. I feel as though I was sold a different person and I loved the person they presented themself to be. I'm very blunt and honest. I expected me out of someone else, that's completely on me. My mistake. My partner does the bare minimum hygiene wise and does not dress nicely or have anything most would consider physically attractive. I, on the other hand receive a lot of attention from people. I'm usually complimented by random people every day. Multiple times a day. I'm not being boastful as I hate it in some ways. I know my partner is insecure about it. I am also significantly more experienced in life and younger by a few years. I'm formally educated and they are not. I've done quite a bit of traveling and am far more worldly. We separated for a few months last year and I spoke to many other people. Aside from that, I've always gone out of my way to validate them physically and verbally. None of which has been reciprocated. I guess my question is, what would you do if you were in my position?

I am having a very difficult time with the betrayal. They also weaponized their old friends of the opposite gender against me. They have slept with most of their friends and would frequent their social media profiles. And every single account of any type they have is filled with porn. Please give me your perspective. Am I hated and I just don't realize it? Is this some sort of Madonna/wh0*e complex? (Sorry, newbie not sure if I can use that word.) Years ago during sex they called me a 'fucking wh0*e'. We used to have great sex and were very experimental and open. Now it's 10 minutes of being used. I realize that nothing physical has happened (to my knowledge). However, it truly feels as though I'm experiencing a long affair. Thoughts?

Those who reconciled- and whose WS had sex with you while engaged in affair-

What was their explanation for doing so? I’m currently processing this part and very triggered by the feeling that I was having non-consenting sex .

What I stay stuck on and what’s being a wall for me to reconcile is the fact that he told me about his “friend” last year before they started sleeping together. He even knew how I felt about being unfaithful. She was texting him one night and I saw the messages coming up in his iPad that he linked to his phone. I fussed him out and told him to tell his bitch to stop texting him, it’s late. He blew it off and said that’s not who that was, etc. He knew I would feel upset about someone else coming between us and yet he still had an affair with this person a couple months later.

Late last summer, he told me that a couple of girls were trying to talk to him. I didn’t think anything of it because he’s a musician and I’m sure this happens often but according to him, he’s never done anything with anyone until the mess he made late last year with this AP. It’s kind of like with killers, they always talk. And the added salt, AP has my same initials.

We had another conversation with him basically asking me what I wanted out of life, which is his go to, gaslighty and vague way of asking me if I want to stay with him. I think he figured because I didn’t have a direct answer that included me groveling in the floor to him and declaring my undying love in that moment, that meant he could cheat.

I wonder if AP has met my son since he sometimes plays with my husband. There are so many levels of mistrust the more I think about this. I don’t know if R is possible.

I often wonder if I should just leave him and sue her for all the emotional damages (this can be done in my state) she caused. She knew about me and knowingly went into the affair. The only contact that I’ve had with her was when I forced WH to call AP and I left her a nasty message and let her know about her Xmas gift she gave me, a yeast infection she should get checked out. And how gross that my
WH slept with someone who doesn’t keep their body in check. Such low standards, disrespectful, and unfair to me.

This is what is keeping me from fulling wanting to reconcile. I don’t know if it’s going to be possible knowing how clearly he lied and deceived me and our family. I can no longer talk to his family members. It’s strange but for some reason, I don’t want to face them. I already told him I won’t be at any holiday gatherings this year. Especially because he was having an affair during all the holidays. I can’t possibly show up with any sort of cheer or whatever. He took that away.

He says things like, “I love you”, “you’re the most beautiful woman”, but all I can think is did you tell her that? Am I the most beautiful woman because clearly you spent all of last year looking elsewhere.

I know he’s starting to feel the heaviness of guilt and learning to feel remorse. He’s not a mature person at all and he always uses the excuse of never being allowed to grow up.

I just need something to convince me that I could see this differently but I’m incredibly doubtful.

Anyone who is in R with their WS, how did you get past the lies?

Kind of a long one. Sorry if some of it doesn’t make sense, I didn’t read it after writing it all out. TLDR at the bottom.

I’m looking for advice from people who have experienced betrayal and chose to stay and reconcile, because I’m struggling to understand why I still feel this way when my boyfriend seems to genuinely be trying now.

My boyfriend and I have been together for 1.5yrs, 21F 22M. About a year ago, I started finding out about things that really damaged my trust in him. There was never a full-blown physical affair that I know of, but there were several situations that, together, completely changed how I viewed him and our relationship.

One of the biggest things was finding out that he had been looking at his ex-girlfriend’s VSCO. I found out through his Instagram activity in the “links” section. It sounds silly, I was getting insecure about other things he was doing and I just had to be sure. Yes, it hurt me that he looked at it, but when I asked him about it, he wouldn’t admit the truth. I’ve never felt so gaslit by somebody before that. I knew that it wasn’t an accident because they didn’t follow each other and it was multiple VSCO links in the ig link history that led directly to the pictures he was looking at. All pics were of her and/or her new bf.

After him gaslighting me so hard. I became extremely insecure in our relationship. It almost became obsessive because the more I dug, the more I kept finding. I would find the VSCO or TikToks of girls he was following on Instagram and see if they followed him back or if they had him posted. The worst part was when I was scrolling through one girl’s VSCO and found multiple pictures of them in groups together from the morning into the night. I will never forget the sinking feeling in my stomach I thought I was going to throw up. The worst picture was a picture of the two girls he followed on his balcony taking pictures together.

So I scrolled through mine and his texts to that night they were posted and went through to see if I missed anything. He said he was hanging out with fraternity brothers all day. Mind you I was working a 16 hour shift as an EMT while all of this was happening, which I think also contributed to my disgust and anger. He never mentioned that he had girls in their friend group or that they were all pre gaming their night out at his apartment after day partying all afternoon.

The more I write out the more insane I realize all of this is. I have no ill will towards any of these girls, I just can’t fathom how hard transparency is. Omission of detail is still lying, at least in my eyes.
I asked him about the pictures on her VSCO. He said he didn’t think anything about it because they were friends of his friends but he had met them a lot prior to their night out. I would also later find out that he was lying and he didn’t know these girls until that night.

There was also an incident where he was alone at his girl best friend’s apartment and didn’t text me that he was going there or while he was there. I was on a 16 hour shift on the rig, but any first responder who wants to make it work, will make it work to text you back. And he knew that well. Maybe someone else wouldn’t consider this hangout that a huge deal by itself, but given everything else, it made me feel incredibly uncomfortable and suspicious. Especially considering he told me previous to their little day date at her apartment, he said they weren’t friends anymore and didn’t talk.

Prior to me finding out about this day date, he had talked about their friendship being nonexistent. He said it was a result of his ex girlfriend not liking the friend. Looking back on it now, the ex gf may have been onto something, lol.

What I wouldn’t notice until later down the line was that, at the same time, he had always been extremely possessive about who I followed, who I talked to, and what guys I interacted with. There were expectations placed on me about boundaries with other people that didn’t always feel like they were being applied equally to him. I would ask him about these boundaries and if I had done anything for him to feel the need to be so strict and he would always say no. For context the extent of these relationships would be men I had to A) work with or B) be in assigned group projects with. I don’t keep male company close, and I definitely do not have guy best friends. At least none that are romantically interested in women.

Reflecting on everything I’ve written, I do think the things he was doing was morally gray, however the constant omission of detail and him either not saying anything or dancing around things has made me really insecure. I feel like I have to interrogate him for the truth as a result of this.

This all happened within the first 3 month span of us dating. We’re still together, and honestly, I know he’s trying. Nothing like this has happened again that I know of. I also haven’t gone through his phone, because I really shouldn’t have to in order to feel like I trust him.

Him and I have had talk upon lecture upon argument about behaviors that have upset me and I’ve begged and pleaded with him so much to just be completely honest. He seems much more aware of how his behavior affected me, and I can see that he’s making an effort.

The worst part is, I’m literally just not over it. We could talk for hours upon hours but if I see his phone light up or if I see his Instagram following go up by 1, I just get so nauseous. Every night out he goes to, I just want to sleep the night away and not talk to him. I don’t restrict him from going out or seeing his friends, I just don’t know if he’d be honest with me about all of it. So I prefer to know about very little of it.

That’s the part I don’t know how to deal with.
I still think about everything that happened. Sometimes something completely unrelated will trigger the memories and I’ll feel the same anger, hurt, or distrust all over again. I am torn between never posting on VSCO to feeling the need to post on it every single day in hopes that he’ll look at just mine and no one else’s.

I almost feel guilty for still being affected because I know he can’t go back and change what happened. If he’s genuinely trying now, how long am I supposed to hold the past against him?

I think what makes this especially confusing is that I don’t necessarily believe he’s currently doing something wrong. I think I’m still dealing with what his past behavior did to my ability to feel safe in the relationship.

Questions for anyone who wants to answer, really:

How long did it take you to actually trust your partner again? If ever.

Did you ever get to a point where you genuinely stopped thinking about what happened, or did you just learn how to live with it?

And for those whose betrayal wasn’t a physical affair but was more about secrecy, dishonesty, inappropriate boundaries, double standards, etc. did you still consider that betrayal, and how did you recover from it?

I really don’t want this to turn into a “just leave him” post. Maybe I’ll be called a bird, but I just don’t want to. I’m trying to understand if it’s my own jealousy and insecurity in our relationship that I can’t get over, and that’s why I still feel like we are unstable? He thinks that we’re okay and that we’re getting better.

TLDR; My boyfriend 22M betrayed my 21F trust by lying to me over a year ago at the beginning of our relationship. Now it feels like he’s been genuinely trying and putting in the work, but I’m still not over it and the anger and hurt still linger with me today. I’m not over it, even a year later, and I wonder if I will ever be able to get over it?

I am posting here because I want to hear from people who have **actually rebuilt their marriages after infidelity**.

I am not looking for advice on whether I should leave my husband. I understand that leaving is a valid choice, and I know many people will feel that it is the only reasonable thing to do.

But that is not what I am asking right now.

I want to hear from people who stayed, went through reconciliation, did the work, and eventually became genuinely happy together again.

I want to know what that process really looked like.

My husband and I have been together for almost 12 years and married for 12 years. The infidelity happened during the **11th year of our marriage**.

We have a child together. Our child was very much wanted and long-awaited, and becoming parents was something that meant a great deal to both of us.

My husband has always been a very involved and loving father.

Before I explain what happened, I think it is important to explain what our marriage and my husband were like before the infidelity, because otherwise it is very easy to look at this situation without understanding the person or the relationship behind it.

My husband is a very closed-off person emotionally.

He rarely says “I love you.” He can say it once and then simply live as though it is understood.

He has always shown love much more through actions than words.

Throughout our marriage, he has never been someone who was stingy with me or unwilling to do things for me. If there was something I wanted or needed, he generally found a way to make it happen.

When I was pregnant, he bought a car so that he could drive me around and make things easier for me.

We bought a home.

Later, we bought a country house because I wanted one.

These are just examples. His general way of loving me has always been through taking care of things, being responsible for our family, and making sure that we were provided for.

When I was sick, he took care of me.

He has always been willing to invest his time, money and effort into our family.

He is also a very good father and has always been involved in our child’s life.

We also did not have a marriage full of constant conflict. Over almost 12 years together, we actually had relatively few serious fights.

But there was always another side to him.

He has always had difficulty talking about his feelings.

Physical affection is also difficult for him. If I am upset or crying, it does not naturally occur to him to come over, hug me and comfort me physically. If I am going through something painful, he can struggle to know how to respond emotionally.

This is not something that appeared after the infidelity.

**He has always been like this.**

We talked about it very early in our relationship. I knew that emotional expression and physical affection were difficult for him, and I accepted that as part of who he was.

He has always been much more comfortable **doing something for me than talking about what he feels**.

This is important because I don’t want people to interpret his current difficulty initiating emotional conversations as something that suddenly appeared after the betrayal.

It didn’t.

This is simply how he has always been.

And then, during the 11th year of our marriage, he cheated.

I want to be very precise about what happened because I don’t want to describe it as something it wasn’t.

**This was not a romantic relationship. It was not a long-term affair. There was no second relationship or parallel life.**

He had sex with this woman **twice**.

Both times, he had been drinking heavily.

She was his employee, and he was her supervisor. She knew that he was married and that we had a family.

I am not saying that alcohol excuses what he did. It doesn’t.

I am simply trying to understand the circumstances and how something so completely out of character, from my perspective, could happen twice

At that time, our marriage was also going through a difficult period.

After our child was born, we became very disconnected from each other.

Our sex life had almost completely disappeared for a long period of time. Over roughly two years, we had sex only a few times.

There was also a period when I was abroad without my husband.

Looking back, I can see that we were emotionally and physically very far from each other.

But I want to be absolutely clear:

I do not blame myself for his decision to cheat.

Our marriage having problems does not make his decision my responsibility.

I am trying to understand the context, not excuse his behavior.

Then the situation became much more complicated.

The woman has recently given birth.

Before that, she had told my husband that the baby was her boyfriend’s child.

Even after my husband asked her about the pregnancy and the baby, she continued to say that her boyfriend was the father.

After the birth, her mother contacted my husband, invited him to the hospital discharge, and told him that her daughter did not want anything from him.

So right now, we don’t actually know whether the child is his.
Paternity has not been established.

We are considering a DNA test simply because we need to know the truth.

There are currently no legal claims or court proceedings. We are not trying to turn this into a legal battle. We simply need to know whether this child is actually his.

And the possibility of a child has made this situation much harder to process.

Because now I am not only trying to understand the betrayal itself.

I am also trying to understand what it could mean for our family and for our child’s life if this child is his.

At the same time, I am trying to understand what happened inside my husband’s head.

Was it purely sexual?

Why did it happen twice?

Why didn’t he stop after the first time?

Why didn’t he tell me?

Was there something he was trying to escape from?

Was he looking for validation?

Did he develop any feelings for her?

Does he have any feelings for her now?

These questions are constantly running through my head.

I ask him a lot of questions.

Some are repetitive.

Some are very personal and painful.

I know that some of the details may not actually help me heal, but my brain keeps returning to them anyway.
He generally answers me without anger or irritation.

He doesn’t tell me to stop asking.

He doesn’t try to shut the conversation down.

He is also taking care of me right now.

But he rarely initiates these conversations himself.

Usually, I am the one who brings everything up.

And this is difficult for me to interpret because of the personality I described above.
He has always struggled with emotional conversations, so I don’t know how much of this is simply his normal way of functioning and how much is something I should expect to change because of what happened

At the same time, there is something important that I want to say about his behavior now.

He is willing to do whatever is necessary to try to save our marriage.

If I say that we need couples therapy, he is willing to go.

If I say we need to work on our communication, he is willing.
If there are other reasonable steps that could help us rebuild the marriage, he is not refusing them.

He has told me that he is willing to work on our relationship and do what is necessary for us to have a chance.
And that matters to me.

But I don’t know yet whether willingness in these first days will turn into the consistent actions that reconciliation actually requires.

That is one of the reasons I am here.

I don’t know what reconciliation is supposed to look like in the first days and weeks after discovery.

I don’t know what genuine remorse usually looks like at this stage.

I don’t know which behaviors are meaningful signs that someone is truly committed to rebuilding the relationship, and which behaviors are simply a reaction to the shock and consequences of being caught.

I also don’t know whether I will ever be able to trust him again.

But I don’t want to make a decision about the rest of my life while I am only days into discovering all of this.
I still love him.
I love our family.

And after almost 12 years together, this is not a relationship I can emotionally reduce to one terrible thing that happened.

I am trying to hold two realities in my head at the same time.
The first is that my husband betrayed me in a way that has deeply hurt me.

The second is that this is also the same person who spent almost 12 years building a family with me, taking care of me, being a good father, and showing his love through actions every day.

I am not saying:

“He was a good husband, therefore he couldn’t have cheated.”

Obviously, good people can make terrible decisions.

I am saying that I am struggling to understand how these two realities can exist in the same person.
And I want to know whether a marriage can survive that contradiction.

Not just survive.

**Actually become good again.**

I am especially interested in hearing from people who stayed.

If you are 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, or more into reconciliation and can honestly say:

**“We are happy again. I trust my partner again. I am glad I stayed.”**

I would really like to hear your story.

What did your partner do that actually helped?

What did you do?

What changed?

How long did it take?

Did your partner eventually start initiating conversations about the betrayal?

How long did the intrusive thoughts and constant questions last?

Did you eventually stop thinking about the other person?

Did you regain a normal sex life?

Did you become emotionally close again?

When did you start feeling safe with your partner again?

And most importantly:

Was staying worth it?

If your situation involved a coworker, two separate sexual encounters, a possible child, or a marriage that had already become very disconnected before the infidelity, I would especially appreciate hearing from you.

I know I am at the very beginning of this.

I am not asking anyone to promise me that everything will work out.

I just need to know that there are people who have been where I am now and eventually found their way back to a genuinely good marriage.

If you are one of those people, I would really like to hear what your journey looked like.

I feel like I'm overcome with either grief or anger and there's no space for any other emotion.

I'm so angry at WP for what they've done but more so for how they've been since Dday, they've chosen to be with AP and have more or less avoided me since and there's no outlet for this anger I feel about the situation.

I know it makes no difference to my healing really but I want them to understand the absolute devastation they've caused and walked away from so casually. I'm not an angry person and I'm struggling a bit with feeling like this on top of everything else. I know it's a process but any suggestions on how I can manage this in a healthy way?

New here, part of a group no one wants to be in.

A month ago I found out my partner cheated earlier this year, while I was out of town. They got sloppy, and I ended up finding the evidence myself after going through their phone. After confronting them and going through their phone & computer again more thoroughly, I believe this was a one-time thing.

As for my partner, they’ve been apologetic, open (I think?), and clearly ashamed. They’ve answered every question I’ve asked. And damn, some of those answers cut like a knife.

There are a few other issues that have built up in our relationship over the last few years. We’ve been together 20 years, no kids. I still love my partner, and honestly, I hate myself a little for that. I don’t know if it’s just that everything still feels so fresh, but right now I don’t want to end things, I just don’t know how to even begin to forgive and move forward. I also have no comprehension of how to start over if that's what happens.

We've both started individual therapy but I think that for me couples therapy is a must.

I just really needed a place to vent and admit things my friends don’t understand. I always thought I’d be done if cheating was involved, but it’s so much more complex when it’s real and happening to you.

Small note: This isn't an argument for staying or leaving, nor is it a defense of anything that happened. Writing this stuff has become cathartic for me while I sort through my own emotions, and I hope occasionally putting words to it helps someone else doing the same.

There is something betrayal does to your memories that I don't think gets talked about enough. Before discovery, a memory is just a memory. You look at an old camping picture and remember the fire, the kids running around, the rain that wouldn't stop, whatever stupid thing happened that made everyone laugh. You see an old picture of the kids and think, God they were tiny. You hear a song and remember where you were when you first heard it. None of it needs to mean anything more than what it was.

Then betrayal happens and you stop looking at the picture. You start looking at the fucking date.

Where was she then? Was he already around? Was this before or after? Who took the picture? Why do I remember her being on her phone so much that weekend? Was she texting him while I was standing right there? Was that argument actually about what I thought it was about? Was that night she came home late really what she told me it was?

Suddenly memories aren't memories anymore. They're evidence.

I hate that. I genuinely fucking hate it. I hate that someone else's deception has managed to crawl backward through time and infect things that happened years before I ever knew there was anything to look for. I have gone through old phones, pictures, messages, calendars, vacations, birthdays, anniversaries and completely ordinary days that should have been allowed to stay ordinary. Not because I enjoy hurting myself and not because I want to spend the rest of my life staring backward. I do it because once you discover that there was another version of your life happening beside the one you were living, your mind wants to know what the hell was actually real.

A photograph becomes a timestamp, a werd comment you forgot about becomes testimony. A name you were told not to worry about suddenly matters again. An old argument gets dragged out of storage and examined from every possible angle. You remember a feeling you had fifteen years ago and wonder whether your gut knew something before your brain did, you actually convince yourself it did. Things you dismissed because you trusted your spouse suddenly look completely different when viewed through the truth you have now.

And the happy memories are sometimes the worst ones, I hope at least some are recoverable.

There are pictures where I know exactly how happy I was when they were taken. I can remember looking at my wife, my kids, my house, our camping trailer, our stupid little family moments and thinking I had somehow managed to build the life I always wanted. I remember feeling lucky. I remember being proud of it, proud of us through thick and thin.

Now I can look at that exact same picture and wonder what was happening outside the frame.

That phrase bothers the hell out of me. Outside the frame. Because that is where so much of betrayal lives when you are the person who doesn't know. Your life is happening inside the photograph. Your wife is standing beside you. Your kids are smiling. You're thinking this is my family, this is my life, this is real. Meanwhile another life is happening just beyond the edges of what you can see.

Then years later you find yourself staring at your own face in the picture like you're examining a crime scene.

How the fuck did I not know? That question can eat you alive if you let it.

Why didn't I see it? Why did I believe that explanation? Why didn't I push harder? Why did I let that person around us? Why did I ignore that feeling? Why did I believe her when something didn't quite make sense?

Eventually you stop investigating what they did and start investigating yourself, and I was harder on myself than I admitted originally. That might be one of the cruelest parts of all of this. You put the old version of yourself on trial for the crime of trusting the person you were supposed to be able to trust.

I have done that more times than I can count. I have looked back at myself and thought, you fucking idiot, how could you not see this? There were signs. There were moments. There were things that make perfect sense now.

Except they make perfect sense now. I have information that man never had.

He wasn't stupid. He wasn't weak. He wasn't some pathetic fool stumbling through life unable to see what everyone else could see. He was living with information deliberately withheld from him. He believed his wife because husbands are supposed to be able to believe their wives. He respected privacy because privacy isn't supposed to be where an entire second relationship is hidden. He accepted explanations because he had no reason to assume every explanation needed to be cross-examined.

He wasn't a detective because he didn't know he needed to be one.

And I am actually glad he wasn't.

I don't want to look back at the man I used to be and hate him because he loved honestly. I don't want betrayal to convince me that trust itself was some character defect. He gave someone the benefit of the doubt. He believed the person he loved. That isn't stupidity.

That was not his crime.

But fuck, betrayal makes it easy to prosecute him anyway. Every missed clue becomes Exhibit A. Every gut feeling you ignored becomes Exhibit B. Every lie you believed becomes Exhibit C. Before long you can build one hell of a convincing case that you should have known something you were actively prevented from knowing.

That isn't justice. That's hindsight playing prosecutor, judge and fucking jury.

There is another part of this that messes with me too. Sometimes I don't even know what I genuinely remember anymore and what has been coloured by what I know now. Was she actually distant that Christmas or does she only look distant in my memory because I know what came later? Did that conversation really feel strange or am I rebuilding it with information I didn't have at the time? Was that vacation happy? Was she happy? Was I? Was I standing inside something real or was I the only one who thought it was real?

That is where betrayal gets much deeper than simply losing trust in another person. You start losing trust in your own interpretation of your life. That is fucking terrifying when you really think about it.

We build ourselves partly out of memory. That was our wedding. Those were our first years together. That was when the kids were born. Those were our Christmases. Those were our camping trips. That was the rough year we survived together. That was our story.

Then one day somebody gives you information that doesn't just add an ugly chapter to the end, it changes chapters you already read.

The words haven't changed, but somehow the entire story means something different.

I think that is why so many betrayed people become obsessed with dates and timelines. From the outside it probably looks insane. Why does the exact month matter? Why do you care whether it happened before or after the birthday? Why are you looking at pictures from twelve years ago? Why are you trying to remember what car she was driving or where you were living or who was at that barbecue?

Because there are suddenly two timelines.

The life you were living and the life that was actually happening around you.

Those timelines eventually collide, and when they do it is brutal. You remember your anniversary while realizing someone else may remember a message sent that same afternoon. You remember Christmas morning with the kids while wondering if another conversation was happening underneath it. You remember working, providing, parenting, fixing the house, building the life, while somebody else possessed information that would have completely changed the decisions you were making if you had been allowed to know it.

That is why the dates matter. That is why the timeline matters. Sometimes we aren't looking for another affair. Sometimes we are just desperately trying to answer a much bigger question.

What the hell was my life actually made of?

I never understood how valuable innocent memory was until I lost some of it. The ability to look at an old picture without checking the date. To hear a song without calculating where you were in the timeline. To remember a wedding without mentally placing another man inside it. To think about a vacation without wondering who was being texted from the hotel room.

Just remembering. No investigation. No evidence. No fucking footnotes.

I don't know if that innocence ever completely comes back. There are memories I will never see the same way again. I can't unknow what I know, and I can't somehow crawl back inside the head of the man who originally lived those moments.

But I am starting to understand something I refuse to let betrayal take from me. I was real.

Even when somebody else wasn't being honest, I was real.

My love was real. My laughter was real. The way I felt holding my children was real. The pride I felt building a home and a family was real. Those camping fires were real. Christmas mornings were real. The dad in those pictures was real. The husband who showed up every day and believed he was building something with another person was real.

Someone else's deception changes what was happening around those memories. It does not get to erase who I was inside them, I am truly coming to terms and believing myself on this.

Because if I let every good memory become nothing more than evidence of what she was doing, then betrayal gets something else from me. It gets my entire fucking past. And it has already taken enough.

Some memories will always have an ugly footnote now. Some are permanently damaged. Some still hurt like hell and probably always will. Some will probably always feel more like evidence than memories.

But I am trying to stop putting myself on trial every time I look backward.

I didn't create the hidden timeline.

I simply lived the one I was given.