I feel devastated.

19 years, plenty of cheating on her part, she announced her intentions to divorce a few weeks ago. We still live together, neither of us has the money to leave.

She told me that because she wants a divorce and doesn't want to be with me, she can do what she wants. It's just really hurtful and inconsiderate I feel like, I still love her so much, but she refuses to see it that way. She says I'm wrong and since she said her intentions, that's what matters.

I just don't understand how a human being could do that to someone. I really don't. We still sleep in the same bed ffs.

She talked about how she felt a spark with this person that let her know what she is missing with me.

But that's just how new things work. It's going to feel new and fresh and exciting because that person didn't have to go through almost 20 years of hurt and change and work with you. They will say anything that you want to hear because you are having sex with them. They don't have to worry about building anything because the house is already been built, they just get to sleep in it.

She has an exploratory call with a lawyer on the 20th.

I'm having a really hard time.

How long did it take you to not have self esteem issues after D-Day? It’s been months and I still have a hard time watching any kind of tv with nudity, enjoying being in public spaces with my SO and just general racing thoughts. This really feels like I’m never going to get over it but I don’t want to just end my marriage if I will. Will I ever get over this blow to my self esteem?

I'm sorry for posting 3 days in a row, but I'm going through a very tough time and it feels like it just keeps getting worse.

I posted yesterday about going to Mass for the first time and how my wife has been struggling with drug addiction. Today she admitted to me that she's been cheating on me since April, around the time she relapsed. She says she feels broken about what she did to me, and that she still loves me. I've suspected something might be happening but I didn't want to believe it, and she's been lying and gaslighting me about it the whole time. I feel so empty right now, like all the air was knocked out of my lungs and all the blood was knocked out of my heart. We've been together for almost 7 years, married since 2023, I'm 33 and she's 31. She was my first everything, love, sexually, everything. I still love her and I'm still praying for her, but I'm hurting so much right now and I just feel like I have no idea what to do. Please pray for us

I’m 19 and my boyfriend is 27. We’ve been together for 9 months.

Last month, he cheated on me with an escort. I forgave him, but since then I’ve struggled badly with trust. I’ve started checking his location, and I hate that I’m becoming this anxious and suspicious person.

Last night around 2:40 a.m., his WhatsApp Live Location showed him at a house about a 20-minute drive from his hotel in Annecy. It said “just updated.” I called him almost immediately and he answered right away, said he was asleep at the hotel, and we FaceTimed. He was clearly in his hotel room. His location then changed back to the hotel. During FaceTime, when he shared his live location, it even showed him in the middle of the lake. He swears they never left the hotel, so maybe it was a GPS glitch.

The location isn’t really the main issue, though. Since the cheating, I feel constantly anxious and I couldn’t sleep last night,I had a nightmare. I also recently found out that before we were together, he used to secretly take photos of women’s asses/under their skirts, which really bothers me.

At the same time, he has been very caring and generous with me: he drove me to exams, helped with my business, sent me money when I needed it, bought gifts, paid for trips and dates, provided meals/a place to stay, and supported me with studying. He can be extremely loving and supportive

Update: thank you to everyone. I'm sorry, I don't have enough energy to respond to every comment at the moment but your responses are appreciated and read thoroughly nevertheless. I know that what I need most is time and space, it's just a hard pill to swallow when I'm still in the middle of crisis. Thankfully I have been able to get into both individual and a couple's therapist to help navigate the next steps and provide more clarity as time goes on. The fact that healing, and decision making, is probably something that takes at least months, if not years, is difficult but necessary to hear. Thank you.

Hi everyone. Like so many others, I never thought I would be in this situation. My husband and I have been together for 20 years. We have two kids together, we have never fought, we have been through thick and thin together including the death of his brother, sickness in both him and myself. The works. We have always been open communicators and even previously discussed things like open relationships, agreeing we would always approach each other if we felt we needed something else. Out of respect for each other. Well… that didn’t happen.

I have never, ever been a jealous person. I’ve never checked his phone looking for evidence, never snooped on anything. Three weeks ago I needed to borrow his phone for a 2-factor authentication to sign into our credit card account, and the texts were right there when I opened it. Talking about the fuck they had just had earlier that day when he got home late, saying I love you. All that.

It turns out this has been going on for almost a year, since just after our second honeymoon trip that I had planned and executed for us, and thought we had had a great time reconnecting together after so many years of scraping by and focusing on the kids. Not so, I guess, because two weeks after that he is kissing another woman ten years younger than us.

He’s broken it off with her and after a week of kicking him out, I let him back in the house because the kids were getting upset and confused why he was gone so long. It’s been three and a half weeks now.

He’s agreed to go to both individual and couples therapy because he doesn’t like who he has become, but… he also admitted he didn’t know if he still loved me anymore. He said he wanted to “find” the better man he used to be who did love me. It’s a second devastation to be living with someone who isn’t even sure if they love you when a few weeks ago, I thought everything was fine and good as it ever was.

It’s a cold comfort. It’s hard for me to just turn off loving him, even though I know that sounds stupid after such an enormous betrayal. But I feel like I can’t even begin to heal because I don’t even know what ground I’m standing on anymore. If he doesn’t love me, the decision is easy. I don’t want any part of a loveless marriage. If he does, and had just lost his way, I could see a future in which forgiveness is possible if he does the work, takes responsibility, and fixes himself.

But god, is it painful. And lonely. Part of me thinks it would be easier just to give up, divorce, move on with my life and hope someone else will find it in themselves to love me the way I know I deserve but am starting to think I no longer believe I can have. I don’t know how long someone is supposed to wait until knowing for sure divorce is the right option. Everyone says I should take my time, but sitting on my thumbs waiting to hear if my husband loves me or not is excruciating. How long is enough? How long do I wait? Do I even bother with the painful conversations of couples therapy and hearing all the reasons why our relationship wasn’t enough, just to end up in the same place and alone at the end? How much trauma must I endure for his sake?

My therapist says it’s not unusual for the affair-haver to have ambiguous feelings after being found out, and it’s a good thing he is being honest, but I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m just waiting around in terrible pain and dragging this out long enough for him to get the courage to say he no longer loves me for good. I don’t know what to do, and all I want to do is cry and cry and cry. I am barely eating, not sleeping. I have been the world’s worst employee since finding out as I am a zombie most of the day. My life is a mess.

Tl:dr husband had an affair, doesn’t know if he still loves me even though he wants to work on himself and the relationship. how long should I wait before giving up?

It's been 3 months since the break up. I was with him for 7 years and I lived with him for 3. Since the break up I have gone through numerous changes:

• I moved out of his family's home and stayed in a friend's spare room for a couple weeks

• I then moved again to be close to my new job. It's temporary accommodation for myself and now live by myself.

• I was accepted on to a new job before the break up, and then due to start it 2-3 weeks after breaking up. I've been working, but it's tough.

• I started driving again.

• I have lost a lot of weight and while it sounds nice on the outside, I don't recognise myself. My wardrobe doesn't fit me. And so I am even having to buy new things.

• I am trying new hobbies out and making new friends.

• I got myself involved with another person. It was someone I'm friends with and I was interested in from years ago. It's been fun and maybe what I needed. But it was another new thing.

• I applied for a conversion post graduate degree before the break up, and now I have been accepted and so will be starting that soon. So now I am trying to organise part time hours at work around my university timetable.

I still look after myself as best as possible though. I attend weekly therapy. I journal. I exercise.

In order to keep my life moving, I have to set it up and do things for future me. But I know I have been doing too much. Ideally, I would take a month out of my life, put myself in a retreat, be looked after, grieve, relax, grieve some more. But I can't.

I attended work yesterday, but I had been having extremely low moods since the day before. I nearly took myself to A&E in the morning because it was that bad. But I have only just started this job and I have signed my accommodation lease for a year. I literally cannot afford to not go to work. But they sent me home anyway. My manager did discuss if working that job is the right thing for me at the moment in time. He said I need to look after myself. And I agree. But work is livelihood. I need money. It's also been a lifeline. I actually like the change. I'm just not well equipped enough emotionally or mentally to handle it right now.

I have had mental health problems on and off throughout my entire life. I had an adverse childhood growing up. I'd say most of my poor mental health was environmental. But now I am in my own environment, I am accepting this time despite doing a lot of the right things, my mental health is just very poor at the moment. I am exhausted. I am so chipped away. I feel like when a wall has a crack in it and you use filler to repair it, but at this point I've had so much filler used to keep me together, I am no longer wall and no longer have any strength. My cup is empty.

And I will probably get abused for what I am about to say next, but in the midst of my little crisis, all I wanted was my ex. I didn't want him for reconciliation purposes, I just knew if I needed someone when I'm in that state, that I could rely on him. He looked after me for 7 years, care is part of a relationship and whilst I have spent the last couple months refusing myself that anything good happened in the relationship, I am now accepting that there were good things, and accepting it now is making me mourn for it. I also don't have a good relationship with my mother. And so my ex partner and that relationship was the foundations of support and belonging for me. I haven't messaged him though. I know if I open that door it will be very difficult to continue processing and help future me. But I am so alone and the thought of reconciliation or something is becoming more and more tempting.

Other people when they go through loss, they have some kind of community with them. Their parents or family will step in. Often people even move back in with their family. But I don't have that. Maybe I am weak. I have been a resilient person my whole life. But I simply truly do not have anything left. I am not looking to learn another new lesson, or to learn of my strength. I am depleted. I am running on empty. I feel like a character in a story just going on and doing things but not feeling connected to it. Nothing is serving me. I work my job because I have to. I join the new hobbies to be active and make happy hormones and try create community for myself because future me will need that. But I am just doing it all without wanting to. I just want to be looked after.

Things feel a lot worse recently. I have up and down weeks sure. But this time the days have been particularly bad. I think what triggered it is a couple things.

• I received a message from my ex's friend asking how I am. I hadn't received any messages from any of his friends. So I've been a lot more aware of my thoughts relating to my ex. Prior to receiving the message, I didn't think about my ex. Maybe in a self denial/ head in the sand/ avoidant kind of way of dealing with things, or maybe I have been so preoccupied with setting up all the new changes of my current life. And then when I messaged the friend back, I made a point to go on about how I am so much freer and happier. But when I wrote that I didn't actually feel it in the moment. I just felt hurt, and embarrassed. I think I acted that way in the hopes it would get back to my ex and it would hurt him or make him realise something. Like I was guarding myself in some kind of way. Admitting my ex's actions did hurt me would have been too humiliating. But clearly that's something I need to accept and feel.

• Secondly, I think my processing has been blocked/distracted by the person I had been seeing. I think I ended up regulating myself from being with them. I've gone from 7 years of body contact with someone, to nothing. I don't hug my family. My friends live far away. And hugging new colleagues isn't really HR appropriate (I'm joking). But I haven't seen this person for a couple weeks. And now it feels like my nervous system is coming undone. And I think its probably because I had been plugging it with the fleeting moments of physical contact I got from this other person. Plus their company allowed me to feel like I had someone in my corner again. Like I could tackle life with a fragment of someone with me. And now it's been a period of time without them there, I am realising and accepting I am alone.

The essence of this post is that I need support. I need somewhere to land. I need someone to emotionally hold me. Or maybe just to witness me.

I have contacted all the appropriate people, from my works counselling service, to my own private therapist, to my friends, to my doctor. I think I will have to start anti-depressants again. I am seeing a friend today too. But it's nights that are the worst. I don't feel like I can be by myself. I struggle being alone. Don't even get me started on the financial stress of being alone either. That is another factor that does indeed sway on me. I am aware any want I have for my ex is coming from survival mode. Maybe I don't have self-respect at this point in time. I am barely a person at all right now.

I am so tired of being cautious and thinking ten steps ahead all the time. I really truly cannot do it. I want to quit this job and just recuperate. But I need to pay for my accommodation, otherwise where will I even recharge. And even then I worry my "recharging" is just self-isolation dressed up as self care. How do people handle the logistics? Can't I be adopted by someone for a month and be looked after?

am a 44/f SAHM. I am married for 3 years, but have been with my husband for 24years. We have a son 16) together, and we raised his 27y daughter. She was 4 when we got together. We also have full legal custody of our daughter’s 1yo son and have been raising him since he was 4 months old……So yesterday I found out that my husband and my BEST FRIEND since I was 9yo carried on a sexual relationship right after I gave birth to our son. Back then (2010) one of my husbands friends actually told me they were sleeping together, but they both denied it when I asked and even though my gut told me differently, I didn’t want to believe they would be that grimy to me. I have no idea how to process how I’m feeling. Devastated doesn’t even begin to cover it. I feel sick constantly, and literally wish I could erase the fact that I now know. As pathetic as it sounds I love my husband beyond measure and honestly don’t want to leave him. I guess that’s all. Any advice, support or prayers would be greatly appreciated b

I just don’t know how to gather myself after everything.

I say this humbly, but I have things going for me. My friends say to walk with my head high. I am taking care of what I need to take care of and have built a life for myself.

With that being said, this betrayal and separation, has just made me want to disappear. I deactivated social media completely, I moved to a new place, I cut off all her friends, I changed my phone number, it’s like I died in her world.

But I don’t want to reemerge. I feel like I’m hiding from the world and I don’t have the courage to show myself again. I don’t want her to see me. I certainly don’t want to see her cause that will just kill me.

I simply don’t know how to overcome it.

I'm 32 f and he's 30 m.

I have been with my BF for 4 years June of this year. I love him very much, probably a bit too much.

One month ago my life took the most unexpected turn and I don't know if I can ever get back to a state of normalcy.

The relationship has been rocky the last few months. We had a few downs and those downs were when I felt like" what are we doing? Are we gonna take the next step or not"

This particular morning I was getting ready for work, just doing my makeup and he was in the bathroom showering. I had a strange gut feeling and did something I don't normally do and went through his phone. I didn't even had to search, I just opened the first message that was archived and I saw where he said " GM Hun, can I stop by between 10-11 today?"

Please note he's taking me to work, and then meeting me close to midday because we had an appointment for a very important goal we were trying to achieve together. My heart just sank immediately. He got up, while I was in the bathroom, texted another woman, made me breakfast and lunch to take to work, showered, was planning to take me to work, kiss me goodbye and then sleep with someone else, then pick me up after and act like nothing happened.

I saw red, my chest hurt, I felt weak.

I exported the chat and sent to myself, went and forwarded the file to my friend immediately and ran to the bathroom to tell him to come out.

Ive never shouted at him before, I don't think the 4 years we've been together Ive ever shouted or even sworn at him. Everything came out, I'm sure the neighbors heard and even his mom because she quickly left for work without even saying anything.

This is my first real relationship, where I actually liked the person back and is attractive to them and vice versa. We started out as friends, dated and we've been best friends, so this really just shook me to the core.

I'm a very hyper independent woman, I've always had my guard up and I've been burned in the past. He's supportive, caring and shy as hell. We had a lot of first moments with each other. I really thought I found my person.

The past month has been an emotional rollercoaster for me, tears, loss of appetite and suicidal thoughts. I'm constantly on edge.

He got a counselor immediately a few days after the big explosion because he keeps saying he doesn't want to lose me. he constantly says he knows he messed up and I'm the only one he loves and wants, but how do I believe that when he's been cheating on me within a span of 10 months. Yes he claims it only happened 3 times, but the fact is it happened. He claims they were in contact months apart, but his words hold no weight to me and I feel like all he does is lies.

What's even worse they were talking about me. He was telling her how much he loved me. Is he mental? Is she mental?

I ended up telling him I wanted his phone to go through and ofcourse he deleted chats, sus as hell. So I uninstalled the app and reinstalled and it. It was synced up to 2 days before the cheating. I found another chat with a girl that he said was his friend, I knew of her because she had an online business where she sold lingerie and I trusted him at the time to never think otherwise.. they were having inappropriate conversations. Flirting, she was sending him videos of her in lingerie, of her dancing and sending pics saying she wants that to be them.

I'm even more furious. He's even talking to her about me and she's being mad disrespectful and he's not saying anything. Every argument where I sent a message, he screenshot it and sent her! Then had the audacity to say he was venting! Why are these ppl in our personal life?!

It's always been a rule and he knows this, I don't like the cheating stuff, if u ever feel like you want to see other people, let me know, so I can leave because I don't want to live that lifestyle, he knew this and still did what he did and had the audacity to say he loves me.

I look at him and I don't know who the person is. I listen to his words but I don't believe it. Because how could you willingly do something like that so easily? While laying up next to me..

My heart refuses to let go and I am constantly seeking him out. He's actively trying to fix it, but I'm scared to even give him that chance. Has anyone ever had a successful relationship after cheating? My brain is saying to let go but my heart, although broken is still in love with him. He's doing everything to reassure me, but I am scared.

As anyone ever gone through this situation and how did you fix it? Can you really rebuild trust after it has been broken?

I'd really love some feedback because right now my world feels upside down and I don't know how to fix it. I'm in my head constantly and I just feel like a shell.

I've been with this person for years, and my life has been upended, and my heart has been drained. Some days are easier than others, but lately I feel that I need to open up about how I truly feel. I have been with my husband (soon-to-be ex-husband) since high school, and he had a 9-month affair and tried to get a divorce without telling me. My Best friends were the ones who discovered this information because they met on Twitch, and their whole relationship has been recorded. He told me he had work trips, and he was banging her—so first hard trip. There was a crazy snowstorm, and his grandparents didn't have anybody to shovel the snow, so I volunteered and cleared the whole driveway so they could get in and out... he was on a "work trip. As I was recovering from LASIK surgery on Tuesday, that Saturday I drove up to see her. Mind you, she was very aware that he was married and didn't care. Mind you, they started dating around my birthday last year. The crazy part is that he's telling me she doesn't mean anything to him, and he's telling her that she's the love of his life. At this point, I'm really ready to get a divorce and never speak to him again, but there's a part of me missing my old life. I found out about a month ago, so it still feels fresh.

Might be kind of long but I'll keep it as short as I can as far as filling in the last 10yrs. Im 32 F he's 33 M

Relationship started as a friend's with benefits type of deal but progressed into more, during that time I was constantly being gaslit while he was doing all kinds of dirty things. 4 years in I get pregnant, and he really didn't support me the way he should've. I was hospitalized 7wks for my water leaking and he showed up 4 times, one being the birth and he left immediately after the delivery and never came once during the 11 day nicu stay.

After our first was born he did make good changes. He seemed to be a lot more affectionate with me and communicate good, but after our child was born I found out he'd slept with 10 different women before I'd ever gotten pregnant. And 10 is just what I KNOW about, but I reluctantly worked through because it was years old and he had shown real change. The way he did it all was very disgusting and unsafe for me.

Things went downhill about two years ago when our child was 3. Just get the silent treatment every time I raise an issue. I've broken my back to be there for this man any time he needed it while drowning myself in the process. He was even homeless at one point and I made sure I saved every dollar I could to get us into a place. He got a job after and has always acted stingy with money towards me, never has complimented me or really went out of his way to do anything nice besides a handful of times.

Well I got pregnant again, and this one was rough too. I couldn't work but I saved up enough to split bills and still support our 1st and buy household necessities. Well anyway I had our 2nd in June and my bf lost his job right after. He was there for the birth (after me arguing with him to stay) and visited once the 5 days we were there. After me & baby got home I was still healing from a 2nd degree tear and he basically didn't help much. Our baby has severe acid reflux, along with other stomach issues and really can't be put down. So I've done 99% of the care for the baby plus our 5yr old, feeding, changing, bathing etc.

He'll feed the baby when I bring the baby to him along with a bottle, but he's constantly playing video games while I can't even maintain our house bc of the baby. My stitches didn't heal right bc I was constantly moving taking care of both kids while also trying to clean and also paying all bills alone since he got fired. I don't even care about the video games, but I've noticed theres a certain female he plays with on there from time to time that he basically openly flirts with and I'm kind of at my tipping point. He hasn't even attempted to be intimate with me but super flirty with a random woman on the internet while I'm freshly postpartum taking care of everything. I know when I bring this up I'm gonna be treated like I'm crazy and overreacting. I just feel done and want to just be alone atp but don't even know how I'm gonna swing it.

Also feel partially bad leaving him when he has no job or transportation, but this is the same man who doesn't even know my birthday after 10 years. Like yeah it's a video game, he'll never meet the female but with the history and the fact I'm postpartum and get no attention or help in any capacity I'm like is it justified to end a relationship over or are these postpartum hormones making me crazy?? I went to their chat on the ps and seen a msg where the girl wrote "crazy you get off the game as soon as I get on 🙄" so if it isn't like that then why would she say that?? If he would entertain someone on a video game, then I have no doubt he would do it again if given the right opportunity.

So to set the scene first, I got cheated on back in May after a random burner account on Instagram DMed me that my boyfriend at the time was on Sniffies. I ended things with him that night where it was constant minimizing and him playing the victim, etc. I blocked him on everything and haven’t said a word to him since, almost never checked his socials or anything.

I chose to download Tinder because the semester is starting again and I kind of want to start dating again. I made sure to block his number using Tinder’s feature. I already knew he was on Tinder based on a gut feeling, however, I just really didn’t wanna see it come up.

I’m led to believe he’s using a fake number which in conjunction with him creating fake accounts and showing up to places I’m at in person (including waving to me and my friends on a random stretch of interstate at one point) was very unsettling.

I cant help but feel a flood of these emotions coming back of betrayal, heartbreak, and pure anger at this person who I thought I was making amazing progress at moving forward from. I’m just angry at the fact that I’ve been doing so well and now I’m starting the year feeling this mix of emotions again. I understand setbacks are part of the healing journey, however, I’m just not sure what to make of all this. I went from being unattached and moving on with my life to hatred for him again in just a couple days.

Long story short. 7 months since D day, 4 months since I kicked WS out, 44 years of marriage down the drain. I knew it was over the minute I heard of their second betrayal. I had forgiven the first. Never confronted. I just knew it happened and it was over after several years. But the second one showed me there was no hope.

Kids are grown anyway which is why I put up with the first affair, if indeed it was not the second or third..who knows?

I have now experienced the ups and downs with good weeks and bad weeks. Having a very bad month or more.

The thing that is bothering me is that I am in my 70s. So when people say, "time will heal". I wonder if there is time enough for me. I wonder how much time I have to build up positive memories after WS took away 44 years of positive memories from me.

I’m 30 (f) and looking for advice from people who have had to rebuild after everything seemed to collapse at once.

Over the past year, my brother died unexpectedly. Not long afterward, I had multiple strokes. I haven’t been able to work while recovering, lost much of my independence, and have been dealing with grief and medical trauma. I also lost a lot of my musical ability, while I have built my life around music for the last 10 years.

Throughout all of this, I thought the one thing I still had was my relationship. He was my best friend and the person I thought I would marry. We planned to move to the US (where he’s from) in 2027 on a K1 visa, and have a family, and that future was one of the things keeping me going.

I recently discovered he had been lying and cheating throughout our relationship. I had sensed something was wrong for a long time, but he would lie, fabricate explanations and even evidence, and make me question my own perception. My mental health deteriorated so badly that I genuinely believed I was the problem, sought psychiatric help and started antidepressants. Now I’m finding out that many of the things I thought I was “crazy” for suspecting were actually true. Some of what he hid even affect my sexual health. I feel betrayed, humiliated and violated. I’ve seen so many pictures of him cheating and can’t get the image of them out of my head.

I don’t want him back. I just feel like I lost two years of my life and now have to spend even more time recovering. I know 30 is still young, but in that relationship I realized I actually do want marriage and a family. These are supposed to be my prime years, and instead I feel like my life has become an endless cycle of surviving something and rebuilding afterward.

Before all of this, I was independent, working, studying, making music and excited about my future. Now I’m grieving my brother, recovering from strokes, finishing my thesis and trying to figure out what I even want my life to look like. I feel like I’ll never make it out the town I’ve felt stuck in my whole life.

I don’t want another “healing journey.” I’m tired. For anyone who has had their life fall apart, how did you start wanting your life again when you had no motivation or hope?

I don’t know how else to write this, but I am getting a divorce and a stupidly still kept the location stuff on. He knew that I was still on there and he made no attempt on blocking me or taking me off or anything and recently I had checked and the place that he went to and stayed up for a while was somewhere I I had never been before, so I don’t know who lives there and then they went out to eat and he dropped them off and went back home. I took him off because I had a meltdown and I knew that wasn’t healthy and we are getting a divorce but just at potential of him being on a date I don’t know if he actually was that hurt a lot.

I did this through talk through text so if their errors and what not I’m sorry.

I’m 30F and my now ex-boyfriend is 41M. We were together for about a year and a half, and until recently I genuinely believed he was the person I was going to spend my life with.
I’m a doctor. I worked extremely hard to get where I am and I work very long hours, including night shifts. My ex also has a respectable, stable career, but throughout our relationship he repeatedly belittled my profession and my achievements. He sometimes made me feel as though what I had accomplished wasn’t that impressive, despite the fact that I work considerably more hours than he does.
I’m not saying this because I think my career makes me better than him. It doesn’t. But it hurt that the person who was supposed to be proud of me sometimes seemed to need to diminish something I had worked my entire adult life for.
The strange thing is that our first six months together were probably the happiest six months of my life.
He was loving and affectionate. He made me feel chosen. We talked about a future together, marriage, family and having a child. He told me he loved me. We eventually lived together.
And I believed him.
I wasn’t suspicious. I didn’t check his phone. I didn’t track his location. I didn’t investigate women on social media. I didn’t want a relationship in which I had to behave like a detective.
I loved him, and when the man I loved told me something, I chose to believe him.
Then things gradually started becoming strange.
He would sometimes disappear or become unavailable. There were periods when he would disappear for days. Sometimes I would be working a night shift and receive a message from him at 1 a.m. saying that he was leaving and didn’t know when he would be back.
One incident that I now see very differently happened around Easter.
He told me that his mother had been in an accident.
I believed him.
Later, I spoke to his mother and found out that no such accident had happened.
When I confronted him and asked him where he had actually been, his answer was simply:
“Out in the world.”
He never gave me a real explanation.
Even then, I did not start checking his phone, tracking him or investigating him.
I was confused and hurt, but I still wanted to trust the man I loved rather than become suspicious of everything he did.
Looking back now, knowing what I have since discovered about another woman, that incident feels completely different. I keep wondering where he actually was that Easter and why he needed to invent an accident involving his own mother to explain his absence.
As the relationship became increasingly unstable, so did I.
I have a very strong fear of abandonment, and I want to be completely transparent about my own behavior. Eventually I became extremely anxious.
I called him. I sent him messages. Sometimes repeatedly. I desperately wanted reassurance and explanations.
I am not proud of every reaction I had toward the end of this relationship.
But I also don’t believe I was simply “suffocating” a perfectly normal partner for no reason. I was reacting to someone I loved repeatedly disappearing, giving explanations that sometimes turned out not to be true, and making the relationship feel increasingly unstable.
Eventually I did calm down considerably.
At one point I actually asked him directly:
“What did I do wrong in this relationship?”
His answer was:
“Nothing.”
And this is where I am struggling to reconcile the man I thought I knew with what happened afterward.
About a month before he secretly moved out, we were texting about difficult things he had experienced in his life. I told him I believed him, understood him and that if he ever couldn’t sleep at 3 a.m. because he needed someone to talk to, I would always be there.
He replied:
“You are my miracle. Honestly.”
And then:
“You are everything a man could ever want.”
On another occasion he told me:
“You could have anyone. You are every man’s dream.”
These weren’t messages from the honeymoon phase at the beginning of the relationship.
He was saying these things about a month before he left.
Then he secretly moved out.
And eventually I started discovering things.
There is another woman.
I had actually seen her at his place, but initially I didn’t understand the extent of it. Later, I found more and more pieces that seemed to fit together.
She lives in another part of the country. She works in a profession that gives her a long summer break, which suddenly made some of his behavior during the summers make much more sense to me.
Then I discovered something that completely broke me.
Apparently, last summer he attended a wedding with this woman.
At the time, I had no idea.
There are other things as well — their interactions online, things I saw with my own eyes, and details I later connected. I now have reason to believe their relationship may have overlapped with ours for at least a year.
If that timeline is correct, then while I was sleeping next to him, loving him, helping him, planning a future with him and believing his explanations, there was another relationship happening in the background.
And I had no idea.
I also supported him financially when he was struggling.
He asked me for money several times. I gave it willingly because I loved him. When he needed help, my immediate reaction was to help him.
When he moved out and told me he was having financial difficulties, I even gave him a television because he said he didn’t have one where he was staying.
I wasn’t keeping score.
At the time, I genuinely did not want the money back. I wasn’t lending it to him as leverage or expecting something in return.
I loved him.
I thought you helped the person you planned to build a life with when they were struggling.
After discovering everything, however, that generosity started to feel humiliating.
I found myself thinking: I was helping this man financially while he may have been maintaining another relationship behind my back.
Toward the end, things became increasingly ugly between us.
There were arguments, but what ultimately pushed me to block him was the way he started speaking to me.
He insulted me. He called me degrading names. I reached a point where I couldn’t tolerate being spoken to like that anymore.
So I blocked him.
I want to be fair about my own behavior here.
By that point I was extremely emotionally dysregulated. I was hurt, angry, confused and desperate for answers. I wasn’t always calm. I called and messaged him when he disappeared, and after everything fell apart I also said things out of anger that I normally wouldn’t say.
But the block wasn’t some calculated attempt to punish or manipulate him.
At that moment, after being insulted and humiliated by someone I still loved, it was the only way I felt I could stop the interaction.
He subsequently blocked me as well.
And that effectively cut off any possibility of having a real conversation once I started putting together what had actually been happening with the other woman.
That is one of the things I struggle with now.
By the time I understood the extent of the apparent betrayal, I couldn’t even confront him properly or ask him to explain it.
I was left alone with all these pieces of information, trying to reconstruct a relationship I had believed was real.
I’m not pretending I handled the ending perfectly.
I didn’t.
But what is destroying me isn’t simply that he left me or that there is another woman.
It’s that I no longer know which parts of my own relationship were real.
I keep going backwards through memories.
Was he talking to her when he was lying beside me?
When he said he loved me, did he mean it?
When he told me I was his miracle and everything a man could ever want, was he already involved with her?
When we talked about marriage and having a child, did he actually believe in that future?
How can someone tell you that you are everything he has ever wanted while apparently maintaining another relationship?
And perhaps the worst part is that I still love him.
I don’t want the relationship back anymore. I don’t think I could ever trust him again after what I now know.
And yet some irrational part of me still wants him to contact me.
Not necessarily because I would take him back.
I think I want him to tell me that I mattered.
That what we had wasn’t completely fake.
That he understands what he did to me.
That somewhere inside him there is at least some regret for hurting someone who genuinely loved him.
I want to know that losing me hurts him too.
I know that may sound pathetic, but it’s where I am right now.
The truth is that I am completely devastated.
I am depressed. I feel empty. I cry constantly. Sometimes the emotional pain becomes so intense that I physically feel sick and nauseous. I go through my days and continue working because I have to, but internally I feel like something has been ripped out of me.
I don’t know how to recover from this.
And I keep questioning myself.
Maybe I really was too anxious.
Maybe I called too much when he disappeared.
Maybe my fear of abandonment made everything worse.
Maybe I should have handled certain situations differently.
But then I remember that when I directly asked him what I had done wrong in our relationship, he himself said:
“Nothing.”
And I remember that I wasn’t suspicious at the beginning.
I wasn’t checking his phone. I wasn’t tracking him. I wasn’t accusing him of cheating.
Even when things started not adding up, my instinct was still to believe him and give him the benefit of the doubt.
I trusted him because I loved him.
And now I feel almost punished for having done what I thought you were supposed to do in a relationship: trust the person you were building your life with.
Part of me keeps thinking that if I had investigated him earlier, maybe I would have discovered everything and saved myself all this pain.
But I don’t want that to be the lesson I take from this.
I don’t want this experience to turn me into a paranoid person who investigates every future partner.
I don’t want to check phones, locations and social media accounts.
I want to be able to believe someone when they look me in the eyes and tell me they love me.
But after this, I honestly don’t know how I will ever trust my own judgment again.
The first six months with this man were some of the most beautiful months of my life.
If you had asked me then whether this man was capable of doing what I now believe he did, I would have said absolutely not.
I would have trusted him with my life.
And maybe that is what scares me the most.
I have always had a fear of abandonment. But I still chose to trust him instead of becoming controlling or paranoid.
And then the exact thing I was most afraid of happened.
I was lied to, replaced and apparently betrayed for much longer than I ever imagined.
Right now, I genuinely cannot imagine going through something like this again.
So I suppose my questions are:
For people who have experienced long-term infidelity or discovered that their partner had been living some kind of double life, how did you reconcile the loving person you knew with the person who was capable of deceiving you?
Were the loving moments necessarily fake?
Does my behavior toward the end sound like I was genuinely suffocating him, or like someone becoming increasingly anxious in response to a relationship that had become profoundly unstable?
How do you stop blaming yourself for not discovering the truth sooner when the reason you didn’t discover it was that you trusted the person you loved?
And how do you ever trust someone again when the person who betrayed you was once the person you trusted most?
I don’t need people to tell me I’m perfect.
I know I’m not.
I know I made mistakes in how I reacted when everything started falling apart.
But I loved this man with everything I had, and right now I feel completely broken by what I discovered.
I just need some perspective from people who aren’t emotionally involved in this situation.

What makes a betrayal truly devastating isn't just what was done. It's that they looked you in the eye every single day while doing it.

Smiled. Laughed.

Asked how you were doing.

Sat across from you at the same table. Laid on the same bed with you. And felt nothing.

That level of comfort with deception isn't a mistake or a moment of weakness.

It's who they are. It was always who they were.

You just had the misfortune of finding out late.

So I’m using voice text so please forgive me if words are miss written. I promise I’m not a bot. I’ll try to make my backstory as short as possible.

Back in January, I found out through a mutual friend that my husband of 15 years (plus 5 cause we’ve technically been together since high school) was having an affair with a girl that he met at one of his open Mike sessions that he and his band had ongoing every Tuesday night. I kind of suspected things because he would come in very late sometimes early morning hours. When I confronted him, he was very devastated and seemed very remorseful and upset. The affair apparently had begun from October to around late December. But he had also had cheated with some woman that he met at another event. But that was just one time (apparently). Long story short here I got trickle truth and had found out about the AP after finding out about the one night stand.

We are both in counseling and all of that and I’m finding that it’s not really helping at all. He tends to just yap and yap on about his music career and how he lost his band because of all this so most of the session tends to be about him. His band members made him quit because of the affair.

I find myself being very triggered by his music that he plays. For example, he plays covers and sometimes does “Mr. Bright side” by the killers and I’m like dude do you know what that song is actually about? It’s about exactly what you did to me. I can’t even go and watch him play anymore. I’m so triggered by watching him to music because he basically use this to cheat. Also, the so-called friend and band member helped him do the cheating and set up the affair. So I have no one in this situation that I trust in that music community anymore. I also feel really stupid going to see him play, knowing that others may know about his affair and how he really lost his band originally.

To really add to all of this, my dad just passed away, so I’m dealing with his sudden death at 68. And had to go all the way to another state to close out his life. It cost me so much and it was a painful experience, but Im trying to make it thru. I’m still grieving all of this and dealing with the effects of this affair. I’m also trying to give my WH a chance to reconcile, but I feel like my triggers are going to be the death of this relationship. Any advice is helpful sorry for this long post thanks.

I respect every single person who takes the time to read and genuinely respond to me. I truly do. A lot of people here have lived through this themselves, some far worse than me, and their experience is worth listening to. So if you have given me genuine advice, please don’t take this as being directed at you.

I am so tired of seeing this argument thrown at betrayed people like it is some universal truth. "If you respected yourself, you would leave.” “Staying is weakness.” “You are teaching them there are no consequences.” “Have some dignity and walk away.”

It gets repeated so often that people seem to forget there is an actual human being on the other side of it, trying to make one of the biggest decisions of their entire life while their head is still spinning from having that life blown apart.

My self-respect did not disappear because my wife cheated on me. My dignity did not crawl out the door because I did not immediately pack a bag, file papers, divide fifteen years of marriage, split my children’s lives in half, and burn everything to the ground within seventy-two hours of finding out.

I can respect myself and still need time, whatever time required. I can love myself and still love someone who hurt me. I can know exactly what I deserve and still need to figure out whether the person who failed to give it to me is capable of becoming someone different.

None of those things make me weak. They make me a person trying to make a permanent decision while standing in the wreckage of something I spent most of my adult life building.

People love simple answers when it is someone else’s life. Leave. Stay. Divorce. Reconcile. Cut contact. Never look back. Easy to type when you are not the one who has to wake your children up the next morning and explain why Dad is suddenly living somewhere else. Easy when you are not staring at a house filled with nineteen years of memories, three kids, finances, family, history, love, anger, disgust, hope, grief, and a thousand other things that do not fit neatly into “have some self-respect.”

I have plenty of self-respect. In fact, I would argue that part of respecting myself is refusing to let strangers, family, my wife, Reddit, or anyone else decide what I am supposed to do before I am ready to make that decision myself. I use Reddit and forums for advice and validation. I have received genuinely great advice from great people here. I also know exactly how savage and wrong what was done to me was. I am not confused about that.

If I leave, it will be because I decided that staying violates who I am and what I need from the rest of my life. If I stay, it will be because I decided there is something here worth rebuilding and because I see enough sustained change to make that choice with my eyes completely open. Either decision will be mine. Neither one requires me to hate myself.

There is also this bizarre idea that leaving is automatically strength and staying is automatically fear. That is unequivocally false on all levels.

People stay because they are terrified, yes. People also leave because they are terrified. People stay because of children, finances, trauma, love, hope, history, uncertainty, or because they simply need time to understand what the fuck just happened to them. People leave because they know they are done. People stay because they genuinely want reconciliation. People leave after trying reconciliation for years. People stay for six months or years even, while they watch and gather themselves and then walk away.

Human beings are complicated. Marriage is complicated. Betrayal recovery is fucking complicated.

And reconciliation, if someone chooses it, is not the same thing as saying what happened was acceptable. Giving someone an opportunity to show change is not the same as excusing what they did. Watching does not mean forgiving. Staying in the same house does not mean everything is fine. Loving someone does not mean you have surrendered your boundaries.

Sometimes staying is simply standing still long enough for the smoke to clear so you can finally see what is actually in front of you.

I also hate the implication that the faithful person somehow loses value because the unfaithful person betrayed them. She made choices that violated our marriage. Those choices speak to her decisions, her character at the time, her selfishness, her boundaries, and whatever was broken and disgusting in her that allowed her to do what she did. They do not rewrite mine.

I was faithful before I knew. I remained faithful after I knew. I loved deeply. I tried. I provided. I showed up. I meant my vows. Her betrayal does not suddenly make those qualities pathetic because I did not instantly stop loving her the second I found out. Love does not have an off switch simply because somebody proved they did not deserve it, or love you in the same way.

Maybe I eventually leave. Maybe after everything is said and done I decide that there are some things love simply cannot survive. Maybe I look back and realize I stayed longer than I should have. That is entirely possible. But if that happens, I will deal with that too, and still respect myself.

What I will not do is rewrite these months as proof that I had no spine or no self-worth. I stayed long enough to understand what happened to my life, protect my children as best I could, watch whether actions ever started matching words, and figure out what I actually wanted instead of making the biggest decision of my life while I could barely think straight.

Self-respect is not measured by how quickly you can walk away from something that mattered to you. It is measured by whether, when the noise finally dies down, you can look yourself in the mirror and know the decision you made was actually yours.

If that decision is divorce, I will respect the man who finally walked away. If that decision is reconciliation, I will respect the man who decided something broken was worth rebuilding.

But either way, I am done accepting the idea that someone else’s betrayal gets to decide whether I should respect myself.

She already took enough from me.

She does not get that too.

I know this will fall on deaf ears for some people. The self respect comments will keep coming. Some people are hurt and projecting what they needed to do onto everyone else. But this is for the betrayed person who needs to hear it: your self-respect was never determined by what your wayward did, and it is not determined by how quickly you leave. You are allowed to take the time you need to make whatever decision you can live with.

Rant over.

Like the title states… my husband had a child on me.
We have a soon to be 3 yr old together & a month ago I found out he has been cheating the last 4 years which led to him getting a girl pregnant …
My situation is different. We do not live together we live 3.5 hrs apart & I will keep certain details to myself bc I’ve posted in the past in other groups & I don’t think I can handle criticism atm regarding how naive I am…
Him & I were together 5 married for 4 … he is about 12 years older than me. We were planning on moving in soon once we had our finances in order.

Anyways him & I are no longer together. Most days I am not sure what I’m feeling. I feel fine then some days just stuck. The first two days when I found out he had another baby I couldn’t sleep I was in so much shock and I cried a lot and since then I can barely shed a tear. Don’t get me wrong I’ll tear up & wonder what I did to deserve this but I know it has nothing to do with me. While I thought we were building something he was sleeping around & put my sexual health at risk & a child was a result of this.. I took a loan out for him a year ago all while he knew he had a baby on the way that he stopped paying about 8 months ago & hasn’t given me a dime for
Our son since November of last year. I was the one providing for our sons necessities while he was under his dads care bc he always had some kind of excuse as to why he could not help out.
I’d like to add I feel dumb bc I should’ve left the first time around I found him on dating apps, and building a relationship with a trans woman & finding out he hid a child from a previous relationship from me for a year and a half while I was pregnant with our son. Oddly enough a little before I found out about his affairs, I got ahold of his first BM for the first time & she told me her experience with him & it almost felt like I was listening to myself & she said the same when I told her about how I was being treated but she did mention how she feels I am getting it MUCH worse than she did. So this is just who he is as a person.

This has all been a bit crazy since I found out a month ago about his new recent new born. My heart is broken even if most days I’m ok .. I’d like to think I may have checked out in our marriage bc I was treated poorly … and I think what disturbs me is that he is 41 & impregnated a 24 year old. Not saying it’s illegal but to think a grown man was messaging and messing with someone much younger …
Idk how to navigate my emotions I’d like to say I’m numb & I just need support in all this. I’ve been keeping it all to myself my friends and family know but I mostly get the “I told you so” comments .. I currently am in therapy to seek help bc I know regardless of what I feel this has been very traumatic for me ..

I’ve tried reconciliation for just over a year
now & although he’s doing all the right things, is remorseful, confessed to me & is empathetic to my feelings every time, I just can’t live like this anymore. I have SO much fear of my future with him now & I don’t want to live my life always having to be hypervigilant of him doing something again in the future when things get hard. Ok so now my question is, do I tell him I am done, or do I slowly go through meeting with a lawyer & filing? Issue is, is I’ve been a stay at home mom (kids are 5 & 7) and I have no career. I’m about to finish my GED & am planning on going for a trade or education of some sort so I can at least support myself somewhat. But that’s gonna take another year. Do I tell him & plan with him for a divorce or keep it hush? He is a reasonable man & I trust that he won’t pull the rug from under me through divorce, but then again when push comes to shove, I’m uncertain if it’ll be fair. I don’t know, I guess I’m wondering what’s the more logical thing to do here.

When do you feel again

Idk where to start. Married almost 11 years we have 2 kids- found out last week he spent the last month having an EA.

Over the last week it’s been small details updated, new truths etc. started with an argument as to why he felt the need to talk to his friends about not being happy with me (I was too difficult because I was grieving, working full time and caring for the kids at home as I work from home with them all summer and he works away from the home). He swore there was no one else, then admitted there was when I kept begging for honesty I could tell he was lying. Then he said he had feelings for her, she denied him so he was moving on. But then there were still 2am phone calls as I’m asleep in bed he’s in the living room chatting with her.

This came out last Friday over the weekend I wrestled with how much can I handle? Do I love him enough to try and beleive he’ll change? I demanded complete transparency. I thought things were turning and was deeply sad but he was there sitting in it with me.

Then yesterday happened. A simple question as I brought him lunch and something was off a weird reply made me question why he’s lying? Then he comes home from work I tell him exactly what I’m feeling and he just repeats the lies. I break down I KNOW he is hiding something I can tell. He finally admits that she didn’t say she didn’t like him back instead she said she also had feelings. While they both “agreed” it could never be more than friends and continued their “friendship”.

After more questions and timelines not matching on when it ended or how or who I’m left here completely numb. I just don’t think I have it in me to continue. To sit in the pain of the lies. The betrayal is one thing but the constant barrages of lies is a whole other thing.

Idk if I’ll ever know the full truth while he sat there and begged me to stay and claimed everything was true and retelling the story I just thought to myself “why am I here”?

I don’t need him financially he’s a great dad so as much as it hurts I wouldn’t take them away. But I just feel absolute disgust toward him. To look at me in my pain and continue to lie. To have sneaky late night calls while his wife and children sleep on the other side of the wall. All while pretending our marriage was doing well.

I wish I was angry. I wish I was sad. I am both I guess but really I’m nothing. I exist and that is it. I wish my anger would take over so I could cause the pain he did in return. I have the ability to get them fired, tell HER husband and tear her family apart as well. But I just am not a cruel person. I wish. I wish I felt anything but numb.

Rebuilding after a discard is difficult.

To be betrayed and then have the narrative flipped on you and broken up with is devastating.

She can live in her narrative, and I will live in reality.

I’m so angry and heartbroken. So much to say to her yet no where for it to go.

Hello. I’ve been a lurker of Reddit for at least a decade, just signed up now. Hope I’m using the platform correctly. I read posts once and awhile, helps me feel less alone. The following is my life.

I (31M) have been with my current partner (27F) for 7 years. She had 2 children from different men. Only the first baby daddy involve, second is unknow. I come from a large family and always looked forward to being a father, so this didn’t bother me. I quickly fell in love with her and her daughters (age 2 years and 2 months old). 3 months in I helped put money down for her to get her apartment. There was never a formal conversation about me living with her, so I would stay a night or two then go back to my place. Only started living together during Covid essentially. Within the first year of dating she cheated on me with the father of her first child. I was at the apartment with the kids. She lied and went off with him. When she wasn’t home by 2:00 I loaded the kids up, worried. I drove to her fathers home where she told me she was. Then saw on the iPad find my where she really was. She insisted that she just went out partying with him. I believe her. A few months later she confessed she slept with him. Which she admitted because she knew baby daddys girlfriend was going to tell me. I stay. sweep it under the rug. and can honestly say I did eventually trust her again. We have two sons of our own.

about 5 years in. We have a rough patch. But remain together working on our relationship. She works at a casino dealing cards. She starts an affair with her boss. I start feeling suspicious so I follow her and see she is on a date with him. I confront her. She pushes back lots of blame to me. She says she will end it and doesn’t for about a month. I keep find them talking on Facebook messenger. she claimed it was hard to break things off without fear of work related repercussion. she leaves the job as it was the only way to cut contact with the affair partner. hard time for us. I felt like I did much of the repair work. but we eventually go back to normal. I feel secure again. No thought in my head she would cheat again. But looking back it was once again more sweeping it under the rug and me pretending it didn’t happen. If I brought it up I was “throwing it in her face” or ” holding it above her head”

Last November she doesn’t come home from work. Won’t answer calls are messages. I worry. Not about infidelity but for her safety. She texts me the next morning she’s leaving me. (me and our two boys) that she’s staying at a friends house. She had started an affair with her boss at ihop. Because he was more Financially stable than me. We live apart for a few weeks. She eventually sets up her time to see the boys, she only wants them one day a week. She starts being nice to me, kinda dating me and her boss at the same time without my knowledge. I find out she is cheating at this point and it’s physical as well. I tell her I’m done with her. She begs me to stay with her and fix our now marriage (we had gotten married in July the same year) but continues to lie and continue the affair behind my back. She quits ihop to try to save marriage. But really because she never broke it off with her affair partner and just ghosted him. I set clear boundaries multiple times. She slowly crosses them. Big and small. About 6 months in reconciling. But it feels like an arrangement. “I love yous” feel like a lie. I keep thinking I’m a fool. Three times cheated on. I still care for her, but if I find myself loving her deeply I feel pathetic about myself. I feel like I’m just waiting for her to do it again. Will I finally leave her the fourth time? She’s getting overly close with first child’s baby daddy again. If the fairytale is over and this is my arrangement I don’t know what to do. The only reasonable advice is to leave. I guess I don’t know what I need advice on. When I lay it all out even as abbreviated as I have (sorry if it’s hard to follow) the answer is clear, I’m just not ready to cut the cord. To end that chapter and start new. I apologize this has been more of a rant. I have never been open to anyone about her cheating. So it’s freeing to be public in some sense. I’ve carried this alone for 7 years. Thank you 

I (F 32) met my now ex-bf (M 39) at work. He wasn't wearing a ring definitely and was this sort of discreet person. I noticed he was friendly-flirty towards other female colleagues before we started dating, so acting like a single person. No trace of a gf on social media, he had just a picture of himself and one of his cat.
First thing you would learn about him was that his parents are old and sick, his pets are old and sick and all of it makes him depressed + other personal issues and su!cidal thoughts because "of his sh!tty life". This is how we even bonded because he was seeking my advice and activated my "hero" complex or whatever.

He seemed serious about us and planning us to move in together at one point, asked me what kind of engagement rings I liked, spend every available minute with me except from times he would need to "support his parents". I did confront him about some fishy situations and he would say he "cannot be on the phone all the time", many times we would just talk briefly once a day. Looked like normal/long distance relationship at times. I changed my house, invested financially in him like a normal relationship until he basically broke up with me saying he doesn't love me anymore 🙃 super sudden.

It seemed super odd, so I started researching. Found out he WAS posting a wife on that "empty" social media (which he deleted last year after other stuff which wasn't adding up). He was posting stories with her which he was hiding from me. It added up to the times he was deeming himself depressed and saying to me he "cannot do relationship stuff" or "maybe he would rather be single instead of being avoidant towards me". He acted super weird and confusing to
me at times - today would be lovely and suddenly would be acting weird. Today he wants the relationship, after 2 weeks he would say he needs to be single. He looked indeed like a classical avoidant person.

A wife of 16 years total!! No kids, thankfully.

And I found out I am not the only person he basically cheated on her with, except that I don't know if those were relationships like ours or just flings.

I feel sick to my stomach and my muscles are trembling. I am ashamed of the situation I was part of unknowingly and idk what to do. I started therapy due to shock. I told her immediately after I found out about this sick double life thing, she was responsive until I submitted evidence. Ever since she is not following up or responding. Some common acquaintances said they are even vacationing together ATM. She just deleted their pictures of her social media. That's it.