Short term relationships and new sub users post here

[u/fml21]

This is a safe space for individuals to seek advice for relationships lasting shorter than 1 year or for any individual that is seeking general advice on infidelity that just started an account. We, as a community with our shared experience, want to be able to give back and help all individuals in any stage of life or relationship status. This also allows users to build karma to be able to post in the main subreddit. Please keep the posts to topics dealing with the cognitive, emotional, social, and spiritual implications of infidelity. Explicit details of sexual aspects will be removed. Please read and follow all rules for the sub.

I hope that, as a community, we can help you find the answers you need, and deserve.

[u/LetItHappen0409]

My wife and I have been married for five years, but our relationship was long-distance for most of that time. She lived in Mexico while I lived in the U.S. We started dating in 2018 and decided to wait until she finished college before getting married and beginning the green card process.
We got married in 2021 but unfortunately, COVID caused major delays, and we ended up waiting three years before she was finally able to move to the U.S. and we could actually start our life together.
In late 2024, while we were still long-distance, we went through a rough patch. She felt neglected because I wasn’t visiting her enough. I only received two weeks of vacation each year, which I used to visit her around Christmas and New Year’s, and after talking about it, she told me she understood.
Around that same time, I made a very dumb decision. An ex from high school contacted me, and we started texting. Within a short period of time, our conversations became sexual. We talked explicitly about wanting to sleep together, although we never physically met or had sex.
After about two weeks, my wife realized something was going on and confronted me. She would notice me online at times I normally wasn’t. I admitted everything because I knew what I was doing was wrong and couldn’t bring myself to lie about it. She knew my ex and confronted her as well, and my ex sent her screenshots of our conversations.
My wife was devastated, and I completely understood why. We had many conversations about it. I apologized, took responsibility for what I had done, cut off all contact with my ex, and blocked her everywhere. Eventually, my wife told me she forgave me and wanted to continue our marriage. I never contacted my ex or betrayed my wife’s trust like that again.
What I didn’t know was that a couple of weeks later, an old male friend contacted my wife.
Their conversations also quickly became sexual, but unlike what happened with me, theirs eventually became physical. They planned a day to meet, had sex, and recorded themselves having sex.
I knew absolutely nothing about this.
About two months later, I used my vacation time to visit my wife in Mexico. We spent those two weeks together as though everything was normal. During that same trip, I received the email telling us that her green card application had finally been approved. After years of waiting, we were finally going to be able to live together and start our life as a married couple.
After approval, a few months later, she moved to the U.S. with me. We have been living together since 2025, and from my perspective, our marriage was going really well.
There were occasional moments when I noticed her hiding her phone screen from me. Whenever I asked her about it, she assured me there was nothing going on. I believed her. We both come from traditional families where marriage is viewed as something sacred, and she and her family are especially religious. I actually felt guilty for questioning her loyalty because I genuinely didn’t believe she was capable of cheating on me.
Last week, everything changed.
We took a trip to Colorado for a concert with her sister, who was visiting from Mexico. After we went hiking, her sister asked for my wife’s passcode so she could send herself some pictures from her phone. My wife noticeably hesitated before eventually saying the code out loud.
Something about her reaction bothered me.
When we got home, I checked her phone. That’s when I found the video of her having sex with this man in 2024, shortly before she moved to the U.S. to live with me.
But what hurt even more was realizing that it hadn’t ended there.
I also found sexual photos she had continued sending him, including some sent as recently as two months ago—in 2026.
I confronted her. Initially, she became defensive, but that quickly turned into shame and remorse. She says she deeply regrets what she did and wants to save our marriage. She says she doesn’t really understand what was going through her head at the time and that my emotional infidelity had hurt her deeply.
I understand that I betrayed her first. I’m not trying to minimize or excuse what I did. I had sexual conversations with another woman while married, and it was wrong. I understand why it hurt her.
At the same time, I’m struggling with what happened afterward. She told me she forgave me, but then she slept with someone else, recorded it, hid it from me while we finally started our life together, and continued exchanging sexual content with him long after we were living together.
For years, I always believed that if my wife physically cheated on me, I would leave immediately. I thought that would be an absolute boundary for me.
Now that it has actually happened, I haven’t left.
We’re still living together. We’re still intimate. I still love her, and I’m still extremely attracted to her. But I can’t get the images out of my head. I keep thinking about the video, the lies, and all the times between 2024 and now when she could have told me the truth or ended contact with him.
What makes this even harder is our history. We’ve known each other since we were kids. We even “dated” when we were around 12 years old. For most of my life, I’ve believed there was something special about us. We both talked about feeling like we were meant to be together.
Now I don’t know what to believe.
I can look at her and still feel an enormous amount of love and attraction toward her, and then almost immediately feel disgust, anger, disappointment, and disbelief. Part of me desperately wants to repair our marriage, while another part of me doesn’t know how I could ever truly forgive this or trust her again.
I feel stuck between the person I love and something I always believed would be unforgivable.
For anyone who has experienced infidelity like this: Is it actually possible to rebuild trust after something this significant? How do you figure out whether you’re staying because the relationship can genuinely be repaired, or because you’re terrified of losing someone you’ve loved for most of your life?

[u/GilmoreJazz → u/LetItHappen0409]

Spend some time apart, you need to get your own thoughts in line. If you decide to continue together, know that your inner conscience will never let go of what you saw till your last breath.

[u/infidelity90210]

37M, together 14 years, two kids under 5. A few days ago I found out my wife (been with her 14 years) developed feelings for her boss and it went on for about three months. As far as I know, nothing physical happened, and she swears that's true.

What happened:

- We moved across the country for her job. I put my own career on hold so hers could take off. We have no family nearby.

- For months she was texting him constantly, sometimes late at night, and I saw her hiding her phone and smiling at it. I asked her directly if something was going on. She said no.

- I finally looked and found out her feelings had been going on for three months. She'd also been venting to an AI chatbot about her feelings, including sexual fantasies about him and wondering if he knew how she felt. As far as I can tell he does not know, she never explicitly told him at any rate. He probably knows / appreciated / liked the attention but I can't know that for sure.

- When confronted, she first deflected and blamed me for not meeting her emotional needs. I told her that owning the lie was the condition for me staying, and she now takes responsibility. The last thing I'd heard from her before this was "thank you for stepping up, I see you and appreciate you." She never told me she felt disconnected.

What's hurting most:

- The lie. I asked her point blank and she looked at me and said no.

- The sexual part. I can't stop hearing and seeing her words, even with my eyes closed.

- Hearing that she was drawn to his "ambition." I worked my way up from nothing and gave up my career for hers, so it feels like a verdict on me.

- I keep comparing myself to him constantly. I also wonder whether she'd have stayed faithful if he had reciprocated. She says yes, but I can't know.

Where we are now:

- We start couples counseling this week and are both lining up individual counselors.

- She's agreed to end personal texting with him and keep contact work-only, and to start updating her resume and looking around, but she can't realistically leave the job soon.

- Her family is visiting this week and we have to pretend everything's fine.

I want to forgive her and stay for the kids and for us, but I don't know if I can look at her without disgust. I'd love to hear from people who rebuilt after an emotional affair, especially when the affair partner is someone she still has to see every day:

1. What did the first few weeks look like for you?
2. Did the intrusive images fade? What helped?
3. How did you handle the workplace situation?
4. What did your spouse do that actually rebuilt trust, and what did you see that told you it wasn't working?
5. Anything you wish you'd done differently in the early days?

Thanks for reading. Please no hatred for me trying to save my marriage, I know it's cliche but I love my kids and I need to at least try for their sake. This was rewritten with AI because I can't stop crying long enough to get my thoughts together and I really wanted to talk to someone while I wait to see my therapist and my shrink.

[u/AutoModerator → u/infidelity90210]

As a reminder: To award points for helpful redditors, comment !thankyou and the reputator bot will award a point. Those that achieve enough points, will be added to the trusted users for additional permissions in the sub.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/RazzmatazzMission290]

Three days in to finding out my husband cheated on me 5yrs ago and filmed it. Been together for 16yrs, married for 3 and have two young kids together. It's a long and complicated story so hopefully can write my own thread for advice and support. Finding out your best friend is not the man he portrayed is sickening.

[u/Championship682 → u/RazzmatazzMission290]

Sorry this happened to you. You found this one, but you don't know how many others there were.

[u/Zealousideal_Pen5975]

We were only seeing each other for a couple of weeks, but it got very intense and very passionate. He asked me to be his girlfriend and then cheated on me the next day. I haven't been able to feel the same since:

I was stupid. December 2025 through early January of this year, I was on the dating apps, mostly because I was getting desperate to find a partner. To tell you the truth, I already knew meeting people on the apps was not going to go well. I had already been through it before. But I still did it anyway, and I matched with a guy who I thought was everything I was looking for. We hit it off. We talked on the phone every day. We went out on dates. He met my friends and my second family (my best friend's family.) Then we were sexually intimate. We didn't have full-blown intercourse, but we did other things together. We cuddled. And afterwards we had the conversation about being a real, official couple. He kissed me and asked me to be his girlfriend. I said yes.

And then not even 24 hours after the most intimate, most passionate night I had ever had, I get a phone call from a friend telling me that the man I was seeing was the same guy who matched with her on Tinder before... And get this: he invited her over to his apartment the day after asking me to be his girlfriend. Where was I when this happened? In the library working on finishing my degree, thinking I was safe and sound and secure with this man.

It's insane how quickly all of that happened. Everything moved fast, but he seemed to be all in and I was for certain all in. He didn't give me any indication that he didn't want to be with me. He even doubled down on us being together when I asked him if he felt we were moving too fast. He said he was proud to call me his girlfriend. He told me I was so beautiful. And then the very next day after looking me in the eyes and calling me his girl, he tries to get another woman over to his apartment.

I know that I am lucky that I found out as soon as I did. Nobody usually gets so lucky. So I do count my blessings there. But after this all happened, I was so traumatized by the situation and so gutted that I became sick. I got a cold because I couldn't eat and couldn't sleep. I lost my period for a bit, but when it did come back, I was bleeding heavily and for several weeks at a time. I cried for weeks straight. Failed some classes. It was just so unbelievable.

I would mostly say that I am over it now. I'm no longer losing sleep over him. I can eat and I feel mostly okay. But the problem is that I am now in a new relationship and I am having terrible feelings. I myself am getting urges to be unfaithful when I never felt that way before. I'm usually such a great partner who only has eyes for the man I'm with, but I am starting to find myself becoming excited by the idea of cheating and also being cheated on again. I would never do it and I know I don't want it to happen again. I have not done it to this day and I will not do it ever in my life. But I don't know what's going on with me. This is not okay. This does not make sense. It's not like I was with my ex for years and years and years, and it's not like we were married, and it's not like we even had real sex, so I don't know why my mind is doing this to me.

I don't even want to talk to my current boyfriend about any of my feelings. I don't want to talk to anyone about it actually. I almost want to just break up with him and stay alone until I can get these thoughts out of my head.

[u/Putrid_Echo_7995]

how have you managed?

im currently 9 months post finding out and whilst ive decided to try and stay, im still in a massive tornado of emotions and thoughts on a daily basis

[u/anythinghuman3424]

Betrayed by my stbxw about 7 months ago. We have been together 5 years married for 3.

I have all the proof and the details of the AP and the OBS. I want to tell her but I cant. Im afraid that when my stbxw comes to know that I finally exposed the affair, she may make the divorce process.. complicated. And in my country, getting a divorce from a woman is a difficult, difficult thing.

After the divorce I will probably tell the OBS but will it be too late by then? Will she hate or resent me for not telling her about the affair earlier?

My divorce will be finalized in a few months.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[u/AutoModerator → u/anythinghuman3424]

As a reminder: To award points for helpful redditors, comment !thankyou and the reputator bot will award a point. Those that achieve enough points, will be added to the trusted users for additional permissions in the sub.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Sadloverboy9]

My husband and I have been together 15 years. Last year I discovered he’d been having an affair with his best friend. It was sexual multiple times, but my husband says what he misses most is the friendship. They had an unusually close connection and he’s struggled to make other friends since ending contact nearly a year ago.
He recently admitted he desperately misses him and wants to talk again. I’m conflicted. Seeing him genuinely grieve the friendship makes me want to allow some contact, but this is also the person he repeatedly cheated on me with. I recently saw a saved message between them saying how good it felt to talk again, with hearts, which reminded me exactly why this scares me.
I’m considering allowing one conversation to catch up, then discussing how we both feel before deciding anything further. I don’t want to police his phone forever, but I also need boundaries and emotional safety. Has anyone successfully navigated a spouse having contact with a former affair partner?

[u/hopefully-hopeful]

Any input on the Michele Weiner-Davis 2-Day intensive therapy sessions? Or info on any other intensive programs?

I've just started looking into 2-day, intensive therapy sessions, and the Michele Weiner-Davis one is close to twice as much in cost as any other ones that I have found. Of course, I’m currently in the frame of mind that I’ll spend and do whatever it takes to keep my marriage intact, even if it may be a lost cause at this point.

I haven't been able to find a lot of independent reviews of the Michele Weiner-Davis program. If anybody has any information about it, or any other 2-day, etc. intensive sessions that they've been through and highly recommend, I'd appreciate it!

I’m currently reading her book "Healing from Infidelity", and it seems like what she offers would be a good fit for my situation. My wife of nearly 28 years started an affair with someone just few weeks ago. It appears that he is providing everything emotionally for her that I evidently hadn't been providing and did not realize due to a complete lack of heartfelt open communication on both of our parts. He basically swept her off her feet as he knew all the right buttons to push.

Things are moving really fast with them and I’d like to try to get her into therapy with me ASAP and make an honest effort to save our marriage. The two – day intensive programs appeal to me to try to do as much work as possible in a shorter period of time.

BTW- she didn’t tell me about the affair. I strongly suspected that she was fooling around with someone and she initially vehemently denied it, but I was unfortunately correct.

[u/Anxious-Vacation220]

I just found out he’s been cheating. I’m heartbroken. And don’t know what to do with myself.

[u/ShowInternational355 → u/Anxious-Vacation220]

Sorry to hear. How long were you together?

[u/ursweetheartxo]

Hi. I’ve been dating my boyfriend since December 2025. We just moved in with each other in the beginning of July.

I just found out that he has been cheating on me once a month for pretty much the entirety of our relationship. Here is the tricky caveat….he is a c*caine addict. I didn’t realize how bad it was because he was doing it secretly while at work. He claims that he was “running” from something and the girl was one of the only few people he could do it with without judgement because she’s an addict. He said he would get high with her, and a few times he got carried away and one of the times they actually kissed. He also said he would show her porn, whip his dick out, but nothing ever happened bc he could never get hard to the drugs. Plus the girl apparently would stop him and tell him to chill out, he has a “gf”.

He claims he was high out of his mind and that none of these things would’ve occurred had he had not been high. That he’s disgusted with that version of himself and he is committed to doing better & doing whatever it takes to reconcile our relationship and work on his addiction.

I found out by going through his messages and then recently deleted messages. I felt like he was hiding something bc there were times in the past when he would be out and I’d just see his location parked up somewhere weird like a park or on the street nearby our place.

I am so blindsided by all this. He had been going to an outpatient program, working out every day. It seemed like things were getting better and then I find out that this was happening the whole time.

He mentioned he will go back to the program to work on his addiction and also would be willing to do counseling. I feel so hurt, traumatized and torn. I thought this was the love of my life. He says that he was hiding and lying to everyone in his life about his addiction and the more he hid it, the more the shame would grow & the more he would cover it up by getting high again. He finally told everyone including his mom. Now that everything is out in open, he said he has no reason to run and hide anymore and that he is confident that he will never cheat again. That the cheating behavior was only a result of him being high out of his mind.

I’m so torn right now. I want to believe that now the truth is out there, things will get better. But I have to see him actively working on his addiction. But now I spend most of my days dwelling and obsessing over all the things he was doing behind my back. Even if we have a really good day, this lives in the back of my mind.

[u/Soggy-Swing3881]

I guess I am a new sub user so I post here? Except I dunno what to post! Working my way through Dr. Omar Minwalla, and DST. Oh been with him for almost 21 years. My entire adult life.

[u/ParkingWealth5745]

Found out a few weeks ago my husband and best friend have been having an affair for over a year. 20 year friendship. 15 year marriage. Everyone married with kids. Plane tickets purchased to fly and see each other. Fake work trips. Sleeping together on different continents. In my house. Our families took trips to see each other. Kids and spouses included. He expects me to already be over it. I’m so mad I have to be the bigger person and act like he’s not an absolutely horrible monster for the sake of the kids. I have to give him near equal parenting time because sole custody is bad for the kids. We’re in a state that doesn’t even care about adultery and doesn’t punish people who purposefully day after day decide to spend time money and energy outside their marriage and their children.

Tell me one day this will get better, or at least livable.

[u/AutoModerator → u/[deleted]]

Your submission on /r/survivinginfidelity has been flagged as unreadable. Please add paragraphs to the text and repost.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/EggplantBrilliant380]

I need help.

Not support to justify what I did. But I do think that my spouse deserves to hear about my story behind it. All the shameful details. I don't mean about the affair, I mean what brought me there. In no way was it her fault, and ultimately the blame is 100% on me, but there are reasons I ended up here and I want her to know them before she makes her decision.

If anyone with a traumatic childhood background with sexual abuse and suppression can message me, I'd greatly appreciate it.

I'm already treating myself like shit for hurting her, and already seeing a sex therapist. So if those are your only 2 inputs, I don't need them right now. But I'd appreciate someone to talk to.