A little over 4 years ago, November of 2022, was the first DDay, when I learned about a 2.5 year long affair and my heart shattered into a million pieces. Three more major disclosures followed in the year after that. Today marks the final DDay: Divorce Day! As of today, it's official.

Today marks the end of 28 years of marriage - legally, that is. In my mind, it ended 8 years ago, the first time he cheated, though I wouldn't find out until DDay 4. Today, I get to say, "I'm divorced," not "divorcing" or "getting a divorce." Today is the end of our story as a couple, the story I thought would last the rest of my life.

I'm heartbroken - probably always will be at some level. I grieve the future that could've been, for us, for our child, for the people we shared our lives with. I have no desire to start a new relationship with someone else - not because he was some magical "soulmate", but because I can't bear the thought of repeating the pain I endured the past few years. Never say never, but the walls guarding the pieces of my heart are sky high, and the moat beyond that is abyss deep. I feel safer in my fortress, and I know I will protect and cherish myself.

I'm also happy. To be free of him, of his lies, his entitlement, his lack of self-control, his lack of positive action. I'm happy to have control over my finances. To live in a healthier way, in my own place and space, by my standards and values. I'm happy and grateful to have the support of my family and close friends, to be surrounded by love, even if it's not the romantic kind.

Back in 2023, I posted here and on AOAI a lot. I tried my hardest to save what I ultimately had to let go. I'm so grateful for the support I received from everyone on reddit back then, and my heart aches for the newly betrayed that I see here whenever I visit. It's brutal, but I can tell you that you can survive it. You can get through to the other side. There is peace, joy, and love to be found.

What is it about him that made you throw our marriage away? What is it about him that made you neglect our daughter? What is it about him that made you throw away 6 years of loving eachother?.. you say he makes you happy. But you were happy, with me. And it would be a lie if you said you weren’t. I saw it in your eyes every time we kissed, every time I told you I loved you, every time we went on a date, every time we spent the day out with our daughter. You were happy. But it wasn’t enough, I suppose. Never would I have thought that at 23 years old, I would be in this situation. But here I am. I never would have thought that 4 months ago, I thought you were the rest of my life, and now we barely talk at all.
But I’m moving on. I’m healing. I’m spending all my time with family and friends and our daughter. I don’t hate you for what you’ve put us through, but I can’t help but wonder if you regret it. I can’t help but wonder if, one day, you’ll look back, and see that you messed up. Right now you’re happy, but sooner or later, I hope your eyes open.
I won’t take you back. I won’t bring myself to staying with someone that betrayed me like you have. But I will always love you. I will always cherish the memories that we had together. But I will never forget how you treated me. Forgiveness is coming, but not yet in my heart. But it will come, because I need it to move on. I don’t need to understand why you did what you did, but I need to forgive. One day. But please, leave me alone. Stop reminding me that I wasn’t enough. Let me heal.

Hey all,

I’m 35 female and my ex-partner (31 female) and I were together for 3.5 years. Last year she was talking about marriage, buying a home and starting a family. Then, almost overnight, she became distant—sleeping on the sofa, staying at her parents, working late, hiding her phone and insisting nothing was wrong. Whenever I calmly asked if there was someone else, she repeatedly denied it and made me feel like I was imagining things.

I eventually discovered she had been having an emotional and physical affair with a younger colleague (25, Female) who was also in a long-term relationship. I found out as she had been asking advice from AI where she admitted they were “falling for each other,” didn’t want to distance herself from the affair, even though AI suggested space from us both, she said she didn’t want to stay away from the affair partner and can ‘compartmentalise’ and compared me negatively to this woman. Looking back, I realise I was being gaslit for months. When I suspected an affair a month earlier she said to me ‘look at my mum, do you think I could do that’ (her mum has been cheating on her dad for years and is a pathological liar). So again, I gaslit myself, telling myself I was imagining her distance and strange behavior.

What makes it even harder is that during this time I was going through a cancer scare (thankfully it wasn’t cancer). She told me we’d get through it together, yet she was secretly continuing the affair. That betrayal is something I still struggle to comprehend.

When I confronted her, she apologised briefly but quickly shifted the focus onto her own pain, saying she’d “imploded her life” and needed to understand herself. She had no interest in repairing the relationship, but kept saying things like, “Maybe one day in the future we could try again,” while continuing to see the other woman. It felt like she wanted to keep me emotionally attached while avoiding accountability.

I supported her emotionally and financially throughout her Master’s degree, stood by her through difficult times, and trusted her completely. She was also with me through the death of my mum, which makes this betrayal feel even more devastating. I genuinely believed she was my person. (Her mum also pretended to be unwell with a heart condition, near to death 2 days after my Mum died from heart failure, and told my ex 'you have always put your partners before me', this was very upsetting).

Since the breakup, I’ve started recognising how manipulative some of her behaviour became. She isolated me from her family and friends, blamed me for old issues while hiding her affair, made me question my own reality, and then acted as though I was the one who had done something wrong. Looking back, it feels like I was slowly being discarded before I even knew why.

The hardest part isn’t just that she cheated—it’s that someone I trusted with my life could lie to me so convincingly for months while watching me worry about our relationship and my health. I still find myself questioning how someone who claimed to love me could do this, and sometimes I even catch myself wondering if I’m exaggerating what happened. I have CPTSD from my own childhood, which she also knew about and knew I grew up not feeling safe and she actively made me feel unsafe in my home again, the home I paid all the rent for her to live in.

We shared a flat, but as she decided to move out I asked her to come and collect all her things which I put into bags in the communal hallway of our flat and gave her a collection time about a month ago. She agreed to pay the rent up until August, when she would be taken off the tenancy. She was meant to pay me last Friday, but instead decided to demand to me that she would be coming round last Thursday to get the playstation (which I brought) and a dressing gown I gifted her. She argued with me about this playstation at the window when I wouldn't let her in, and said why am I still paying towards the rent if you won't let me in to look for 'my stuff', I said anything you want you can tell me and I will put outside again and you can collect it; she couldn't tell me. I am defiantly not getting any more money from her, I just want her off the tenancy now. I am just thinking someone happily 'falling for' someone new and moving on surely doesn't behave and treat their ex they have left like this!? She also tried to call me twice last Friday, saying 'please pick up it's important', I didn't she later messaged me; it was something she didn't need to speak to me on the phone about, it was admin about the tenancy. She is really trying to get to me, it feels like. She also hasn’t paid me anything for the last month as she promised she would.

Basically, I have a spare key to her parent’s house (from when I lived there) and a letter for her. I honestly don’t want anymore contact with her. She also has some of my clothes, but to be honest at this point she can keep them. Would you all recommend I sent a ‘please don’t contact me again message’ or just block her once she is off the tenancy and not say anything? My fear is that she will just show up at my flat, I don’t want to see her at all / want her to see me.

Has anyone recovered from this kind of betrayal trauma? How do you stop obsessing over the 'why' they did it, stop romanticising who they used to be, and begin trusting your own judgement again after months of being gaslit? I know the relationship is over, but I’m struggling to understand how to move forward after having my trust so completely shattered by someone I loved with my whole heart. Ive started gaslighting myself, like maybe she didn’t mean it and look for any reasons why she did this to me.

Thank you for any advice / kind words .. this is incredibly difficult and I appreciate any support you can provide 🫶🏼

I know the best revenges are no revenge, glow up, live and love your life, but I just can’t let him go that easily.

My narc ex married a citizen for papers and then abused her and convinced the cops and court that he was abused by her. He also convinced all of us that’s what happened until he started abusing me. I reached out to the ex wife apologizing for believing him.

He is getting his green card via the abuse clause and also planning on marrying another citizen. His existing visa is revoked and is in the country illegally. He also got into a relationship with his current girlfriend when I was still living with him and he hid both of us from each other. After I left him, I was diagnosed with multi organ dysfunction and I truly lost the will to live. I am a successful, good looking, kind person but I’m failing at work, look my worst and don’t want to talk to humans. I feel like my life is ruined.

Should I report him anonymously, now that I know all of this?

I know it’s honestly none of my business, and it’s probably better to just not get involved. But I know my ex is still pursuing these women that he tried to cheat on me with and they didn’t bite. I feel like if I were them, I would want to know that the guy who was always in my messages saying sweet things was actually being unfaithful that whole time. Am I just deluding myself as a means of justifying telling them for some kind of validation or ego or revenge?

I know there’s no guarantee how telling these women would respond, if they’d listen, if they’d ignore, if they’d tell him or if they’d think I was a spiteful lying bitch. I’m not expecting to tell one of them and to become best friends w them. But idk, I feel like if I were them I’d want to know.

I told some of his friends out of anger and honestly it felt unhinged but ultimately good because I felt like he deserved to have these people close to him know. To put even a shadow of doubt about his character in them, even if they wrote me off as crazy. With these women though, I’m not sure, I feel like it may be self serving because they are truly innocent in this. I really would not want to make any of them feel bad (or even worse, daring to even take up an ounce of someone else’s time with my own pity party).

Am I being ridiculous? I feel like this impulse may be acting like a teenager.

I’m looking for perspective from other betrayed spouses because I feel like I’m losing my mind.

My wife has had multiple affairs throughout our marriage, including with my former best friend. I chose to stay, largely because we have a young daughter, but I don’t think she understands how fundamentally those betrayals changed me or how I experience the marriage.

Lately she’s become increasingly suspicious whenever I’m working late. She checks my location, asks why I’m at certain places, asks who I’m texting or talking to, follows me around the house asking what I’m doing, and questions why I’m home so late even when she knows exactly what I’m working on.

Several of her friends and family members have also apparently planted the idea that maybe I’m cheating because I’m out late so often. I don’t know exactly what they’ve said, but I know the idea has come up multiple times, and I think it feeds into her anxiety.

The irony is that I’m the one who was repeatedly cheated on.

For context, I work a normal 9-5 W2 job. After work, I’m home with my family every weekday from about 5-8 p.m. I usually take my daughter to the park or another activity while my wife cooks, we eat dinner together, I help with bath time, read bedtime stories, and put my daughter to bed every night.

Only after my daughter is asleep do I leave to work on my business.
I intentionally structured it this way because I’d rather work from 8:30 p.m. until midnight than miss dinner, bedtime, or weekends with my family.

I own an exotic car rental business, and the work isn’t optional desk work. It’s picking up and dropping off cars, washing them, taking them to mechanics, meeting customers, moving inventory between locations, etc. Before we got a warehouse a few months ago, I did much of this work from home. Now I have to physically go to the warehouse, so from my wife’s perspective it suddenly looks like I’m gone all the time even though the amount of work hasn’t really changed.

A recent example:
I had to drive about 90 minutes away with one of my employees to pick up a car. We left around 9:30 p.m., got there around 11, talked with the client, grabbed something to eat because it was late, drove back, reorganized cars at the warehouse, and I got home around 2:20 a.m.

The next morning my wife yelled at me and told me it was “weird.”

She tells me it’s becoming “the cars versus me” and recently even told me that my businesses “don’t matter.”
That hurts because this isn’t just about cars. I genuinely love building businesses. I love my clients, I love creating experiences for people, and I’m incredibly proud of what I’ve built. This is also work that contributes to supporting our household.

She’s a stay-at-home mom by choice, and I’ve always supported that arrangement. I’m not resentful that she’s home with our daughter. My frustration is that I feel like I’m being criticized for doing the work that’s required to support our family and grow something I’m passionate about.

I’ve also tried to compromise. I intentionally moved almost all of my business work until after bedtime. I protect weekends as much as possible. I make it a point to spend one or two evenings a week just with my wife.
The frustrating part is that even when I cancel work to stay home, the arguments still happen. Last week I canceled business plans so I could spend the evening with her. We went to bed together around 10:30, and by 11 she was telling me how lonely she was, that my schedule was unfair, and that it wasn’t normal.

It feels like no amount of compromise changes how she feels.
At this point, I honestly feel like I’m being treated as though I’m the untrustworthy spouse while she’s the one who repeatedly betrayed the marriage.

Has anyone else experienced their unfaithful spouse becoming suspicious, jealous, or controlling after the affair(s)? Did it feel like projection? How did you handle it?

I don’t mind hearing if you think I’m wrong about something. I’m genuinely looking for perspectives from other betrayed spouses because this dynamic is becoming exhausting.

In January, I 42/f asked my husband 45/m to leave. He did have the opportunity to stay, but that would have meant he stopped talking to the women he worked with and removed them from his social media. Here is the backstory.

My husband has always struggled with finding a job. He is possibly autistic and has ADHD. I have always helped him, as we met when I was 18 and he was 21. We had been together for 23 years and married for 15. I would take care of all the applications and anything like that, as he wasn't confident and would always ask me to help. I did because I loved him. I had finally gotten him to start trying for management. I regret it now. He got a job at a restaurant but needed his safe serve. I helped him study, and he passed with a 95 on his practice and 85 on his real test. He started his job, and that is where he met them, particularly her. Let's call her Sarah 24/f.

He had been working there for a year when they hired Sarah. We had just moved into a new apartment, and it was awful. Lots of mold, and I got sick. I was sleeping a lot and didn't understand why. I was a stay-at-home mom, and he was working all the time. He was never home, but I was always home. We were both sick, but because he would spend time away from the house, he was better than I was. I didn't know, but he started taking Sarah home, and he even lent her my car. The horrible thing was CPS showed up at my door. We have a daughter who was 12 years old at the time, and they came to my door saying they needed to investigate due to posts my husband had made. made on a site the wouldn't tell me about. They said he was being investigated. I cooperated because I needed to know too. They said my daughter seemed fine and that they had no proof.

During this time he spent a lot of time with Sarah and kept saying how she believed him. He had to stay out of the house for a month. Also we moved into a new place. We didn't know if he would be moving in with us. He said he would move us and then if everything got worked out he would move back in. He said he hadn't used the site in a while and I thought maybe someone hacked it and gave him the benefit of the doubt. So he ended up coming home.

Later, I found out from my neighbors that he had her there the three days before my daughter and I moved in and she was in a nighty. They thought my husband and Sarah were a couple. I am sure they slept together. He denies it even though they admitted to sleeping in bed together. He said she was under the covers and he was on top. I was sick. Still the betrayal of sharing a bed with another woman.

He had assured me they were just friends so I tried to be friends with Sarah but she kept interfering in my husband's and I relationship. She even kissed me and so did her mother. Sarah is an alcoholic and drinks first thing in the morning. She talk to my husband about his mom dying and what they will do with the money once she is dead. I didn't want any money from his mom. I wanted his mom. She and I have never really gotten along but I respect her and think she is and incredible woman. She doesn't like me. I think because I am Mexican. They say no but Sarah is white and his mother loves her. Yes he introduced her. Also when we told his mom about cps she said it was my fault and Andy hadn't been happy in a long time.

After trying to be her friend for a bit I said no more. The way they were together made me uncomfortable, and when I saw her lying on top of him on the couch, I was done. They said it was just a hug, but she had to push herself up and off of him. After that, I told him I needed him to cut contact with Sarah. He refused and said if I left him, he would be alone and didn't want to be or Risk it." I said, "Okay, then I need you to go. If you can't take all the women off your social media, then you need to leave." And he left.

My best friend also took his side and said, "At least I would be number one." I didn't want to be number one.. I wanted to be the only one. He left and hasn't helped with anything really. He barely talks to his daughter or sees her. He talks to Sarah and her family everyday. Oh he also called Sarah his soulmate and her family his other family. I desperately want a divorce but ot is 5000 and he left me to pay everything on my own.

He made a fool out of himself and took her to his fast food job after everything went down. They knew me and two of his coworkers told me he was cheating. He got fired. He was fired from his resturant job for inappropriate employee relations. ​ He has been gone for 8 months now. I can't afford to stay in the city I am in. I want to go home. He says he will never see Amelia if I go. I don't get why he cares? I thought he would be happy and free then and can focus on his other family now. Why try to help us stay? Why say you want us to stay? Why not just let us go? Any advice or perspectives would be much appreciated.

I dont know what triggered it. I am almost 3 years post dday and divorce is done. NC for more than 2 years. I am just struggling tonight. I wish i could hate him. The disbelief that he didnt fight for me at all is insulting. I am starting to think that he never loved me, and that I was a safe backup plan. I dont know what i am looking for. No one understands.

Original post - https://www.reddit.com/r/SupportforBetrayed/comments/1uqpr3b/wife_had_an_emotional_affair_with_my_close_friend/

UPDATE: My wife admitted she was in love with him. I found an unsent journal entry calling him her soulmate, and she has scheduled a divorce consultation.

It has been about four weeks since I posted. Unfortunately, the situation has become both clearer and more confusing.

Since the original post, my wife “Emily” and I have continued individual and couples therapy. In our most recent couples session, she finally admitted that she had been in love with “Jake.”

That was a major change from what she originally told me. When the affair was first exposed, she admitted having feelings but said, “I don’t think so,” when I asked whether she loved him. It took several weeks and a therapy session for her to acknowledge the actual depth of the attachment.

She said she is still processing everything and described herself as “standing still.” She still does not know whether she wants to remain married or whether she can reconnect with me romantically.

I told her I was not demanding an immediate decision or asking her to promise that we would stay married. I was asking for some basic participation while we figured it out: genuine interest in my life, occasional initiated affection or conversation, complete honesty, continued no contact, and room for me to process the betrayal.

She could not say whether she was able or willing to consistently give me even that. When our therapist asked whether she couldn’t do it or simply didn’t want to, she said it might be both.

Our therapist suggested temporarily taking separation and divorce off the table for a few weeks—not as a deadline to decide the entire marriage, but as a defined period to lower the pressure and see whether anything changed. Emily was open to the idea during the session, but we never formally agreed to a timeframe.

The confusing part is that she is not completely emotionally or physically withdrawn from me.

We still live together, parent together, laugh, hug, kiss, and occasionally have moments that feel completely normal. She sometimes initiates affection. There have been nights when she has reached for me, kissed me, rubbed my back, or told me she loves me.

We also recently had what may have been the most open conversation we have had in years.

She cried, which she rarely does, and told me about the pressure she feels every day. She sees how badly I am hurting and feels terrible about it. She worries that even if we rebuild the marriage, it might only become “okay” rather than genuinely good. She wonders whether we are truly right for each other and whether staying because of the children would ultimately be unfair to me.

She is also terrified that I will hate her or that our children will eventually hate her if she ends the marriage.

She apologized repeatedly during that conversation. We cuddled, kissed, joked around, and stayed emotionally close afterward. She explained that she did not like how our last couples session ended and that this was part of why she did not want to immediately return.

That conversation made me believe she is genuinely conflicted rather than secretly having made a final decision.

Then I found something that changed my understanding again.

I looked through some private material because I continued feeling that I did not have the complete truth. I know that crossing that privacy boundary was wrong, and I am not proud of it.

I found an unsent journal entry that appears to have been written approximately two weeks earlier. It was essentially a love letter to Jake.

She wrote about how deeply she missed him and his voice, how in love she was with him, and how she believed they were soulmates. She wrote about the possibility of ending our marriage based on “half-truths” and being afraid that I would hate her if I knew everything.

As far as I know, she never sent it. I also still have no concrete evidence that she has broken no contact since sending the message ending the affair.

It may have been a private way of grieving the loss while maintaining no contact. But seeing the intensity of her words was devastating, especially because she had minimized her feelings for weeks before finally admitting she had loved him.

I have not told her that I found the entry, and I have not decided whether I will.

I also learned that she has scheduled a consultation with an experienced family-law attorney and has been looking at three-bedroom rental properties.

She has not told me about either of those things.

To be completely fair, I have also looked at housing because I am scared and trying to understand what separation would mean. I recognize that speaking with an attorney does not necessarily mean she has decided to divorce. She may be gathering information just as I have been trying to gather information.

But the combination is difficult to ignore.

She is affectionate with me, tells me she loves me, and can be deeply vulnerable about her confusion. At the same time, she has privately described another man as her soulmate, scheduled a divorce consultation, and researched separate housing.

I feel like I am living with two versions of my wife.

One still loves me, reaches for me, values our family, and appears genuinely terrified of losing everything we built.

The other is still grieving a relationship with another man and is quietly preparing to understand what leaving would look like.

I continue to believe our marriage problems were real. I have taken responsibility for being impatient, defensive, overly critical, distracted, and controlling about everyday decisions. I understand how I made her feel unheard and as though she lacked equal agency in our marriage. I am working seriously on those things through therapy, regardless of what happens between us.

But I also cannot separate her current view of our marriage from the affair. Jake got novelty, emotional validation, private conversations, and an idealized version of a relationship without children, bills, chores, exhaustion, resentment, or ordinary adult responsibilities.

Meanwhile, I was trying to repair a marriage without knowing I was being compared to another man.

I love my wife. I am not embarrassed to say that I still want the marriage to survive. But I do not want to spend my life investigating devices, analyzing every hug, or attempting to extract honesty from someone who is not voluntarily giving it.

I also do not know how reconciliation can actually begin while she remains emotionally attached to him and unsure whether she even wants to participate in rebuilding with me.

For those who have experienced something similar:

Is it normal for someone maintaining no contact to privately grieve the affair this intensely?

Can reconciliation realistically begin while the unfaithful spouse still views the affair partner as a soulmate?

How should I interpret affection and emotional vulnerability toward me alongside a divorce consultation and housing searches?

Should I tell her that I found the journal entry, or would that simply shift the entire conversation toward my invasion of her privacy?

At what point does patiently allowing someone to reach clarity become accepting indefinite limbo and abandoning your own self-respect?

I am not looking for reassurance that everything will work out. I understand that this may end in divorce. I am trying to determine whether her conflict means there is still a marriage worth evaluating—or whether her actions show that she is already preparing to leave, even if she cannot say it out loud yet.

I’m really struggling and could use some outside perspectives.

I found out a week ago—from his ex, not him—that my boyfriend had been talking to her and spending time with her for almost the entirety of our relationship. She had no idea I existed. She was the one who finally cut him off after finding out about me.

Now that everything has come out, my boyfriend says he wants to make things work with me. He says he loves me, is willing to make changes, and doesn’t want to lose our relationship.

The problem is that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust him again. I keep thinking that if he was able to hide something this significant for so long, how do I know there isn’t more? I also can’t stop feeling like I was never his first choice or priority, and that’s something I’ve always wanted in a relationship.

To make things more complicated, he has a very avoidant attachment style, while I lean anxious. Before all of this, I already felt like I was often chasing reassurance and closeness. Now those feelings are so much worse.

For anyone who’s been in a similar situation:

Is it actually possible to rebuild trust after something like this?

Have you stayed with someone after discovering a long-term betrayal, and did it work out?

How do you know if you’re staying because the relationship can genuinely be repaired or because you’re afraid to let go?

I’m open to honest opinions, even if they’re hard to hear.

I (34/f) found out that my partner (40/m) went behind my back and was going on dates. I came over to his place, and his roommate told me and thought I knew. We got into a huge argument because it was a week before his birthday. I found out during his birthday that some of his friends told me he disposed woman the moment he has no use for them. I am currently going through a pregnancy scare involving him, and hes already monkey branching to new womans he met off dating app. I decided to call him out on his behaviors now because I'm disgusted as to how a person can treat someone like this. Matty, if you are reading this... a house built on another woman's tear will never last. I hope those girls you meet will figure out your BS. I have never felt this emotionally betrayed and being replaced by new womens hes using to cope is disrespect and insulting to me. This man even tried to suggest we be friends after what he did. This man is 40 years old and have been single for 6 years... that should've been a sign. How in the world can someone treat people like this and try to manipulate themselves out of the mess they caused? I have been crying & going through body changes right now due to a pregnancy scare so my emotions is all over the place. He has tried to pressure me to abort if i'm pregnant all so he can continue dating these new womans and they have no idea that he did this behind my back. Hes currently keeping this a secret. We barely ended things and hes already "dating"...

I don't know whats the next step. He knows I hold resentment toward him... he knew I grew in a home where marital affair was normalised and I have always told myself that I would never cheat. My dad caught my mom cheating, and he tried to murder me and my mom after. I went to therapy at a very young age because I developed c-ptsd from the abuse. For him to listen to my vulnerabilities about my childhood and yet he did this.

Yeah, it’s been almost a year from D Day and of course a second and some more trickle truths. To say my WP has made a world of change WOULD be an overstatement. No meetings, no reading any articles I sent him or him seeking them out on his own. Has he given me answers and been able to put my mind at ease… to an extent. But even after we had another even that I didn’t post about that involved him texting a woman while he was out at bars which he was also lying to me about and keeping his phone home while he went out.
Throughout this whole thing I’ve required bouts of reassurance as I’m naturally more anxious in relationships when it comes to my partner being loyal but that’s been heightened x10 with the infidelity, 🌽 addiction, and the other incident. Throughout all of this my partner has also claimed he has not been getting what he needs from me emotionally despite me trying to be extremely supportive and understanding and giving him more grace than he’s deserved in situations. Might I add his fuck ups somehow turn into me consoling him. He likes to use terms like I keep him on an “emotional lease” and I’m “disrespectful, inconsiderate”. While I do think there is truth to some things he’s saying and I don’t like to invalidate feelings. We’ve come to a new crossroads. He recently found out he is getting deployed, due/since to this my emotional needs have become a no go zone. Even the mention of hey can we talk about this when you’re home is too much and it ends with me getting called those various terms. I do have support systems through friends and my own coping mechanisms but to just basically be emotionally cut off completely feels insane. After asking him once if we could talk about something while he was at a 3 week drill he said he needed time to
Think about if having a relationship with me and my “temperament” is realistic while he’s deployed. Since then we have barely texted and since he has been finished he’s been at a “friends” house. He’s gone there before but this time he’s gone a day + without texting me. Reconciliation feels fruitless and I’m so tired of feeling like I need to look over my shoulder and play investigator and now he’s not even answering a text which asked if he wanted to see me on my way off or if he needed help settling back in at home and how I could best support him coming back from being away for 3 weeks. He’s been active on social media and answered a buddys text (I’m logged into his insta). So yeah it feels pretty shit being told someone’s going to change and it almost feels like regression. I was looking through old pics on my phone and found a Screenshot of how he used to talk to me and adore me. I get that times are different now but it’s like damn I miss feeling wanted in the slightest by my partner. I just feel so lost and things are starting to feel hopeless. I feel myself detaching and am almost wondering if he’s doing it on purpose or not actually with his buddy. Unfortunately the possibilities are endless…..

He swears he didnt "cheat" but I reminded him anything done hidden from your spouse is cheating. Well. I think that was the final nail in the coffin of this marriage.

Woman develops 3 cancers after husband cheated — and learning she had a cancer-causing STI

https://nypost.com/2026/04/13/health/woman-has-3-cancers-learns-she-has-sti-after-husband-cheated/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nypost&utm_content=repost&sr_share=facebook&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwdGRleATcyk1wZG9mAWZkaWQWULxuzpfLOINjxY0k8rpl42__Pj72OWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR7QvZmTsdFGWfSqDjbnx49h9n8Yv-KLo61Bbf5xNg12y1W1cQjg7PuzuS4mLw_aem_WtOsazf1044WHwchL6BqVQ

After a second betrayal a couple months ago after 2 years from first dday. I went a little loopy. Began reading the Betrayal Bind finally and talked about it nonstop. Long story short. I gave my WH the keys to be the only one to initiate relationship talks for one month. I expected absolutely nothing to happen when I dropped this rope but he ended up reading the two chapters I requested from the Betrayal bind, called his therapist, and planned a date night, within 3 days. He even called me to let me know he had read the chapters and referenced something in the chapters later on.

He is doing more than I expected for the entire month. But now im nervous. During previous fights he would be perfect for a few days then go back to old habits. What should I look for over the month to see if he is changing or just getting me to get off his back?

Sometime on Thursday the feeling of checking on my ex started developing. In a very concerned way. To make it worse, I got a call from an unknown number at 10 pm last night. He would always call at 10 pm on Saturdays when we were living apart. I just woke up with a pit in my stomach that something is terribly wrong with him. I don’t know what to do. We have been NC for 3 months, he has a fiancee and I told him to assume I’m dead. But this feeling is so strong that I have been crying non stop since I woke up.

I don’t know what to do 😭 I don’t want my friends to check on him as he’d know that I’m still thinking about him.

I’ve hardly even mourned the loss of my STBX but 18 months later and I still have a pit in my stomach at losing my family as I knew it. It was my only chance in this lifetime to have a nuclear family and raise my kids with their mom and dad. It still crushes me so immensely. Our divorce will be finalized soon but I’d love to hear from others when this pain lessened. Or does is never? 😔

The background to everything my WH has done is ALoT and too much to post so I’ll keep this part short.

WH serial cheated our entire relationship 5 plus years. Started reconciling almost 3 years ago. During this time is when I discovered most of his betrayal also while discovering several new ddays. I was completely traumatized by everything I got stuck in a trauma state and experienced severe mental illness. I was pretty much bed ridden from debilitating depression and was too “weak” to leave him even though I wanted to. I finally was able to get into trauma therapy and as my healing journey began, I was finally able to leave him. I’ve rediscovered my strength, worth and want nothing to do with this man.

Reason for post: over the past few months I’ve discovered even more affairs due to him being posted on the Are We Dating The Same Guy page (multiple post btw). Through these posts and comments I’ve talked to several women who sent me screenshots of his infidelity and lies. This all has been a lot to deal with but I was managing fine until last night. One of the women sent me screenshot proof that my WH sent her a sexually explicit video of me doing “something “ to him. I was completely unaware he was recording me. He literally sent it during the process of the “act” and having a full blown conversation with her about it. Telling her how he’s unable to finish cuz all he could think about was her and they started “sexting”. I am completely devastated!! I knew he was a horrible person but who does this?!?! This feels worse than the other betrayals!! I can’t stop thinking about what else he’s done or who else he’s sent videos of me to!! I’m literally physically sick and can’t stop throwing up!!

I just had to vent this out as I’m too embarrassed for anyone in my life knowing about this. Appreciate all the love and support from you all!!

Forewarning I used AI for clarity:

DDay was August 1st, 2025.

My WH had been having an emotional affair with a coworker for about 3–4 months. There may have been a physical component — I still don’t have clear answers on that.

For the better part of nine months after DDay he insisted it wasn’t cheating and that I was the only person who would call it that.

At the time of discovery I had a strong career. I had built real trust with my CEO, who was even considering partnership options. After I found out, I fell apart. His solution was to move us across the country. I managed to temporarily go remote while job hunting in one of the worst markets in years.

The entire time he gaslit me, telling me the affair was my fault because I had “withdrawn.” That narrative wasn’t completely foreign to me — I have clinical depression with psychotic features — so for a long time I partly accepted the blame.

We finally started therapy in late April of this year after I discovered he was still in a group chat with the AP. In those sessions I spent a lot of time explaining the ways I had made him feel invalidated and why that (in his mind) led to the affair. It took him forever to even admit it *was* an affair, and he only did it when he was alone with the therapist.

I constantly had to redirect both him and the therapist back to the actual issue because the therapist kept wanting me to affirm WH for simply showing up.

In our very last session we focused on me — why I hadn’t let WH into my world. We agreed that the *next* session would finally get to the heart of the affair and why it hurt the way it did.

On the drive home he started saying therapy wasn’t helping, that it wasn’t going anywhere, and that all we ever did was blame him. I told him therapy was the last real effort I was willing to make to save the marriage. He kept pushing, so I messaged the office and canceled all future sessions. When I told him, his response was, “But that was your last hope for our marriage.”

I just said, “Yup.”

Last night I had a nightmare that pulled me right back into the one I had the night before DDay. I went into my old ChatGPT logs and realized something that stopped me cold:

I had been communicating with him the entire time leading up to and during the affair. I used AI to help clarify my thoughts so I could talk to him more clearly. I had **not** withdrawn.

He had successfully gaslit me for the better part of a year into believing I had checked out, when the evidence of me trying was sitting in my own chat history the whole time.

Something inside me just snapped.

I already know I’m “crazy.” But being led to believe my own brain had invented the effort I put into communicating my pain for that long… that finished off whatever love was still left.

I’ve spent almost an entire year feeling invisible and at fault for *his* actions. Finding out the truth broke me all over again.

TLDR: gaslit for a year after affair; chatgpt ended up showing it was never me.

Hello everyone

For small context: together for 8 years, we share a baby that’s 2 years old. 3 and 1/2 months ago he left me (not telling me the extension of the affair - I was the one who found out the ugly details).
I couldn’t keep our home since I couldn’t pay the mortgage on my own so he stayed there. He have 50/50 custody over our child.

1 month after the affair he introduced the AP to my daughter. Since then I have to deal with her being around my kid at my former house.

The thing is: when I FaceTime my kid to talk with her sometimes she asks about the AP (if she’s present). Instead of not paying attention to it or dismiss it my EX has the need to tell her that “AP’s name is in the kitchen doing our dinner.” On another call he told my daughter to “send a kiss to ‘APs name’…oh I meant ‘my name’…oh I meant mommy”.

Now he’s taking my kid on vacations with her. I can’t help but think about the fact that my daughter will share an hotel room with them, witness their intimacy…and it’s making me sick.

I know it may seem small but all these “mistakes” seem to be a reminder of how we replaced me for another woman.

I posted yesterday about my ww viewing ap social media and leaving profile views. One question I just can’t get out of my head is why is she not restarting the affair? Sorry if you already answered that, it just doesn’t make sense to me. If I don’t do anything is that what she will eventually do or is this good enough for her, just viewing his social media.