She called me crying about two months after I moved back home. She said she’d made out with some guy at a party. Too much to drink, things just happened, she knew it was wrong but she wanted it in the moment. She apologized over and over, and I was broken.
I had to take a break from speaking to her to think. But I loved her too much to let her go, so I forgave her. I moved back to her town, we lived together, and things got better fast. It was just nice having her around again.
Then, a few months later, we had a fight. She left the house and came back in the dead of night. About a week after that, she sat me down and admitted she’d slept with someone that night. She said she was so angry she wanted to hurt me.
She apologized over and over, but being there in person made it worse. I told her I was breaking up with her and slept in the park that night. The next day, she cried and cried and swore she would never do it again. She said it was the last time, that she valued us too much to mess up again.
She’d learned her lesson. Foolishly, I let the soft part of my heart win. I forgave her. I was young and naive, and I only had my emotions to guide me.
That was all before we were married. It’s been an incredibly long time since then. But the anxiety from being cheated on never truly left me. It was my first fear.
So when she started acting weird, my mind jumped straight to her infidelity. I had to confirm it. At the first chance I got, I grabbed her laptop and checked her messages and social media. That’s when I saw the guy she’d been chatting with on Facebook Messenger.
His name was Henry. Having been married so long, I knew all her friends and everyone she talked to regularly. Henry wasn’t one of those names. And the fact that his message sat at the top, sent the night before, told me something was up.
I went through as much of the conversation as I could. It was pretty easy to confirm they’d been sleeping together. I won’t say I’m devastated. I’ve always been waiting for this like a time bomb.
My anxiety is always by my side, so this just feels like validation. There’s a weird relief in knowing I truly messed up by not ending it all those years ago. I know there’s no way I’m forgiving her this time. I’ve done it twice, and the last time she promised it would be the last time.
It clearly wasn’t. And the worst part is, coming 15 years later, I’m almost sure she must have cheated in between. I just wasn’t lucky enough to find out about it. That hurts.
I know I can’t trust her ever again. It’s over. I just needed a place to vent before I confronted her, so I could approach her with complete level-headedness. Update one.
This might not be the update a lot of you want, and I know you’ll think I’m going back to my old ways. But I promise that’s not the case. I was convinced I’d tell my wife it was over a few days later. I haven’t done that yet, and there’s a good reason.
I’ve worked in tech for a long time and eventually got the luxury of working remotely. She’s been a fashion journalist for half our marriage, and she’s always been a fan of a certain fashion publication in Asia. Literally a day after my post, she told me they opened a vacancy for a writer. She felt she had more than enough experience, but she’d need to relocate.
An entirely new country, not just another state. I initially told her I’d never do that because I knew things were ending soon. But maybe years of reading posts here has had an effect on me. I realized I could hurt her a lot more by encouraging her, by hitting her where it hurt the most.
I was going to hype her up, and if she didn’t get the job, I’d hit her with divorce papers at that very moment. But you know what? She actually got the job. On a normal day, I would have been thrilled.
I would have danced around and taken her out for a fancy dinner. But she ruined everything. I made sure to celebrate with her, and that’s when she asked whether I really wouldn’t budge on the relocation. I pretended to think about it for a day, then told her I actually would.
Obviously, she was happy. I mentioned plans to sell the house and other major assets and that I’d figure out accommodations for us in Hong Kong. She’s left it all to me quite stupidly and hasn’t even checked in on the progress. She’s meant to resume in 10 days.
I’ve supposedly bought the tickets and arranged an apartment. But I haven’t done any of that. I’m going to serve her with divorce papers and then skip town. I feel evil.
But hey, what can I say? I didn’t bring this on her. Update two. Many of you were convinced I’d ultimately forgive her again.
But the truth is, I knew I wouldn’t. There’s only so many times a person can be disrespected, and I’d had enough from her to never want to deal with it again. So I made my move. The day before we were supposed to travel, we had our bags packed and everything was ready for the airport the next morning.
The only thing was, she had no idea I wasn’t planning to take the trip with her. Especially since there wasn’t even a trip booked in the first place. In the middle of the night, I got up, took my luggage, got in my car, and headed to a hotel. I was the one who had the supposed tickets and the apartment details.
She didn’t have any of that. The next morning, she called me about five times before I woke up. My phone was on do not disturb. When I did wake up, I was tempted to call her back, but there was still time for her to make things work.
When I didn’t pick up, she switched to messages. She was clearly panicking, asking where I was and what was going on. Part of her even wondered if I’d somehow forgotten her at home, which was funny. Then she started asking if she did something wrong or if I was angry.
I felt like she might have had an inkling that I knew about her infidelity. I still didn’t say anything. I just kept leaving her on read. Eventually, about 3 hours before the departure time I’d told her, she said she was going to have to go to the airport anyway because she didn’t have a choice.
She still hoped she’d meet me there and I’d explain whatever was going on. But when she got there, she realized I wasn’t there. Then she started asking me to send the ticket at the very least. It was a mixture of phone calls and frantic messages at that point.
She was clearly trying to salvage the mess she’d found herself in. I guess she felt that if she could just get to Hong Kong, she’d be able to make things work. That was when I told her I was on my way and I’d explain everything when I got there. After that, I turned off my phone.
About 2 hours later, I turned it on. To say she was pissed would be an understatement. She said she was heading back home and would book a flight for herself the next day since she had no idea what was going on with me. She was planning to use a credit card that belonged to me to book that flight.
That wasn’t something I was going to let happen, so I froze it. That part was fun, because she texted me to complain that the card wasn’t working. At that point, she wasn’t even asking what she’d done or what was up with me. I think she might have been able to put the pieces together.
But if I could make her feel only half of the anxiety I’d felt in all those years, I’d be glad. At that point, I decided to head back to the house and confront her. I just wanted to give her the worst few days she could ever have. She started screaming at me the moment she saw me.
I just walked past her and sat on the couch. She kept asking what happened, and it was then that I finally told her I knew she’d been cheating on me. Initially, she tried to deny it. But I told her I knew about Henry, and her face turned white.
She started crying almost immediately. She sank to the floor and just started sobbing. I guess she realized how everything was falling apart at that moment. I asked her if she had anything to say for herself, but she just kept crying.
Eventually, she managed to say it was a mistake, that it happened just once, which I knew was a lie, and that she was sorry. She begged me to forgive her. She said it wasn’t too late for us to pack up and go to Hong Kong. She said changing places could make everything better again.
The concept of traveling to another country with the love of my life would normally have felt like a dream. But in this case, it didn’t. I told her I’d never do that and that she could go to Hong Kong alone. But I told her right there that the apartment wasn’t booked and that I’d never actually booked the tickets in the first place.
She started crying even more. I told her she could still make it, but it wouldn’t be with a dime of my money. Looking back, I feel pretty bad. But I gave her enough chances over the years we’d known each other.
This was just my one chance to hit back. She said she couldn’t afford Hong Kong on her own and that she wanted to go with me. I told her she could afford it. She just had to live within her means.
It wouldn’t be the fancy apartment I’d shown her photos of. She wouldn’t be able to spend as much as she always had with my card in her possession. Life would change drastically, and probably not for the better. She never went, unsurprisingly.
The day after, I left the house again and went to chill with a friend. I’ve been out ever since. That’s pretty much the end of us. I’m going to sort out a divorce lawyer so we can end things officially.
I know I might get hit pretty hard in the divorce, but the salary disparity is so large it’d be hard to avoid. Update three. This is the final update. Things are finally finished between me and my ex-wife.
She never went to Hong Kong in the end. It would have taken her too long to figure out alternative arrangements and the funding for those, so she ultimately just let it go. It’s funny, because she had already resigned from her previous job. Not a smart move on my behalf, because it positioned her more favorably in the divorce.
But whatever. I went back to the house for a day to serve her with papers. I also told her it’d be best for us to just sell the house and split the proceeds. She said I should go f myself.
So I left after that. The divorce process wasn’t horrible. I had evidence of her cheating, and she had evidence of me basically stringing her along and making her lose her job. So we both looked like pretty crappy people.
I don’t mind that. I agreed to pay alimony for a limited amount of time and chose to keep the house. I settled on her receiving 30% of its value. So she left with quite a bit in her pockets, to be honest.
But I’m simply glad to have her out of my life. I don’t care whether she’s rich now or not. I’m simply at peace, and that’s enough for me. She lost the safety net she took for granted, the life she thought she could keep manipulating.
And when it all came crashing down, she was left standing there with nothing but her own choices staring back at her.
