It’s funny how some people just can’t cheat alone. They want to make sure you’re miserable too. One OP learned how to float instead. Caught my wife cheating with her childhood friend.
This happened in 2023. I, 26, have been married to my wife, 28, for 3 years. One day she told me her childhood friend came to town and she was going to meet him. I said okay and told her to have a safe trip.
But then they met more than six times in two months. I asked her what he did for a living, and she told me he was a traveler. That was the first sign that hit me. One day I told her I’d drop her off, but she insisted on going alone.
I went with her anyway and dropped her off. By this time, I’d never met the friend in real life, only seen his photo. When I met him and shook his hand, I got this really bad feeling. So I decided to follow them, which I’m not proud of.
And you can guess what I saw — them kissing. I just left. When I got home, I was more sad than angry. If she wanted to cheat, she could have just broken up with me first, then indulged with her friend.
I started remembering everything from the last two months. Every time she called my name, smiled, or gave me a kiss — it all felt like a huge lie. When she came home, I confronted her. First, she denied it, but after 30 minutes of arguing, she accepted it.
I didn’t show any sadness or anger because I always thought that when the cheater sees your reaction, that’s when they truly feel satisfied. And I could not give her that satisfaction. I moved out for a week, but came back after her repeated requests and forgave her on one condition: I would also sleep with someone, and I wouldn’t tell her when. She reluctantly accepted.
But here’s the twist: I never actually forgave her. For the last two years, she lived in anticipation that I might cheat any day. But I was busy transferring all my assets to my parents and money to my little sister. It took two years without her noticing, but I got it all done.
I also quit my job and asked for a divorce this April. When we met with the lawyers, she asked for the reason, and I told her, “You cheated on me. ” Then she said, “But you also cheated on me, because of the forgiveness condition. ” But here’s the fact: I never cheated.
I had already made up my mind about all this when I moved out for that week in 2023. When I told her that, she had the same face I had when I discovered her cheating. Now I’m divorced, living in an apartment with my little sister, and I’m very happy because the whole nightmare I’d been living for the last two years is finally over. The community asked: Do you know if your ex is with that friend she cheated with?
The OP replied: “I don’t know where she is right now. I deleted her number, changed my number, and all the photos and everything. But during the time we were together, she once told me that he ended up moving to Austria because he really liked it there when he visited. ”
That whole “you have to cheat too” condition — she was trying to turn everything into a messed-up game.
Like she was trying to drag you down with her just so she wouldn’t feel so bad about what she did. People who cheat always seem to want to make it a competition or a team effort in messing things up, as if making everyone miserable somehow makes their guilt lighter. Up next, sometimes the biggest distance isn’t the miles between you, but the space people create to be completely different versions of themselves. It was 2021.
I’m 24 now, female. Back then I was 20, and I transferred to a different university from community college in August. I went to a university about four hours away and lived in an apartment off campus with no roommates. I basically knew nobody.
I met a boy — currently 26, he was 23 at the time — who had also just transferred in. He was an athlete with two extra years of eligibility and needed a new university to play his sport. Since we were both working towards the same degree, we had most of our classes together and took interest in each other immediately. We were both into Marvel and sports.
A couple months after meeting, we decided to be officially together. We stayed together until about December of 2022, when he graduated and moved back to his home state, 16 hours away. We had no interest in trying the distance at that time. But as you probably guessed, we decided we wanted to be in each other’s lives and started fully dating again in July of 2023 — long distance.
We made it work with constant calls and FaceTimes. In March of 2024, we decided to take a break because we were both moving to new places and wanted time to settle in. We spent most of the summer and fall talking on and off, calling as much as we could, but not officially being together. Then in November or December, he called me up, told me he was tired of doing long distance, and that he wanted to move to the state I lived in so we could get married and start our lives together.
After he told me that, I just assumed we were together again — because who the hell says that for craps and giggles, you know? And we did our normal long distance thing up until last week. Now for the real reason you’re still here. Last week, he told me he was going to be busy with work and probably couldn’t talk a whole lot.
He’s a coach, and spring is busy for the sport he coaches, so I was chill about it. But then we went day after day with no talking — that’s not normal for us. On Sunday, I texted him and my text didn’t go through. Immediately I knew I needed to check his Facebook status.
And lo and behold, it said “in a relationship since January of 2024. ” I swear, in that moment, I almost crapped my pants, because we don’t have an official date. I called my best friend. We did some sleuthing, and it turned out he had another girlfriend in the state he lives in.
We do not live in the same state. I was so mad I was seeing red. But then I thought, I have to get in contact with this other girl. I tried to message her on Instagram but couldn’t, so I did it on Facebook.
I gathered all my receipts and best apologies and sent them her way. But then I remembered Facebook Messenger isn’t “hey, girly girl” message friendly because of the requests and spam. So, because I’m such a girl’s girl and had to tell her, I found one of her tagged friends and messaged her to see if she could get the other girlfriend to see my messages. And this response may be the craziest thing about the whole situation.
The other girlfriend finally did see it, and she proceeded to tell me she already knew who I was, and to not message any of her friends again. Flabbergasted, I replied and apologized for reaching out to her friend. I told her I didn’t want to — I just wanted to make sure she knew. And I assured her that if I’d known about her, I would have ended things a long time ago, and that he wouldn’t be contacting me again.
Then, in summary, this girl told me that she blocked me on his phone, and that our whole four years of being together was, one way or another, meant nothing to him, and he never meant anything he said to me. At that point, I decided the girl’s girl card was revoked. I know she’s in denial, but he and I were boyfriend and girlfriend when they first got together. And for two years before that.
As politely as I could manage, I told her that wasn’t true. He met my family. He asked me to apply to jobs in his state last summer while they were together. Some of it could have definitely been lies, but not everything was.
When I saw that she read it, I blocked them both on everything. And now I’m officially out of that situation. So yes, that has been the last few days of my life. I’m working through it as best I can with lots of Taylor Swift music therapy.
It turns out screaming “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” and “The Black Dog” can really bring a girl peace. Update: I haven’t spoken to him or the other girl since this all went down. I have no plans to speak to either of them ever again. But tonight I was telling my best friend what happened — I knew she’d be in town and wanted to tell her in person.
She wanted to see what the other girl looked like, so we looked up her social media. And she’d taken down all the pictures and changed her status to single. I will not be reaching out to her again, but I’m very glad she got herself out of the situation. Everyone handles things differently, and I harbor no hate for her.
I’m glad we both are free. Now that I know they’re broken up and she’s out, I finally feel like I have some real closure. You’d think being 16 hours apart would make keeping things simple easier, but apparently it just made it easier for him to hide a second girlfriend without anyone noticing. Long-distance relationships are hard enough when both people are actually committed.
Who needs honesty when you’ve got 16 hours of space to sneak around, right? Up next, forgiveness is earned, not handed out like candy. I, 33, male, was in an accident when I was 22 years old. It was near fatal, and I suffered a TBI as a result.
I had been dating Jesse, 33, female, for five and a half years at that point, and she was at the hospital with my family, including my older brother, Cameron, 35, male. Soon after the accident, Jesse found out she was pregnant and terminated with Cameron’s help. And a while after that, they started having an affair. My sister caught them and forced them to tell me when I recovered.
Jesse confessed eventually, but she acted like we were going to work through it. I made it clear that would never happen. I told her I never wanted to see her again, and I wouldn’t be going back to our place ever again. Cameron tried to shame me for that, but I kicked him out and refused to see him.
My sister let him know he was dead to me and that she had never forgiven him either. For a while, he let me work on recovery. But then he tried to make amends, and I rejected it. And I found out he and Jesse were together and expecting a baby.
The whole thing made recovery so much worse. My sister was honestly the best support and the only person I trusted through it all. My parents wanted me to work things out with Cameron and Jesse. They wanted us to be family, and I just couldn’t deal with them trying to force me into that after the way I’d been treated.
I’m back to normal now, but I had a health scare last year in the run-up to my wedding. It was stress related. Cameron found out about the health scare in April and asked my sister for my contact details. She refused to give them, so he started showing up at her house until he caught me and my wife there.
He was demanding answers about why nobody had let him know sooner about the health scare, and why I wouldn’t let her share my details. He said we needed to put this to bed once and for all and get closure. I told him I needed no closure. Because he was digging in his heels, I decided to tell him to f-off one more time for good measure.
He told me him and Jesse both need my forgiveness and they need me in their lives because their kids ask questions and it sucks not having answers. I told him I’ll never forgive them. Never let them back into my life. And f-him for putting his kids’ questions on anyone but him and Jesse.
I told him I’ll never give him the comfort of closure. I said he should try being in my position eleven years ago, and then have the people who stomped all over you trying to demand forgiveness and closure. I told him to get over himself. My sister had to call the police to make him leave.
He would not go. She heard from him afterward, and he was ranting at her that I was willing to die spiting them, and that it’s wrong, and if I’m happy I should move on and forgive. She blocked him and told our parents she is completely done with Cameron too. My parents are so upset over what happened.
They asked me if there was nothing that could be done to make me forgive. They said they hated keeping my health scare from Cameron, and they’d hate for him to miss out on saying goodbye if the worst happened to me. I told them he should have thought about that before everything. They begged me to be more loving.
I admit it pisses me off that they want to brush this all away and have us play pretend. But am I the a-hole because I won’t actually work on forgiving and allowing them closure? The community weighed in. One person said: Cameron has the answers to his kids’ questions.
He just doesn’t want to tell them. Another said: Not the a-hole. What exactly do they want you to do? Tell the kids how their parents cheated?
That their mom actually had been pregnant with their cousin, which led to said cheating, and you hate their parents’ guts? What exactly do they think would be smart about forcing a relationship? You owe them crap. And your parents show clear favoritism — they still don’t understand why two of their kids are now no contact.
The OP replied: “They expect me to be the loving uncle, brother, and brother-in-law, and to act like the past never happened. But you don’t forget stuff like that. ”
Another person said: Not the a-hole. He was way in the wrong, and if you don’t want to forgive him, you don’t have to.
It’s your choice, and everybody else should keep their opinions to themselves. What Cameron and Jesse did was a huge betrayal, especially while you were recovering. Forgiving them isn’t something you owe just because they want it or because your parents think it’d be easier. You went through a lot, and they made it worse.
Honestly, Cameron and Jesse should be the ones answering their kids’ questions, not expecting you to clean up their mess.
