[SPEAKER_00]: What's the most terrifying double-life secret you've uncovered about someone you loved?
[SPEAKER_00]: My boyfriend of almost two years has essentially been living a double-life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm baffled as to how he pulled this off.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we met, he told me he was on the tail end of a nasty lengthy divorce, but that he had moved on and it would never pose an issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: until now he was right and never had.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last week I took a pregnancy test and it came back positive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yesterday morning I had an OBGYN visit to confirm.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was honestly ecstatic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always wanted to be a mom and my boyfriend felt the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've talked about our future children many times, even though we haven't been together for the longest time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was really excited to tell him that night when he came over for dinner, but his reaction was weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: His face went pale and he looked confused.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not what I expected at all, and he got up to go to the bathroom.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he came back, he was really calm and serious.
[SPEAKER_00]: He told me that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was scared and didn't know how I and our baby would factor into his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: and that he had made the decision to come clean.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only is he nowhere near being divorced from his wife, whom he's been with for close to a decade, but they also have two kids together, ages four and six.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no idea how I never suspected anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: He works a lot in very early, which is why he would rarely spend nights over.
[SPEAKER_00]: That said, it's not like he hardly spend any time with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm heartbroken and confused.
[SPEAKER_00]: His confession left me with absolutely no idea what to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he's still very much married.
[SPEAKER_00]: He left right after that conversation, and I've called and texted him, but the only response I've gotten is that he'll speak to me tomorrow night after work.
[SPEAKER_00]: His demeanor is so cold and unfamiliar that I'm terrified he's going to leave me to navigate this pregnancy on my own.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another part of me doesn't even want him anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he's this, good of a liar, what else is he lied about?
[SPEAKER_00]: What else could he lie about?
[SPEAKER_00]: I also don't want to break up a family.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel disgusted by this whole situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never felt more alone and confused.
[SPEAKER_00]: Should I be preemptive and leave him?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or are there other ways I could go about this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Update.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's clear that I need to leave him, but that's about all that's clear for me right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be a mom, but these are the worst circumstances I can imagine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been trying to think of ways to contact his wife, but I can't figure out how.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe I was at the house where they once lived at one point, but he has moved since them, allegedly, so I have no idea what the new address is.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't seem to piece this together at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't understand how I was fooled for so long.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'm still in shock.
[SPEAKER_00]: To recap, I am leaving.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure if I want to continue the pregnancy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as much as I want to tell his wife, I have no way of doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess I'll wait until he speaks with me tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found his wife through a website someone sent me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wasn't lying when he said he had no social media, but she does.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seeing pictures of them made me realize I cannot keep our child.
[SPEAKER_00]: His family is beautiful, and it breaks my heart to know he could do this to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cannot have the father of my child be someone like him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still have no idea how to tell his wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: story 2.
[SPEAKER_00]: I 35 discovered my husband's 38 infidelity and double life because of a post on Facebook.
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband and I have been married for 10 years and have two children together.
[SPEAKER_00]: He travels often.
[SPEAKER_00]: About eight months ago, I discovered that I had been infected with an incurable STD.
[SPEAKER_00]: He blamed me for this, saying that I was the unfaithful one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I was browsing Facebook and a mother's group.
[SPEAKER_00]: A group meant for help with children, asking for donations, sharing experiences and memes.
[SPEAKER_00]: A mother shared that she would give her husband a laxative tea so he wouldn't go to a soccer game the next day.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was all mockery and laughter in the comments, with people telling her to update the result.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a person who likes to read comments.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, I saw a profile with a photo of a woman with my husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: I started looking closer and discovered that apparently they had married civilly.
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband had created another profile with a different name and surname.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think their child has his false last name because she uploaded a post when she went to register the child's birth certificate, placing the full name there as if she were proud of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I posted about it in the same group, now that they allow anonymous posts, and several people gave me advice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Together, we deduce that the other woman might not have known because of what she shared on her profile.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wrote to her, and was surprised to learn that she did know he was married.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have been married for two years, and their baby is approximately 14 months old.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although they are not technically married, their marriage is not legally valid.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hired a lawyer, gathered all the evidence, and am now in the divorce process.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I confronted him, he chose her and left the house to live with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: He also refuses to pay Alamone, claiming he has another child to support.
[SPEAKER_00]: and says that if he has to give Alehmoni to my children, he will only pay the minimum, even if he has to quit his job.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I proceed with my life?
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel very limited in rebuilding because of the STD and my responsibilities to my children.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 3 I, 41, discovered that my husband, 52, has a second family on the side.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been sitting with this information for almost two weeks now, and I still don't know how to
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband seems to be in a committed relationship with another woman and he's playing happy families with her and her three sons.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're even planning to have a baby.
[SPEAKER_00]: A week ago, I stumbled upon a TikTok account where this woman was sharing her recipes and in the background, I recognized my husband's back.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first I wasn't completely sure, but after taking a closer look, and as his wife, I know that Foolsneck, Back, Legs, and the clothing he was wearing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went through her posted videos to piece together confirmation that it really was him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I continued to watch him and his movements, but he seemed normal.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's clear now that he has cheating down to a science.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every time he went on work trips, she would post videos saying she was cooking a new recipe because her man was coming back.
[SPEAKER_00]: She would plate the food, and I could recognize his grubby hands by their look and the way he held cutlery.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has a peculiar way of holding it, almost like a Neanderthal discovering forks and knives.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe this debag has been with her for three years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how we found the time to start an entire relationship on the side.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought we were happy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He tells me he loves me all the time and always brings me a gift from his work trips.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he's home we have a great intimate life and our intimate four to six times a week.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been married for 21 years and we have two daughters.
[SPEAKER_00]: We lost our eldest son 10 years ago but we worked through it and grew closer than ever before.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're even coming up on our 22nd anniversary and it's his turn to plan it since we alternate each year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know he's been planning something elaborate for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, why is he cheating?
[SPEAKER_00]: I am so angry and I don't know what steps to take.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am utterly distraught.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought we were happy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought he loved our little life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I can't think and barely know where to start.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't focus.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do I do and how do I do it?
[SPEAKER_00]: I love coming on here, reading and giving advice.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now that it's me, I feel completely lost.
[SPEAKER_00]: I nearly burned my kitchen down because I spaced out and forgot I was cooking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 4.
[SPEAKER_00]: My partner, 28 and I, 27 have been together.
[SPEAKER_00]: For almost 10 years, we have three amazing children together, ages 7, 4 and 10 months.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've basically grown up together.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not legally married, but he proposed in 2018, right before we bought our house, and we've called each other wife and husband ever since.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to romanticize our relationship because it's far from
[SPEAKER_00]: But I always thought we would be the couple to grow old together.
[SPEAKER_00]: He works a very demanding job, the same one my dad had.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I know the hours are long.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been a stay at home mom for almost five years, and home school are children.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first, I stayed home because I was severely ill with baby number two.
[SPEAKER_00]: I almost died.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then he asked me to stay home with the kids, as it would be cheaper than daycare.
[SPEAKER_00]: This year, he asked me to home school as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've recently been in very rocky waters as I have a never-ending list of expectations and all he has to do is go to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of this, we've been talking about separating for a few weeks, but we don't want to disrupt our kids' routines.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I got a text from my cousin's ex-wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said she needed to reach out, girl to girl, and sent me screenshots of my partner on Tinder.
[SPEAKER_00]: The pictures he used were taken just a couple of days before, so I knew it wasn't an old profile.
[SPEAKER_00]: He used a different name, a name we had agreed on for a future baby number four if it were a boy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thanked her of course, but I really didn't want to believe it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's always talked down on cheaters since his dad was a huge womanizer, which caused a lot of trauma for him and his family.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I made a catfish Tinder account to see for myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I had no luck with the catfish account.
[SPEAKER_00]: so I just pretended like nothing was wrong and went about our daily lives for a few days.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was extremely hard, especially because I'm not good at hiding my feelings at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I couldn't stand not knowing anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yesterday, I made one of his favorite dinners and even baked a pie so he could go into a food coma and go to bed earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: It worked.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was out by 830.
[SPEAKER_00]: I let my older kids stay up to watch a few movies, so bedtime was postponed while I snooped.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have never snooped in his phone or even had a reason to do so.
[SPEAKER_00]: We both have each other's past codes and often use each other's phones.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a line I've always said can't be uncrossed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've found so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: All in plain sight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not much was hidden.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, Tinder was not on his phone.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he was texting three different numbers that were obviously girls from there.
[SPEAKER_00]: They all called him by the fake name.
[SPEAKER_00]: They sent pictures back and forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found at least four different Snapchat threads where he was emotionally cheating with more girls, calling each other babe and honey bun, which is what he calls me.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were texts where he claimed he was a single dad and that the mom didn't want anything to do with the kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were explicit pictures sent back and forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I thought that was it, I found the hidden pictures folder.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only does he have all the explicit pictures saved of these women and mine, he has a video of him receiving mouth kisses on his second head with a girl who used his real name.
[SPEAKER_00]: I used my phone to take pictures and videos of everything and sent them to my email.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet, but at least I have them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also looked back at our text thread on the date that correlates with the video, a month after I gave birth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And saw that it was one of the many times he would say he was going out with the boys.
[SPEAKER_00]: He even texted me that night, telling me how much he loved me and how he was going to take me to breakfast in the morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's funny because around that time I would cry to him and ask if he wasn't in love with me anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cried and cried and he would hold me and tell me that he only loved me and that he could never hurt me the way his dad hurt his mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't slept.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am literally sick to my stomach and have been vomiting all night.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he woke up this morning, I pretended I was too tired to get up with him, and the even cooler part is that I have nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: No money, no family to turn to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I own nothing on my own.
[SPEAKER_00]: We both own the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no credit cards, bad credit, literally nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't even have a lot of money, and our credit isn't good either.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am completely dependent on him, and I don't know how long I can pretend that nothing is wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 5, I 32 female, just found out that my husband, 36 male, has a full-blown secret family because his other wife, 29 female, literally just showed up at my door.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought I had a pretty happy marriage with Jonas.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have been together for over 11 years and married for nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have twins, eight-year-old daughters.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jonas works in a branch of business where he spends three months away and three months at home.
[SPEAKER_00]: During this time, he visits us and we visit him.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's inconvenient, but he earns really well, so well that I wouldn't need to work if I didn't want to.
[SPEAKER_00]: In all those years, I never suspected him of cheating.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was always super honest with me, and would even tell me about attractions to other people he felt.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this comes completely out of the blue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jonas was a way on a business trip for the weekend when a woman knocked on my door.
[SPEAKER_00]: She introduced herself as cherry.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I asked her what it was about, she broke down crying.
[SPEAKER_00]: I let her in, and after calming her, she started to tell me this story about Jonas.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, she and Jonas have been together for over six years and have a little boy three together.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were both fooled because he keeps that life completely separate from ours here.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has two different sets of social media accounts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And since his parents sadly passed away in a car accident 15 years ago, he never had to introduce her to them either.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first I was livid and screamed at her until I calmed down and realized she was just a victim too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently Cherry found out about my hour husband because he had an apartment paid for by the company where he would take me if I visited through some bank statements.
[SPEAKER_00]: She started snooping through his keys and found out about us.
[SPEAKER_00]: After thinking for over three months, she decided she wanted to tell me the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: We both cried our eyes out together, cursed Jonas.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now she is sleeping on my couch.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is not legally married to Jonas.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sold her the, I don't believe in marriage, feel.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only legal spouse he has is me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know I need to divorce him, but maybe I just need some extra advice, and a little husband roasting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, should I keep in touch with Cherry and should we introduce our kids?
[SPEAKER_00]: Edit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess Reddit only takes stories seriously if it has happened repeatedly.
[SPEAKER_00]: thanks to the few helpful people who have responded and a serious screw you to those making fun of me or calling me a troll.
[SPEAKER_00]: I honestly thought someone would listen here but I guess I needed better grammar and a less crazy story for that thanks to the people who did listen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cherry has left and I'm going to pick up my kids from my sisters right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will be leaving the house for a few days to get my ducks in a row and begin legal proceedings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 6, I, F-24, had been in a long distance relationship with my now ex-boyfriend M-25 for almost eight months.
[SPEAKER_00]: He broke up with me over text about two weeks ago, and over the weekend I found out he was living a double life in the city where he was staying.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had a different set of friends and a different girlfriend, and he made things official with her the same week he made things official with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He lied to everyone, including all of our mutual friends who live in the same city as me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone is extremely shocked, as he was described as the good one of his friend group, and no one saw this coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of his friends are even worried about his mental health.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was the one who discovered what was going on and reached out to his other girlfriend to ask if they were just friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: which is what he had told me while we were dating.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since everything came to light, he's been incredibly cruel to me, telling me that he never wanted to date me, that he never cared about me, and that he only used me for banging, while telling the other girlfriend that he loves her, and still wants to marry her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if he lied about caring about me for eight months, or if he's lying now to hurt me because he's mad and thinks I blew up his entire life, which he did himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he did lie and fake caring about me, that's incredibly cruel, but also terrifying, considering how well he pretended.
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially since I tried to break up twice, and both times he convinced me to give him another chance, saying he would do better.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of our friends even told him he needed to break up with me if he was going to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep treating me as poorly as he had in the last few months of the relationship, and he swore up and down that he really liked me and was trying to be better and make it work.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it might be even worse if he's lying now when he says he never wanted me and never cared about me because we had several conversations where I told him how deeply those things would hurt me and how much I struggle with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am really struggling with coping with this and knowing that I'm never going to know the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess I'm just here to see if anyone has been through something like this and how they moved on without ever knowing the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has lied so much and so convincingly that even if he came out and told the truth in five years and was truly sorry, I would never believe anything he says again.
[SPEAKER_00]: He keeps saying he's sorry, but I told him he's not sorry if he continues to be cruel to me and he said he didn't care because it was mean, but it was the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think he is, actually sorry, or has any remorse for how he treated me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not talking to him anymore, and hopefully will never have to interact with him again.
[SPEAKER_00]: But how do I move on?
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 7.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so I think I know the answer to what I'm asking, but I need reassurance.
[SPEAKER_00]: My boyfriend 25, and I, 24, have been together for four and a half years.
[SPEAKER_00]: This morning, I got messages from my friends that a girl my boyfriend used to hook up with.
[SPEAKER_00]: is saying he's actively cheating on me or trying to.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friend sent me screenshots of the messages and it looks like he was saying he needs a massage and even offered to pay for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He also mentioned he was going to the pool today.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said he was trying to get her to do these things and he claimed it was just a statement and small talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, I decided to go to the pool with him and I guess I ruined his plans if that's what he was planning to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went home this morning after receiving the messages and asked if he had anything to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: Clean about.
[SPEAKER_00]: He lied and said no, so I told him about the situation I had been told.
[SPEAKER_00]: I started to get frustrated and asked to look through his phone, but he wouldn't let me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally he said he had something to tell me and that I wasn't going to like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing could have prepared me for what was about to come out of his mouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said that ever since Texas banned corn, he had been finding girls on Twitter and snap chatting them for pictures, videos, and someone to talk to.
[SPEAKER_00]: He finally gave me his phone, and there were like 30 girls he had been talking to on snap chat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I started going through them, and half of them were just girls he knows, and he was constantly sliding up on their stories, trying to talk to them or compliment them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not all of them were flirty, but the fact that he needed attention from that many girls was alarming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he told me that his drive had been extremely high lately.
[SPEAKER_00]: And since I didn't want to do it as much as him, he needed an outlet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mind you, we used to do it a couple of times a week.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like we weren't doing it for months, but he said he needed to help himself multiple times a day.
[SPEAKER_00]: The worst part is, when I asked if he was ever going to be honest about any of this, he said no, that he was too embarrassed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just feel like he doesn't care to try in our relationship anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't take me on dates, buy me flowers, write me love notes, or do any of the things he used to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I brought up a week ago that this is what I want and he said he's not good at that stuff and doesn't have any money I've even said we don't have to spend money just show me that he cares I'm tired of asking to be treated right now with all this new information on top of it It feels so much worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're supposed to go to the lake next weekend with his friends and take a cruise at the end of the month He's ruined everything and I feel like I can't trust him
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a dog and live together, and our lease isn't up, until February.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel trapped, but at the same time I don't want to end things because I still love him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know what he did was cheating, even if he didn't actually do it with anyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: He embarrassed me, and I don't know how I'm supposed to move on from this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's saying he'll do anything to change, wants to work on it, and will delete and block all the girls, letting me have full access to his phone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just feel like my entire world has shattered, and I don't want to pick up the pieces and do what I think I should.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess my question is, is this forgivable?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can anyone truly move on from this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where do I go from here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 8.
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband and I have been married for 13 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our relationship has never been great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never felt respected or truly loved unconditionally.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though I always gave that to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: After I gave birth to our first child, I felt like he wasn't there to help with the baby, or even provide emotional support.
[SPEAKER_00]: A few months later, when our baby was about six or seven months old, he started having an affair, which I was unaware of at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: He became more and more distant, and my resentment grew.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like a married single mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found out he was cheating after receiving a random text message from a burner number.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently he had gone on a vacation with her, exchanged, I love yous, and I was devastated and broken.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wanted to reconcile, and I was too weak, I agreed to give it another shot.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I felt like he never did much to rebuild trust.
[SPEAKER_00]: He continued to hide his phone and pretend it on social media that he was single.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward a few years.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are in a better place and have achieved a lot career-wise.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I started getting random messages again.
[SPEAKER_00]: This time with proof that he had been cheating while away on business trips.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, he told the other woman that he loves her, that he's legally separated and spun almost an entire fake story about his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: saying his ex, I guess that's me, lived in a condo while he lived alone, complete lies.
[SPEAKER_00]: This time I wasn't shocked.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always had a feeling I couldn't trust him, but I never cared enough to spy on him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever I asked anything he would gaslight me, and act like I was crazy for questioning him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of confronting him this time, I digested the information and proof and thought about what I wanted to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next morning, I called a lawyer and began the process to legally separate.
[SPEAKER_00]: The plan was to confront him once the agreement was in place, but he picked a fight with me, because I wasn't acting loving, which I'm sure everyone knows why.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was so upset that I told him he was a dishonest person, and that I knew about his girlfriends.
[SPEAKER_00]: He went quiet and admitted it, but then blamed me, saying I had never supported him as a wife, and that I essentially pushed him to cheat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't defend myself much, because in my head I was over it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been two and a half weeks, and I've been working with my lawyer, to provide documents and information while keeping a peaceful home environment.
[SPEAKER_00]: for my child's sake.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's been acting calm and caring toward me, and I know this is temporary, but I'm starting to get cold feet about the separation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know logically I should leave him, but I'm scared.
[SPEAKER_00]: Scared of change, scared of being alone, and scared about how my child will be affected.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone please tell me I'm doing the right thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel so guilty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 9.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a 22-year-old female and have been with my partner at 21-year-old male for three years.
[SPEAKER_00]: He moved in with me last year and we have only been a part for a couple of weekends throughout the year.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were together for the entire lockdown.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other day, I saw that my partner had written down a password and username for Snapchat on a piece of paper and slid it under his laptop.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had some suspicions over the past few weeks that something was off.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was on his phone more, taking extra long baths, wanting to be left.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alone, and coming home late from work, but he assured me nothing was wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: I downloaded Snapchat and tried it, it worked.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was shocked, as soon as I saw it, my heart sank.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were hundreds and hundreds of names of people I had never seen or heard of before.
[SPEAKER_00]: So many girls.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am talking over 300 random girls.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of the names were set out like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Name, emoji, location.
[SPEAKER_00]: As if you had found out where they all lived and put it next to their name.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was shaking and struggling to open and read any of the chats, but I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I read a few.
[SPEAKER_00]: The most recent chat was from the end of August this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: My partner had been telling them a different name that he lived in a different city, that he was a different age that my house was one of his properties, and that he was huge in his business.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was lying to all these people.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was sending them photos of my house, claiming it was in a different city.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was asking them to meet up one day for coffee, he had been talking to hundreds of people for the past nine months, not daily, there were gaps.
[SPEAKER_00]: The messages would be from December, March, August, October.
[SPEAKER_00]: Big chunks missing from the timeline, but he was having almost exactly the same conversations with hundreds of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where it gets weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went into Snapchat memories and saw pictures, so many explicit pictures.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of them were screenshots from Snapchat stories that he had uploaded.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was even a whole file of Snapchat premium account content, explicit pictures, videos, and photos of all kinds.
[SPEAKER_00]: My heart sank.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were just so many.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were also photos of him at events, with friends I had never seen before, and in cities I didn't know he had visited.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw a whole other life of his, separate from the life he has with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had a different name, different identity, different friends, and a different job.
[SPEAKER_00]: I took the time to add all of the girls onto my Snapchat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I spent an hour adding every single one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I message them all, asking how they knew him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some said it was a random ad, some said they met through friends, some said they had known each other for ages, and some didn't know him at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only one girl said she had met him in real life.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said they went to an event together.
[SPEAKER_00]: She wasn't feeling him, so she went home and that was it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of these girls live far from where we do.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were girls in the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland and Scotland, literally all over the world that he had been talking to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not all of the conversations were flirty, but there were a few.
[SPEAKER_00]: I confronted him about it, and he told me the following.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had that snapchat for years, and only used it when we were arguing, or when he felt unsure about the relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said he sometimes has this evil side that comes out of him, a side that wants to pretend to be someone else.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said he enjoyed the thrill of pretending to be someone else, that he loves me, and that he doesn't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: While he still gets these urges to have a fake life, he apologized a lot and didn't try to make me feel bad for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He admitted that he is an a-hole and a terrible person.
[SPEAKER_00]: He admitted that himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said that, especially during lockdown, when he was stuck indoors with me for six months, the urges started again, and he needed some excitement.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like there is no excuse at all for what he has done to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He spends every single day sleeping in my bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: We eat together, watch films together, make plans together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I genuinely thought I would be with him for a long time because we were so in love.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has never been horrible to me, he has never been abusive, he never argues back with me, he is such a calm person, and I would never have suspected this from him at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am an absolute shock, and I don't know how to deal with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know everyone will say he's an a-hole, a terrible person, and that I should just kick him out.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knows that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's already packed his things, but part of me wants to know why.
[SPEAKER_00]: Part of me wants to investigate.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to understand what causes somebody to behave this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he was bringing me gifts, being intimately active with me and telling me he loves me all the time, why would he be living a false life online?
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to know why and how people can do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know there is no going back and fixing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know he isn't right for me now, as he completely betrayed me by doing this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But why would someone do this?
[SPEAKER_00]: How can somebody treat another person like this?
[SPEAKER_00]: I just feel sick, tired, and anxious.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't been able to sleep at all since finding out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Part of me wishes I had never gone searching, but part of me is glad I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 10
[SPEAKER_00]: I broke up with my girlfriend of almost three years last night.
[SPEAKER_00]: After about a month of dating, I noticed she was texting someone with a heart next to his contact name.
[SPEAKER_00]: She swore up and down that it wasn't what it seemed, that it was her cousin who had put it there too, bother him and be funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finding that super suspicious, I checked her Facebook profile and searched for him by name.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only person of that name was her ex.
[SPEAKER_00]: I avoided directly confronting her for a couple of days.
[SPEAKER_00]: But eventually I did something I had never even thought about doing in any other relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: I checked her phone when she left it unlocked while going to the bathroom.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found I love you messages too and from him.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I finally confronted her, she again swore it wasn't anything, claiming it was leftover habitual speak from being together for five years.
[SPEAKER_00]: She deleted his contact and swore never to speak with him again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I forgave her, believed in us, and what we had, and let it go.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, I could never shake the worry in the back of my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: She would never let me come to her place, always insisting on coming to mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: She claimed that the cousin she lived with, not her ex, had an immune disorder, and was an A-hole who would flip if she had anyone over.
[SPEAKER_00]: Arguments kept, happening whenever I found or questioned any of the so-called coincidences I noticed.
[SPEAKER_00]: At one point, her ex mysteriously disappeared from Facebook, and she told me he must have deleted it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Later, I found out he had actually blocked me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could still see his profile through someone else's account, and they were still friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told her I didn't believe her cousin was real, and that she was still living with her ex.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, she told me that wasn't true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over time, she made me start to believe that I had become paranoid about all of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I kept insisting that I see or meet this cousin, but there was excuse after excuse.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was too busy with work, or just rudely didn't want to have dinner or meet me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She finally sent me a picture of her with her cousin at a college event.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I felt somewhat at ease.
[SPEAKER_00]: I finally believed that I had been wrong all along.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until, while scrolling through Instagram, I saw a familiar face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her cousin from that picture had tagged her in a post for his college graduation, but under a completely different name.
[SPEAKER_00]: I confronted her again.
[SPEAKER_00]: She told me she was sorry and said she had panicked because she didn't have a picture of her cousin and had sent that one hoping I would drop it.
[SPEAKER_00]: She insisted that everything else she had said was true.
[SPEAKER_00]: and we moved on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't invited to her master's degree graduation.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said that due to COVID, she only had two tickets, but she had to use for her mom and sick aunt coming from out of town.
[SPEAKER_00]: She told me they weren't live streaming the ceremony.
[SPEAKER_00]: Assuming maybe she was just embarrassed, I looked it up on the day of the graduation and saw that not only was it being live streamed, but there were no COVID restrictions in place at that time, meaning no tickets were
[SPEAKER_00]: I was hurt just by the idea of being excluded.
[SPEAKER_00]: She claimed her mom was absolutely psycho, and would not be okay with me being there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually she asked, me to go, but said I couldn't attend the ceremony and should wait in the car while she came to see me afterward.
[SPEAKER_00]: I declined.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had some arguments about it, but eventually moved past it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Around this time, I met a friend of hers who was visiting from out of state and didn't know anyone else in my girlfriend's life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I began requesting more and more to finally meet this cousin, hoping to quell my growing anxiety and reassure myself that my worries were just paranoia.
[SPEAKER_00]: She surprised me with a phone call while I was at work, saying she had finally convinced her cousin to go out for lunch.
[SPEAKER_00]: The day came, and he canceled last minute because he said he forgot he had to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: He felt so bad in fact that he demoed her $50 for her and me to go get something instead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suspicious once again, a couple of days later, I asked to see her Vemmo history.
[SPEAKER_00]: Conveniently, she said her account had been hacked and that she had closed it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not too long after we finally had lunch with her, cousin looking back now, who even was that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Things seem better for quite a while, as I sank deeper into blissful ignorance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward over a year later, something set me off, and I spiraled into paranoia, rethinking every concern and coincidence that it ever happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: During an anxiety-induced Google Safari, searching for information on her ex to validate or invalidate my thoughts, I found what I thought was the final nail in the coffin.
[SPEAKER_00]: updated mailing information from about five months earlier on a freemium people search site had them living at the same address.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt sick seeing something so damning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never wanted to be right.
[SPEAKER_00]: This became the toughest fight we ever had.
[SPEAKER_00]: I demanded real evidence from her that somehow I was wrong about all of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: so much happened and even more coincidences were brought up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, for the last time, I broke down and believed her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I convinced myself my own judgment had betrayed me that I was completely wrong and that it was destroying what little of our relationship was left.
[SPEAKER_00]: The following week was fantastic.
[SPEAKER_00]: We re-agnited the passion that had been lost over the two and a half years we had been together.
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, something felt wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without her agreeing to let me come over, I could never fully trust her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I decided enough was enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: After essentially working a double shift, I drove the 50 minutes to her apartment to see if she actually lived where she said she did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Telling myself I needed to believe her, I checked the address she gave me first.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her car wasn't there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I drove to the other address.
[SPEAKER_00]: The new one I had found.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her car was there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I called her while circling the block and told her to come outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Give me back my spare key, and that I never wanted to see or speak to her again.
[SPEAKER_00]: She gave me the key and I took the long drive home, but the last thing she said to me still claiming it wasn't what it seemed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 11 About six years ago, I met a new girl at my school.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's American and didn't have any friends in the UK, plus she joined halfway through the school year, which made catching up really difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: I happened to be the guy she sat behind and she started asking me for help a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: We became friends, and a year later, we started dating.
[SPEAKER_00]: After two years together, she moved back to America with her family.
[SPEAKER_00]: We continued dating, and by that point, I admit her family, so I thought it was a pretty serious relationship, especially for teenagers.
[SPEAKER_00]: We called regularly, and she often talked about me to her family while I was on the line.
[SPEAKER_00]: Around three years into our relationship, things started to feel different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Intimacy was difficult with the distance and visits became less frequent.
[SPEAKER_00]: We stopped planning the next visit before she left.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was more of a, I'll see you when I see you, vibe.
[SPEAKER_00]: One important detail is that, ever since I met my girlfriend, she hasn't had a Facebook account.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's mostly used Twitter and Snapchat, and occasionally makes an Instagram account.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also know for a fact that she hasn't lied about this in the past.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her family told me multiple times and even expressed their dislike for Facebook when I was over at her place.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's now been a year since I last visited.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't call as often, but when we do, it's really pleasant, still romantic.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't have any suspicions.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't really use Twitter much, but I keep it to check what's happening in her life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We mostly talk on Snapchat, eye message and FaceTime.
[SPEAKER_00]: At one point, I typed in her Twitter handle to look at one of her posts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of clicking directly on her account, I searched her username and saw a guy tweeting her.
[SPEAKER_00]: A guy I'd never noticed before.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was replying to deleted tweets and their interactions clearly suggested an intimate relationship from the things he was saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: I even noticed one of her friends replying to his tweet.
[SPEAKER_00]: though his Twitter account looked completely inactive for the past month.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't bring it up, because I don't want to seem like I was stalking her Twitter, but it definitely raised some suspicions, so I decided to type her name into Facebook to see if she has an account.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her first name has a very unique spelling, so she's easy to find.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, I find that she does have a Facebook account.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really new, only a couple of months old, but I don't notice anything unusual.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says she's single, but that doesn't mean much.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are no pictures of her with guys, and she isn't friends with the guy she was tweeting with a few months ago, so everything seems fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do check back on her Facebook every now and then.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's always a list of six friends it shows, usually friends you have in common, but we have none in common.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't use Facebook at all, and I had assumed she didn't either.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the six friends seem random.
[SPEAKER_00]: At one point, a guy with his arm around her and his profile picture comes up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I click on his account and sure enough, it says he's in a relationship with my girlfriend.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are pictures of them kissing and photos clearly taken in her bedroom with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: On her profile though, there's none of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally no trace of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was less than a year ago, and I still haven't brought it up with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have noticed, however, that I rarely get to talk to her and her family or friends when we call, which used to happen somewhat regularly.
[SPEAKER_00]: The tricky part is that the timeline overlaps between this boyfriend on Facebook and the guy who was talking to her on Twitter, and they are definitely not the same person.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, my question is, how on earth do I bring this up with her?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I confront him first?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I just disappear and leave them be?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is about my father.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first 10 years of my parents' marriage were pretty normal, as far as I could see.
[SPEAKER_00]: In 2005, my father tried to break up with my mother during a sort of midlife crisis, but she guilt tripped him into staying.
[SPEAKER_00]: He agreed on the condition that he could go on solo holidays every once in a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: To sum up the following 10 years, my dad worked over time and shifts a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we had our problems with money anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was weird and maybe obvious, but I didn't really notice back then.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward to September 2015.
[SPEAKER_00]: My father told me that he wanted to break up, but this time for real.
[SPEAKER_00]: He told me a week before he told my mom, I was still living at home, and that week was hell for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: A big part of who I am consists of being absolutely open and honest about everything, especially with people I trust.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom was always someone I could trust, and in moments when something in my life really went wrong, she was my last straw.
[SPEAKER_00]: This would have been a moment I really needed her, but my dad blocked that option because he wanted to tell her himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every single time I saw my mom that week, I felt incredibly bad for her knowing what I knew while she didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: A week later, he told her, and she broke down, and my dad was the love of her life, and still is today, and he had broken her heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was very understanding and let him go, and they agreed not to divorce for tax reasons.
[SPEAKER_00]: He continued doing repairs on the house weekly, and allowed her to live there without costs while he moved out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since then, my mom has been in a fragile state of mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two weeks after the breakup, I nearly died all of a sudden, and my mom's world broke down again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank God I recovered, but it was a slow process, and my mom was in permanent worry about me.
[SPEAKER_00]: During this time, my dad introduced me to his girlfriend, S. 42.
[SPEAKER_00]: He invited me to her apartment, where he had moved in with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was drunk in the middle of the day and smoked a lot, which I really disliked, especially since I was trying to recover my lungs.
[SPEAKER_00]: In November 2015, I nearly died from the same thing for a second time.
[SPEAKER_00]: The doctors called my parents saying they should come to the hospital because they were not sure I would.
[SPEAKER_00]: Survive the night.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom got into a huge argument with my dad because he didn't come over.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never forgave him for not being there, not for my morphine pump self, but at least for my mom, who had the worst night of her life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I began to recover slowly, and my mom was in an extremely fragile state of mind, crying a lot and reaching out to me to talk about the breakup, because she didn't want to tell her friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had enough to deal with handling my parents' breakup and my near-death experiences, so I couldn't bear my mom's pain as much as I wanted to help her.
[SPEAKER_00]: My dad saw the situation from the outside and offered to let me move out and pay for my rent.
[SPEAKER_00]: I took the chance, moved closer to my university, and loved the feeling of finally standing on my own feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom hates being alone in our family house with all the memories, but as time passed, I slowly felt that she was coping.
[SPEAKER_00]: My dad and I visit her regularly.
[SPEAKER_00]: By that time, he had broken up with his girlfriend, S, because they got into an argument
[SPEAKER_00]: In April 2016, my dad introduced me to his current girlfriend, R.56 and her family.
[SPEAKER_00]: She has three kids who are about my age, and I really like them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love seeing my father so happy with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that my mom doesn't know about her, but we didn't want to pull my mom out of her own world due to her fragile state, and we think it's better this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward last weekend and the huge plot twist.
[SPEAKER_00]: My boyfriend 24 and I were invited to ours birthday.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything was fine, and we had a good time.
[SPEAKER_00]: When all of a sudden, our pulled out an album of photographs from a family vacation in 2008.
[SPEAKER_00]: The album contained photos of my dad on a family vacation, with another woman, with another family 10 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a hard time coping with the situation and not breaking down in tears of desperation in front of everyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man I respected so much for.
[SPEAKER_00]: Always working so hard wasn't working over time.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was with another family.
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like the last 10 years with my family were a complete lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't go on a family vacation if you just got together.
[SPEAKER_00]: My guess is they got together when my dad tried to break up for the first time.
[SPEAKER_00]: just with the small difference that he stayed and pretended everything was fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: He led a whole double life with a second family.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man I respected the most in my life, not only cheated, which is a huge no-go for me, but did something much worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: He constantly lied about pretty much everything, from where he went to why we didn't have any money.
[SPEAKER_00]: and what about his former girlfriend, S?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did he cheat with her on R?
[SPEAKER_00]: How much does she know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Does she know that my mom doesn't know?
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't yet had the courage to talk to my dad about this or ask questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are so many questions in my head and I even messed up my recent exams because of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel so incredibly bad for my mom and the worst part is that I can't tell her.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first, I know it's absolutely not my job to tell her, but I feel horribly guilty for knowing this while she doesn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: or does she?
[SPEAKER_00]: And just never told me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it hit me this hard, how bad will it be for her?
[SPEAKER_00]: For me, it was my childhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: For her?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a 20-year marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know how to feel about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be so much easier if I didn't love both my mom and my dad and his second family as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: The worst part for me, though I know it sounds selfish, is that I'm not able to talk with the person who has always helped me and been there when everything went wrong, because it would probably hurt her even more than it hurts me.
[SPEAKER_00]: My gut tells me I need distance from my family, but I'm not sure if that will help.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how to deal with the whole situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 13.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the beginning of our relationship, I caught him lying about all sorts of things, such as gaming at night, buying things, saying, he was going on a boy's camping trip when there were girls there, skipping work because he didn't feel like working and more.
[SPEAKER_00]: Note, we do not live together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't get mad if he had told me the truth, but he lies because apparently he has been lying since he was a kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had fights over many of these lies and even tried to break up, but he would always somehow convince me to give him another chance, saying every time that he would change, and so I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, eight years in, we haven't had any issues for years, or so I thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: I recently found out that he was lying
[SPEAKER_00]: During the pandemic, my family was very strict since we see my vulnerable grandma often.
[SPEAKER_00]: He always acted as if he were home and didn't see his friends much, except for snowboarding trips.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in fact, he was going to the gym with his friends, going out to eat, and more.
[SPEAKER_00]: He also lied about snowboarding trips being just guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: When there were girls there as well, I asked to see his phone, something I have never asked anyone to do, or that he could walk away from the relationship, and he was considering leaving.
[SPEAKER_00]: After I looked, I found so many lies that I ended up breaking up with him, but he kept calling me, and I fell back into the trap.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said that this time he would 100% change, and now we are kind of back together.
[SPEAKER_00]: He also said he wanted a fresh start, so he reformatted his entire phone, wiping everything out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every single day, I find myself wondering, what else don't I know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I should have seen the red flags from the beginning of our relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: am I setting myself up for failure?
[SPEAKER_00]: I am at the point in my life where I want to move out and start a family.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think maybe this time he has changed, but in the back of my mind, I wonder if he will revert back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am so terrified.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 14
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a father of two, four-year-old and 15-month-old children.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in my mid-40s and have been married for seven.
[SPEAKER_00]: Years, I am a successful business owner and thought I was in a loving relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wholeheartedly love my wife and believe she complements me in ways I did not imagine possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, I am a better man because of her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then my world was turned upside down about two months ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I discovered that my wife was having a long-distance cyber affair with an old ex
[SPEAKER_00]: They have met at least once for what I presume was a romantic and physical weekend, but the majority of the communication has been online through messenger, WhatsApp, and similar platforms.
[SPEAKER_00]: This relationship went on for about a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I confronted my wife, she admitted that she had been unhappy for quite some time, and that I was the source of her dismay.
[SPEAKER_00]: My interactions as a father and a husband had been absent.
[SPEAKER_00]: I admit that I was not very present or involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hold myself responsible.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had neglected her and the kids for some time.
[SPEAKER_00]: burying myself in my work.
[SPEAKER_00]: In a way, I had taken on the traditional role of bringing money to the family while she raised the kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: This became a huge red flag for her, and deep down, I knew something was wrong, but it was easier than fully stepping into my role as a father and husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was better and more experienced at working than being a dad or husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: My father had been a horrible role model, and I was unknowingly falling into his footsteps.
[SPEAKER_00]: After discovering the affair, we have redefined our relationship, and I have taken an active role with the family and with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She expressed a desire to reconnect with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, to give me a chance, she did not want a divorce despite being unhappy, largely for the same reason I wanted to stay together, the kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could say this wake-up call acted as a catalyst for me to change completely.
[SPEAKER_00]: The best part is that it feels good being an involved father and working on rebuilding my connection with my wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her biggest concern is that my new me won't last, and she is somewhat apprehensive.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has been a work in progress, but overall it feels positive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now on to the part that concerns me the most.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I discovered her infidelity, I asked her to stop communicating with her ex to give our marriage a chance.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said she would and admitted that she wanted to save the marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: I took her at her word, and her visible actions seem to reflect her intentions.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, she is not actually stopped communicating with her ex, and this both troubles and puzzles me.
[SPEAKER_00]: They text and talk regularly about what beats me.
[SPEAKER_00]: While I understand that she is making a genuine effort to reconnect with me, after having had hatred and contempt for me for so long, I don't understand why she would continue to sabotage the relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have become more aware of her attempts to hide her communication, and the one or two times we have discussed it, she has admitted it but shuts down and is not very communicative.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've sought professional advice and was told to just be myself, be involved in present, and not let my insecurity about this continued communication derail me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, she will come around.
[SPEAKER_00]: To her, it's a fantasy relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: But how can I do this when it feels like a stab in the heart every time I see her sneak away to send a text?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or when I see the notification of a new message from her ex on her phone?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why does she continue living a double life?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, she's great when she's present, but she will not let go of that other relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 15 I was just a typical married woman with three kids, and after ten years, I got divorced.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got along fine afterward.
[SPEAKER_00]: My life was unaventful for about a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I met another guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is my third relationship ever, and I'm in my thirties.
[SPEAKER_00]: We dated for a year and four months.
[SPEAKER_00]: He asked me to marry him and we got engaged.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything was going fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: He got along with my ex and my kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: He got me pregnant and asked me to move in with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I moved and two weeks later, everything seemed great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I met his dad's girlfriend and she told me he had a fiancé before I moved in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone he lived with for six years and had two kids with.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had told me about the kids but claimed they were his nieces.
[SPEAKER_00]: This man literally led a double life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we have to stay in contact to talk about plans for the baby on the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have even become friends with his other fiancé.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are all getting along but he literally just said,
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to let go of what I did and move on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I laughed hysterically and said, let's see what Reddit thinks.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, do you all think I should give him a clean slate and stop bringing up the past?
[SPEAKER_00]: Am I being a big meanie?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to know if I'm being unreasonably unforgiving.
[SPEAKER_00]: story 16.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been married to my husband for 12 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never had a reason to think he was cheating and we have a good relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: He earns a good salary and I stay home.
[SPEAKER_00]: He goes out of town for up two weeks at a time and I never considered he might be lying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three days ago he was taking a nap.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I heard a Facebook notification on his laptop.
[SPEAKER_00]: I decided to be nosy and it was from his girlfriend.
[SPEAKER_00]: I needed to see more of the conversation, so I unlocked his phone while he was sleeping, and it became clear that they were sleeping together.
[SPEAKER_00]: She told him that her son wanted to see his daddy, and my husband responded that he would be there today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought he was on a business trip this week, but now I realize some of those trips were him going to see this woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went on her Facebook profile.
[SPEAKER_00]: They aren't friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: After further snooping, I realized he has a second account under another name that I wasn't aware of.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are pictures from his far back as five years ago of her with my husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: She has two young children and from what I saw in their conversations, they are his.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have been struggling with fertility for over 10 years and we have been unable to conceive even with IVF.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about adoption a few years ago and even though my husband said he always wanted a big family, he didn't want to adopt.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I blame myself for failing him and feel like he turned to another woman to have children.
[SPEAKER_00]: He hasn't left me, so I know he still loves me, or he would have left me for her and their kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am considering telling him that I know about his family and working it out if he agrees to stop seeing her.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the other hand, I don't know if I'll ever trust him again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think my fear of being alone is a big factor in considering reconciliation.
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband has always treated me well, and I had no reason to suspect him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'll be back in four days, and I'm not sure what I'll do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Edit.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are devout Hindus, and I do not believe in divorce, but I'm not sure if moving forward is possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Edit 2.
[SPEAKER_00]: We live in Turkey, but neither of us is Turkish, and I have no support system here outside of my husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am disabled due to an accident and have not worked in years.
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband is wealthy, so my not working has never been an issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 17 My wife, 30 and I, 33 had been together for over 10 years, practically our entire adult lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: Six weeks ago my mother called me saying she suspected something about my wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had noticed posts on Instagram with a friend that seemed a bit too close and was worried.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had always trusted my wife completely, and since I don't use social media, I didn't really know what she meant.
[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't the first time my mother had made a comment like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: At that time, my wife was traveling in another country with this man and three other friends, two women, and a man she had traveled with on multiple occasions before.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the certainty in my mother's voice made me uneasy, so I decided to check her Instagram account from her computer at our house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had always had access to her devices and passwords, but I'm not a jealous person and had never looked at her messages before.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when I discovered she had been, cheating on me for over six months with this man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only was she cheating, but she had also told her family and friends that we had separated.
[SPEAKER_00]: and this guy believed he was her new boyfriend.
[SPEAKER_00]: To give some context my wife endured unimaginable traumas for three years from ages 7 to 10.
[SPEAKER_00]: I only recently discovered this and I'm the only person who knows.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had suspected it for a long time and asked her several times but she always denied it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her father constantly cheated on her mother and eventually disappeared while her mother struggled with drug addiction.
[SPEAKER_00]: all of this occurred in extreme poverty.
[SPEAKER_00]: These traumas inflicted by different people, left her with a deep belief that she cannot trust anyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: During the first two years of our relationship, she had an extremely high libido, but one day a condom broke, and even though she took the morning after pill, she became pregnant.
[SPEAKER_00]: We decided not to keep it because we were too young and she had an abortion.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the time, abortion was illegal in my country, so we had to go to an underground clinic where she had a horrific experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: From that moment for the next eight years of our relationship,
[SPEAKER_00]: we were barely intimate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some years only once or twice and other years not at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to address these issues in countless ways, but she always shut down and gave no answers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Outside of the intimate aspect, we had a very good relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: But over time, I started feeling more like her friend and later like her father.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the fourth year of our relationship, we moved to another country, and things began to deteriorate.
[SPEAKER_00]: She decided to study psychology, and I took care of everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only financially, but also cooking, cleaning, and even the dog.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't mind at the time because she was an excellent student, putting tremendous effort into her studies, earning the best grades in her class, and receiving multiple scholarships that were very helpful for our family finances.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, all this responsibility eventually became too much for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Around the seventh year, combined with work problems and my mother's stroke, I fell into a depression that lasted months.
[SPEAKER_00]: I spent eight months barely getting out of bed, and it was she who helped me through it, taking me to the psychiatrist, the psychologist, and constantly finding activities to make me feel better.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even after I recovered, I noticed she became less and less expressive with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She saw me as fragile and feared pushing me back into depression.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was probably right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had created an emotional dependency where all I cared about was her well-being, completely neglecting my own.
[SPEAKER_00]: For years, she repeatedly told me to stop doing everything for her and start focusing on myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I ignored her advice and kept doing everything possible to make her happy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Believing that was the only way I could be happy too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything I'm about to share happened or came to light after I spoke with her upon her return from the trip.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I showed her all, the conversations with her boyfriend, she had a panic attack and couldn't speak.
[SPEAKER_00]: This man, realizing something was wrong, took her phone, and read everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Upon discovering the truth, he disappeared, taking her passport and all her money with him, leaving her stranded in a country where she couldn't even communicate.
[SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't speak English.
[SPEAKER_00]: The panic attacks affected her entire body.
[SPEAKER_00]: and she ended up hospitalized for over five days until she managed to obtain a permit to return home through the embassy.
[SPEAKER_00]: When she returned, she told me everything, or at least that's what she claims.
[SPEAKER_00]: She told me about the constant abuse during her childhood and that a year ago, this person tried to contact her after 20 years through social media.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although she never responded, it deeply affected her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She started seeing a psychologist without telling anyone and also had two self-harm attempts that only her mother knew about.
[SPEAKER_00]: In her own words, I think I was just trying to get attention because if I really wanted to end it all, there were better ways to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: She admitted she couldn't contribute financially to the family because she spent what she had on her lover on expensive dinners and hotels and even borrowed money from me to travel with them, which she paid back as soon as she got her next salary.
[SPEAKER_00]: She also told me she was never in love with them that she planned to ghost him after the trip and that she had wanted to stop for a while but couldn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it's hard to believe, but something makes me believe her.
[SPEAKER_00]: For months, she insisted we use a tracking app so we would always know where the other was.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always said no because it felt like something only toxic couples do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if she wanted me to catch her or if she was looking for a way to stop.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was something she pushed for multiple times, and I always refused.
[SPEAKER_00]: In my wife's words, I couldn't face reality, so I created a new life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like a completely different person.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything I told them about myself was a lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now comes the part that confuses me the most.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since I found out about everything, I kicked her out of the house, and she went to live with her mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, after talking to her just once, all the anger I felt disappeared.
[SPEAKER_00]: I even felt happier and freer than I had in the last eight years of our relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was as if, in an instant, all the weight I had been carrying on my shoulders to make her happy, vanished.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the first time, I could focus on my own well-being and understand so many things that had confused me for years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I kept seeing her once or twice a week to talk, and we felt more connected than ever before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three weeks ago, we started drinking while talking, and after too many drinks, we ended up doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This happened two more times in the following weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: She clearly wants us to get back together.
[SPEAKER_00]: she's much more affectionate and open than she ever was.
[SPEAKER_00]: She shows a strong physical attraction that goes beyond.
[SPEAKER_00]: Physical intimacy in a way I've never felt before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Random comments about my appearance, unexpected kisses on the cheek, and a childlike smile every time she sees me.
[SPEAKER_00]: As if she's deeply in love, she keeps repeating things like, I'm so happy to finally see you doing well and working on yourself, or I feel like you're back to being the person I fell in love with.
[SPEAKER_00]: I struggled to understand this sudden change, but it's true that I've made many sudden changes for my well-being, changes she always wanted.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the same time, she sees me as the first person in her life who never let her down and still listens to her, despite everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, my attitude toward her remains a bit cold.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel great about myself, but I don't know how to feel about her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no doubt that the love I feel for her is still alive, but the trust is broken, and it's very hard to know if everything she says is true, or if she's just saying it because she wants to get back together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite everything, there's a part of me that's grateful to her for breaking the emotional dependency.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never had the courage to break myself, allowing me to be myself again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't feel hatred, sadness or resentment, but there are still days when I feel a bit confused, not with her but with myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: For not realizing this sooner, for not listening to what she asked of me for years, and for lowering myself to be the person I became, a part of me tells me not to expose myself to pain again, to take this opportunity to meet other women, to forget her, to escape.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet, in the few days we see each other, I feel so good that my mind fills with questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: I downloaded dating apps and matched with several women, but after talking to them when it's time to arrange a date, I stopped responding.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although logic tells me it's the right thing to do, another part of me doesn't want to, and I keep missing her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm writing this because I'd like to hear opinions from people who have, or experience something similar in a very long-term relationship, from both the person who cheated and the one who was cheated on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please, if you've never been in a long-term relationship or a similar situation, I ask that you abstain.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is really hard to comprehend without that experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm certain that even if I decided to get back together with her, it would be after several months only if I can rebuild trust.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would demand that we start the relationship from scratch, each of us living in our own place and attending couples therapy.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't know if it's worth it, or if it will only bring me more pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: How can I, or we, recover from this?
[SPEAKER_00]: PS.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason it took me so long to realize what was happening is that, for the past few months, our relationship had already been very bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had asked her to spend half the week at her mother's place and the other half with me at home, hoping the distance might help us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was during the half of the time she was, he, supposed to be with her mother that she was seeing the other person.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for watching.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you enjoyed this video, be sure to give it a thumbs up, subscribe, and hit the bell icon so you never miss an update.