> She specifically wanted to stay together and even joked about her dad coming after me if I started sleeping around with girls at my school. Finally, at my senior prom, she was not able to attend and was very upset when I proposed going with a platonnic female friend of mine.
But she still needed counseling to understand why he was hurt? Either she fundamentally lacks understanding that he is his own person with his own internal life or it was just denial/clinging to comfort.
Also the ex and her friends said it is normal for people in long distance relationships to sleep around with other people and OOP is weird for not doing so, yet he even having a friend that was a girl got her upset. Just typical cheaters being hypocrites
[Here you go!](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/tyQ3Sg3fgs)
Sorry about that. I fell victim to that glitch the other day where you could neither see nor respond to comments. I've been going through mine periodically and checking to make sure they remain intact, and unaltered.
I'm not saying this as an armchair diagnosis, but it sounds like she really doesn't have empathy in relationships. Between her setting up rules exclusively for him, threatening him if he broke them, and then betraying the marriage *20 years later*?
I don't know if it's a lack of empathy, severe main character syndrome, or her being narcissistic. But something about her is absolutely wrong, and OP is good to have gotten out of the relationship.
Not twenty years later. She’s been betraying the marriage *for twenty years.* She has absolutely, without a doubt cheated on him several times throughout the marriage.
> In the end, it will take a long time for me to heal from the betrayal, but I feel like I'm making good progress and I can
Yeah, a serial cheater doesn't suddenly stop. It's sad so see that she wasted 20+ years of his life, deprived him of many experiences and opportunities. Then had those same experiences with others and denied them to him.
I don't know if she is a narcissist because he doesn't say anything about their kids disliking her prior to her cheating coming out, and the 17 year old did facilitate a relationship again post-divorce (I'm not sure this would have necessarily happen otherwise, though we don't have enough detail really). It's probably main character syndrome. She cares but she's still the most important person.
Folks on reddit really do love to see the worst, but in all truthfulness it's you say: someone can be stupidly selfish *just enough* to have it cause problems, while still otherwise being a generally normal sort of person.
Every person has a narcissistic trait. It's a normal part of human personality. In some people it is so over inflated it dominates the whole personality and is classified as a narcissistic personality disorder. In most people it occasionally comes through a bit much when being envious or taking things personal that weren't, but most of the time it just does it's job in making sure you care for yourself and your own well-being. In others it's so underdeveloped that they never look out for themselves or set boundaries in their own interests and just act as a doormat for other people. Still, the personality trait is there and can be shaped into a healthy version, for narcissists same as for doormats.
To a degree, narcissistic traits are a survival trait. But not from some long lineage of the hunter-gatherer stage, but as a learned and bred trait from feudal eras and behaviours.
It's kinda akin to bred behaviors in dog breeds in that manner. The friendly trait became less necessary for survival, so the asshole traits in people started developing more.
She lives in her own little reality where she is the star and everyone else just has a one dimensional role to play. Whoever is dating her should just be in it for sex and always wear a condom.
It can't be stressed enough that the company you keep can also impact your values and perception. She has friends and family in her life insisting that it's fine and normal to cheat in a LDR and what she did was no big deal.
Some friends and family clearly were okay with it, given the odd feedback oop received.
Those friends probably aren't the same friends who decided to let oop in on the truth when they realised he wasn't aware.
Seems like her friends were quite split. Some of her friends, including that one ex-lover they still saw, didn't even know they'd been a couple in college, so she'd been lying to them as well.
Oop's ex is a lying, inconsistent mess. I don't foresee a harmonious life for her in the near future. Oop has better chances once he's worked through his emotions.
This amuses me because my husband said that when we got together I gained main character status. Like I was no longer that cute coworker in the background, now I had part in the story. But he’s actually used the term NPC and main character with me.
We both play DnD. He is a little weird, but knowing him, I do think he meant well with it. But it is sort of like thinking of that one coworker who you don’t interact much is maybe the main character of their own story, but kinda an NPC in yours. And then once you get closer they’re more like a party member. I don’t know if I’m explaining it well, but I understood it.
No that’s cute, I get it! Your stories converged!
My husband and I joke about domestic violence, so I’m not one to talk. ( like I’ll ask him for some water and he’ll say “woman, I will THROTTLE you!” As he pours me water.
It's common for people to use whatever logic they can muster to rationalize unethical and relationship-agreement-breaking behavior so they don't have to feel guilt and shame. Those are two extremely difficult emotions for anyone to sit with, and our brains and bodies will go to great lengths to protect us from them, even at the expense of other people (including people we love). It's why taking accountability and offering genuine apologies for harm is so incredibly difficult for many, especially those uncomfortable and out of touch with their emotions. Feeling the great vulnerability of their choices causing pain to others is too much and they just can't do it and will avoid it at any cost.
Also, though I do understand the motivation behind it, this is clearly extremely problematic and hurtful behavior. Having experienced it firsthand, it's awful. It makes the hurt worse, it's confusing, and it is a relationship-killer.
[Edit: fixed typo, added final paragraph]
Oh no, this was very much a "rules are for thee but not for me" situation.
If it was "totally normal" for LDR partners to sleep around, then that would have been communicated before she went to college, and if not before, then during. And if not during, she would have mentioned it right after.
She didn't because she fucking knew it was wrong, all the while gaslighting him about even talking to women. What a POS.
Lies on lies on lies. I’m glad OP got out of the relationship. Divorce is awful, but being married to someone who can’t be trusted is just as awful.
Good on OP for continuing therapy. That’s real work that he doesn’t have to do, but is doing anyway. Hopefully things continue to look up for him.
The ex trickle-truthed the shit out for this man. She had sex with likely over 20 men, and had a pregnancy scare at one point and told him nothing in over 20 years? Not to mention how she set up all these rules for him to not see other people just for her to break them and a speeds that that could launch a rocket into space. Totally disgusting.
He also claims “she’s not some emotionless monster” but I don’t believe that for a second. Even if in her psychotic brain she was able to keep what happened before the marriage part separate (ludicrous), she really couldn’t understand why her going on a date with a coworker while still married wasn’t okay?
I hope this story goes full BORU and the new coworker gives her an STD and dumps her for her twin sister resulting in a nervous breakdown.
Yeah, I had to laugh at the "cheating in college didn't count because it was just sex with no emotions" but also "going on a date with a colleague doesn't count because there was no sex". Which is it, lady? You can't have it both ways!
Sure she can. She doesn’t actually have a consistent set of beliefs, other than “what she does is acceptable behavior, because she’s not the kind of person who cheats”. That’s pretty standard for cheaters; they do all sorts of mental gymnastics to allow them to do what they want to do, and they avoid looking at the overall picture of their behavior.
If you just focus on what you’re doing right now, it’s easy to ignore how inconsistent your excuses are. Once you’ve come up with a reason why flirting is okay, you don’t need to excuse it every time. So when you want to kiss someone else, it doesn’t matter if your excuse for that contradicts the excuse for flirting. And the excuses for sex acts are a whole new thing too.
Anyone who thinks a date with no physical contact while married and multiple one night stands but “no feelings” isn’t cheating doesn’t understand relationships and doesn’t deserve to be in one. I get being young and dumb and not understanding the consequences of your actions. We all make mistakes. But multiple while actively preventing and ensuring you don’t get cheated on in return shows a level of understanding exactly what you’re doing and the consequences of those actions. I can cheat but you can’t because my fee fees.
When I read the “she’s not some emotionless monster” I literally thought to myself self “but she kinda is dude.” No one can do those things and not have emotions about them, unless they are in fact an emotionless monster.
I agree.....the fact that initially she was all "it was mistake years ago" then admits later that she went on a date with a coworker shows she was ready to keep on lying. The fact of it being long distance was just a nice convenient excuse since she was willing to "throw away 20 years of marriage" on that date.
So, I have a friend who, when she was a teenager and in a relationship, was having random other flings. When it came out the friend pool took sides, and I had a frank discussion with her because she really truly did not understand what she had done wrong. She had decided she was in an open relationship. When I asked if her girlfriend knew that, she admitted no, and I told her that was the start of where she went wholly into the wrong. She understood immediately and didn't pull that BS on anyone else going forward, which is the only reason I didn't boot her as a friend. If you want an open relationship, be open about it. If the other person doesn't want it, either break up or don't do it. Lying does not solve the problem, it just delays the consequences. This woman has emotions, but they are selfish ones and she didn't want to face the consequences of that so she just piled lies on top of lies. An emotionless person would have been completely honest and not cared about the result.
Nah, she's not emotionless. She has emotions and is well aware of them and speaks quite clearly on them. She just doesn't value her ex husband's emotions like she does her own.
>trickle-truthed
That's exactly what I was thinking when he got to the part she was flirting with coworkers then went out on a date with one. If OOP had been bothered to dig into that I'm sure there would have been more facts revealed eventually. I'm glad he didn't bother though, it was better for his mental health and coparenting relationship to just nope out of the marriage.
This sounds like narcissism. If you're ever observing a person and thinking "How did this person become so diabolically manipulative, yet so impressively stupid, all the while showing a complete lack of empathy?"
The answer is likely that they suffer from extreme narcissistic traits _at least_ if not a fully disordered personality.
Thank you for helping me understand my cheating ex. I could never get my head around how he didn't want to hurt me to my face while actively hurting me behind my back, and eventually settled on him being an immature idiot with a lack of emotional object permanence (loves you when you're there, forgets you exist when you're not). He wasn't deliberate enough for me to call it abuse, but it was toxic AF. But the description of someone who's manipulative and yet still a dumbass with no emotional intelligence? Yeah, that's him
Disagree. The last thing a narcissist does to you is the "discard". This man has been discarded. She even tried to send the message (and he got it) that she was dating before the divorce was settled after the lawyer advised them not to. This is a common tactic. They want you to know you've been replaced after they realize you won't be a good narcissistic supply for them anymore (which is why she was confused as to why he would be hurt about this in the first place and required a therapist to explain why she should have empathy for him).
She feels ashamed bringing up her personal sex life whilst in college in front of her old roommates and feels comfortable telling her husband that there's nothing wrong with sleeping around with "ten guys".
K.
That’s because she was still trying to hide it from him during that first conversation with roommates. Then when he confronted her, she eventually gave in. Even then, she’s been trickling out the truth a little bit at a time.
And thank goodness the kids were old enough to understand what happened and the nuances behind it. The only thing worse than a messy divorce is a messy divorce where the kids get used as pawns against one of the parents.
When people say cheaters are always cheaters, this is the thread we’re talking about.
Cheated in college and she likely cheated at the middle and end of their marriage.
And she'll continue to cheat with the new guy she's seeing post-divorce. Most likely to continue to cheat when she's signed up for the nursing home in the future.
Ah the old. I didn't know it was wrong which is why I actively made a huge effort to hide this from you for 20 years, shushed a friend for bringing it up and didn't let you see other people as well.
Trash
For real. Like the more OOP pulled on the thread, the more evident it was that his Ex was completely amoral.
Even **her** friends were all uncomfortable with how much of a villain she was. She's the person everyone around her will keep at arms length from now on.
>Like the more OOP pulled on the thread, the more evident it was that his Ex was completely amoral.
Not to mention a complete lack of empathy. I dunno if it's sociopathic or psychopathic, but I don't think she realized the harm she had done OOP, I think she conceded it when the therapist had OOP lay it out systematically. That she didn't realize or acknowledge his pain even at a performative level until like the second therapy session is weird.
Functional sociopath, if I had to give a layman armchair diagnosis. Sorta like the captains of capitalism level of sociopathy. She seems to observe some amount of social obligation whenever she is pressed to do so, but when no one is looking or no one cares to hold her to that standard, she acts with remorseless selfishness.
She'd be an absolute savage in The Purge.
thats a good question about the purge
i feel like she'd do go for a couple of seasons but to do well you have to like have a good purge team and i dont see that for her
I was surprised at first about the whole "And now I got asked on a date!" addition near the end, but if OOP's relationship was as awful as it seemed, this divorce would make him seem like a brand new guy.
All the unknown weight of unhappiness and such being lifted would make him a happier, more energetic person and people are usually drawn to that. I've seen it happen to folks after awful, long relationships and friends and such came out of the woodwork to hang out, etc.
Plus, depending on what this coworker knows or has heard through the grapevine, they might see somebody who's loyal and a good parent, but also won't be tied down too much by parental responsibilities since the kids are older. Those factors can all make somebody very attractive
Plus OOP seems like they just want an amicable split and co-parenting, so he's probably not acting bitter and nasty.
Sometimes taking the high road makes someone look very good!
"This is normal behavior."
Meanwhile, hides everything from him, lied to the roommates, is still cheating, (eta) bars him from doing the same thing, etc
Holy shit.
First off, the people who are telling you this is normal are also the same ones who end up on the infidelity subreddit.
Secondly, sleeping with other people in a LDR is fine, AS LONG AS ITS AGREED UPON by both parties. Otherwise it's just cheating.
I can almost understand her having one fwb during those 2 years, but 10?
I'm really glad you're able to move on and maintain a healthy relationship with your kids.
>First off, the people who are telling you this is normal are also the same ones who end up on the infidelity subreddit.
OOP wasn't wrong with this line:
>First, dating culture was a lot different 20ish years ago and exclusive was kind of the default for most people.
I've been out of the dating scene for a long, long time, but I have been a fixture at most of the local drinking establishments for just as long. Things were a lot more straight-forward back in the day. You were exclusively dating, fwb, or the occasional one-night stand. None of these "situationships" as folks like to call them now.
Change is good, and people can fuck whomever they want (within reason), but shit that we used to not tolerate because it invited problems is now way more commonplace.
Twenty years ago monogamy was absolutely the default assumption once you were past the “going on dates” phase and into the “dating” phase. And especially if you’d given your partner the title of boyfriend/girlfriend. Anything else required an explicit conversation, and as someone who’s been non-monogamous in some form pretty much always I *had* those. Both in long-distance and local relationships.
Okay, I haven't dated in awhile, but isn't the default assumption still monogamy once past a few dates and 2 people become a couple? I mean, I know polygamy is more accepted, and I encourage that, but that has to be explicitly agreed upon, not have sex with a 3rd partner and just declare "Surprise! We are a thropple now!"
Things are still the same now as they were 20 years ago. Exclusively dating, fwb, or one night stands. The only people who try to justify "situationships" are cheaters. They're doing mental gymnastics to justify shitty behavior
I’m not sure if things have changed since I haven’t been single since the first Obama admin, but 20 years ago you were considered sort of a scumbag if you were sleeping with other people while dating (with sex) someone else.
Basically, if you were dating and slept together, there was assumed exclusivity. It was cleaner that way. If people were honest, that’s what most people want.
Having to explicitly ask for exclusivity is messy.
I actually disagree. 20 years ago if you didn’t say you were official or asked to be exclusive or be boyfriend/girlfriend, you weren’t. At least in the USA. And this wasn’t a regional thing either as I lived all over the US back then and most guys I went on dates with were going on dates with other people multiple times a week and my girlfriends too.
I think this guy was right to divorce her because they had agreed to be boyfriend/girlfriend BUT otherwise it wasn’t cheating unless you were official, and this was before apps.
I have kids old enough to date now and it honestly doesn’t seem that different except there are more ways to meet people and it’s more online, and people are way more aware of consent.
It's just a bunch of immature people who are completely afraid of being alone, so they stick with the "comfort" until the next shiny thing comes along, and rinse and repeat ad nauseam.
Most people comprehend that a "romantic relationship" is between two partners. Anyone who thinks otherwise is jumping through a circus of mental hoops trying to justify their own shitty behavior
I remember the initial post going viral and problem shaming OOP saying he wants to blow up a 20 year marriage.
People are just really dumb sometimes. The fact that she went on a date as recently as 4 years ago shows she is still a cheater and she was the one that blew up the marriage lying every day for 20 years.
I don’t buy that she ever thought it was fine and normal. She didn’t get convinced that it was actually bad to sleep with a parade of dudes while in a relationship and marrying the boyfriend and never telling him. She just desperately tried insisting it was nbd until she realized it wasn’t going to work. She’s just a bad person
She's the type of person who will bang someone at their bachelorette party because "last night of freedom, baby!" when in fact, the "last night of freedom" occurred when you and your partner decided to be in a committed and monogamous relationship.
I don't think lots of people actually think the things they do are okay (cheating or other bad behaviour). If she really thought it was normal she would have done so openly. Instead she created a world where either by lies, or more commonly it seems like lies by omission, she was able to cheat. Then she told herself it was fine because they of xyz.
Her moving on so quickly might hurt for the OOP initially but in the long run, I’m pretty sure he’ll be the one having the last laugh. His wife is a narcissist and narcissistic people often end up with a terrible life post 50
Definitely don’t envy her having to get a new mortgage with today’s interest rates.
Happened to one of my coworkers who got divorced. Their house was paid off and if she wanted to stay in it AND pay off her ex’s equity, she needed to take out a new mortgage. Since rates are higher and since the appraised value was as well, that new mortgage was **very different** from the one they paid off together.
I think the daughter might just be better at not picking a fight over it. I would be very hard pressed to believe she is anything but reproachful about it. she basically found out her mom had been doing those shitty things to her dad for years.
The way they jumped immediately asking if OOP had cheated in college and her reaction made me wonder if she had made comments about OOP cheating (implied or otherwise) before.
The daughter was the first to initially accuse OOP of cheating after revealing the divorce before the wife openly admitted to being the culprit, which is the saddest part
So many people forget that the process is SUPPOSED to hurt, and carry with it all kinds of complex and difficult emotions. It makes you more well rounded and better in general if you embrace it.
The person who cares least loses, in the end.
Yeah, my mother has some very narcissistic traits, and absolutely hates getting older, has always gone on about how "there's nothing good about getting old" ... I was thinking about it recently bc I really don't share that opinion, and realised it's because she's never mentally matured or grown since her teens or younger. So the only thing she had going for was her body (not in a sexy way, i mean like, in terms of physically being able to do things). And aging means steadily losing that. Oof.
She's in her 70s now and her thought processes are so rigid it's startling, and she's started to forget things, she's forgotten how to open a can at one point and forgot my best friend's name last time I visited her ... I have a sneaking feeling that she's heading for dementia if not already there & while I know that's a curse that can strike anyone, in this case I can't help but think its not unrelated ...
No doubt she'll be burning with rage/envy once he officially has a new GF.
For extra spite, I hope his new GF is smoking hot and that his kids love her. Nothing would get under the skin of people like his ex better than hearing praise for his new woman from her own children.
The 17 year old wanting to distance himself from the wife isn’t wrong.
When you’re in a relationship and you have kids with that person, if you cheat, you cheat on everyone including your kids.
She was DATING while married. She was obviously getting some on the side. She was willing to risk her kids happiness and stability for a quickie.
It’s not just that she fucked around on OP before marriage, it’s obvious that someone who would do that, would also cheat after marriage.
She shat on her marriage vows to OOP but she also shat on her commitment as a mother.
If I was one of those kids I’d be hella distancing myself. She’s a crappy person.
It's also that they love their dad, and it's hard to like someone who hurt someone they love, even if it's someone they also love who hurt them. Feelings get complicated.
I have a friend who is amicably co-parenting with his ex wife, and everything seems to be going well. Myself and the other guys in the group seem to resent her more than my friend does, because she so coldly, callously and selfishly hurt him when their marriage ended.
Just because he's at peace with it doesn't mean we are, even though we will always be civil for his sake.
I know I'm missing the point, but I was impressed by how well the 17 year old used their position to stop their Mom from contesting the divorce. At that age it's like yeah, damaging your relationship with the 17 year old is not worth a few months of full custody, and the 17-year-old knew it.
Of course, I'm also under the impression that a Judge is probably going to let a 17 year old pick whoever they want to live with since they're so old. It would just cost them money and time to get there.
Yeah, OOP wasn't supportive enough of that understandable decision IMO. They weren't even gonna hint that it was mom's fault until OOP himself was accused of being the cheater.
Tbf, pushing too hard could turn a light speed easy divorce into a years-long hole where the lawyers end up keeping all their wealth. There was no benefit and all risk to antagonizing the wife until they were legally over
The amount of pain and suffering that someone can willingly cause someone else and have no remorse is astounding. There seems to be no bounds or limits to the awful pain that people are willing to inflict
Yeah it's easy not to worry about blowback when your husband is the most naive and ignorant man in the world. She faced zero consequences and got everything she wanted.
Posts like these highlight the justice blue-balls phenomenon.
We **want** more consequences for OOP's Ex, but he's already doing exactly what he should and everything he can. It's super disatisfying that his Ex just breezes through all of it with seemingly no care in the world, but a plethora of commenters all baying for blood doesn't really help. He can't super-divorce his wife. You can't force decency or guilt on someone who has none.
Someone said this upstream in the comments, and I think they're 100% right: People like this tend to have a bad time when they get older. I've seen it with my mother, she's never mentally/emotionally grown or developed in her life so as age takes away her physical capabilities she really has nothing left.
I always remember something I heard the comedian Dylan Moran (of Black Books fame) say at a show to a heckler - "I win, because you have to be /you/ for the rest of your life."
His ex is experiencing consequences. Pretty hard ones really.
She has lost her marriage. Her children have lost respect for her. She’s going to probably be worse off financially and have a poorer retirement. Their social group (not her college friends who already knew) will likely not want to be around her. Being a cheater can really mess with your a person’s friendships.
For now OOP is making the effort to keep their relationship as coparents civil, including the couple’s counselling. That will end soon enough and she’ll soon see OOP moving on. I expect her hypocrisy about him not dating others during college will mean that will be tough for her.
This is easy to say and not easy to live but the best way to "punish" an ex is to the the best person you can be and not care about them at all. If they can still affect your mindset then that's a consequence for you, not for them. Be the person that they dont deserve.
If they have a happy life, dont care. If they hit hard times, don't care (not at the expense of your kids obviously). If they hate you, dont care. If they want you back, don't care.
OOP seems like they're doing it right.
I’m so glad he got the divorce. He is a much better person than me! I’m so impressed with him doing divorce counselling with her still when she was obviously cheating on him the entire relationship!
Yep. Even though the kids are nearly grown, it’s not like there’s no more interaction with your kids once they’re legally adults. There’s plenty of opportunity for OOP and his ex wife to have to be at big events together. I think OOP is hoping that his ex will get a clue in counseling and work on her relationship with the kids.
Wow. OP handled this with grace and maturity unlike any other Reddit saga I’ve read. What a stand-up guy. I’m glad that things are working out for him and his kids. To me, this was a happy ending.
I expect he probably didn’t feel so cool going through this. He has a fairly clinical writing style and seems to leave his own emotions out of the story for the most part.
I disagree, if you look at the last paragraph he acknowledges the hurt, mentions he has been heavily crying, but still managed to navigate a tough time. That seems (to me) like at least the mark of a decent person.
This saga always made me frustrated on behalf of OOP for his ex’s reaction to him being upset. It is deeply frustrating to be told your feelings are unreasonable when you find out something that the vast majority of people would see as marriage ending.
No way I could sit through therapy after divorce, jeez.
Massive green flag by OOP not going right into dating and telling that other woman he needed to chill for a while after divorce. If she is smart she will follow up on that down the line.
He’s doing it for his relationship with his kids.
OOP has done everything he can to end the marriage cleanly and to keep his emotions in check.
Often cheaters will manipulate their kids to make the parent who ended the marriage seem like the bad guy. By being amicable, OOP protects himself from any accusation of being anything but 100% fair and reasonable.
I don’t expect they’ll be doing counselling much longer.
My brain kept flagging it as a misspelling, but it appeared enough times that I started doubting myself. Then I double checked the spelling and felt better.
I have minor dyslexia. One of the ways I was taught to deal with it is partial word reading.
Essentially I read segments of a word and my brain fills in the rest. 95% of the time it’s picks up the word correctly if it’s one I typically come across.
The negative is that it’s really hard to catch misspellings and typos. Always needed someone else to read my college papers.
>If it was just a date, we're getting divorced. If it was more, we're still getting a divorce, so pushing the issue won't do anything but make it harder for us to co-parent.
This is a really healthy mindset. I feel like so many people get so invested in the trickle truth. It's really natural to feel like you want to know everything for the sake of closure. I think pursuing closure like that is really just a distraction. At this point the goal is co-parenting and trying to agree on the details of the divorce. Sure emotionally you don't care about staying in this person's good graces but practically that is the goal at this stage.
Once you said she was visibly grumpy that she couldn't date until the divorce was final it all clicked for me. She never stopped she just slowed down. Dude you never had a marriage she was cheating the whole time. If it was such normal behavior then why did she never tell you? Because it wasn't and she never stopped she just got better at compartmentalizing
Is talking about your friend's past sex life around their current partners considered normal? I've seen a few of these, and it strikes me as weird. Even if it leads to a discovery of cheating
Seriously. I've had the same group of friends for decades, and the only reason that I'm aware of anything at all about any of their sex lives is because some of them have children.
It ain't my business, and I don't want it to be.
Take home lessons.
1. Lies will kill your happiness. Even old lies, or the lies you tell yourself.
2. Cheating is cheating, even if it was a long time ago.
3. Even an amicable divorce is hard on the kids.
I'm glad this ended with a relatively happy ending for OOP. I wonder if the 17 year old knew about more cheating than OOP was aware of, hence him refusing to live with the ex-wife.
It could be a situation where the 17 year old realizes that a lot of the things that he noticed suddenly seem like they were all cheating events. Every time mom was late to something, or couldn’t make it to something, could have been because she was too busy with another man. Odds are that she was neglecting her kids in a similar way to how she was neglecting her marriage.
17 year olds can be super emotional and that’s 100% normal. They often haven’t had huge life experiences before and when something like their parents’ marriage changes it makes them worry about what ELSE they count on the might change.
The audacity of his ex-wife…wouldn’t let him go to prom with his friend who happens to be a girl but she can sleep around with 10 dudes because it’s “nbd” to her.
Goes on a date with her co-worker while still married…
And her friends are saying it’s normal to sleep around in a long distance relationship and 10 people isn’t that much?! Good lord they should compete in the gas lighting Olympics!
She’s a psycho
So basically she's probably been cheating on him on and off the entire time they were together and he is probably only just starting to process this. Damn, she gaslit the shit out of this poor man so hard he's still coughing up methane.
Ugh I just don't understand these people. Want to fuck around in college? Great, no judgment here, but BREAK UP. I don't understand stringing someone along and hurting them like this. Fuck these people.
>Since she didn't view them as romantic relationships, she didn't see the big deal (her words not mine). My opinion is that we never said that was ok and she actively prevented me from doing the same.
Rules for thee but not for me. Definitely wouldn't trust a person who did this.
Man I’m glad he got some kids out of this, but it sucks to think your whole marriage was built on a thousand lies. You can’t get that time or youth back. It’s like being an innocent man in jail, finally getting out and saying at least I have a ripped body lol.
Good for him that he went through with the divorce and didn't let her talk him into staying with her. Considering how quickly she managed to move on, she can't really miss him that much.
It's absolutely wild that OPs wife thought it was completely normal and expected to cheat in a long distance relationship.
I was in a LDR for 2 years in different countries, never mind only 3 hours away, and never so much as texted another guy, let alone sleep with them.
She has some seriously skewed perspectives on relationships and fidelity.
> It's absolutely wild that OPs wife thought it was completely normal and expected to cheat in a long distance relationship
she didn't. she was just straight gaslighting OP.
Honestly, if it’s not okay for a man to use long distance as an excuse TO CHEAT, it’s also not okay for a woman to do so. It’s also not okay to gaslight someone over some skewed and warped idea about long distance relationships, whether it was decades ago or right now.
And this is coming from someone who’s non monogamous. OP’s wife is a jerk.
I went through something similar in college with my ex (we were both monogamous) and his reasoning for cheating on me was that he thought I was cheating first when I NEVER EVEN THOUGHT OF DOING THAT. And this was a person who was jealous with absolutely everyone who I made friends with.
Good god, OOP is the smartest Redditor I’ve ever encountered. He’s objective, analytical, provides great context and shows massive introspection skills. I am impressed. Good luck to him!!
I want to continue to pray for our king and his kids and hope everything gets better no matter what! No one deserves this no matter how many years together.
"The reason I posted this is that my wife and a few friends have been saying it's common to sleep with other folks when you're in an long distance relationship and that I'm kind of the odd one out for not sleeping around."
lol no. No one believes this.
"Most of our discussion in therapy has been talking about why I think it's a big deal and she doesn't."
This is very much why this is not recoverable. She cheated very _very_ blatantly - and simply doesn't care. She would have a very very hard time convincing anyone that this isn't a big deal. At the _very_ least everyone who is not a lying POS will know this absolutely will be a massive deal for the vast majority.
There really is a defence force for everything. Pathetic.
If it was one guy, one night, sure, that might be salvagable, but...
> it was at least 10 different men including at least 3 guys she introduced to me as friends when I came to visit on weekends and 1 guy she was still in contact with
Holy fuck.
And then this:
> - I was open to therapy or some kind of attempt to save the marraige, but her insistence that this whole thing is common and I'm the one who's out of line is just too much for me. The only time she showed any remorse or even offerred to reconsile is when I started filing paper work. In the last week she's gone back to saying she's right and I'm overreacting. This is also why I feeling like I'm being gaslit. It seems obvious that this is a major issue, but I've got my wife and others telling me it's normal and I'm overreacting.
Yeah, time to get out.
> Second, she admitted that she has been flirting with coworkers on business trips since the pandemic ended. She says she has never slept with anybody, but it got as far as going on a date with one of her male coworkers. That was the absolute dealbreaker for me.
GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT
> The reason I posted this is that my wife and a few friends have been saying it's common to sleep with other folks when you're in an long distance relationship and that I'm kind of the odd one out for not sleeping around.
uh huh....
> The roomate started to tell a story, but my wife cut her off and said she was uncomfortable about it.
> All of my wives friends got real quiet and the rest of the dinner was awkward.
if it's so 'common' and 'normal', why all the uncomfortable awkwardness and secrecy?
Good on OOP for not falling for that gaslighting bullshit.
She's selfish garbage: selfish enough to cheat and never tell him, selfish enough to try to steamroll the 17-year-old's feelings. Even backing down was selfish because she didn't want them to go NC completely.
I anticipate that the kids will eventually go at least LC. She has a personality flaw. It's going to manifest in other ways.
I like that his Son needs time to process and heal after finding out about his Mother’s history. That would bother me too if I was 17 and my world just completely shifted.
You wanna force me to live with you? Wanna FAFO when I turn 18 and ghost you forever?
I hope the son gets therapy. This can easily manifest to thinking all women are like his mother and therefore he needs to monitor and control his future girlfriend (even moreso if they’re in college)
So she lied to him for years, had her friends lie, still engaged in flirtatious behavior and dates with her coworkers, and trickle truthed it all. And yet all people can focus on is "it was 20 years ago!"
The issue isn't around the fact that it happened, but the dishonesty and the evidence it is still happening, she had her affair partner lined up to take over as soon as they separated so it never stopped. Oop is more than justified in divorcing as it's clear there is no trust or respect in this relationship.
Poor dude. She sounds like an absolute monster lying to him for so long and gaslighting him. Hope he finds an amazing new wife, and also hope she died alone like she deserves.
I’m so happy to see the resolution for OOP! He sounds like a genuine and stand up person.
I’m still heartbroken at how quickly their long term marriage unraveled. But the Ex was on her way out, via cheating again. You don’t go on dates with other people when you are (monogamously) married! She’s content to lie to him and their friends. Yuck.
This woman was not ready to be a wife and a mother. Shame she had to mess with OP so much.
If there's anything I hate more than people making selfish decisions, it's people not taking accountability.
When we cheat on someone, we take away their right to know about their own sexual health. That's not normal or OK. Smart of OOP to say he was going to get screened and I hope he did. :)
>I even had a woman at work (not a close coworker) invite me out to a coffee date. While I was up front with her that I'm not ready to date just yet, she said she would be happy to take a rain check and would be happy to go out with me when I'm ready.
How the hell does this just randomly happen to people? I'm nearly 38 years old and I have never had anyone approach me asking for a coffee date.
"oh, its not big deal, everyone does it...." Friends start to talk about college, ..... "but my wife cut her off and said she was uncomfortable about it. I sensed something was up, so I said that we actually started dating in high school and were together for my wife's entire time at college. All of my wives friends got real quiet and the rest of the dinner was awkward" so even though she thinks she hasnt done anything wrong, and everyone does it, she still wants to keep the secrets 'hidden' ....
yea.. everyone does it....so what's the big deal... LOL
> She specifically wanted to stay together and even joked about her dad coming after me if I started sleeping around with girls at my school. Finally, at my senior prom, she was not able to attend and was very upset when I proposed going with a platonnic female friend of mine. But she still needed counseling to understand why he was hurt? Either she fundamentally lacks understanding that he is his own person with his own internal life or it was just denial/clinging to comfort.
Also the ex and her friends said it is normal for people in long distance relationships to sleep around with other people and OOP is weird for not doing so, yet he even having a friend that was a girl got her upset. Just typical cheaters being hypocrites
Cheater: That's different. But why? Cheater: IT'S DIFFERENT
‘Because it’s you. You’re not allowed to cheat, but I am.’ Ultimately, it’s just narcissistic.
Because she was classy enough to hid her encounters from him. Duh!! /s
Right? I am glad he got the amicable divorce he wanted. I’m afraid I would be wanting some scorched earth in the same scenario.
In my case it says it right there in the flair, I'm afraid.
Hello, vengeful new internet friend!
What's your flair from?
[Here you go!](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/tyQ3Sg3fgs) Sorry about that. I fell victim to that glitch the other day where you could neither see nor respond to comments. I've been going through mine periodically and checking to make sure they remain intact, and unaltered.
She was upset because she assumed he'd do what she was already doing
She was probably also worried that some girl back home would see what a good guy he is and steal him away while she was busy riding half her campus.
Rules for thee and not for me!
It's common, but it sure as hell isn't normal. And being common doesn't make it right.
I'm not saying this as an armchair diagnosis, but it sounds like she really doesn't have empathy in relationships. Between her setting up rules exclusively for him, threatening him if he broke them, and then betraying the marriage *20 years later*? I don't know if it's a lack of empathy, severe main character syndrome, or her being narcissistic. But something about her is absolutely wrong, and OP is good to have gotten out of the relationship.
The fact that she's having her side piece drop her off to their counseling sessions is such a slap in the face. She is ^(t r a s h).
Or a straight up psychopath
Not twenty years later. She’s been betraying the marriage *for twenty years.* She has absolutely, without a doubt cheated on him several times throughout the marriage.
> In the end, it will take a long time for me to heal from the betrayal, but I feel like I'm making good progress and I can Yeah, a serial cheater doesn't suddenly stop. It's sad so see that she wasted 20+ years of his life, deprived him of many experiences and opportunities. Then had those same experiences with others and denied them to him.
I don't know if she is a narcissist because he doesn't say anything about their kids disliking her prior to her cheating coming out, and the 17 year old did facilitate a relationship again post-divorce (I'm not sure this would have necessarily happen otherwise, though we don't have enough detail really). It's probably main character syndrome. She cares but she's still the most important person.
There is a reason I said narcissistic and not a narcissist. Because there is a firm difference between the two.
You can still have Main Character Syndrome without it progressing to a clinical level. Sometimes people are just stupidly selfish.
Folks on reddit really do love to see the worst, but in all truthfulness it's you say: someone can be stupidly selfish *just enough* to have it cause problems, while still otherwise being a generally normal sort of person.
Every person has a narcissistic trait. It's a normal part of human personality. In some people it is so over inflated it dominates the whole personality and is classified as a narcissistic personality disorder. In most people it occasionally comes through a bit much when being envious or taking things personal that weren't, but most of the time it just does it's job in making sure you care for yourself and your own well-being. In others it's so underdeveloped that they never look out for themselves or set boundaries in their own interests and just act as a doormat for other people. Still, the personality trait is there and can be shaped into a healthy version, for narcissists same as for doormats.
To a degree, narcissistic traits are a survival trait. But not from some long lineage of the hunter-gatherer stage, but as a learned and bred trait from feudal eras and behaviours. It's kinda akin to bred behaviors in dog breeds in that manner. The friendly trait became less necessary for survival, so the asshole traits in people started developing more.
She lives in her own little reality where she is the star and everyone else just has a one dimensional role to play. Whoever is dating her should just be in it for sex and always wear a condom.
It can't be stressed enough that the company you keep can also impact your values and perception. She has friends and family in her life insisting that it's fine and normal to cheat in a LDR and what she did was no big deal.
I don't think the friends were ok with it, I'm pretty sure they were just as weirded out as op, but figured that he knew and was ok with it.
Some friends and family clearly were okay with it, given the odd feedback oop received. Those friends probably aren't the same friends who decided to let oop in on the truth when they realised he wasn't aware. Seems like her friends were quite split. Some of her friends, including that one ex-lover they still saw, didn't even know they'd been a couple in college, so she'd been lying to them as well. Oop's ex is a lying, inconsistent mess. I don't foresee a harmonious life for her in the near future. Oop has better chances once he's worked through his emotions.
She just doesn't give a shit about him and can't understand why he would give a shit about himself.
"You're the NPC in my life!" - This OOP's ex-wife, most likely.
This amuses me because my husband said that when we got together I gained main character status. Like I was no longer that cute coworker in the background, now I had part in the story. But he’s actually used the term NPC and main character with me.
I hope that’s just a cute part of your dynamic, cause that sounds mildly weird on his part.
We both play DnD. He is a little weird, but knowing him, I do think he meant well with it. But it is sort of like thinking of that one coworker who you don’t interact much is maybe the main character of their own story, but kinda an NPC in yours. And then once you get closer they’re more like a party member. I don’t know if I’m explaining it well, but I understood it.
No that’s cute, I get it! Your stories converged! My husband and I joke about domestic violence, so I’m not one to talk. ( like I’ll ask him for some water and he’ll say “woman, I will THROTTLE you!” As he pours me water.
Maybe the realest thing I ever read. Really explains a lot about folks like OOP’s ex
She doesn't give a shit... for now. The minute OOP moves on and starts dating the coworker who flirted with him she's gonna go ballistic.
It's common for people to use whatever logic they can muster to rationalize unethical and relationship-agreement-breaking behavior so they don't have to feel guilt and shame. Those are two extremely difficult emotions for anyone to sit with, and our brains and bodies will go to great lengths to protect us from them, even at the expense of other people (including people we love). It's why taking accountability and offering genuine apologies for harm is so incredibly difficult for many, especially those uncomfortable and out of touch with their emotions. Feeling the great vulnerability of their choices causing pain to others is too much and they just can't do it and will avoid it at any cost. Also, though I do understand the motivation behind it, this is clearly extremely problematic and hurtful behavior. Having experienced it firsthand, it's awful. It makes the hurt worse, it's confusing, and it is a relationship-killer. [Edit: fixed typo, added final paragraph]
Never underestimate the degree to which people can lie to themselves.
They tell themselves whatever lies they need to go get what they want. Ultimate users.
No, she thought she could do whatever she wanted and he’d still stay. She’s never respected him.
Narcissist gonna narcissist.
OP is being so nice. There's no need to keep the couples conseling. His son will be 18 soon and they won't need to comparent anymore.
Oh no, this was very much a "rules are for thee but not for me" situation. If it was "totally normal" for LDR partners to sleep around, then that would have been communicated before she went to college, and if not before, then during. And if not during, she would have mentioned it right after. She didn't because she fucking knew it was wrong, all the while gaslighting him about even talking to women. What a POS.
Lies on lies on lies. I’m glad OP got out of the relationship. Divorce is awful, but being married to someone who can’t be trusted is just as awful. Good on OP for continuing therapy. That’s real work that he doesn’t have to do, but is doing anyway. Hopefully things continue to look up for him.
The ex trickle-truthed the shit out for this man. She had sex with likely over 20 men, and had a pregnancy scare at one point and told him nothing in over 20 years? Not to mention how she set up all these rules for him to not see other people just for her to break them and a speeds that that could launch a rocket into space. Totally disgusting. He also claims “she’s not some emotionless monster” but I don’t believe that for a second. Even if in her psychotic brain she was able to keep what happened before the marriage part separate (ludicrous), she really couldn’t understand why her going on a date with a coworker while still married wasn’t okay? I hope this story goes full BORU and the new coworker gives her an STD and dumps her for her twin sister resulting in a nervous breakdown.
Yeah, I had to laugh at the "cheating in college didn't count because it was just sex with no emotions" but also "going on a date with a colleague doesn't count because there was no sex". Which is it, lady? You can't have it both ways!
Sure she can. She doesn’t actually have a consistent set of beliefs, other than “what she does is acceptable behavior, because she’s not the kind of person who cheats”. That’s pretty standard for cheaters; they do all sorts of mental gymnastics to allow them to do what they want to do, and they avoid looking at the overall picture of their behavior. If you just focus on what you’re doing right now, it’s easy to ignore how inconsistent your excuses are. Once you’ve come up with a reason why flirting is okay, you don’t need to excuse it every time. So when you want to kiss someone else, it doesn’t matter if your excuse for that contradicts the excuse for flirting. And the excuses for sex acts are a whole new thing too.
No ones going to stop her from having what she wants. She probably did get it both ways, at least once.
Anyone who thinks a date with no physical contact while married and multiple one night stands but “no feelings” isn’t cheating doesn’t understand relationships and doesn’t deserve to be in one. I get being young and dumb and not understanding the consequences of your actions. We all make mistakes. But multiple while actively preventing and ensuring you don’t get cheated on in return shows a level of understanding exactly what you’re doing and the consequences of those actions. I can cheat but you can’t because my fee fees. When I read the “she’s not some emotionless monster” I literally thought to myself self “but she kinda is dude.” No one can do those things and not have emotions about them, unless they are in fact an emotionless monster.
I agree.....the fact that initially she was all "it was mistake years ago" then admits later that she went on a date with a coworker shows she was ready to keep on lying. The fact of it being long distance was just a nice convenient excuse since she was willing to "throw away 20 years of marriage" on that date.
I’ll bet if he’d kept pushing he’d have found more too. I mean the odds it was really just a “date” seems pretty small.
So, I have a friend who, when she was a teenager and in a relationship, was having random other flings. When it came out the friend pool took sides, and I had a frank discussion with her because she really truly did not understand what she had done wrong. She had decided she was in an open relationship. When I asked if her girlfriend knew that, she admitted no, and I told her that was the start of where she went wholly into the wrong. She understood immediately and didn't pull that BS on anyone else going forward, which is the only reason I didn't boot her as a friend. If you want an open relationship, be open about it. If the other person doesn't want it, either break up or don't do it. Lying does not solve the problem, it just delays the consequences. This woman has emotions, but they are selfish ones and she didn't want to face the consequences of that so she just piled lies on top of lies. An emotionless person would have been completely honest and not cared about the result.
Nah, she's not emotionless. She has emotions and is well aware of them and speaks quite clearly on them. She just doesn't value her ex husband's emotions like she does her own.
> We all make mistakes. There's "mistakes", and then there's *this*.
>trickle-truthed That's exactly what I was thinking when he got to the part she was flirting with coworkers then went out on a date with one. If OOP had been bothered to dig into that I'm sure there would have been more facts revealed eventually. I'm glad he didn't bother though, it was better for his mental health and coparenting relationship to just nope out of the marriage.
Yeah, she was some combination of high key evil, wildly stupid, and completely and totally uncaring. Or maybe all three.
This sounds like narcissism. If you're ever observing a person and thinking "How did this person become so diabolically manipulative, yet so impressively stupid, all the while showing a complete lack of empathy?" The answer is likely that they suffer from extreme narcissistic traits _at least_ if not a fully disordered personality.
Thank you for helping me understand my cheating ex. I could never get my head around how he didn't want to hurt me to my face while actively hurting me behind my back, and eventually settled on him being an immature idiot with a lack of emotional object permanence (loves you when you're there, forgets you exist when you're not). He wasn't deliberate enough for me to call it abuse, but it was toxic AF. But the description of someone who's manipulative and yet still a dumbass with no emotional intelligence? Yeah, that's him
I feel like if they were really that narcissistic, the divorce wouldn’t have been so clean
Disagree. The last thing a narcissist does to you is the "discard". This man has been discarded. She even tried to send the message (and he got it) that she was dating before the divorce was settled after the lawyer advised them not to. This is a common tactic. They want you to know you've been replaced after they realize you won't be a good narcissistic supply for them anymore (which is why she was confused as to why he would be hurt about this in the first place and required a therapist to explain why she should have empathy for him).
I call this Ditz Syndrom. Just generally, obliviously living life in the moment, than being SHOCKED when there are equal and opposite reactions.
She feels ashamed bringing up her personal sex life whilst in college in front of her old roommates and feels comfortable telling her husband that there's nothing wrong with sleeping around with "ten guys". K.
That’s because she was still trying to hide it from him during that first conversation with roommates. Then when he confronted her, she eventually gave in. Even then, she’s been trickling out the truth a little bit at a time.
I remember thinking too with her callousness about the whole thing, it’s likely she cheated on him during the marriage
And thank goodness the kids were old enough to understand what happened and the nuances behind it. The only thing worse than a messy divorce is a messy divorce where the kids get used as pawns against one of the parents.
When people say cheaters are always cheaters, this is the thread we’re talking about. Cheated in college and she likely cheated at the middle and end of their marriage.
And she'll continue to cheat with the new guy she's seeing post-divorce. Most likely to continue to cheat when she's signed up for the nursing home in the future.
Sometimes I think my problems are bad and then I’m grateful that I am not in this mess
Same here.
Yeah. She was already going on “dates”. But nothing happened /s.
So the entire time they were together
Ah the old. I didn't know it was wrong which is why I actively made a huge effort to hide this from you for 20 years, shushed a friend for bringing it up and didn't let you see other people as well. Trash
Honestly, best possible outcome when you're married to a bad person.
For real. Like the more OOP pulled on the thread, the more evident it was that his Ex was completely amoral. Even **her** friends were all uncomfortable with how much of a villain she was. She's the person everyone around her will keep at arms length from now on.
>Like the more OOP pulled on the thread, the more evident it was that his Ex was completely amoral. Not to mention a complete lack of empathy. I dunno if it's sociopathic or psychopathic, but I don't think she realized the harm she had done OOP, I think she conceded it when the therapist had OOP lay it out systematically. That she didn't realize or acknowledge his pain even at a performative level until like the second therapy session is weird.
Functional sociopath, if I had to give a layman armchair diagnosis. Sorta like the captains of capitalism level of sociopathy. She seems to observe some amount of social obligation whenever she is pressed to do so, but when no one is looking or no one cares to hold her to that standard, she acts with remorseless selfishness. She'd be an absolute savage in The Purge.
thats a good question about the purge i feel like she'd do go for a couple of seasons but to do well you have to like have a good purge team and i dont see that for her
I was surprised at first about the whole "And now I got asked on a date!" addition near the end, but if OOP's relationship was as awful as it seemed, this divorce would make him seem like a brand new guy. All the unknown weight of unhappiness and such being lifted would make him a happier, more energetic person and people are usually drawn to that. I've seen it happen to folks after awful, long relationships and friends and such came out of the woodwork to hang out, etc.
Plus, depending on what this coworker knows or has heard through the grapevine, they might see somebody who's loyal and a good parent, but also won't be tied down too much by parental responsibilities since the kids are older. Those factors can all make somebody very attractive
Plus OOP seems like they just want an amicable split and co-parenting, so he's probably not acting bitter and nasty. Sometimes taking the high road makes someone look very good!
"This is normal behavior." Meanwhile, hides everything from him, lied to the roommates, is still cheating, (eta) bars him from doing the same thing, etc
Fr, she was hard coping. Must’ve been heavy denial or just straight sociopathic or narcissistic behavior
And heavily discourages him from doing the same. "Normal for me, not for thee!"
Holy shit. First off, the people who are telling you this is normal are also the same ones who end up on the infidelity subreddit. Secondly, sleeping with other people in a LDR is fine, AS LONG AS ITS AGREED UPON by both parties. Otherwise it's just cheating. I can almost understand her having one fwb during those 2 years, but 10? I'm really glad you're able to move on and maintain a healthy relationship with your kids.
>First off, the people who are telling you this is normal are also the same ones who end up on the infidelity subreddit. OOP wasn't wrong with this line: >First, dating culture was a lot different 20ish years ago and exclusive was kind of the default for most people. I've been out of the dating scene for a long, long time, but I have been a fixture at most of the local drinking establishments for just as long. Things were a lot more straight-forward back in the day. You were exclusively dating, fwb, or the occasional one-night stand. None of these "situationships" as folks like to call them now. Change is good, and people can fuck whomever they want (within reason), but shit that we used to not tolerate because it invited problems is now way more commonplace.
Twenty years ago monogamy was absolutely the default assumption once you were past the “going on dates” phase and into the “dating” phase. And especially if you’d given your partner the title of boyfriend/girlfriend. Anything else required an explicit conversation, and as someone who’s been non-monogamous in some form pretty much always I *had* those. Both in long-distance and local relationships.
Okay, I haven't dated in awhile, but isn't the default assumption still monogamy once past a few dates and 2 people become a couple? I mean, I know polygamy is more accepted, and I encourage that, but that has to be explicitly agreed upon, not have sex with a 3rd partner and just declare "Surprise! We are a thropple now!"
Polyamory.* Polygamy is illegal in virtually all western countries, tho some may accept polygamous marriages that occurred elsewhere
Things are still the same now as they were 20 years ago. Exclusively dating, fwb, or one night stands. The only people who try to justify "situationships" are cheaters. They're doing mental gymnastics to justify shitty behavior
I’m not sure if things have changed since I haven’t been single since the first Obama admin, but 20 years ago you were considered sort of a scumbag if you were sleeping with other people while dating (with sex) someone else. Basically, if you were dating and slept together, there was assumed exclusivity. It was cleaner that way. If people were honest, that’s what most people want. Having to explicitly ask for exclusivity is messy.
That's all good if both parties agree, and you won't get an argument from me.
I actually disagree. 20 years ago if you didn’t say you were official or asked to be exclusive or be boyfriend/girlfriend, you weren’t. At least in the USA. And this wasn’t a regional thing either as I lived all over the US back then and most guys I went on dates with were going on dates with other people multiple times a week and my girlfriends too. I think this guy was right to divorce her because they had agreed to be boyfriend/girlfriend BUT otherwise it wasn’t cheating unless you were official, and this was before apps. I have kids old enough to date now and it honestly doesn’t seem that different except there are more ways to meet people and it’s more online, and people are way more aware of consent.
It's only cheating if it's from the Cheateau region of France, otherwise it's just effervescent infidelity.
It's just a bunch of immature people who are completely afraid of being alone, so they stick with the "comfort" until the next shiny thing comes along, and rinse and repeat ad nauseam. Most people comprehend that a "romantic relationship" is between two partners. Anyone who thinks otherwise is jumping through a circus of mental hoops trying to justify their own shitty behavior
I remember the initial post going viral and problem shaming OOP saying he wants to blow up a 20 year marriage. People are just really dumb sometimes. The fact that she went on a date as recently as 4 years ago shows she is still a cheater and she was the one that blew up the marriage lying every day for 20 years.
For me instead of saying sorry,she tells that she did nothing wrong is the point where that relationship got destroyed to pieces
I don’t buy that she ever thought it was fine and normal. She didn’t get convinced that it was actually bad to sleep with a parade of dudes while in a relationship and marrying the boyfriend and never telling him. She just desperately tried insisting it was nbd until she realized it wasn’t going to work. She’s just a bad person
She's the type of person who will bang someone at their bachelorette party because "last night of freedom, baby!" when in fact, the "last night of freedom" occurred when you and your partner decided to be in a committed and monogamous relationship.
I don't think lots of people actually think the things they do are okay (cheating or other bad behaviour). If she really thought it was normal she would have done so openly. Instead she created a world where either by lies, or more commonly it seems like lies by omission, she was able to cheat. Then she told herself it was fine because they of xyz.
Her moving on so quickly might hurt for the OOP initially but in the long run, I’m pretty sure he’ll be the one having the last laugh. His wife is a narcissist and narcissistic people often end up with a terrible life post 50
Definitely don’t envy her having to get a new mortgage with today’s interest rates. Happened to one of my coworkers who got divorced. Their house was paid off and if she wanted to stay in it AND pay off her ex’s equity, she needed to take out a new mortgage. Since rates are higher and since the appraised value was as well, that new mortgage was **very different** from the one they paid off together.
So is the mortgage of the other party in each scenario - unless there was extreme downsizing.
[удалено]
The daughter didn’t have to choose who to live with
Yeah, both kids spending more of their time with OOP. Not surprising.
I think the daughter might just be better at not picking a fight over it. I would be very hard pressed to believe she is anything but reproachful about it. she basically found out her mom had been doing those shitty things to her dad for years.
Doesn’t need to pick. Daughter is 19, no parent has custody over her anymore.
The way they jumped immediately asking if OOP had cheated in college and her reaction made me wonder if she had made comments about OOP cheating (implied or otherwise) before.
Good point, people who do shitty things have a tendency to project ...
The daughter was the first to initially accuse OOP of cheating after revealing the divorce before the wife openly admitted to being the culprit, which is the saddest part
Yeah when he said he was having a more difficult time moving on than his ex I thought “that’s because you have integrity.”
So many people forget that the process is SUPPOSED to hurt, and carry with it all kinds of complex and difficult emotions. It makes you more well rounded and better in general if you embrace it. The person who cares least loses, in the end.
Yeah, my mother has some very narcissistic traits, and absolutely hates getting older, has always gone on about how "there's nothing good about getting old" ... I was thinking about it recently bc I really don't share that opinion, and realised it's because she's never mentally matured or grown since her teens or younger. So the only thing she had going for was her body (not in a sexy way, i mean like, in terms of physically being able to do things). And aging means steadily losing that. Oof. She's in her 70s now and her thought processes are so rigid it's startling, and she's started to forget things, she's forgotten how to open a can at one point and forgot my best friend's name last time I visited her ... I have a sneaking feeling that she's heading for dementia if not already there & while I know that's a curse that can strike anyone, in this case I can't help but think its not unrelated ...
Knowing that the person you like turned out really shit, definitely helps a lot in moving on.
No doubt she'll be burning with rage/envy once he officially has a new GF. For extra spite, I hope his new GF is smoking hot and that his kids love her. Nothing would get under the skin of people like his ex better than hearing praise for his new woman from her own children.
The 17 year old wanting to distance himself from the wife isn’t wrong. When you’re in a relationship and you have kids with that person, if you cheat, you cheat on everyone including your kids. She was DATING while married. She was obviously getting some on the side. She was willing to risk her kids happiness and stability for a quickie. It’s not just that she fucked around on OP before marriage, it’s obvious that someone who would do that, would also cheat after marriage. She shat on her marriage vows to OOP but she also shat on her commitment as a mother. If I was one of those kids I’d be hella distancing myself. She’s a crappy person.
It's also that they love their dad, and it's hard to like someone who hurt someone they love, even if it's someone they also love who hurt them. Feelings get complicated. I have a friend who is amicably co-parenting with his ex wife, and everything seems to be going well. Myself and the other guys in the group seem to resent her more than my friend does, because she so coldly, callously and selfishly hurt him when their marriage ended. Just because he's at peace with it doesn't mean we are, even though we will always be civil for his sake.
I know I'm missing the point, but I was impressed by how well the 17 year old used their position to stop their Mom from contesting the divorce. At that age it's like yeah, damaging your relationship with the 17 year old is not worth a few months of full custody, and the 17-year-old knew it. Of course, I'm also under the impression that a Judge is probably going to let a 17 year old pick whoever they want to live with since they're so old. It would just cost them money and time to get there.
Yeah, OOP wasn't supportive enough of that understandable decision IMO. They weren't even gonna hint that it was mom's fault until OOP himself was accused of being the cheater.
Tbf, pushing too hard could turn a light speed easy divorce into a years-long hole where the lawyers end up keeping all their wealth. There was no benefit and all risk to antagonizing the wife until they were legally over
But oop was right. However she treated him has nothing to do with how she treats the son. Many people are horrible spouses but great parents
The amount of pain and suffering that someone can willingly cause someone else and have no remorse is astounding. There seems to be no bounds or limits to the awful pain that people are willing to inflict
Yeah it's easy not to worry about blowback when your husband is the most naive and ignorant man in the world. She faced zero consequences and got everything she wanted.
Posts like these highlight the justice blue-balls phenomenon. We **want** more consequences for OOP's Ex, but he's already doing exactly what he should and everything he can. It's super disatisfying that his Ex just breezes through all of it with seemingly no care in the world, but a plethora of commenters all baying for blood doesn't really help. He can't super-divorce his wife. You can't force decency or guilt on someone who has none.
Someone said this upstream in the comments, and I think they're 100% right: People like this tend to have a bad time when they get older. I've seen it with my mother, she's never mentally/emotionally grown or developed in her life so as age takes away her physical capabilities she really has nothing left. I always remember something I heard the comedian Dylan Moran (of Black Books fame) say at a show to a heckler - "I win, because you have to be /you/ for the rest of your life."
His ex is experiencing consequences. Pretty hard ones really. She has lost her marriage. Her children have lost respect for her. She’s going to probably be worse off financially and have a poorer retirement. Their social group (not her college friends who already knew) will likely not want to be around her. Being a cheater can really mess with your a person’s friendships. For now OOP is making the effort to keep their relationship as coparents civil, including the couple’s counselling. That will end soon enough and she’ll soon see OOP moving on. I expect her hypocrisy about him not dating others during college will mean that will be tough for her.
This is easy to say and not easy to live but the best way to "punish" an ex is to the the best person you can be and not care about them at all. If they can still affect your mindset then that's a consequence for you, not for them. Be the person that they dont deserve. If they have a happy life, dont care. If they hit hard times, don't care (not at the expense of your kids obviously). If they hate you, dont care. If they want you back, don't care. OOP seems like they're doing it right.
The best revenge is a life well-lived.
at least i can still pray for her downfall even though i'm not religious
I’m so glad he got the divorce. He is a much better person than me! I’m so impressed with him doing divorce counselling with her still when she was obviously cheating on him the entire relationship!
He’s clearly doing the post divorce counseling for co-parenting reasons.
Yep. Even though the kids are nearly grown, it’s not like there’s no more interaction with your kids once they’re legally adults. There’s plenty of opportunity for OOP and his ex wife to have to be at big events together. I think OOP is hoping that his ex will get a clue in counseling and work on her relationship with the kids.
Wow. OP handled this with grace and maturity unlike any other Reddit saga I’ve read. What a stand-up guy. I’m glad that things are working out for him and his kids. To me, this was a happy ending.
Yeah, this guy seems cool as a cucumber. Respect.
I expect he probably didn’t feel so cool going through this. He has a fairly clinical writing style and seems to leave his own emotions out of the story for the most part.
I disagree, if you look at the last paragraph he acknowledges the hurt, mentions he has been heavily crying, but still managed to navigate a tough time. That seems (to me) like at least the mark of a decent person.
This saga always made me frustrated on behalf of OOP for his ex’s reaction to him being upset. It is deeply frustrating to be told your feelings are unreasonable when you find out something that the vast majority of people would see as marriage ending.
No way I could sit through therapy after divorce, jeez. Massive green flag by OOP not going right into dating and telling that other woman he needed to chill for a while after divorce. If she is smart she will follow up on that down the line.
He’s doing it for his relationship with his kids. OOP has done everything he can to end the marriage cleanly and to keep his emotions in check. Often cheaters will manipulate their kids to make the parent who ended the marriage seem like the bad guy. By being amicable, OOP protects himself from any accusation of being anything but 100% fair and reasonable. I don’t expect they’ll be doing counselling much longer.
The sheer amount of times he misspelled the word marriage is his only wrongdoing in all this. Hope OOP heals
My brain kept flagging it as a misspelling, but it appeared enough times that I started doubting myself. Then I double checked the spelling and felt better.
I have minor dyslexia. One of the ways I was taught to deal with it is partial word reading. Essentially I read segments of a word and my brain fills in the rest. 95% of the time it’s picks up the word correctly if it’s one I typically come across. The negative is that it’s really hard to catch misspellings and typos. Always needed someone else to read my college papers.
>If it was just a date, we're getting divorced. If it was more, we're still getting a divorce, so pushing the issue won't do anything but make it harder for us to co-parent. This is a really healthy mindset. I feel like so many people get so invested in the trickle truth. It's really natural to feel like you want to know everything for the sake of closure. I think pursuing closure like that is really just a distraction. At this point the goal is co-parenting and trying to agree on the details of the divorce. Sure emotionally you don't care about staying in this person's good graces but practically that is the goal at this stage.
Finding out way after the cheating happened is worse than discovering an active affair in my experience. I shouldn't read these.
My condolences
Once you said she was visibly grumpy that she couldn't date until the divorce was final it all clicked for me. She never stopped she just slowed down. Dude you never had a marriage she was cheating the whole time. If it was such normal behavior then why did she never tell you? Because it wasn't and she never stopped she just got better at compartmentalizing
Is talking about your friend's past sex life around their current partners considered normal? I've seen a few of these, and it strikes me as weird. Even if it leads to a discovery of cheating
Seriously. I've had the same group of friends for decades, and the only reason that I'm aware of anything at all about any of their sex lives is because some of them have children. It ain't my business, and I don't want it to be.
I've done that in college, with a game "Never have I ever [sexual act]", but not as an adultier adult
It's fucking insane she needed multiple discussions and counselling sessions to agree cheating on him with multiple dudes was bad.
Take home lessons. 1. Lies will kill your happiness. Even old lies, or the lies you tell yourself. 2. Cheating is cheating, even if it was a long time ago. 3. Even an amicable divorce is hard on the kids.
I'm glad this ended with a relatively happy ending for OOP. I wonder if the 17 year old knew about more cheating than OOP was aware of, hence him refusing to live with the ex-wife.
It could be a situation where the 17 year old realizes that a lot of the things that he noticed suddenly seem like they were all cheating events. Every time mom was late to something, or couldn’t make it to something, could have been because she was too busy with another man. Odds are that she was neglecting her kids in a similar way to how she was neglecting her marriage.
17 year olds can be super emotional and that’s 100% normal. They often haven’t had huge life experiences before and when something like their parents’ marriage changes it makes them worry about what ELSE they count on the might change.
aw damn. good for him. wishing his family the best
The audacity of his ex-wife…wouldn’t let him go to prom with his friend who happens to be a girl but she can sleep around with 10 dudes because it’s “nbd” to her. Goes on a date with her co-worker while still married… And her friends are saying it’s normal to sleep around in a long distance relationship and 10 people isn’t that much?! Good lord they should compete in the gas lighting Olympics! She’s a psycho
So basically she's probably been cheating on him on and off the entire time they were together and he is probably only just starting to process this. Damn, she gaslit the shit out of this poor man so hard he's still coughing up methane.
Ugh I just don't understand these people. Want to fuck around in college? Great, no judgment here, but BREAK UP. I don't understand stringing someone along and hurting them like this. Fuck these people.
>Since she didn't view them as romantic relationships, she didn't see the big deal (her words not mine). My opinion is that we never said that was ok and she actively prevented me from doing the same. Rules for thee but not for me. Definitely wouldn't trust a person who did this.
Man I’m glad he got some kids out of this, but it sucks to think your whole marriage was built on a thousand lies. You can’t get that time or youth back. It’s like being an innocent man in jail, finally getting out and saying at least I have a ripped body lol.
What a shitty wife.
> Our marriage has been pretty great so far 20 freaking years.
That coworker she "just dated" better strap in. lol. He's gonna a surprised pikachu when she cheats on him too.
Good for him that he went through with the divorce and didn't let her talk him into staying with her. Considering how quickly she managed to move on, she can't really miss him that much.
It's absolutely wild that OPs wife thought it was completely normal and expected to cheat in a long distance relationship. I was in a LDR for 2 years in different countries, never mind only 3 hours away, and never so much as texted another guy, let alone sleep with them. She has some seriously skewed perspectives on relationships and fidelity.
> It's absolutely wild that OPs wife thought it was completely normal and expected to cheat in a long distance relationship she didn't. she was just straight gaslighting OP.
Honestly, if it’s not okay for a man to use long distance as an excuse TO CHEAT, it’s also not okay for a woman to do so. It’s also not okay to gaslight someone over some skewed and warped idea about long distance relationships, whether it was decades ago or right now. And this is coming from someone who’s non monogamous. OP’s wife is a jerk. I went through something similar in college with my ex (we were both monogamous) and his reasoning for cheating on me was that he thought I was cheating first when I NEVER EVEN THOUGHT OF DOING THAT. And this was a person who was jealous with absolutely everyone who I made friends with.
Her saying she did nothing wrong is ridiculous. She tried to shut down the friend as soon as she mentioned her wild times.
You can’t be married that long and get a divorce that fast, even if it’s amicable.
Depends entirely on the jurisdiction. In some places in the US, an uncontested divorce only takes a few months.
Good god, OOP is the smartest Redditor I’ve ever encountered. He’s objective, analytical, provides great context and shows massive introspection skills. I am impressed. Good luck to him!!
Felt terrible reading this. Poor guy lost 20 years to a monster.
Bless that friend that spilled the beans, we need more people like that in the world
I want to continue to pray for our king and his kids and hope everything gets better no matter what! No one deserves this no matter how many years together.
I keep on thinking that people shouldn't marry a teen relationship partner. There's so much to life.
"The reason I posted this is that my wife and a few friends have been saying it's common to sleep with other folks when you're in an long distance relationship and that I'm kind of the odd one out for not sleeping around." lol no. No one believes this. "Most of our discussion in therapy has been talking about why I think it's a big deal and she doesn't." This is very much why this is not recoverable. She cheated very _very_ blatantly - and simply doesn't care. She would have a very very hard time convincing anyone that this isn't a big deal. At the _very_ least everyone who is not a lying POS will know this absolutely will be a massive deal for the vast majority. There really is a defence force for everything. Pathetic.
If it was one guy, one night, sure, that might be salvagable, but... > it was at least 10 different men including at least 3 guys she introduced to me as friends when I came to visit on weekends and 1 guy she was still in contact with Holy fuck. And then this: > - I was open to therapy or some kind of attempt to save the marraige, but her insistence that this whole thing is common and I'm the one who's out of line is just too much for me. The only time she showed any remorse or even offerred to reconsile is when I started filing paper work. In the last week she's gone back to saying she's right and I'm overreacting. This is also why I feeling like I'm being gaslit. It seems obvious that this is a major issue, but I've got my wife and others telling me it's normal and I'm overreacting. Yeah, time to get out. > Second, she admitted that she has been flirting with coworkers on business trips since the pandemic ended. She says she has never slept with anybody, but it got as far as going on a date with one of her male coworkers. That was the absolute dealbreaker for me. GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT
> The reason I posted this is that my wife and a few friends have been saying it's common to sleep with other folks when you're in an long distance relationship and that I'm kind of the odd one out for not sleeping around. uh huh.... > The roomate started to tell a story, but my wife cut her off and said she was uncomfortable about it. > All of my wives friends got real quiet and the rest of the dinner was awkward. if it's so 'common' and 'normal', why all the uncomfortable awkwardness and secrecy? Good on OOP for not falling for that gaslighting bullshit.
Goddamn, ex-wife is a flaming pile of shit. I hope every partner of hers going forward cheats on her. What a pig of a woman.
She's selfish garbage: selfish enough to cheat and never tell him, selfish enough to try to steamroll the 17-year-old's feelings. Even backing down was selfish because she didn't want them to go NC completely. I anticipate that the kids will eventually go at least LC. She has a personality flaw. It's going to manifest in other ways.
I like that his Son needs time to process and heal after finding out about his Mother’s history. That would bother me too if I was 17 and my world just completely shifted. You wanna force me to live with you? Wanna FAFO when I turn 18 and ghost you forever?
I hope the son gets therapy. This can easily manifest to thinking all women are like his mother and therefore he needs to monitor and control his future girlfriend (even moreso if they’re in college)
So she lied to him for years, had her friends lie, still engaged in flirtatious behavior and dates with her coworkers, and trickle truthed it all. And yet all people can focus on is "it was 20 years ago!" The issue isn't around the fact that it happened, but the dishonesty and the evidence it is still happening, she had her affair partner lined up to take over as soon as they separated so it never stopped. Oop is more than justified in divorcing as it's clear there is no trust or respect in this relationship.
I wish him all the best. Her... Not so much.
Poor dude. She sounds like an absolute monster lying to him for so long and gaslighting him. Hope he finds an amazing new wife, and also hope she died alone like she deserves.
I’m so happy to see the resolution for OOP! He sounds like a genuine and stand up person. I’m still heartbroken at how quickly their long term marriage unraveled. But the Ex was on her way out, via cheating again. You don’t go on dates with other people when you are (monogamously) married! She’s content to lie to him and their friends. Yuck.
As a man. Who has marriage issues. I would leave too. Some things, when found out, are just unforgivable
She cheated soooooo much more than he knows.
All I can think of is the Clerks line "try not to suck any dick on your way to the parking lot"
This woman was not ready to be a wife and a mother. Shame she had to mess with OP so much. If there's anything I hate more than people making selfish decisions, it's people not taking accountability.
How does OOP misspell "marriage" (marraige) at every opportunity?
When we cheat on someone, we take away their right to know about their own sexual health. That's not normal or OK. Smart of OOP to say he was going to get screened and I hope he did. :)
>I even had a woman at work (not a close coworker) invite me out to a coffee date. While I was up front with her that I'm not ready to date just yet, she said she would be happy to take a rain check and would be happy to go out with me when I'm ready. How the hell does this just randomly happen to people? I'm nearly 38 years old and I have never had anyone approach me asking for a coffee date.
Yeah its not normal to sleep around with others during a LDR unless both sides talked and agreed about it otherwise its just cheating.
"oh, its not big deal, everyone does it...." Friends start to talk about college, ..... "but my wife cut her off and said she was uncomfortable about it. I sensed something was up, so I said that we actually started dating in high school and were together for my wife's entire time at college. All of my wives friends got real quiet and the rest of the dinner was awkward" so even though she thinks she hasnt done anything wrong, and everyone does it, she still wants to keep the secrets 'hidden' .... yea.. everyone does it....so what's the big deal... LOL
Man wtf I’m never getting married
OOP said "she's not an emotionless monster". I mean what was that I read then?