Content Warning: Struggles with Infertility, Pregnancy Complications, Cheating, Affair Partner
It's true that it takes two people to cheat and to break up a marriage.
But that doesn't make the cheating spouse, or their affair partner, any less of a bad person when there's a marriage at stake, pointed out the members of the "Am I the A**hole?" (AITAH) subReddit, and they both deserve to be blamed for their actions.
Redditor Meggsyxio had no respect for her ex-husband or his affair partner after they knowingly compromised her marriage, and she gave both of them as little attention as possible.
But when the affair partner belittled and taunted the Original Poster (OP) for years, she finally decided to say something hurtful enough to the affair partner to make her question everything.
She asked the sub:
"AITAH for throwing my ex-husband's words in his affair partner wife's face after she spent the last five years taunting me?"
The OP's ex-husband tried to win her back throughout the entire divorce process.
"I (33 Female) found out my ex-husband (35 Male) and the father of my two kids (11 and 9) was cheating on me with Dana (30 Female), who he worked with."
"Once I kicked my ex out, he did everything to try and win me back."
"He even shared the fact that Dana was sterile and was just some safe fun because he knew he couldn't get her pregnant. He said he would never actually want something (not someone) like that, and he loved me and our kids."
"I was having none of it."
"I didn't pity Dana, either, because she knew about me. We had met. She knew about the kids, too. So to me, she was a homewrecker, and I wasn't going to warn her about my ex's feelings toward her."
"My ex continued trying to win me back throughout our divorce. The night before everything was finalized, he sent more texts, begging me to call it all off and let us be a family again."
"It was then that he said more degrading things about Dana."
"But I didn't listen to him. I was done. Even if he wasn't living with Dana (which he already was), I wasn't going to buy that he could or would change."
When the divorce was finalized, Dana thought she had won.
"From the day my ex moved in with Dana, she was smug. She called me all dried up, said my p**sy clearly wasn't tight enough anymore for my ex, and that he clearly felt repulsed by whatever stretch marks the kids left behind."
"I ignored her. She got herself kicked out of the kids' school a few times for using that language in front of others. Twice was in front of one of the teachers during PT conferences."
"For years, I have ignored it and tried to be the bigger person."
"But recently she was extra nasty about me and the fact that I've been single since the divorce."
"She tried to say it was clear no man wanted me, not even the father of my children, and how he thought so little of me. She said he only says nothing because of the kids, but she knows. She knows that's why he went to her."
The OP decided to give Dana a taste of her own medicine.
"So in response, I screenshotted several of the texts my ex sent me where he degraded her, and I told her that she should see what he thinks of her."
'She told me I was sick and twisted, and how dare I dig into her infertility. Then it was, why would I not tell her if any of this were true?"
"I told her I owed her nothing after she knowingly slept with the man I was married to and contributed to the breakup of my children's family."
"I told her I found her as disgusting and repulsive as him."
"But I had done my best to ignore her all these years while she degraded me." Then I told her to look inside her house for all that nasty shit and reminded her to check the dates on the messages."
The OP continued to protect her peace.
"She texted me several times in the aftermath."
"I muted her (I can't block while they're together, because she could be with my kids in an emergency, and the court order states we must keep this access open)."
"So now the plan is to unmute whenever the kids are over there and mute the second they come home to me."
"But AITAH?"
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You're the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some thought that the ex-husband's new wife's karma had come knocking.
"NTA. She certainly got what she repeatedly asked for. You just gave her the truth. She gets to live with it and deal with it." - Background_System726
"If she keeps it up, just remind her that his mistress position is open now that she's the wife. That ought to shut her up for a little while. NTA." - HerGrinchness
"Every year on your divorce anniversary, you should send her a thank you card with a printout of all the nasty things he said about her, so she remembers who she married."
"Fill the card with glitter, too." - Smooth-Tea7058
"NTA. She's insulted you for how long, and you never said anything? All you did was show her exactly who and what your ex really is. She couldn't possibly think your ex was a good person. He had no problem cheating on the mother of his children." - Vandreeson
"I actually have a cousin who helped other guys cheat on their partners, and she was pretty proud of it."
"I'd be saying, 'You know it's really not okay that you're helping these guys cheat. You know they have partners. Do you not have any empathy?'"
"Her answer? 'I'm not the one cheating. They are. It's not my problem.' It didn't bother her if these guys had girlfriends, were engaged, or married. She just didn't care. Apparently, 'It's not my fault they want me' was a favourite of hers."
"Karma hit her when she was actually with a guy that she was engaged to. Not only did he cheat on her, he was cheating on her with the mother of his four kids, who he was supposed to be divorcing, and with a young woman, who actually didn't know she was the other woman."
"She was much younger than my cousin (like 19, while my cousin was 30), but unlike my cousin, she actually felt terrible about being the other woman, and contacted her."
"Her whole relationship fell apart, and it legit took everything in me not to tell her it was karma for all the relationships she jumped into, while she sat on my mom's couch, crying on my mom's shoulder, wailing, 'What did I do to deserve this?'"
"Karma hits people eventually. Sometimes it just waits for the perfect moment. It'll happen to your ex's affair partner, too. After all, the saying goes, when a man marries his mistress, he creates a vacancy." - LadyBladeWarAngel
Others pointed out that even when the OP said something, she didn't say anything.
"You didn't even say those things. Her man did, so she can take it up with him. NTA." - Ok_Introduction9466
"He is not a prize. He is trash. You are an amazing woman. She did you a favour by picking up your leftovers. Now you have the opportunity to have a relationship with a real man, if you want to." - DefDemi
"Just 'kindly' remind her that he cheated on you, so why would you think he wouldn't do it to her? Get her thinking. Make her nice and paranoid." - AdmiralThunderpants
"You're the love of his life in his twisted head, and he is clearly cruel and does not care about her."
"Men tend to get very cruel when they don't care about you. I guarantee he owned sending the messages and even used them against her like, 'Well, it's true, isn't it? Why are you upset at something that's true? You can't have babies, and you're the reason I lost my wife and family.'"
"I bet that man reminds her every chance she gets that she is second best and ruined his life, and that he doesn't even want her. That's the only reason she goes out of her way to be cruel to OP. She's lashing out the only way id**ts know how, by projecting."
"She isn't even a mean girl. This is straight 'Unknown Number' level of crazy. Like, she doesn't have the good sense to do it privately or discreetly. She's unhinged. Those insults and their consistency are not the actions of a secure woman in a happy relationship. There puzzle pieces to a desperate woman." - unsolicitedPeanutG
"Absolutely NTA."
'If she wants to fight dirty, she'd be foolish not to expect some of it in return. She's pretending she doesn't believe you, but at the very least, you've planted the seed of doubt."
"Deep down, she knows that your ex would go running back to you if you gave him half a chance. It wouldn't hurt to remind her of that next time she gets nasty, and then remind her that she's welcome to your sloppy seconds; that's all she's good for anyway!" - Uglym8s
Though the subReddit could all agree that the OP had technically taken a low blow by sharing this information with the affair partner, it was also true that she herself did not say anything hurtful to her; she only shared messages that her ex-husband sent.
If the new wife wanted to be treated well, the best thing she could have done was seek out a man who treated women well, which was to say, not a man who was willing to cheat on his wife and the mother of his children, but it was too late for that now. She'd made her bed. She could lie in it or leave it.
