It’s a terrible feeling to realize that your relationship is struggling, but it’s an even worse feeling when you and your partner agree to work on the relationship, only for you to realize that they have no intention of “working it out.”
As a matter of fact, they usually go out and make the situation much worse, cringed the members of the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITAH) subReddit.
Redditor ModernT1mes knew that his marriage was struggling between the pandemic, problems at work, and even PTSD, but he thought that he and his wife could work things out.
When she agreed to work on it with him, only to cheat on him instead, the Original Poster (OP) knew there was no relationship left to salvage.
He asked the sub:
“AITAH for contacting the wife of the man my wife has been cheating on me with and telling her that her husband is cheating on her with my wife? My wife is mad at me for telling her.”
The OP realized that his wife was cheating with a guy from work.
“I caught my wife three days ago sexting another man.”
“Our 13 years of marriage have been on the rocks before I found out. She told me we could work on the relationship, only for her to turn around and cheat on me.”
She tried to make the OP to blame when he reached out to the affair partner’s wife.
“She was remorseful about it until I talked to the wife. I did some digging about this guy and found out he was married. I found her phone number and talked to her to tell her what happened and where to find the messages.”
“Well, the guy and my wife work together, and he told my wife I told his wife.”
“She is now ‘disgusted with me’ and says ‘I had no right to tell her.'”
“I told her parents what was going on before she could spin a story about me, and they are upset with her. We live in a nice middle-class neighborhood with top schools and two kids (ages 7 and 3). They’re upset the kids are caught in her bulls**t.”
“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 reassured the OP that his wife had no right to feel disgusted about his admission.
“She cheated, and she feels disgusted with you? That’s some serious gaslighting. Time to send her packing, honestly. NTA.” – mfk_1974
“Such a pity she had to deal with the consequences. I’ve seen coworkers cheat, and it never ends well.”
“I sent a former employee to HR for an undisclosed relationship with a coworker after I caught them together in the supply room. I’m not forgiving, because if they do that to their spouse, they’ll definitely lie and betray coworkers. Both got fired and had to go home and explain why.” – RaucousPanda512
“You’re not the one who broke the trust in your marriage, and your wife needs to focus on her own choices.” – magnentaangelx
“Yeah, I’m sorry, but the moment someone cheats in a relationship, they forfeit the right to ‘feel disgusted’ at other people.” – DivineTarot
“It blows my mind when these people try to take the moral high ground in these situations.”
“They were effing CHEATING and still have the gall to basically say, ‘How DARE you make us accountable for our f**k up?!'” – Humble_Nobody2884
“NTA, OP. We are all disgusted with your wife. She has no right to feel whatever she feels unless it’s remorse and shame.” – Kindly-Addition1793
Others agreed and said the wife was living a classic “f**k around and find out” scenario.
“Actions, meet Consequences. Tell her you gained that right and that obligation when she cheated.”
“You gave the other spouse what your wife never gave you: the right to make an informed decision on the state of her marriage with all the facts. NTA.”
“She FA (f**ked around). Now she gets to the FO (find out) stage.” – 2cents0f**ks
“If I were that person (the affair partner’s wife), I would want to know 100% of the time. So you’re not the a**hole; you’re a great person for doing the work, finding her, and giving her the unfortunate news.”
“Your wife, hopefully former, and soon, is the real gem in this story, and the ‘best’ part is that she turned herself into the gem she is. NTA all the way.” – 73629265
“Your wife was still invested in the affair. She was not done with him, and this makes it even harder to keep going now that his wife is on the case, too.”
“Her reaction gives it all away. It’s crystal clear that she’s still f**kin’ around. I’m sorry, buddy. Good luck.” – Only_Opinion_2271
“NTA. Your wife is more worried about the man she’s cheating on you with than you or your marriage.” – yesimreadytorumble
“NTA. She also may be in trouble at work now if they have fraternization rules.”
“Adultery destroys at least two families, every time. She should have known better and not let her hormones drive the train. Him too.” – PianoQuirky2510
“If your soon-to-be ex-wife expects loyalty from you to not expose her affair, tell her all your loyalty to her evaporated when she chose to cheat on you, and not with a dude who is single, but a dude who is also married, so any loyalty she expects from you went away when she and her affair partner chose to be homewreckers.”
“She can be disgusted all she wants, but she brought this on herself, so she needs to kindly shut the absolute f**k up.” – Limp_Pipe1113
“A couple of other things to think about. If your wife were truly remorseful, she would have reached out to his wife to apologize for what she’d done. Also, she would have cut off contact with her affair partner.”
“The fact that they’re still talking at work should be a huge red flag that the affair isn’t over. If either you or the other wife is considering reconciling, then at least one of them needs to find a new job.” – Soggy-Beach-1495
After receiving feedback, the OP shared an update.
“I really appreciate the support, advice, and validation from this community. The question seems stupid because I’ve been gaslit and manipulated, and I really needed that Reddit reality check. There are so many replies, I can’t find the people whose advice I took to heart and used.”
“But to the people who mentioned DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim, and Offender), I appreciate you.”
“Same with the people who said I wasn’t obligated to keep a cheater’s secret and that I gave that wife what she never gave me: the ability to make an informed decision on the state of her marriage with all the facts. Her response was alarming, and I see that now.”
“To the people who said to kick her out. I can’t do that because we both own this home, and she’s entitled to live here by law. I’m trying to keep things civil and clean for the kids. As much as I want to burn this house to the ground, I have to do what’s best for the kids and myself right now.”
“I went no contact with her after I made this post. Just completely ignored her.”
It was clear that the OP’s wife wasn’t ready to face the reality of what she had done.
“It was her turn to watch the kids tonight, so it was easy to spend time with a friend and clear my head.”
“She eventually texted me (my preferred method of communicating messy things), apologizing for how things went down, but then she tried to justify her cheating, saying she wanted a divorce when she did it and told me so (which is not true; she led me on saying maybe we can fix things and I showed her the texts to prove it).”
“I then referred to the DARVO wiki and told her, ‘You don’t believe what you did is cheating is incredibly narcissistic, and you’re victim blaming me. You’re highlighting your suffering to appear as the victim and escape blame.'”
“She denied trying to be the victim and said she wasn’t blaming me but didn’t deny trying to escape blame.”
“I told her she led me to believe our 13-year relationship was salvageable, but then she cheated on me when she made up her mind and didn’t tell me.”
“She told me that was fair for me to say, apologized, and now we’re sleeping in separate rooms.”
It’s interesting when people do something terrible, like cheating, they believe they’re entitled to that transgression remaining a secret between themselves and the people they hurt, but that isn’t how the world works.
If the OP’s wife didn’t see herself being happy in the marriage anymore, she should have acted accordingly, which would have been filing for divorce, not cheating her way out of the situation and then trying to keep the act quiet.