There’s an old saying that sometimes people do bad things specifically to get caught or to receive attention.
But there’s something so ironic about a cheater wanting their partner to remain emotionally invested in them, even though they’ve essentially left the relationship, side-eyed the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITAH) subReddit.
Redditor UnusualCapital9083 caught on to his wife’s emotional affair, which turned into a physical affair, very early in the secret relationship, and was surprised when she didn’t end their marriage.
When he finally revealed that he knew about the affair, the Original Poster (OP) was shocked by his wife’s reaction to the confrontation.
He asked the sub:
“AITAH for not caring about my wife’s affair?”
The OP was aware that his wife started cheating on him during the pandemic.
“My (29 Male) wife (29 Female) has been having an affair for two years, and I have been aware of it pretty much the whole time.”
“We’ve been together seven years and married for five. We don’t have kids. I have been working from home since the pandemic hit.”
“For the last three-plus years, she has been a secretary in a large office building.”
“Now, I’m not gonna pretend like we had the perfect marriage two years ago and that I can’t believe she would do this. I was totally complacent in my life and really wasn’t putting much effort into our relationship at all.”
“That doesn’t excuse what she did, and she had her own issues with intimacy and communication that led us to where we were then. I just want it clear I’m no saint in all of this. I totally understand we were basically roommates that on rare occasions had sex.”
“We had the honeymoon phase after getting married and all seemed well. I guess we were in year two of our marriage when the pandemic hit and I got to go remote. Also with everything closed, we didn’t do a lot.”
“I got really into online gaming for the first time, and I’m sure I spent too much time doing that. I stopped working out. I still have a few memories that haunt me where she tried to get me to do something with her but I was too infatuated with whatever I was doing and blew her off. Or if I did go, I always was distracted or trying to end the activity and get back home.”
“Eventually, she stopped trying, she also had a hard time being open with her feelings, and I just took the silence as bliss. It wasn’t just her I was talking to friends and family a lot less, leaving my basement office a lot less, I wasn’t living.”
The affair was right there in front of the OP.
“I found out right away when the EA (Emotional Affair) started.”
“I’ve got all of our everything logged into every device we have, including my work computer. I mean synced email, text, photo, social media, etc.”
“So I was basically reading her affair regularly, including when it became a PA (Physical Affair) about four weeks in.”
The OP was surprised at first by how he felt about the affair.
“The part that told me this was over though, was I felt nothing about this. I was totally indifferent, maybe a little embarrassed at worst.”
“When the PA started two years ago, I recognized this marriage was dead, and that I should just divorce, mostly because I felt nothing. I started looking into lawyers and figured we could just do this easy and amicably.”
“Well, here’s where the crazy part happened. When the EA started, she seemed, I wouldn’t say happy, but, less sad.”
But the OP was even more shocked by how his wife started treating him.
“Then the weekend after the PA started, I got the shock of my life. She came into my office that Saturday morning and asked me to take her on a hike and picnic. Initially, I thought this was the moment to burst her bubble and reveal what I knew. But I didn’t, I decided to actually get up and do this.”
“I kind of thought she was gonna reveal it herself and ask for a divorce. But we had a really nice time, it was a great day, and she never brought up anything. I chalked it up as one more good memory before we ended this thing.”
“Then she asked me out again that week. Then we had intimacy. I don’t know if it was shame, or guilt, or what but she was basically taking the initiative to improve our marriage.”
“After that first week, she began to open up more about her feelings. I for some reason had a fire lit under me, and started to make some effort in our relationship, started reconnecting with some old friends, and got all the laundry off the gym equipment.”
“The affair continued, but as we spent more time together over those early weeks, and since it really gave me no concern everything seemed better. I decided to just forget about it and divorcing her and just start enjoying my life. I do still love this woman very much.”
Someone else’s affair would prove to be a catalyst in their relationship.
“Up until two days ago, we were in a really solid place. We had outings every other weekend, date night on Thursday, and regular intimacy and communication. I don’t even read their messages anymore, just occasionally to see if it’s still going on.”
“Two days ago, I noticed she was having frequent and long conversations with one of her close friends.”
“I asked my wife about it and it turns out this friend’s husband got caught having an affair.”
“My wife has been comforting her. This would not have been a big deal but my wife then started bashing the husband for cheating.”
“I don’t know why I said it but it came out, ‘You’re one to judge.'”
“She got super defensive and pressed me for why I said that.”
“I initially tried to apologize and move on but she wasn’t letting up and I eventually spilled I’ve known about her affair the whole time.”
“She tried to play dumb, which annoyed me, so I started citing specifics.”
“She then got really mad at me, started crying, accusing me of not caring about her.”
“I got p**sed and then started yelling at her, because I’m not the one having an affair. It got heated we went to separate rooms and slept it off.”
Their next conversation did not go well, either.
“Yesterday, morning she got up extra early and went to work before I got up.”
“I tuned back into their messages and she had broken up with her affair partner. He’s been messaging her constantly on every app and she just kept blocking him.”
“She came home early yesterday. I went to talk to her and she stopped me, looked at me, and asked how I could let this go on for so long.”
“I replied, ‘Because I just didn’t care.'”
“She then called me a huge a**hole and locked herself in our bedroom until she left for work this morning. She got home tonight, said nothing to me, and locked herself in again.”
“I can’t even imagine, in what bizarro world I could possibly be the a**hole in this situation. Is there a perspective out there where I am? If so please share it with me, because in my mind there isn’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 didn’t excuse the cheating but understood why the wife was upset.
“NTA, but telling her you just didn’t care put her in a funny place against the guilt she’s been feeling and the attempt to rediscover your relationship.”
“But most definitely NTA.” – lambsenglish
“NTA. She was the AH for having the affair. She’s upset you didn’t get crazy mad and confront her about it when you first found out. It makes her think you don’t care about her at all.”
“This is dumb, of course, since she was the one who valued you so little that she cheated. But it still feels like you’re the AH to her.”
“I doubt she’s going to try to do the whole ‘It’s your fault I cheated’ thing, but she’s embarrassed that you just let it go on like it was no big deal. That’s a shot to the ego.” – Natural_ad_1717
“What you said, combined with her complete and utter embarrassment on her end for realizing you knew EVERY conversation she had pretty much. She’s probably trying to recount everything she said or did with him to try to see where she even stands in this.” – Kweenkiller
“OP took it in stride because at the time the cheating occurred OP was also already checked out of the relationship. In his mind, the marriage was over prior to the cheating starting anyway.”
“When she cheated it was more of a roommate who you on occasion f**k but aren’t in a relationship with going and f**king someone else too. They were married so still wrong but OP didn’t care too much at the time.”
“What saved the relationship wasn’t the affair, it was her change in attitude. That came about from guilt but didn’t need to.” – Trash10
“This entire time she was hiding an affair because she assumed that this would break your heart and she wanted to ‘protect’ you and the marriage.”
“Plus, she still loved you in some sort of twisted way. That’s why she never dissolved the marriage and why she still actively interacted with you.”
“To hear you say, ‘I don’t care,’ just sounds like you don’t love her and that you just did this stuff because she offered it to you. She’s coming to the realization that you quit loving her a long time ago.”
“I wonder if she continued the affair in fear that the dude would retaliate against her if she left, but since you knew and didn’t care, she no longer wants anything to do with the guy.” – Strong-Bottle4161
Others thought the wife was incredibly hypocritical.
“I’m really surprised she gave the Pikachu surprise face when he didn’t care about the relationship while she was cheating all the way through… and most definitively she wasn’t trying to ‘rekindle’ more like using which OP might not have suspected…”
“If she was guilty she would have stopped but she didn’t until OP brought the affair up.” – wasted_engineer69
“NTA to anyone but yourself.”
“But the sheer audacity of this b***h claiming you don’t care about her when she was the one cheating.”
“I think she was just lashing out because she knew she was busted and didn’t wanna admit she was the one in the wrong.” – HalloweensQueen
“I would say she was probably hoping he’d find out and have some emotional meltdown to ‘prove he loved her,’ but then again, I don’t know why she’d repair the relationship with OP while continuing the affair and then flip the script when she got called out…”
“The hypocrisy of consoling her friend and trashing the husband for doing exactly what she was still actively doing to her own marriage is comical and not in a good way. This whole thing screams maladjusted to me. She’s got some issues if she can even try to play the victim in any of this.” – z00k33p3r0304
After receiving feedback, the OP shared an update in another post.
“My wife finally came out at around 12:30 AM Friday and joined me on the couch in my office. She curled in next to me and just cried for a solid 15 to 20 minutes and we were just silent otherwise.”
“When she was ready, we began talking until we were worn out. We picked that up again last night, which was also taxing.”
“We finally finished up, for now, this morning. This includes long spells of crying, hysterical bonding, and a phone call to the affair partner while I Iistened in (he was aware).”
The OP’s wife opened up about what led to the affair.
“The start of the affair was pretty cliche. Flirty small talk, makes her feel good, escalates, becomes messaging and sharing personal details, and eventually to kissing. Probably don’t need to explain the rest of the escalation from there.”
“We talked a lot about what got her to that point. She remembers it seemed like nothing she did could get my attention.”
“I agreed with this completely. I also stated, though, that I don’t remember too many attempts.”
“She acknowledged that she wasn’t very forthcoming in those days, always hinting at what she wanted and not just outright saying it. There wasn’t any one moment she said that ‘broke the camel’s back’ but just a collection of times.”
“When her affair partner came into the picture, the validation was intoxicating, especially in contrast to years of neglect. However, she said she felt a ton of guilt and shame. She was in the same spot I was when it started, assuming we would just divorce as we were largely just roommates at that point.”
His wife had a similarly surprising experience on that first hike.
“The hike and picnic were supposed to be the last bit of assurance that our marriage was over. She did not expect me to agree to go or for it to be such a pleasant time.”
“From that point, we started reconnecting and she made the decision to make the effort as long as I kept making the effort. She opened up more, and I was responding. That got us to where we’ve been the last two years.”
“As to why she didn’t end it with her affair partner once I was ‘back,’ she admitted she was just being selfish, kept telling herself she would but didn’t actually want to.”
“I was planning dates, listening, and back to initiating intimacy often. He doted on her and validated her. She had the best of everything. Eventually, she just convinced herself what I didn’t know didn’t hurt me. This makes her feel stupid now knowing I knew the whole time.”
The OP’s wife said she was hurt by him reading her messages.
“We talked about my surveillance and she said she is having trouble getting over this and feels betrayed.”
“I didn’t give her any excuses. It came up because she did ask how I knew, and I told her she’s been logged into our old desktop/my work computer on her email, Instagram, Facebook, etc., for years, as well as it being connected to our cloud.”
“I owned up to how wrong this was, but we both agreed that if we were going to make the reconciliation work, we were going to have to forgive each other for a lot of things.”
She claimed to be hurt by his confession of indifference, as well.
“As many said and were right about, my ‘I don’t care’ statement was extremely triggering and hurtful. It took her right back to where we used to be.”
“I took your advice and organized my thoughts and told her that it wasn’t that I don’t care. I care about her immensely and changed for the better these last two years because I wanted to be there for her.”
“I then explained I should have said, ‘It doesn’t bother me.'”
“She’s still trying to wrap her head around this. I’m trying to explain how I just basically don’t feel jealousy or insecurity, which is hard to put into words. It also causes a mix of emotions on her end.”
“I told her that having her be happy again made everything worth it for me. Also, the affair got me off my a** for the first time in years, so in a way, I’ve kind of told myself it was a blessing these past years.”
They then talked at length about the wife ending the affair.
“Finally to address the break up with the affair partner. She said once it was out, she went into a doom spiral thinking everything in her life was a sham. She felt guilty over everything, she cut him loose and locked me out. She was basically beating herself up for being awful to both of us.”
“Listening to her call with him was hard even for me. From what she’s told me in our conversations, and the call, I’m pretty convinced he was/is in love with her. I think he was holding out hope we would divorce at some point.”
“She laid it out for him that we would not and we’re going to do everything to make this marriage work.”
“He didn’t beg or degrade himself but seemed genuinely hurt. When the call ended, she reblocked him, and stated she had to go no contact so he could heal and actually find someone, and we could fix our issues.”
The OP and his wife made a plan for their future.
“We are working out our plans to fix our marriage. I’m not totally sure where to go from here.”
“She wants individual counseling for herself so we will make that happen, and after she has done that for awhile, we will probably start marriage counseling.”
“We are also going to a symbolically fresh start and I’m getting a new work computer.”
“From there, it’s being open and honest with each other every day, and making sure we are being present in our lives. I love this woman very much, and want to make this work.”
While the subReddit was firmly on the OP’s side and found his wife to be incredibly hypocritical in her comments about her friend’s husband’s affair, as well as her concerns about the OP breaking her trust by reading her messages, they still felt that the OP was anything but indifferent.
Because of that, hopefully the OP’s update would be the start of a great new relationship, or at the very least, the fresh start they both were looking for.