A woman whose husband cheated on her with another woman said she kept living with him for the next ten years until their youngest child moved out of their house. Once her daughter moved out, she filed for divorce and left her husband.
Taking to Reddit’s TrueOffMyChest forum, user u/SteppingStone23 explained how she kept living with her husband despite her trauma and emotional disassociation with him only for the sake of her children and their bright future.
“I left my husband the day after our youngest moved out. He says I’ve deceived him all these years,” OP wrote. “My(f49) husband (m51) cheated on me. It was 10 years ago when I got a call from school saying that our youngest, then 9 was sick and needed to go home. When we arrived I heard them in our bedroom. I panicked made loud noises to let them know they weren’t alone and that our daughter was with me. I’m crying just writing this, I still cry whenever I remember that day.”
Explaining how she went through a mental trauma and started therapy to feel better, the woman said it was hard, and she adopted many new habits to take her mind off the incident but could never get over it.
“The first year after that was the hardest on me. I felt so insignificant and inadequate. Ugly and undesirable. We started therapy and my husband promised to do anything to make it work again. We moved apartments and bought new furniture and I started a new habit of changing the sheets every night before bed. All of this wasn’t as effective as that one morning when I woke up and realized that I wasn’t in love with my husband anymore,” she explained.
“After this realization everything seemed easier moving forward. I saw him as a roommate and a great support raising the children. A good friend. We love our children and we wanted the best for them. For these next 10 years we hardly ever fought and we raised 3 beautiful happy and successful young people.”
OP said when she realized she didn’t love her husband anymore, she stopped caring about if he cheated on her more than once.
“It was one of my nightmares in the beginning. I didn’t care anymore as long as I slept in clean sheets every night,” she continued.
“Around Christmas, our youngest daughter who is now 19 got her first contract for her own apartment. That’s when I knew that I was free. I also set in motion my plans of moving out and getting my divorce. I found myself an apartment too and I thought my husband can live in our apartment until we settled everything up. When I told him and handed him the divorce papers he was in shock and when I moved out the day after my daughter, on April 2, he was even more shocked and distraught.”
After she left her husband, he accused her of lying and deceiving him throughout all the years they lived together after he cheated on her.
“Now he is telling me that I have deceived him all these years acting like I was fine when I wasn’t, while he lived in regret every day for how he hurt me. I am cold and calculated and I am vindictive. I don’t recognize any of these accusations. I don’t see things that way. I saw it as me (and him of course) doing the best with what I was dealt to make a happy and content life for our children, our whole family really and I think that I succeeded. What more could anyone ask of me?”
The woman also explained in her post that she and her ex-husband kept having sex after the incident, but she always made him use a protection and never let him touch her without it.
“It went from 2-3 times a week to 2-3 times a year. In my mind, if he cheated when we were very intimate and active, he was probably cheating now. It bothered me less and less with years.”
“I don’t know how long they were sleeping together. I don’t know who she was I never wanted to know I just saw her once and that was the only thing I didn’t want to know in therapy. I don’t know if he still slept with her or others. I just assumed he did because it was easier for me to expect the “worst”. I never said love you to him again. Something we used to say often before. He continued saying it and always told me that he would wait for me to say it back.”
At the end of her lengthy post, the Redditor said her children know that their parents have separated and are sad about it, but she and her ex have decided not to explain the reasons behind their split to their children.
“They don’t need to know anything,” she concluded. “No, I don’t change my bedding every night now. I have no need.”
In the comment section, Redditors were sympathetic to the woman; many said she did the right thing.
“Good for you. My ex pretended to be blindsided too and it was a ruse. He berated me every day for hours on end and for months. I know I made the right decision,” one wrote.
“You didn’t deceive him. You have been fine all these years. You just never told him why and he clearly never asked,” another said.
“You husband has some audacity blaming you of deceiving him. He was cheating on you in your own home. He was living in guilt because of his own actions. If this was me, I wouldn’t care about what he says about this, i wouldn’t really even bother giving an explanation,” a third added.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Source: Reddit
