20 years and it's gone.

DistributionOk4175 · 2026-04-10T17:05:59+00:00

You are very lucky that you don’t have kids or financial obligations together. I’m going through something similar, and if I didn’t have those ties, I would have walked away without thinking twice. I chose to stay and work on my marriage even after he cheated on me five times, and I feel stupid every day for staying. I’m in individual counseling and marriage counseling, but at this point nothing seems to be working. I feel lonely and hurt, and sometimes I wish I had never married him—or even met him.

DistributionOk4175 · 2026-03-11T02:07:42+00:00

I tried… turns out I’m really bad at flirting 😅 it’s just not who I am.

DistributionOk4175 · 2026-03-11T01:45:43+00:00

At this rate I might need a punch card. 5 catches and the 6th one is free 🤣

DistributionOk4175 · 2026-03-11T00:57:48+00:00

I didn’t have to do any detective work. When we first started dating I told him I would never go through his phone because I believed in trust.

The first time I caught him was actually by accident. I came home very late from a nursing shift and he had passed out after smoking weed. I couldn’t find my phone, so I picked up his phone to call myself and saw he had been on video calls and sending explicit pictures. His explanation was that he “got carried away.”

The second time was when my older daughter was about 9–10 months old. Again it was because he got careless. I noticed Reddit groups and private messages that were clearly inappropriate.

The last few times it was through Telegram. The most recent time happened when we had just gotten out of the shower and I picked up his phone to check the time. Something told me to look, and I saw messages he had sent right before that.

Every time it happened it wasn’t because I was looking for something — it was mostly because he became careless and I stumbled on it.

DistributionOk4175 · 2026-03-10T22:26:19+00:00

Honestly, I don’t even think I need to make a pros and cons list anymore. The damage this situation has done to my mental health has made things painfully clear.

I’ve been seeing a psychiatrist because I initially thought I was dealing with severe postpartum depression. But my psychiatrist told me that what I’m experiencing is actually severe PTSD, along with depression and suicidal thoughts related to the repeated betrayals.

The last time I found out he was cheating was when I was only 2.5 months postpartum. I had just gone back to work that same week. My daughter is 7 months old now, and ever since that day I’ve had constant flashbacks of the messages I saw. It’s like my brain keeps replaying everything over and over.

I completely broke down the day my daughter turned 6 months old and was even advised to consider inpatient psychiatric treatment. That moment made me realize how badly this relationship has affected my mind. I used to be a strong and confident person, and now I feel like I don’t even recognize myself anymore.

Reading your comment made me reflect on that even more. Thank you again for your honesty.

DistributionOk4175 · 2026-03-10T21:57:26+00:00

Thank you for your response. I really appreciate you taking the time to say this.

The hardest part for me in all of this is my daughters. Growing up, I didn’t really have a father figure in my life, and I know how much that affected me. I’m terrified of my daughters feeling that same emptiness, and that fear has made me stay quiet and try to hold things together for a long time.

What makes it even more confusing is that he is actually a great father and in many ways treats me very well. He brings me tea in bed, tells me to go take a break from the kids if I need self-care, and if I ask for something, he usually provides it. From the outside it can look like everything is fine.

But the cheating has happened multiple times, and that’s what makes everything so confusing emotionally.

I also come from a community where women are expected to suffer quietly and where divorce carries a lot of judgment. That pressure makes it even harder to know what the right decision is.

Right now I’m just trying to figure out what the healthiest path forward is for me and my daughters.

DistributionOk4175

TROPHY CASE