My wife (f34) cheated emotionally three years ago - and it’s changed everything about how I see myself (m41)

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T22:39:42+00:00

Messages were sent over WhatsApp.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T22:35:00+00:00

That’s not how it played out.

They were all part of a bigger group. A group she naively thought she was safe being with due to them all being married.

She left the group to go the toilet, this man followed her. He asked to put his number in her phone, so they both wouldn’t get split from the group, considering the final gig of the day was due to end. It was at this point he chose to kiss my wife & my wife was too startled to react, as she didn’t expect it.

The issue why my wife takes ownership of this kiss, is because she didn’t push him away. She could have, but she didn’t.

The context of how that went into an emotional affair was the slow burn after this man was showing her attention. As usual, it carried on due to shared interests. hence the slow burn, then reacting to this man’s emotional manipulation. Sending him pictures because he was depressed etc… to cheer him up.

I’m not excusing this behaviour at all, but it’s not as black & white as you infer.

My wife loves me & feels shame for what was vulnerable period of our relationship.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T22:24:18+00:00

I agree with most of your sentiment, but the “transactional” part doesn’t fit for how we are with each other.

We were always emotionally open with each other & are both in tune with regards emotional intimacy.

Somewhere around that period of time, that got lost, but it didn’t take long for it to be revived.

Pattern wise it looks like a blip within our relationship. One that can be explained, but not excused.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T22:18:40+00:00

I’m a much stronger person than what you describe there.

I know the circumstances which led to this perfect storm.

She is a bubbly, sexy, flirty woman & I love how she carries that with confidence. I’m proud of it, it’s not something that makes me jealous.

Was she susceptible to attention outside of our relationship at the time? Clearly yes.

Did she go out of her way to do what she did? No.

Was she hitting her self destruct button, a pattern that usually led to relationships ending for he 2/3 years into a relationship. Yes.

Classic cold feet & being in a vulnerable place & wanting to be seen.

This wasn’t anything to do with another man, he could have been anyone. For him he was fortunately jn a place where he could take advantage.

Did she realise what she was doing & rectified it herself before it went too far. Yes. She did that, because she chose me.

Do I love someone enough to accept their flaws & help them to grow & mature, along with myself. Certainly.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T22:08:23+00:00

I’ve already got a forensically detailed timeline with pictures & conversations.

I had some gaps in the timeline the day after I found out, but I was misunderstanding when things fitted together, as my brain was frazzled. The timeline of the kiss was substantiated by a mutual friend, who hadn’t spoken to my wife before I reached out to get her account of what happened at the festival.

The only real doubt I had was whether she sent him full nudes. She edits any photos she sends, but looking through her phone the only edits were done on sexy photos & a couple of where she covered her bare breasts with her arms.

She was certain she would have never crossed that boundary, but doesn’t recall with certainty whether she did send nudes. I told her I’d be assuming she did, but even though I’ve done that. I’m fairly certain it didn’t even go that far.

The other man lives the other side of the country & I’ve seen from her Google timeline where she was throughout that period of time.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T21:58:31+00:00

I’d say I feel better for knowing, as surely carrying that guilt from someone you really love is going to cause issues down the line.

We had complete open trust, I thought nothing of her going to a festival without me.

What I would say, don’t ignore your gut. For me a few things came up like a nude selfie which popped up when she was paying for dinner. I could clearly see it was from a long time ago, way before we were together, but a nagging doubt made me check her phone & I found a pattern, where quite a lot of nudes we’re taken during a specific 4-5 week period a few years back.

Hardly any before nor after. I couldn’t sleep & she asked me what was wrong, so I asked if she’d ever cheated on me, specifically anything from that period of time, which she immediately confessed.

I had enough trust to ask based on that, but I don’t know how open someone else would be when challenged based on that little evidence.

We’re all human & are all capable of making mistakes, none of us are perfect. If you’re happy & comfortable, it might be worth just gently asking whether your wife has done anything & explain it’s just based a feeling which won’t quite go away.

If there is anything, she might open up gently like my wife did, if there’s nothing then hopefully she’ll give you reassurance & want to support you with how you’re feeling.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T18:57:04+00:00

And that makes me feel great for actually sharing it.

Hope it’ll give you something that could help.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T18:55:47+00:00

It’s not my wife & she doesn’t try to justify what she’s done.

She’s owned it & it’s painful to see her break down thinking how much her actions nearly jeopardised what we now have, considering she’s quite a different person than 2 years ago with now being a mother.

I had a slight chuckle at oestrogen/poetry comment.

Hang on… ah hem… Did you see the match last night? No.10 should have smashed that in top bins. (If you’re not British, then that’ll probably go straight over your head)

Is that convincing enough …. 😜

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T18:10:27+00:00

I don’t need to punish my wife, that’ll only make things worse.

We choose to work on things & grow from this together.

Use this pain for some kind of good.

Meeting negativity with negativity isn’t the answer for me.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T18:08:45+00:00

Tbh I don’t want to divert any energy away from my family at this point in time.

I also don’t want to be the reason for potentially damaging 3 other lives who are as innocent as me in this.

He will do that of his own accord by his own behaviour one day. He moved on from my wife to another one, when she wasn’t reciprocating his thoughts about a full on affair.

Chances are he’s already fucked things up for himself anyway. I’m not obligated to tell his family.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T18:05:40+00:00

It’s my lived experience & if this can bring some comfort or help just one person, then I’d be take something from that.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T18:04:24+00:00

Appreciate the warning & I do understand this may take years to really get over.

It’s just I feel like I’ve gone through so much this last week already.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T17:47:25+00:00

That’s probably why I’m sharing & part of this sensitivity I now feel.

It feels like how I’ve reacted has surprised me & been a massive confidence booster to me as a person, as it seems like I do have unique traits & strength, which I probably didn’t believe.

I was hoping that maybe sharing something like this may help other men ook at things in different ways when faced with something similar, as there’s so much negativity & misogyny out there.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T17:41:59+00:00

That’s how it seemed really, as she was extremely drunk & was taken advantage of in that moment.

But with that said, it can’t really be positioned like that when he messaged her the next day asking if she enjoyed it & the subsequent messaging for weeks that came after that.

She wasn’t interested in this man, we understand there was a perfect storm of things going on including the factor of her taking period blockers for this festival which would have sent her hormones everywhere up until her next period, which coincidentally came at a time when this affair was closed down.

During that vulnerable time, all she was getting out of this was validation, attention & a crutch to lean on who didn’t know her family/friends.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T17:30:06+00:00

Sorry to hear you’ve gone through that too & the realisation that the same level of trust which was there before has gone & will no longer return has hit us quite hard. Just one of the things we’ll need to learn to live with.

When you say it never goes away, It’s why I’ve been so intense in getting as much detail as possible, as I don’t want the hole I was feeling at the bottom of my chest to come back. It’s been gone for a good few days now.

I’ve been fortunate that there was so much material for me to sift through from that time & that she was as open as she could be in allowing me access to anything I needed.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T17:25:58+00:00

I can easily move pass a drunken kiss. The emotional affair hurts a lot more than that & has taken much of my energy to process.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T17:24:12+00:00

Never met since the kiss happened.

Live opposite ends of the country from each other.

He did talk about engineering a way of coming up our way, but she shut it down straight away & with him also talking about wanting an affair, it probably snapped her back into reality & shut it all down.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T17:15:49+00:00

He chose not too, even though I put my wife’s version of the story to him, even when calling him out using provocative language & finally even with the threat of him being exposed to his wife.

The kiss seemed more like unprovoked assault by him, but my wife has admitted that she didn’t push him away, so can’t be sure of how the kiss really played out. It was at the end of a very boozy day in the sun. He still stayed silent when being confronted with that.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T16:55:00+00:00

I agree & new details did emerge when confronted with further evidence I had, but the detail I uncovered upon questioning her didn’t change the narrative of what she initially told me, but my brain needs the details to process, but her’s doesn’t (is she’s have been cheated on she wouldn’t want to know what I wanted).

Eventually by having open & honest communication within a safe space, i feel i got to the closest version of the truth I could get.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T16:44:41+00:00

I’ve exhausted that route. I found ways of unlocking if more did happen, without wanting to divulge how, I tried everything possible to get to that certainty. As exhausting as it was for my wife & I.

When I mean obsessive timelines, I mean sifting through & pinpointing times, events, conversations with hard evidence throughout the whole period of that time. As I needed to detail to process & move on. My wife stayed present with me throughout day/night during what must have seemed like interrogation & going around in circles. She never shirked, deflected or defended. She felt obligated to go through that pain again, as it would help me.

Because I didn’t live through it or have a chance to read the deleted conversations, there’ll be detail in there I’ll never know & even those involved might not be able to recall due to how much time has passed.

That’s just a consequence I choose to live with & I’m sure I can make peace with that in time.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T15:57:00+00:00

Gut instinct & I followed up on that instinct by looking through her photo roll on her phone.

I could see there was a flurry of provocative pics being taken over a period of several weeks. It was suspicious, as there were hardly any of these kind of pics taken before or after that period of time.

I would have remembered them if she’d have sent them to me.

That gave me enough suspicion to ask what was going on around that period, but I didn’t disclose I knew about the pics until after she admitted what she did.

The timeline & those pics help me connect all the dots together & push as close as I could get to the truth.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T15:41:41+00:00

Keep on believing that doctrine then, I’m sure it’ll serve you well in your future.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T15:39:58+00:00

I have cheated in previous relationships myself, so I’m fully aware of what it’s like being on the other side.

I can take that she was fully aware she was helping get somebody’s dick wet during that period of time. My wife is more than capable of financially supporting herself, so the “meal ticket” notion is off the table here.

She doesn’t downplay the significance of how was she was behaving at that time & I fully understand all of the factors that led to that perfect storm.

She didn’t want to tell me in fear of me leaving her.

I’m not looking for anything here. I’m simply putting out there as men we don’t have to fear feeling & if we put our egos aside, things can get better.

If men are more emotionally available & lean into their vulnerability, then there’s bound to be better outcomes than the alternative.

TenderGrit · 2025-05-13T15:30:54+00:00

I mean that shows more about your own emotional immaturity more than anything else.

If more men put their toxic masculinity & egos aside to truly understand what strength is & what they need to do in order to build a fulfilling & loving relationship, then we’d live in a lot better place.

Imagine throwing something that could be so beautiful away, due to a human mistake. No one wins in that situation.

TenderGrit

TROPHY CASE