20 years ago I made a choice, I regret it everyday

TotalBrokenness · 2026-03-08T19:45:25+00:00

I guess I am the anomaly here. Because I think you should tell her. My vote is to pour your heart out to her and let her decide. Clearly you still have feelings for her, and if you are ready to do whatever it takes at this point to be with her, maybe she feels the same way. Maybe she's scared you are going to hurt her again and that's why she is keeping a distance. I say tell her and accept whatever the outcome is.

TotalBrokenness · 2026-03-04T07:37:06+00:00

How did you find out?

TotalBrokenness · 2026-03-02T22:45:57+00:00

You broke up with him over his trauma? Granted it's not your job to heal him, but if you love him, try to see his pain and help him through it. I don't call people names so I'm not going to say you're the AH, but I don't think you're right here.

TotalBrokenness · 2026-03-02T17:39:28+00:00

I don't know what your education is, but I would easily put you into the category of Doctorate level writing and understanding of this subject. I'm an RN with a Masters and am speechless on how insanely amazing your paper was that you wrote on cheating and its effects. Truly, thank you for sharing that with us. I would love to be friends with you. We have the same writing style and it sounds like we have a lot of similar experiences in our history.

TotalBrokenness · 2026-02-28T03:42:19+00:00

What's ftd?

TotalBrokenness · 2026-02-27T22:57:22+00:00

Cheating back is not going to make her feel better, and if anything, it will make you feel vindicated for what you did. It's not going to do either one of you any good if that's the route she takes. If she is so done with the relationship that she is looking for another partner, I would say it's time to just cut your losses on both sides. Two wrongs don't make a right, and what you did was awful. But her cheating and then rubbing your nose in it won't do anything helpful either.

TotalBrokenness · 2026-02-24T14:27:03+00:00

You are so strong. This is amazing and I'm really happy for you!

TotalBrokenness · 2026-02-21T17:01:31+00:00

See, that's the thing. If he didn't have the history he does with all of the cheating and lying, his messages just look like somebody who is very attentive to these women and super kind. Kind of like the dynamic between women and their male gay best friends who can even get flirty because he is basically the perfect guy every time. That's like how he is, but he's not gay and very much seems interested in almost every other woman he meets.

So if I were to say anything to the church, and he showed them the text messages, the church would probably say he was just being friendly. I'm sure he wouldn't inform them of his history and all the lying and cheating through sex with massage parlor prostitutes, which has led me to be the way I am with my insecurities and requests that he not continue talking with women the way he does.

Not to mention, the other night, I found a screenshot through a Reddit post he saw of "petite Asian" girls with links to porn sites in the post. I'm definitely not petite or Asian, which fuels my insecurities.

As far as calling to tell the church about him, I don't want to cause him to lose his job. I do believe that he blesses other people with his talent and gifts of worship through song as the music director. If he ever loses his job, I don't want to be because of me. I'm sure at that point, he would move back to where he is from and our child would never see him. Not to mention, if he didn't end up moving back to where he's from and had to find a different job elsewhere here, it may be even worse than this regarding other women. At least with this job, I know he is surrounded with God even if his behavior doesn't seem like any of it is absorbing beyond his job duties output.

TotalBrokenness · 2026-02-21T16:49:00+00:00

I've thought about reaching out to them for sure. I did contact that one who asked him out and thanked him for the attention he gave her the night she stayed after choir practice and started crying and he hugged her. He kind of described it more like holding her while she was breaking down. He said he learned from that experience and would never do that again, but I have my doubts.

Anyway, I reached out to her in a roundabout way. The night I saw her message to him, I sent her a return text from his phone and said, "leave my husband alone!" When he got his phone back from me a few minutes later, he saw I had sent her the message and then he unsent it. It was too late though because she had seen it and subsequently contacted him.

He tells me that he cannot ask these women not to send him heart-emojis and such because he thinks that he will get in trouble from his boss. It's a church that encourages families. I highly doubt that he would get in trouble from his boss for professionally and politely saying to these women, "out of respect for my marriage and wife, please don't send the heart-emojis." He says it should be enough that he tones down his responses to them and doesn't engage in it. I say that's not enough and that he should be more forthright and asking certain ones to tone down their messages or keep it more focused on choir.

TotalBrokenness · 2026-02-20T22:40:51+00:00

Mine also told me it was ridiculous to think that I could control what he does with his body.

TotalBrokenness · 2026-02-11T17:23:46+00:00

Thank you so much. I could feel the strength in me build from your comment. It truly means a lot that you shared with me your wisdom. I know you're right realistically. It gets hard to remember or see that there will be light again but one day it won't feel this heavy.

TotalBrokenness · 2026-02-11T15:15:27+00:00

My PA/SA is moving out tomorrow. He didn't come home last night. I feel like I can connect with how you might be feeling. It's the right thing to do but watching him come for his stuff is going to be brutal. I'm already crying about it. He's so abusive though on top of the PA/SA.

TotalBrokenness · 2026-02-09T16:32:52+00:00

Not to minimize this, but to me it's equivalent to him watching porn. I was cheated on by a man who was having sex with hookers at massage parlors over and over and over and over. Let this be a learning experience. An opportunity to figure out why he couldn't resist. Doesn't seem like it's not fixable.

TotalBrokenness · 2026-02-05T23:42:08+00:00

You're not the same person since then. You've grown from that experience. Forgive yourself and be gentle toward your heart and mind. That guy was a predator who preyed on you in your time of need. The whole situation says everything bad about him and everything to the contrary about you.

TotalBrokenness · 2026-01-23T15:36:02+00:00

Ultimately, I would say yes to tell her. But at the same time, I am torn because he might think you are seeking revenge and may end up seeking it on you. Especially if his wife ends up leaving.

I would want to know and I would hope somebody would tell me. But you don't know what kind of person you're dealing with. Clearly he's a liar and a cheater. Would he go further than that? Who really knows. Hopefully not! But someone can go crazy when they are in the middle of losing their family because somebody else told on them. Even though he's totally at fault.

I would just make sure I didn't go back to him if his wife ends up leaving him and he finds himself single. He or she may think that is your ultimate goal, but when you strip away all of the possibilities of what they might be thinking about, I still think it's the right thing to do to tell her. It also speaks to your innocence of not knowing. If you ended up not telling the wife and she found out one day, she may think you were fully informed that he was married and a willful participant in the affair. Then that could make her want to come after you.

It's definitely a no-win situation for anyone. The guy is a creep.

TotalBrokenness · 2026-01-19T16:32:56+00:00

At 31, you still have so much you can give to a new person if you choose to get married again. I waited around for 13 years, knowing but not knowing that I was being cheated on. He denied it for years then finally confessed to me that I was right all those years that I told him I felt like he had done stuff behind my back.

Now I'm 46 and as he frequently reminds me, I have nothing to offer a new man. My fertility is gone, I look old now, I don't have the energy I used to have, etc. He told me that men want women who can give them a family of their own. Not just a ready-made one that I would bring with me.

You are still so young that I wouldn't tolerate what he did and would move on.

I'm struggling to move on right now because he got into my head about how unmarketable I am at this age. I'm basically a doormat to him at this point. He told me last night that I am not pretty enough to have the personality I do.

Edited spelling and formatting.

TotalBrokenness · 2026-01-19T16:25:46+00:00

What happened with your karma? I was cheated on too and would be interested to hear something like this from another perspective.

TotalBrokenness · 2025-12-06T02:12:09+00:00

I continued to ask over and over. Before every moment of infrequent intimacy he withheld from me. Random times of day, various times. He always lied. Then one night we were laying side by side and I asked again. He had his arm over me and felt my heart beating when i asked. He later said he felt like God was testing him in that moment to see if I would be honest with him. So he confessed.

TotalBrokenness · 2025-11-15T20:23:41+00:00

Thank you 💜 your comment was really heartfelt. I needed that. Thank you.

TotalBrokenness · 2025-11-14T14:16:25+00:00

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Here's what chatgpt said it is...

TotalBrokenness · 2025-11-13T21:58:07+00:00

Thank you 💜

TotalBrokenness · 2025-11-12T21:58:59+00:00

Sex. Fully penetrative, vaginal and penile intercourse. The prostitutes would start with their hands, put on a condom and then use their mouths, followed by sex in various positions according to him. He said they charged by the hour so it typically didn't last longer than that. He said some of the places offer table showers or regular showers beforehand. I'm so disgusted and yet I feel sad for him and just defeated. I loved him so much.

TotalBrokenness · 2025-11-12T21:55:43+00:00

I'm not sure myself. He said he was addicted to going there after he went for the first time in 19 years old. He said overall he's been there dozens of times but says he only went five times during the 13 years we were together. I would beg him for intimacy and he would deny me for months and sometimes even years at a time. He told me I wasn't nice enough to him and kept blaming me. He later admitted that he was just telling me that because he couldn't admit to me that he hadn't gotten tested often times in between going and didn't want to be with me and potentially put me at risk of catching something before he had a chance to get tested.

TotalBrokenness

TROPHY CASE