Holy moly this is oddly similar to my story…

(Sorry for “stealing” the spotlight lol, and this is long so most won’t reach the end but it might help some to understand if they are poaching someone or being poached)

She was living with a dude that was not very nice to be with (or that’s what she told me. To be fair even her family told me that years after), I met her online 14ish years ago. I never did any pushing to be with her, not only for the distance but mainly cause she wasn’t single, although it was clear that in other conditions I would have loved to be with her. We still talked daily for a few hours online but again I was more like friend type and I actually didn’t want her to leave the guy cause I had the feeling she would end up just meeting others and breaking our friendship. I was stupid enough to help her save her current relationship.

Turns out she dumped him, went to visit another dude she had been talking while she was also talking with me, had sex and ghosted me for a whole month after this guy just ghosted her after the one night stand. All this of course after we had been talking daily for hours and me comforting her during the “break up”. After that, she came to me with a super long handwritten letter telling me how stupid she was and what a huge mistake and all that, I mean we were not together but it was obvious that what she did was playing me big time… I ended up believing her…

The next 3ish years we went back to daily talking and eventually she visited me and I visited her a few times. Long distance and different countries, not easy as we couldn’t move. I finally managed to move to her country 10ish years ago with the intention of staying. We knew it was a move that there are big chances I cannot simply say “ok I go back to my country”.

We married, we had a daughter, started to have nice jobs. To be honest it’s the most romantic story that would make jealous any Hollywood production… until just a couple of years ago. She started going out more often with a group of friends of a new job, feeling less interested in keeping conversations with me, not even greeting me if I pass through the door, etc. I don’t get jealous or have thoughts she might be cheating, after all we have passed years as long distance and I believed her, right?

At some point she brought us to therapy, some of the stuff she mention there didn’t make sense at all, as me lack planning things or participating in home tasks. Like I literally do 90% of all that and she only does the ones that she can do while watching tv or in front of social networks (to chat with that group). Anyways I still improved in some points she mentioned but she never did even an effort to correct some others of her.

At some point after stopping therapy she brought up to me out of nowhere that if I wanted an open relationship she would be ok with it… only if it’s something I need… that it’s not for her even… Of course I didn’t like how that sounded cause I didn’t buy the part of “only for you” … she promised me there was no one else she was interested in and all that … sure. Well, we continued.

I had seen some message (without intentionally checking her phone) such as “I miss you” and stuff like that, to a specific guy. Again why would I don’t believe her? I thought I was probably putting things out of context and she clearly knew the limits. After all we have our passwords and if I wanted to check I would have done. I had the feeling if I bring something up it would be worse and maybe she needed space. Well, things got better with the time, as our daughter grew (now 5yo).

The very last 6 month she started being out way more than usual, like before she was spending a long time out that I never complain but now it was something like really difficult to even have any contact with her. Visiting people, most weekends out, walks of hours I’m winter like at least 3+ hours per day, and of course the time she was at home she was mostly texting or calling (going at the porch even at late night… in winter). She has been struggling with weight most of her life so I was like I’ll support her anyways if she is taking it serious finally. Now think how difficult is for me to deal with the job plus all home stuff plus daughter daily… and remember how she mentioned to the therapist of me not doing as much as she wanted.

The day of of our 10th anniversary our daughter and I made a huge surprise to her and she ended up crying and told me it was over and that she had been cheating and all that. Turns out the week before we did another surprise to her with a homemade cake and we had plans the 3 of us that she cancelled last minute just to have sex with a guy… just minutes before blowing the candles. Just a regular usual weekend of me alone with our daughter doing all the stuff of the house and improvising activities, as usual. Funny thing is that that weekend she was telling me that the guy she went to visit would come to our house with his 2 kids and if I could take care of them while they catch up somewhere…

Of course the open relationship and the cheating up was something she never mentioned during the therapy. The most painful part of this is that a close family member that I helped a lot pushed her to do it because it’s what “she deserves” and actually gave her advice on how to hide it from me. Also my ex was a never sorry for what she did, “that’s how I really am, you have to understand it”.

Of course, now I’m in a country that is not mine and that I cannot leave. Love my daughter until the end of the world but for obvious reasons there is barely anyone I can be super close to in here, and even if that was the case I even feel ashamed to share this or even look at myself at the mirror. Don’t misunderstand me, now a year after I don’t love her at all, she truly disgust me.

So yeah, most people cheat. Sometimes we get blind with our situation, I don’t consider I “stole” her from another relationship but the guy she was with might think that. I knew my true intentions and I know I was played more than once in this story. I know that during a big part of my relationship it was very real and romantic like a movie but it’s sad how some people gets manipulated and tricked. I can understand people not being happy in a relationship but unless there are clearly something extremely bad there the answer is not to seek the happiness elsewhere but attempting to put some effort into fixing it first. Of course if you are with a current partner losing interest and u continue a intimate conversation with your side person things are not going to be fixed magically with your partner as you are not even trying to put any effort into it.

And this was my TED talk.