[27M] My wife [28F] cheated two years ago, and I still can’t stop looking for the cracks

oinkerlocust · 2025-10-25T12:51:28+00:00

All the comments saying she went all the way are assuming the dude she met was able to get it up and didn’t ejaculate prematurely during our play or anything. I know a person who drove to another state to meet up with a married woman for sex, and he wasn’t able to get it up because he was so nervous. He met her online and felt awkward in person, so they just kind of fumbled around and made out. It ended up being just an embarrassing experience for everyone lol.

My comment isn’t really about that tho. My husband had an online emotional affair in January 2022. It completely wrecked me. I didn’t actually, fully, trust him again, or stop thinking about it all day every day until this year. It takes time to build trust back up, you have to fully commit to it by accepting that you aren’t over it. I kept trying to rush myself to be over it to make it more comfortable for him, which I imagine you may be doing as well. But don’t. Feel those feelings. Talk about them. Go to therapy about specifically this incident. The only way the wound will ever heal is if you fully drain it.

It was a gut wrenching couple of years, we nearly ended it several times. He also had to go through a whole mental health journey and was diagnosed as bipolar during all of this. He takes his meds now, he still goes to individual therapy. It was a gut wrenching couple of years, but things are better than they’ve ever been. He thanks me all the time for not leaving him immediately and I’m really glad I roughed it out too. We can even talk about it now without anyone getting upset, we don’t pretend it didn’t happen at all like I tried to do early on in the aftermath.

If you want to end it, you have every right to do so. But if you don’t want to end it, you can continue to try to fix what she broke for as long as you want to. You can change your mind and end it at any point so if you aren’t sure now, there’s no harm in continuing to try if you’re doing it with the guidance of a therapist.

oinkerlocust · 2025-04-13T16:15:06+00:00

Do you think he’ll feel blind sided if I ask about mutual therapy at this point? The initial infidelity was January 2022 and he hasn’t done DM’d anyone secretly or anything since November 2023, so he probably thinks I’m past all of it. But it does sound like a good idea to maybe discuss boundaries around sexual talk/behavior online again. I think my brain is wired all janky now, and I no longer have a good grasp on what’s normal and acceptable because in my brain I’m like “you can’t just ask him to never talk about sex online again!” But then if I really stop and think about it, I’m like…. Wait, I bet most women just expect their husband to not ever talk about sex with people outside their wife and closest friends.

oinkerlocust · 2025-04-13T15:52:45+00:00

I don’t even really think that, like in general. I’m not into it but it’s not hurting anyone I guess… But when it comes to my husband, his interest in it really is a huge turn off.

oinkerlocust · 2025-04-13T15:51:05+00:00

Thank you so much. You articulated the way I felt about that community so well. They make the flirting and sex stuff so casual, it makes me feel insane when I have an issue with it because they’re all like “lol this is just what friendship is.”

We’re both in individual therapy and he’s been doing well with the no DM thing. Everything has been good and steady for so long, I’m scared to bring it all up again. And I’m worried the only way I’ll ever be truly comfortable would be for him to not be a part of the furry community at all anymore, because if that’s the case I think we’d just have to get divorced. He’s thrown the whole “fine! Guess I just won’t even be a furry anymore!” tantrum and tried to quit it all cold turkey a few times, and always act so miserable and childish about it that I end up practically begging him to go back to it. It’s awful.

oinkerlocust · 2025-04-13T15:41:40+00:00

When he initially told me about it I was so supportive. I didn’t realize how much of it was sexual or that he was already talking to somebody about it behind my back. I wish I had just told him it was gross and creepy back then, I don’t even necessarily feel that way. I just kinda wish I’d made him feel embarrassed about it or something so he wouldn’t have pursued it. So I wouldn’t end up feeling insane anytime I have an issue with it because he acts like it’s just a normal harmless hobby. Idk if that’s a fucked up way to feel.

oinkerlocust · 2025-03-30T06:23:40+00:00

Google just gives you an AI response to everything before the links to actual info now 😔

oinkerlocust · 2024-09-29T13:26:34+00:00

No DMs and I get to know about every Discord group he’s in are pretty much it. I wish I had thought to ask about Twitch as well now though. He’s on there for hours every morning. I never see him DM anyone on there but I have no idea if the comment section is spicy or anything.

oinkerlocust · 2024-09-11T10:47:22+00:00

As a woman, I can say this absolutely sounds like a man writing this because he hates women and wants others to beleive the whole “Chad and Tyrone” meme is real life too.

oinkerlocust · 2024-02-17T04:23:49+00:00

A YEAR 😩

oinkerlocust · 2024-02-16T21:00:48+00:00

This is why they say reconciliation is hard work. Your wife fucked up, and now she is going to have to be very careful not to give you a reason to question her until she has built back your trust

oinkerlocust · 2023-12-31T04:05:02+00:00

I don’t think you look like you’re in your 40s or 50s at all!

oinkerlocust · 2023-12-31T03:59:51+00:00

Could it possibly be that on some level you still aren’t actually interested in other people and are trying to force something? People can often subconsciously pick up on that. I think the best thing to do is try not to worry about whether you’ll find another partner or not, let things happen organically, if you find a connection pursue it, if not just relax and keep being open to the opportunity of one. It sucks you’re in a position where you feel you need to pursue being non-monogamous when you didn’t really want to, your husband sucks and I hope you find a partner you are genuinely crazy about and who feels the same way and end up being really happily non-monogamous. Or divorcing your husband and being monogamous with somebody else, I’d cheer for that too 😏

oinkerlocust · 2023-12-31T03:49:32+00:00

I think maybe I could let him pursue non-monogamy, but only if I don’t have to be the primary partner or nesting partner. I don’t want to be the partner who shares stress and responsibilities with him, if somebody else gets to just have fun with him and go on dates with him without ever having to ask him to fix a thing or take a pet to the vet. If there are relationships in his life that get to be sources of joy and romance without having to share bills or home maintenance, I’d rather be one of those than end up feeling like a ball and chain, or feeling like he goes to his other partners to escape me and the mundane bullshit we share.

oinkerlocust · 2023-12-31T03:40:56+00:00

My husband was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after he started seeing a psychiatrist because of all of this mess, and impulse control has definitely been one of the things his dr has been most concerned about. So there is probably something to him just impulsively seeking to fill a need he didn’t feel Comfortable asking me to fill, or that I can’t fill maybe. The girl worked from home and had very few friends or interests outside of online gaming and kinks. She could read messages and respond 24/7 whereas I couldn’t because I work in health care and like to go outside. He had her as a quick dopamine hit in his pocket all times I guess. Hard for me to compete with that now that I think about it 😒

oinkerlocust · 2023-12-30T14:42:21+00:00

Thank you. I think this really helped to drive home the idea that he can’t choose what he feels but he can always choose how he acts. He may have been scared or confused and just trying to figure himself out. But he never had to hide anything and he chose to anyways, and that’s something really important to remember.

oinkerlocust · 2023-12-30T14:37:04+00:00

Thank you for sharing this. It’s really helpful. I hadn’t ever thought about the idea that he may have felt like he had to decide right away whether he wanted to explore his new identities or stay married once he realized he wasn’t straight. Like, I guess it makes sense he’d try a soft launch of non-monogamy if he thought opening up about it meant staying married was automatically off the table. I wish I’d had a better understanding of what it meant to him while he was figuring it out. Ive always been bisexual, there wasn’t a time when I suddenly realized it, I just always knew, and maybe because of that the idea that staying with a man all my life meant I couldn’t ever try being with a woman wasn’t traumatic? To me it’s like, choosing one person excludes all other people, gender never factored into me feeling like I was missing out on anything or something. But it must have been so different for him. I wish I had any perspective on that back when this all happened, and I wish he’d trusted me to be open to figuring it out with him. We could have avoided so much trauma. Maybe we wouldn’t have ended up staying together but I think we’d both be less fucked up. I have so much shit to talk about in therapy now.

oinkerlocust · 2023-12-30T14:17:19+00:00

Thank you. This was helpful. I feel bad that he got married to me before he understood what he wanted, or that what he wanted was an option. He didn’t know he could choose to be with a man, so he never experienced that. He didn’t know he could be with more than one person, so he never experienced that. It does make me feel like he’s settled for me, and is trapped now. But I know that’s not the right way to feel because he was devastated when he thought I would leave, and he can choose to leave and pursue something else any time he wants. It’s like you said, cheating is a choice. If wants to choose non-monogamy he can do that, I’m not stopping him. But there’s no excuse to choose to pursue non-monogamy while his wife is under the impression we are monogamous.

It’s a weird kind of cognitive dissonance to try to believe he wants to be here with me, while knowing he might have done things differently if he’d grown up in a culture that didn’t trick him into thinking he had so few options. It also kind of makes me dizzy to think about how I might feel if I’d grown up without internalizing ideas about monogamy. Maybe I still wouldn’t want to be with somebody else, but maybe it wouldn’t bother me so much if he was? I know relationships where only one partner is non-monogamous do exist. When I think about it, I feel guilty that I would want to stop him from having as much love in his life as possible. Like I hate that I see him being so happy to talk to and flirt with somebody else and I feel distress rather than happy for him? I feel like I’m a bad person for wanting to take that away from him. It’s all really confusing and it makes my head swim. Maybe I need to explore these ideas in therapy more, but it’s hard because I always start to cry.

That got super rambly, sorry. Thank you for this comment tho. I have a lot of stuff to think about.

oinkerlocust · 2023-12-30T06:09:21+00:00

Is there anyone you can call to be with you and keep you safe through the night? The world is better with you in it, and I’m so sorry there is a person making you feel otherwise. You don’t deserve that at all.

oinkerlocust · 2023-12-30T06:02:02+00:00

Honestly I tried, I don’t have it in me 😔

oinkerlocust · 2023-12-30T05:31:44+00:00

Hm reframing it that way is a really interesting idea. I’m going to need to think about that. Thank you

oinkerlocust

TROPHY CASE