I genuinely do not even know where to start. We met in 2010. Her (F37) I (M43) Have 3 children, twin 14 year old and a 15 year old, girls.

We have a decent life, renting a large 5 bedroom home, have chickens in backyard, cats a dog, everything you would need to be happy.

There is just one major underlying issue.

I found out about 5 years ago she was cheating on me for 7 years. I knew of 1 man prior. A wife of one of the men found me on facebook and told me everything that she had been doing with her husband. And the group of women she was in a chat with that my wife had slept with their spouses.

I was a stay at home dad at this time, as finding a job where we were at the time was difficult, and she had already established a good position where she was.

Fast forward to now (6 years) we are still together, but I have zero feelings for her. I actually resent her entirely. And it's turning into depression at this point. We moved across country and she now is the major bread winner between us. (I actually work under her now). While she has been Faithful the past 7 years, I have full access to her phone and location, everything, by her own accord, she is cold, callous, calculated, manipulative and overall just not a pleasant woman to be around.

She has this weird thing that she thinks about telling me or our girls something, and never tells us, but will say she told us and get mad about it. It's insane how prevalent it is with her. It's borderline driving me and my girls crazy.

She claims to love me, gives me the same diatribe once a year about how she will be better, will become better. That work gets to her. Well she starts a new job that doubles her salary in 3 weeks and I could care less. She is adamant it will change our lives. But I see no future with her at all. I want a divorce but do not have the finances nor means in order to do so.

It's been years of feeling like this and I just do not know what to do anymore.

Wife and I have obviously been having a rough time and this far from the first rough episode, been married 4 years and we have a 4 month old

She hit a hard episode with post partum depression and ended up on meds for anxiety and depression, part of a much larger story than I’m willing to get into, thankfully she’s safe and everything is fine)
And that in it self is great for us, I think it’s gonna bring stability, or was at least hopeful it would to other aspects of our relationship.
She told me this morning on the phone that her meds are preventing her from orgasming while masturbating (she’s out of town at her sisters for support)and because of that she has no plans on having sex with me if she can’t orgasm, and that if I want a sex life I should pursue a divorce from her and move on to other women.

She has said a lot of messed up stuff to me since we have been together, but this one takes the cake for me

I don’t want to be divorced, I want to have a beautiful family and be a regular part of my sons life.
But this, this is a bit much.
We consider each other the most attractive people we have been with, we are both 40s and fit and active.
Processing this statement has been screwing with my head, so my apologies for taking a moment to vent

We have been married 10 years. We are going through a rocky patch and we are navigating a move to a new state and being empty nesters.

My husband was recently sick and rushed to hospital with an orbital infection that could have been life threatening from a sinus infection.

He ended up being ok after a week in the hospital on antibiotics.

A few days after he gets home he told me “ I heard these nurses trying to give a cath to a old man and he was embarrassed and they said “ oh honey we are immune to man parts, we see them everyday so don’t worry about that.”

They then come in my husband’s hospital room and he says “ god, sorry ladies I had no idea this job was so rough that it made you immune to cock” he said they laughed and that was it.

I was pissed. It’s weird. I would never say that to a man or male nurse. Then he said “ well we were fighting and damn near divorced”

Yes we were fighting and talking about separation but no where near close to divorce or even separation. It’s weird he said that as well.

Would any of you be upset? I’m starting to feel gaslit. There is is much more where I suspect things he is doing but this stood out

So long story short.
Been married 6 years, got two kids together.
Last year we’ve hit a bad spot, caught my husband having an affair, he swore it was mostly emotional connection, they only ever shared a kiss (I have never believed that but anyways) November last year he broke it off and we decided to make things better, he’s made some improvements and so have I, things felt better.
That was until March/April this year I found out this woman keeps messaging him and buying different SIM cards to keep in touch, he says he doesn’t reply, which I believe but I’d rather have been told.
From then have asked him to let me know whenever she messages, he will rarely tell me, because he says it will create a problem, I get upset - mostly at the situation.
So last night I did something I shouldn’t have, but I did, I read his messages between him and his friend, in which he was telling him she’d messaged again - he didn’t tell me. So they do mention the fact he doesn’t reply to her etc,
they were making a bit joke out of it all, but what got to me was he was making jokes about fucking her. I confronted him, he apologised and said it was only a joke, he didn’t mean any of it, it is just dirty talk with his friend making light of situation and it was private. I get that it was private but still the content of it I can’t quite handle.
For someone who says they’ve changed and learned from their behaviour, would you say that’s normal? Is that normal man behaviour? Just gross, really? Or would you say that no, that is not normal and no matter how you put it you should not be making light of something like that and joke about fucking this woman.
Pic for context, he made two jokes about sex with her btw.
I just don’t know what to do, I feel quite disrespected again, but it is also my fault, I should not have looked but on the same hand, this is my husband, and this is the shit he is saying behind my back, like….. he should be doing something for this woman to stop contact instead this is what he is doing.
Very confused, please send your opinions/advice my way, I truly appreciate it.
Thank you if you’ve got this far.

My wife and I have been together 20 years this coming New Years Eve.

I have a spinal chord injury from the military, that has had me retired for 19 years.

From all the marathon running intense exercising from my MOS, I had a resting heart rate of 24 right before my major accident that gave me the SCI.

I have significant nerve damage in all my extremities. Luckily early on in our relationship it was long distance, and this was during a time I was suffering from ED. The military did a pelvic procedure for me to regain some sensations, to help with bladder and bowel control mostly. It also allowed me to regain the ability to get an erection, however the sensation during sex is diminished.

Luckily we both have matching sex drives, and it's very high for both of us. Before kids, 50x a month wouldn't be considered unrealistic. Now that we have a few kids, and my father-in-law moved in to the room directly underneath our bedroom, and generally being much older it's been reduced to about 25 times a month.

Because of my nerve damage, my medications, and my still very strong heart, our sessions (not counting foreplay) usually last about an hour with the rare occasional session lasting over 2 hours.

The issues:

I'm pretty broken, and 3 separate doctors have now sent to me to 3 separate hospitals to try and explain my new injuries. The amount of time and ... effort I put in has caused a significant damage to my pelvic region. Because of the nerve damage, I can't really feel when things are hurting. As long as I'm breathing good, and hearts beating fine we keep going. Which is a problem when I used to measure my runs by how many hours I ran, and not miles.

I apparently tore my right labrum in multiple locations.

The leg dislocating and popping back in has deformed the ball on the femur.

Every single muscle and ligament attached the pelvis is inflamed. From Tendonitis to Bursitus.

Insertional Tears of bilateral hamstrings complex origins.

A lot more little things torn inside and out. With referrals to joint surgeon, and muscle surgeons.

The thing the doctors are most worried about it "Red Marrow Recruitment". My bodies yellow fatty marrow converted back to red blow cell producing marrow, as the body is demanding significantly more red blood cells.

Common reasons in my age range:

1) Heavy periods - I'm an old man, so not likely.

2) Living in really high elevation - we don't

3) Marathon - Severely leg disabled, so not likely.

4) Internal Bleeding - Maybe from the legs getting jammed back in to the socket?

Referral to Blood Doctors.

Even though I'm bed ridden and use a wheelchair for sports, my Cardiologist asked me if I'm competing in marathons, because my heart sounded like it.

My blood work came back where it was suggesting similar, that I was competing in marathons.

Now my bone marrow is saying the same thing.

So now I'm in a position where I have to explain to the doctor in too much detail that I am indeed still leg disabled. I have not been sneaking off to run intense marathons. I was just using my hip muscles to do all the work during sex. That's why everything is torn.

My wife is already too worried about hurting me, so it went from abundant to nothing really quickly. Of course I know the doctor will agree with her, but I also know either way getting a new hip, or resting the injuries, both are going to require us to abstain for a long time.

Just a position I never thought I would have to be in. So be careful out there and make sure to advocate for your medical needs.

Last thought: In my search for "hip pain during sex", I was bombarded with so much information for woman. Tons of devices to help, but nothing for men. It tells me it is something common enough for women, and something I had no idea existed until it affected me personally. My hats off to you.

My 23(f) hubby 23(m) starts his first day of training at his new job tomorrow, it’s a career change for him and we’re welcoming it happily. He’s feeling a bit nervous, and I’m hoping this will ease his mind a little bit tomorrow morning when he gets into his car and sees this.

I was in the middle of a workout, and my back was to him. I was already feeling self conscious about it and chose to ignore it because he's my husband and its not an issue. Suddenly i get told to fix my tights because I have a "double butt." He proceeded to put his hands inside my tights to "lift my but" So that it looks better. I pulled up my tights to accommodate the weird feeling going on. He said "dont pull them up it makes it worse." I then turned around feeling very insecure and told him how rude that was. He said sorry. I proceeded to explain how these types of comments are exactly why women go to 'female only' gyms. Now he's hurt by my gym comment saying im calling him a pervert (i never said the word pervert). And HE'S upset with ME. I expressed that he shouldn't flip it around and make himself the victim, and it made the whole situation a lot worse.

So I (f36) have been with my husband (m36) for 2 years now. We literally met and got married we thought it was just it and that we were both ready. I quickly got pregnant after about 1 month into it. I haven’t always been the best partner I have taken care of myself since I was young. I know as far as career, job and other life aspects I’ve done right. I worked hard bought my own house , moved up the corporate ladder and currently back in school to finally get my bachelor’s. Love life has always been a mess. I tend to always pick guys who I think have life goals and want more then they 180 the moment we move in together. This has happened 3 times throughout my life. Well to my current husband first time married again we jumped feet first. He moved in and I got pregnant right after. The pregnancy was so hard on me I was severely depressed and walking was hard as I shot up 90lbs during that time mind you 60 of it fell right off within the first month I had our child. I just retain weight like crazy. During this time he was good and he helped so much with the baby while I was on maternity leave. He’s a great dad he has another kid from his younger years. But when it came to our relationship there was nothing. No plans for dates, he would leave to go to the gym 7 days a week a conversation I had to make cause he left no time for us with the kids needing us. Once I was back to work I was the one getting everything ready for baby and I, making sure the dogs taken care of before I left and make his lunch. He just woke up and left to hit the gym before works I was the one picking up our child after work aswell. I finally stood up for myself and made him start getting the baby after he got off work. I stopped making his lunch and tried meal prepping for dinner so I wouldn’t be in the kitchen cooking when I got home near 7pm. I was drowning and still nothing. I tried telling him how I felt about him putting no effort into us as a couple and eventually he told me that’s just how it is. He didn’t try to change. I didn’t want to leave him cause he’s my husband I wanted us to work we just had a kid together. He got mad at me if I went out and would leave the house right after for hours. Like he had to get even that I was out without the baby. He would tell me to my face though that he was happy I got “me time” but wouldn’t even ask how my time was or if I had any fun. He was mad I wasn’t making dinner every night he’d ask “what’ for dinner?” and knew there was meal preps in the fridge. He’d wait for me to get home and have me heat it up. If I forgot a fork he’d complain then if I didn’t grab him a drink he’d say “I guess you want me to choke”. He’d complain I wasn’t a traditional wife for not doing everything for him.( I don’t do his laundry). I was handling majority of household work, bills, baby and dogs. I also pay 80% of household bills and expenses. How does he expect me to be traditional when I felt like I was a mom not a partner. Anyways the last fight we had he ignored me for a week (not new) I finally made him say it man up and tell me he didn’t want to be with me. He said I wasn’t traditional and this would never work. I was so angry and felt so used. Also this man broke a bone and has been non weight bearing for two months leaving everything to me. But he travels to his siblings house and can go hunting and hang with friends but can’t get his own water or change the babies diaper. I’m grateful this is done but I’m so mad I have to stay cordial with this loser cause he’s my child’s father. Also he’s trying to talk to me and be nice but I already asked him to leave. Oh yeah the house is mine both vehicles are mine. He has nothing to his name except title father to his kids. He didn’t want a wife that man wants a mom so he can sit around. There was a lot of stuff he did and said that would make any sane women leave a year ago. I can post smaller stories to those situations I just wanted to vent here.

I have been with my wife for almost 7 years. Married the last two. Our sex life is good. Never feels forced although I always have to make “the move” everytime. She’s never initiated. About 5 years in the BJs completely stopped. Completely. When we have sex we always start by me going down on her. Every single time. Recently I asked her why the BJs stopped and her answer was because I don’t have to try hard anymore. It really hurt me. That was about two months ago. I haven’t brought it up because I feel weird. Idk how to feel. Any opinions? Is that it for me and BJs? I love her to death and that would never be a reason I would leave. It just sucks. Do I stop going down on her?

He informed me this morning he got turned on by my sister last week when she bent over and he caught a glimpse of her crotch...

Im not upset about him being turned on by someone else...our sex life has been awful since having our child and going through a shit ton of grief. But my sister is a little much. I feel like he sexually harassed her. This is not the man I married.

To make matter worse, he TEXTED HER saying he was turned on etc and says he "accidentally" sent it. My sister believes he didnt mean to. She talked to him about it and he was remorseful. I guess he had a drink, but he can typically handle his liquor. So idk.

Im just really uncomfortable and dont know how to get past this. But also not in a position to leave.

Disclaimer: We're not married yet, just engaged, so I apologise in advance if this is not the right place in this post.

Also, this one is a bit longish and probably more that a little messy, my thoughts are currently all over the place...

We've been together for ten years, engaged for three and had plans to marry in December. We got engaged just before he quit his job, and it was a mutual decision so he can change his career after I successfully changed mine a year before. He's been unemployed for almost all three years of our engagement and he managed to find a job at the start of this year with my help.

As soon as he started to work, we decided to renovate the apartment we live in (he's the only owner), and the money came from the loan I took on my name (and yes, I'm aware it was a stupid decision). Even before that, we had problems: there was almost no affection on his side anymore, and I'd often had to beg just for a simple hug, which was more often than not greeted with either rejection, or accompanied with eye rolls and heavy sighs. After I took a loan, and spent it on his apartment and new car (which is also on his name), he got even worse, saying many very hurtful and insulting things, knowing very well that I cannot leave due to huge loan on my name and having nowhere else to go.

At first, I thought I'm just overreacting and blowing things out of proportions. But, when he refused to go on a trip together for a weekend with the car I bought him (we never went anywhere but occasional fishing trips because he claimed his old car cannot handle anything else), and even got so far to claim my wishes aren't something worth bothering with (unlike his wishes for which he insisted we do together), I got fed up with everything. So, I started to act exactly as he's been acting for more than half of our relationship.

I stopped initiating affection, I stopped dealing with household chores apart from when I really needed to, I stopped trying to spend time doing his hobbies with him and instead poured all my energy in my own hobbies and career that's been feeding us for almost five years. At the same time, I started to put a little bit of money on the side, just so I have a backup plan in case everything goes to shit. All of this happened in June, and about a month ago he finally noticed the change. We had a talk and I pointed out several very hurtful things he said to me. To my surprise, he didn't remember saying any of it. He didn't say I made it up openly, but he didn't have to. Then I told him how unhappy I am lately, and how are this point I don't really see the future with him anymore.

He got pissed, and told me I should be ashamed of myself. That he sacrificed himself doing low paying jobs when I was changing my career, how he invested in me instead in himself at that period, and this is how I repaid him. How, instead of giving him the same support, I now want to toss ten years and everything we built together down the drain. And when I pointed out how I did support him for three years, and even put myself in debt so we can finally have a proper home, and that I'm tired of being the bread winner and a housewife and the only responsible adult in our household, he called me selfish and went on about how he tried hard too during last three years (read: gave a bare minimum and spend most of the time playing games or doom scrolling through fishing shorts), but was just unlucky.

There was a lot more, but long story short, at the end of that conversation, he apologised, vowed to try harder and proclaimed I'll be leaving only over his dead body. He's determined to fix our relationship and make it work.

And he really did change, to an extent. Now he's the one that initiates affection, he does the chores I ask him to do, and he's overall more closer to a man I fell for. But, I didn't change back to my old behaviour.

Few days ago, we had another talk, and he told me he wants the same level of affection from me like he had before. He said that, since he changed for the better and has been trying really hard to make our relationship work, it's only fair I do the same. But, to be honest, I don't think I can. It feels like a part of me that cared enough to try again died.

Which brings me to my main question. Could his change really be genuine, or Is it just a desperate attempt to keep his main provider? And, is there any way to salvage our relationship at this point? Is it possible to bring back that part of me that cared and wanted to make an effort? If yes, how? And if not... Has anyone here had the similar situation and ended the long relationship even when the other side did everything right?

(Throwaway account for privacy reasons)

My husband (31) and I (29) have been together for 12 years, married for 4. We started dating when we were both 16 and 18. After I graduated high school, I left my home country to study abroad, which ensued into a 4 years long distance relationship.

We now live together in Japan. He's Japanese but was raised in my home country.

Last April, we nearly divorced. My husband was questioning his feelings and whether he wanted to stay in the relationship. He talked about wanting to experience being single and living alone for a while. This wasn't the first time he'd had doubts about us. He told me he has felt pressure during our first years in Japan to take care of me, especially financially, since I came to Japan as a graduate student and didn't earn money. On top of that, we've recognized that I had an anxious attachment style, while he was an avoidant, so it makes our communication a bit complicated (I need to talk and share my thoughts to analyze and understand in a rational way, while he's very confused about his feelings and struggles to express himself) . On top of that, the timing was pretty bad: we've rushed getting married in 2022 for visa reasons, but didn't have our ceremony until April 2025 due to Covid, and had planned our honeymoon in May 2026 (vacations days number issue).

I have been very deeply shaken by that time, and I worked really hard to myself to become a secure person. Not just to retain him, but because I knew that no matter the outcome, I needed to be able to stand on my own.

Recently, he started talking about these issues again and told me he wanted to experiment living on his own to sort his feelings. I was not thrilled, but after so much growth, I felt agreeable of the idea.

But last night, he confessed he had been having an affair for a whole year (which includes the time we went on our honeymoon in the midst of our relationship turmoil). On top of it, it involved a girl (36) he met through his work that is also married. He told me it started with her telling him her feelings, and instead of turning her down, he got involved to the point of developing feelings for her. Their relationship was intermittent and on and off. When they were in contact, they met two or three times a month, and my husband told me they attempted to end things several times. She apparently initiated the last attempts a few days ago, and the reason my husband came clean was because he felt it was unfair for me to discuss our relationship issues and him living on his own without the full picture. He also said he didn't want me to see him with "pink-tinted glasses" at a time we were trying to repair our relationship and discussing.

I was shocked, since I never suspected anything, but here's where things get tangled.

During our long-distance relationship when we were both 19 and 21, the second year was really hard on us. He said texting every day was too much for him, and I felt very lonely and abandoned. But I deeply loved him (still do) and couldn't imagine breaking things off, so I suggested we open our relationship. At the time, I was also dreading the risk of us growing only together without experimenting, which could lead to cheating later (and so I was right).   He agreed reluctantly, but after a few days, he said he was miserable and couldn't accept it so we closed it. However, and this is were I was wrong and don't want to hide it, that situation didn't nothing for me, so I kept acting as if the relationship was open and had a few adventures/one night stand over the 3 years that I remained aboard. I suspected he was aware of my actions, but never had the courage to come clean until he told me about his affair. So I told him too, both to alleviate my own hurt by hurting him too, and to finally let go of this burden.

Another thing is, when he confessed his affair, I was extremely mad ofc, but also felt relieved.

First, because of my own past actions, but also because this whole time when he was saying he was having doubts about me, there was actually a critical piece of the puzzle I was missing. I was torturing myself about how to solve our issues without knowing he was having an affair behind my back.

There's also the part where, if we can't repair/rebuild our relationship, him cheating is giving me a socially and morally acceptable reason to leave, instead of having to explain his uncertainty and doubts. While I don't want to consider a divorce without trying to work together on it, I'm aware that him admitting his cheating conveniently made him the bad guy. And with me coming clean about my own actions too, it also kinda change the mindset of being the only victim, although our circumstances were very different)

I don't really know what I expect from this post, but sharing this with strangers feels more comforting while I'm still processing things. I would be curious about hearing people's stories about repairing after cheating, especially in a case like this one where there has been cheating on both sides.

For now, I think we'll try to work on our relationship, but nothing is decided yet.

We’ve been together 12 years and still have an incredibly active sex life. We don’t have sex everyday but pretty close, and several times a week have sex multiple times a day. I’d say we easily average over 10x a week….its been like this since our first month together and neither of us were like this with previous partners/relationships.

We both have careers and yes we have kids but we always find the time for intimacy with each other. I’m asking because no one in our circles of friends have this kind of active sex life and I’m hoping we’re not the only ones.

Be honest and don't sugarcoat ur replies

My wife and I have been together about 15 years. We were youngish when we married(22M & 20F). We’ve always been friends before getting together and since, and agree and so much when it comes to family planning and like how we want to live our lives. We have two high achieving kids, ( F16 & M13 - state marching band,choir, theater, community activism/politics). We are both kinda liberal, if that matters and have always agreed on how to raise them and how to structure a family.

My issue is that my wife doesn’t really see me as a “MAN”. I don’t want her to be a 50s housewife, but I think that me giving her that grace makes her think I’m not tough…or like stereotypically manly..? I’ve turned that side of me on a few times when a situation come up (guys hitting on her, weird dudes at the gas station etc), but she’s told me it kind of scared her to see me be aggressive. And when we are just talking she’s pointed out how I haven’t put that same spirit into our son, but I don’t want to if that will make him a jerk lol.

When I was younger and not a family man I’d fight people for disrespecting me, chugged beers, was misogynistic towards girls to get their attention. As her husband and a father now I feel like I’ve learned and grown so much that I don’t do that stuff, it’s for young & immature guys.

I know this is too long of a post, but this is the advice paragraph lol. My wife has started to say things that make me think she wants my 21y self back. How can I fulfill what she’s looking for in a man while not being a guy that she would never deal with? How can I encourage that same spirit in my son, without having him having to think of the same stuff I am now? I have that in me but don’t want her to think I’m like a crazy guy (if that makes sense)
I want to teach my son how to approach a girl, but not be a creep, to be like I was but not be a “bully”. I want my wife to feel safe with me, but not feel like I’m creating confrontations in public.

I don’t know if this makes sense, but I’m kind of reaching out. My wife got with me when I was a rough and tumble young guy and we grew up together into a great family, but I also have to (and want to) be a good example for my kids.

In short I love my wife, my kids, and my life. But I also want to adapt to be an even better husband/father. I’m struggling with how to do all that in a way that my family will embrace.

i’ve known about my husband’s fantasy of having a threesome since before we got married. it almost happened a couple times even. i was totally on board because our sex life was amazing and i felt so loved and sexy to him i had no doubt that it would change a thing between us.

then i got pregnant. he wasn’t really into pregnant sex while i could have gone 3x a day throughout my entire pregnancy. we maybe had sex 6 times. then came postpartum. despite breastfeeding my drive remained pretty stable for a postpartum woman and i was the one initiating and felt like i was the one keeping the fire alive. he would turn me down so often i completely stopped initiating or even saying or touching him sexually at all. that was a few months ago and our child just turned 1. since i’ve stopped doing this our sex life almost completely died. i’m very understanding about the reasons why he claims it’s not happening baby stress exhaustion etc because my sex drive is lowered for the same reasons but it’s only about once a month at this point and when it does happen it’s not satisfying to me because it’s less than 5 mins from start to finish.

i booked us a hotel for his birthday and wanted to spice things up and i communicated i was excited to have sexy time all week. when i tried to initiate that morning and that night he claimed he was too tired and hungover. the next day i brought it up again (ive brought up our intimacy issues regularly since being pregnant) and he blamed exhaustion and drinking too much. i said something has to change because i feel like giving up because ive been rejected by him so much it feels like a humiliation ritual. he assured me he wants the same thing and would work to rebuild.

that was a week ago. it all came to a head tonight when we had a little date together at home and drank a shot from our wedding day bottle. i asked him what a fantasy of his was and he said a threesome. this hurt me to my core. i’ve known that that is his fantasy so it’s not exactly new information that shocked me to hear but how is THIS what he says to me while i’m making an effort to rebuild our intimacy. i was desperate to hear any evidence of his sexual desire towards me since everything changed after becoming a mother and his response was to invite another person into our relationship. im so hurt.

I recently got married, and instead of feeling happy when I think about our wedding, I cry. I’m trying to figure out whether this is something a marriage can realistically come back from, or whether I’m struggling to accept what the experience showed me about my relationship.

My husband and I have been together for four years. Neither of us typically drinks much—usually no more than a glass of wine. He knows that excessive drinking is particularly upsetting to me because of experiences in my family.

There were problems throughout the wedding weekend that individually might sound relatively minor, but together made me feel like I was not his priority.

On the way to our wedding, he screamed at me because I was about to miss a turn. We weren’t late and there was no time pressure. What hurts isn’t simply that he lost his temper. I remember thinking that we were driving to our wedding and should have been happy and excited together, and instead I was being yelled at.

There were also several situations involving our families and friends. I had made a deliberate effort throughout our engagement to include his family and make them feel important, even including them in things like wedding dress shopping. During the wedding weekend, I didn’t feel that he made the same effort with mine.

At the rehearsal dinner, his side was already much more represented than mine. When two of my cousins weren’t sure they could attend, he used those openings to invite even more of his relatives. He was also responsible for transportation arrangements and confirmed transportation for his friends but accidentally failed to do so for mine. My friends fortunately had a car, but that meant they couldn’t drink because they had to drive themselves.

Again, none of these things individually would make me question my marriage. What hurt was the pattern: he seemed very aware of whether his people were taken care of and almost completely unaware of whether mine were.

Then came the reception.

He got extremely drunk—stumbling and slurring his words. Meanwhile, I was completely sober.

He essentially did not spend time with me unless a photographer or wedding obligation required him to. He didn’t seek me out, check on me, hug me, dance with me, or show me affection or appreciation on his own.

I danced alone. I talked to his family alone. I made sure guests were getting onto their shuttles at the appropriate times alone. My bustle failed and I spent much of the night struggling to hold my dress up. Nobody noticed that I needed help.

I wanted us to walk around together and thank everyone for coming. I wanted our guests to see us celebrating our marriage together. Mostly, I just wanted to spend some of our wedding reception with the man I had just married.

Instead, I watched him being extremely affectionate and physical with other women at the wedding, particularly unmarried women. He had his arms around women, was touchy and affectionate with them, and at one point I watched him pull a woman neither of us really knew closer to him with his hand on her lower back.

I cannot adequately describe what it felt like to watch my husband freely give other women the physical affection I desperately wanted from him at our own wedding.

If he hadn’t been required to stand next to me for photographs and wedding obligations, I genuinely don’t know that he would have voluntarily spent any meaningful amount of time with me that night.

That’s the part I keep coming back to. He didn’t simply get too drunk. He got drunk and seemed to forget that I existed.

Afterward, we went to couples therapy and I told him how devastated I was.

His initial response was defensiveness. He insisted that he would never behave the way I was describing.

Then he did something that somehow hurt me almost as much as the wedding itself.

He contacted several of his friends who had attended and asked for their recollections of the night. He then sent me their perspectives as evidence that what I was describing hadn’t happened the way I remembered it.

Unsurprisingly, his friends hadn’t noticed. They were drinking and celebrating with him. They weren’t watching whether the groom had checked on his wife, hugged her, danced with her, or how much time he spent with her.

I was sober. I know what I saw and I know what I experienced.

More importantly, I had shared something incredibly vulnerable with my husband: that I felt abandoned, unwanted and humiliated at my own wedding. Instead of listening to me, he disclosed those feelings to people we actually know in an attempt to determine whether my experience was accurate.

I have never felt so exposed or humiliated.

I ended up leaving our house and staying in a hotel for two nights. It was only after that that he genuinely acknowledged what had happened and apologized.

Now I don’t know what to do.

I’ve tried asking myself what he could do to repair this, and I genuinely don’t know. I can’t tell him how to give me my wedding back. What I needed was for this never to happen.

I needed my husband to want to spend time with me at our wedding.

I needed him to check on me.

I needed him to appreciate the enormous amount of work I put into making the wedding happen.

I needed him to treat my family as though they mattered just as much as his.

I needed him not to get so drunk that he became a completely different person.

I needed him to give me the affection he was freely giving other women.

And afterward, I needed him to listen to me and believe that I was hurting rather than assemble witnesses to determine whether my experience was legitimate.

There are things I know I would need if I stayed. I need our private conversations—especially therapy—to remain private. I need immediate accountability rather than defensiveness followed by accountability only after things escalate. I need a partner who is on my team. Given what happened and our history around alcohol, I also don’t think I can be comfortable married to someone who gets drunk. And I need the standards around interactions with other men/women to apply equally to both of us.

But I don’t know whether meeting those needs now would actually repair what happened.

When I was alone at the hotel, I asked myself a question that scared me: If there were no wedding expenses, embarrassment, expectations, or fear of explaining this to everyone, what would I want?

My answer was that I would leave.

I would start over, find myself again, and stop accepting a relationship that makes me feel this way.

I don’t know whether that answer came from acute hurt or whether it’s something I’ve been unwilling to admit to myself.

The wedding photos are especially difficult. I look at myself in them and see how happy I was. Everything had come together, and I thought my husband and I were about to spend the night celebrating our marriage with everyone we loved.

I had no idea how alone I was about to feel.

I’m not asking Reddit to decide whether my memories of my own wedding are accurate. I’ve already experienced having other people brought in to evaluate that, and I don’t want to do it again.

What I am asking is this:

For people who have experienced a major betrayal or rupture immediately after getting married, how did you distinguish between something that could be repaired and something that fundamentally changed how you saw your partner?

How do you know whether you actually want reconciliation versus desperately wanting the relationship you thought you were going to have?

And if your partner eventually takes genuine accountability, how do you determine whether the damage has already changed the relationship too much for you to want to continue?

Can’t stand mistreatment, but can’t leave yet.

He cusses at me daily. Every weekend he makes me cry. Criticizes me. Sighs and is annoyed with everything I do or say to him. When will I get the courage to leave him? When will I understand my self worth?

I’m tired of crying myself to sleep.

My husband of 13 years, together 16, has been dishonest and lying since the beginning. Apparently, he has a porn addiction and messages woman all the time. Everyone thinks he’s the sweetest guy but he hangs with so many people and needs so much attention.

He has been deleting his history but I was able to find A LOT of gross activity. Diagnosed narcissist and just SO good. He had me fooled for 16 years and I pride myself on seeing who people really are. Whoops.

He’s being downloading dating and hook up apps for years. Like since 2017. When I confronted him, he got mad and said, “ Yeah I downloaded them but I didn’t do anything.

I never knew him at all. He’s been on 17 different apps but continues to lie. He says 3 or 4. 😹😹😹

And he posted this AI pic and many more that are just ridiculous.

I am completely lost and have no idea what I should do. I’m currently spiraling and I just don’t have any clue as how to navigate this. So I’ve probably done this absolute worst thing I could do and have looked to Reddit to help. If nothing else I think I have to get this out before I just go out of my mind. Sorry this is long.

I (46m) and my wife (45f) have been married for 22 years. We’ve been together for more than half our lives. This morning she left to get her nails done and run a couple of errands. I work from home so I stayed here. While she was gone I went into our bedroom. On her side of the bed there was a small, white tote with the lid off. We have a few clear totes like this in our bedroom that we use for Christmas decoration stuff so I didn’t think much of it, but I took a look inside b/c I didn’t recognize this particular one. Inside wasn’t decorations but a collection of notebooks. I immediately recognized one as a journal of hers from about 20 years ago. I didn’t even know she had kept journaling after that time period. As soon as I realized what the books were I immediately grabbed the lid and was going to close the lid but something caught my eye before I did.

One of the notebooks was opened and laying on top. I glanced but purposefully tried to not read anything but at the top of the page my wife had written the date of the entry. The date of the entry was from 2022. I think if it had been 2026 I would have just closed put the lid on & moved on but the older date made me curious. I know it’s fucked up but I started skimming the pages. It was mostly mundane, usual stuff except for one thing - a line about a joke one of her coworkers had made (let’s call him Adrian because that’s his fucking name). On his name she had drawn a little heart. That one little thing made my stomach drop. I started flipping back through the journal desperately trying to find places where his name was written. It didn’t take long before I found something. Sometime around the summer of ‘22 my wife apparently started to develop significant feelings for this guy. Deep feelings. Building to one entry in which she declared her love for him in her journal. In that one she says that she doesn’t think she has ever felt anything like this, even for me. She described dream scenarios in which the two of them ended up together. She talked about how being near him for the two days a week she worked were the happiest moments of her life. Every single word was like another stone being put on top of my chest. Despite the pain I would have read every single line but then I heard the garage door. I panicked & put the book down & put the lid on the tote. Before my wife found me I went to the bathroom so she wouldn’t see me b/c at that point I had been basically sobbing for about an hour. She called out to me through the door. I told her I was just under the weather. She’s now left again to finish her errands, but not before she put the box back up to wherever she had it before. And that brings me to now basically.

I messaged my work to let them know I was going to be out for the rest of the day. Before anyone tells me - I KNOW that I should have walked away without reading her journal. Believe I am painfully aware that this is a huge violation & betrayal of her privacy. In my (very flimsy) defense, I thought she may have left the journals out for me to find. The reason I recognized the journal from
20 years ago is because my wife had me read it. We lost our first pregnancy & she was very much struggling (we both were really) & she didn’t think she could say what she wanted to share with me out loud so she had me read her journal instead. Earlier this year my wife lost her mother, who she was very close to. So there was tiny part of my brain that thought maybe she left the journals out on purpose for me to find. That’s probably just bullshit rationalization though.

But I am now completely destroyed. My heart is absolutely shattered and it feels like my soul has been ripped out of my body. I don’t think there was any kind of physical affair because there wasn’t anything from the journals that mentioned it. From what I was able to read I don’t even know that she ever revealed her feelings to this guy. But reading this has now made me question almost everything, including my instinct to trust my wife. It’s also made me think back to that time & realize that there was a significant change in our physical intimacy around that time. She used to barely be affection when we’d do things like watch tv but as soon as we got into bed she’d physically all over me. Around that same summer it basically flipped. I chalked it up to different stress factors but now I very much wonder. Also because I do pretty well financially my wife was able to retire about 2 years ago. Adrian moved to a different office shortly after that happened. My wife stayed relatively close with a couple of people at her former office & is always invited to the company Christmas party. Last year Adrian was suppose to be at the party & when he didn’t show my wife was clearly miffed. At the time I didn’t think too much about it because I thought 1) they were friends & so naturally she was hoping to see him & 2) he had made a promise to appear to one of the people that my wife is still close to that still works there & that person was pissed at being lied to. Now I wonder though if my wife has ever gotten over her feelings.

I don’t know that it matters. In my relationship I have always loved my wife more than she loves me. And I’ve been okay with that. She doesn’t have to think I hung the moon & the stars because to me the moon & the stars don’t mean anything without her. But to now know that she thinks someone else did hang them? I honestly don’t know that I can live with that. It’s one thing to think to myself that my wife might have settled for me, it’s another thing completely to actually read it in black and white from her.

She’s probably going to be back soon and I haven’t the foggiest on what to do. I don’t even know that I’ll be able to look at her. I feel so sad, and hurt, and foolish, and ashamed. I guess this is karma for reading her journal.

So Reddit - what the fuck do I do? Is this worth ending 20+ years of marriage? How do I get over this?

Ps - I made a new Reddit account because my ‘normal’ username would be a dead giveaway for my wife. It might not matter anyway.

Apologies for any grammar or spelling errors. English is my first language but i am an idiot.