In a recent Reddit post, a woman confessed to accusing her ex-husband of cheating. She thought he (her 38-year-old husband) was cheating on her with a woman who lived down the street, Jen, 30F. She confronted him about it, and although she didn’t outright accuse him of cheating, she was still angry that she felt like he was hiding something from her. She apologized when she found out he was working an extra hour to surprise her with a new house on her anniversary. However, what happened next is so strange you have to read it to find out what happened and share your thoughts about it.
The Story:
“I’m 39f. My recently ex- husband is 38m. We were married for ten years before divorcing last year. I accused him of cheating on me, I didn’t believe when he told me he was working longer shifts at work since we still always seemed tight on cash, I thought he was cheating on me with a woman who lived down the street, Jen, 30f, since I saw she was on his recent calls quite a few times, both phone calls/video calls, and I saw her name pop up multiple times sending him texts throughout the week, but my husband doesn’t keep texts from anyone so I didn’t know what they were.
I confronted him about it and although I didn’t outright accuse him of cheating I was definitely angry about feeling like he was hiding something from me, and made that clear.
As it turned out, he was working extra hours and putting the money into a separate account to surprise me with a groundbreaking for an extension on our house on the ten year anniversary of us buying it. The conversations with the Jen were him coordinating with her watching the kids while both of us were working while the daycare was closed (when he picked up extra weekend shifts) and the phone calls/video calls were him checking on the kids. He was able to verify all of this with bank account records, emails to and from the builder, and screenshots of the messages between her and him from her end of the conversation. I apologized to him for not believing him, but at this point he said he couldn’t believe that I would ever think he was cheating on me. He said he felt incredibly hurt and said that he would never think something like that about me, and that he never would’ve assumed the worst about me. He asked for space so we first went to living in separate bedrooms, then after a bit he moved into the basement, the entire time he was acting strange and distant and like a stranger to me, only acting normal around the kids.
After a few weeks of that he officially asked for a divorce. I asked if we could do couples therapy first, and he said that there was no point since I didn’t trust him, but eventually he agreed, we went to one session and he admitted that him realizing I had no faith in him after he was working so hard for our family really hurt his self confidence and he didn’t think it was something he could repair while he was still with me, and he again asked for a divorce.
He bought me out of my half of the house, which I put towards a small house close by and our kids split their time between us.
I heard that he began dating Jen from my friend, who lives down the street from him. At first my ex insisted that she was still just helping with the kids, but after four months he admitted they were dating, once the extension was done she moved in and yesterday he asked her to marry him.
I’m happy for him but there’s still a part of me that feels shocked and somewhat resentful this all happened. I feel as though it was a happy surprise if he had told me about his plans for the extension none of this would have happened.
ETA someone asked if I knew she was watching my kids- no, I didn’t. I assumed they were at home with my husband while I was working.”
The Responses:
The post received more than 2000 responses, we have collected some of the most interesting ones below:
wehnaje said:
“They’d have to be under 3/4 years old because once kids start talking is a never ending story of absolutely EVERYTHING that happened in their day.
It’s weird they wouldn’t mentioned Jen is she was there so often.
Even if they’ve asked the kids to keep it a secret, kids still at least hint something is going on enough to rise an eyebrow.”
LillithSanguinum commented:
Yes… Like they never talked about the time spent with Jen?
Iluminiele commented:
OP, are your kids just small babies that you don’t see much or are they the best actors ever?
T-money79 said:
“Glad it all worked out.”
gideonspromises commented:
I’m fascinated by the fact that 1) people assume this was the ONE event that ended this marriage. I practiced family law for 15 years. There’s always more to it than that;and 2) that there was no “evidence” of cheating but apparently there are people who assume she was miserable to live with. What evidence is there of that.
In my experience this could just be a marriage that had some very under the surface issues and this was the stick of dynamite, or he was at least part way out the door when this happened.
mcjon77 commented:
“For those of you wondering about how convenient it was that he wound up with jen, it actually makes sense if you look at it from Jen’s perspective.
Here she is, interacting with this guy who seems like the perfect husband. He’s going through all of this trouble just to celebrate his wife’s and his 10-year anniversary of owning a house. He’s doing all of these wonderful things just to make his wife happy. Assuming Jen is single at 30, she’s going to notice those things. Those traits in your husband are going to start looking super super attractive.
Then when you basically accuse him of cheating, your husband’s going to be devastated. Since Jen had so much involvement regarding the planning and execution of your would-be anniversary gift, it makes perfect sense that he talks to her about what happened and perhaps relies on her for some emotional support.
Once he got divorced, she was ready to make her move, and why wouldn’t she? Why bother trying to find a different guy who has all of these wonderful traits that she knows you’re now ex-husband has? She would have been a fool not to. At 30 years old, she knows that guys like your husband are really rare.”
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