Cheating Wife Doesn't know - I KNOW... [ PART II ]

The most anticipated Reddit story is now fully updated with 10 more updates from OP. This episode starts with part one for the ones who like a rerun, but if you don't, feel free to start from update 13, so you can pick up where you left off. The aftermath of this real Reddit story became even more brutal and insane. Brace yourself for more on this cheating terrorist cell. A homeless woman wearing Prada with luxurious stockings. A fleeky baddy kitten. New love. And uh not to forget the beauty hair artist losing hair. Oh boy. I don't know where to begin, but I guess there's no easy way to say this. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me. I'm 30 years old. I work from home as a software developer. My wife Emily is 28. She's very beautiful. She's a hair and makeup artist. She's incredibly talented at what she does. She mostly works with brides and bridal parties, but over the last couple of years, her career has really taken off. A lot of that success is thanks to John, who owns a really popular local wedding venue. Jon has been a huge connection for her. Through him, she's gotten work with photographers, local advertising agencies, and even a few small modeling gigs. She's even modeled in some local ads herself. John's in his 40s, married with three kids, and his wife is pretty for a mom of three. I guess I get it, though. My wife is younger and way better looking. Our marriage has been great as far as I know. Emily and I have been together since high school. We're still best friends. We have regular date nights, an active and exciting sex life, and she's always been thoughtful and caring. I never doubted her love for me. That's why this blindsided me. A week ago, I was working from home and I heard an email notification from my wife's laptop which was plugged in for charging. She had logged into it before going to the gym and she doesn't like her computer locking automatically when she leaves it alone. She forgot to lock it before leaving it. I saw the email preview notification from John and it looked fishy. So, I opened it. It wasn't romantic. It wasn't even sexual. It was logistical. a time, a place, and some comment about keeping things discreet. But it was the last line that floored me. Oh, you're incredible. I can't stop thinking about last night. I thought about last night. She came home late, said she'd had a long shoot with a photographer, and we had dinner together, like everything was fine, normal. I scrolled back through her messages and emails. Most of it was mundane, work-related, professional, but sprinkled throughout were little hints, things that didn't sit right. John saying she looked beyond stunning at an event. Emily thanking him, but keeping it neutral. Nothing about love, nothing about feelings, but it was clear something was happening. Then I read an email about booking a hotel for them both in town. It said it was the usual place. I felt like I'd been punched in the chest. I started panicking about it and went online looking for information about cheating. I read about the red flags and thought about the ones she showed. Emily's work schedule had gotten a bit more unpredictable over the last few months. She'd started dressing up more, new outfits, sexy underwear, even on days when she said she was just running errands. She was grooming more down there. But I thought she was doing it for me. There were nights when she came home later than usual, blaming long shoots or last minute bridal emergencies. But she never seemed distant. She never pulled away from me. If anything, she was more attentive, initiating more often, planning surprise date nights, and constantly telling me how much she loved me. That's the part that stings the most. I didn't feel like I was losing her. I felt like we were closer than ever. I started paying closer attention. Later, I was snooping around the house on the pretense of cleaning, and I found a small jewelry box tucked into one of her makeup drawers. Inside was a necklace, simple but expensive looking. I hadn't bought it for her. When I asked about it casually later, she said it was a gift from a client. I didn't question it at the time. It seemed plausible. She works with high-end brides all the time, and clients giving her gifts isn't unheard of. But now, I couldn't get the image of that necklace out of my mind. I also started noticing other things. the new clothes and underwear, the grooming, little shifts in her behavior that seemed harmless on the surface, but now felt suspicious. I've been copying the messages to my computer and torturing myself by going over and over them. It goes back about a year, which is when her hair and makeup business started booming. Here's the thing. I don't think Emily loves Jon. I've read through the messages and while he's clearly infatuated with her, she keeps him at arms length emotionally. There's no I miss you or I love you. Just logistics, compliments, and occasional thanks. One time she even wrote, >> "Haha, oh, go tell that to your wife." >> But it doesn't matter. She's sleeping with him. She's lying to me. And I don't know how to process that. I haven't confronted her yet. I don't even know how to start that conversation. I keep telling myself I need more proof, but maybe I'm just delaying the inevitable. All I know is that the woman I thought I knew, the woman I married, seems to be another guy. If I confront her, she's going to deny it either way, right? I know I should probably just sit down and talk with her, but then that would clue her in, right? I googled it and we live in an at fault state. We don't have kids. So if I divorce and I have proof of her cheating, she won't get any spousal support. Also, couldn't she just make up terrible that I did to her in order to control the narrative with our families? I mean, I don't think she'd do that, but I didn't think she'd cheat on me either. It's late and I'm drunk. I'll check out what Reddit has to say about it, but I just want to go pass out for now. and hear any recommendations from people who have been through this. I mean, it doesn't seem like she loves him. But it doesn't even matter at this point if she's cheating on me. She is no longer still your best friend. No one that had true authentic love in their heart would ever betray you like this. You're the only person that can figure out if you can somehow get past this. But if you want to know if she has authentic remorse for what she has done, divorce her at fault in which she walks away from the marriage, no contest, with the minimum necessary to start over. Then the two of you can figure out if you want to give it another try. If your wife has been doing this for a year, she absolutely doesn't have an ounce of regret for cheating on you. And she absolutely isn't who you thought she was. So, no friend, think of her as your new project. Hear me out. Unpredictability is the enemy of a cheater. Start doing things out of the blue. Go out with friends without her. Take trips to the store. Go out of the room to answer or talk on your phone. End calls abruptly if she enters the room. Start guarding your phone. Set it face down when you're with her, but look at it routinely. Anything you can do to get out of the house for work, do it. Even go into the office if you have one. Routinely, but random. Get up early to go running, breakfast, or go to the gym. Getting a gym membership with a personal trainer and casually mention it. If she asks why, tell her you want to get into shape for her. Remember, you're going to be single soon, so getting into your best shape is a good thing. Stay away from alcohol or drugs. The exception would be if you're a beer drinker, then start drinking wine or vice versa. You'd be amazed how that will get them guessing. Go out with friends randomly. Never come home when you advertise. Stay out late. Go home or don't go out at all after you tell her you're going out. Start sleeping randomly in the guest room with some excuse like your back is bugging you or you're having trouble sleeping. Get up in the middle of the night to sleep in the guest room. Stop being intimate with your weward wife. Or if you do, start using condoms, telling her it's for her not to deal with the cleanup. Try to mirror things or behaviors she does. If she doesn't text or call when out, you don't text or call or pick up. If she turns her location services off, you turn yours off. Show up to some of her events if can. If she's doing a photo shoot, go to it unannounced, but with a story like you wanted to take her out. Place or change all passwords on all your devices. Download Snapchat and other cheater apps. Start up chats on those apps with friends when she fails to come home when she should. Stop asking any questions about what she's doing. And be short and vague when she asks you questions. Indifference is another thing cheaters hate. I swear it crumbles them. They have lies ready for you and get mad when you don't ask for them. Faithful spouses are typically very predictable, which cheating partners find and blame you for being boring. Find out as much as you can about the affair partner's wife. If there's any way to run into her someplace, it would be perfect not to do anything but to keep the cheaters wondering. Ask your weward wife questions that you normally would not ask. Do you think I'm still good-looking or things like that? You did some of those. Buy new clothes, new wardrobes, perfumes, and a facial routine. Send a message loud and clear. Dress up better than you normally do going in the office or even when you're working from home. You don't have to do all the things I suggested, but again, be unpredictable. You'll actually find it keeps your mind active and not thinking about your weward wife's cheating. You don't have to be mean, but always think about an excuse when she asks what you're doing differently. If you can use anything to improve yourself for her type answers, it's the best way. Your unpredictability will give her something to talk about out with her affair partner. >> Wow, this story breaks my heart. Reading it was like jumping into my Wayback machine and getting out in the spring of 1978 when the love of my life stepped out on me repeatedly before just moving out. It's mentally devastating and extremely tough to come back from. I'm still struggling with this, thus my addiction to Reddit. Since my first post, I did a lot of reading on Reddit and other forums about how to spot and catch cheaters. Her phone is password protected, and I don't know the password. She's also pretty good about locking her computer, and it was just a fluke that I was able to catch it before, so I knew I needed to get evidence. The following is not my idea. This is all advice I got by obsessively reading Reddit stories and comments as well as other forums. I ordered some cameras off of the internet that look like smoke detectors. I convinced Emily that our home insurance would go down. If I put smoke detectors in every room, I ordered a book off of the same site called How to be a Great Husband, Discover the Secrets to a Happy Marriage Without Changing Your Wife. and I left it around for her to see. She did and I could tell it made her uncomfortable. I got a GPS tracker and a voice activated recorder, VR, along with some strong Velcro for putting it under her driver's seat. Unfortunately, you have to subscribe to a service to use the tracker. But I figure I won't be subscribed to it very long. Now, this has all been happening from when I first became suspicious until now. Just a couple of days ago is when I finally got everything set up. When I got the recorder, I tested it by hiding it in the table centerpiece and I sat Emily down and asked her questions. Honey, I'm doing a personal inventory to try to be a better husband and partner. To that end, I wanted to ask you some serious questions and I want serious answers. Do you feel I have ever abused you in our marriage? Do you feel I've ever cheated on you in our marriage? Is there anything you feel I could do to improve myself as a husband? Again, I ripped this off of a comment I read on a cheating story on Reddit. I didn't come up with this. To the first question, she said, "No, of course not." To the second, she seemed reluctant, but answered no. To the third one, she said she wished we made love more. We've fallen off quite a lot since I got suspicious for obvious reasons, but I tried to initiate a couple of times just to keep her complacent. My heart's not in it when we do it, and I think she can tell. I asked these questions so that she couldn't make up stuff about me abusing her or cheating on her later on. I don't think she would make up lies about me, but I didn't think she'd cheat on me either, so I don't know the woman anymore. The recorder got it all and I transferred the recording to the cloud. I put electrical tape over the display of the recorder so there wouldn't be a glow under her seat at night. And I plugged some cheap wired earbuds into the jack and then snipped it off at the plug so that the recorder wouldn't make any noise. Again, I got all of this info off of reading subreddits and forums. I didn't come up with this. Rolling back the clock to Christmas. On Christmas, we spent Eve and Day with her family. It was their turn. Her sister was there with her husband and kid as well as her parents. We were at her parents' house. It was just an hour away. My parents live a couple of states over. Christmas Eve day. She got a gift bag delivered to her. I didn't see who dropped it off. My mother-in-law said it was some teenager. The gift bag said to Emily from Santa. At first, she thought it was from me. I think I assured her it wasn't. It was a gold bracelet. Apparently, it was pretty nice. Her mom and sister ooed an odd over it. When asked where it came from, she said it probably came from a bridal party that was getting married on the 28th who wanted to reward her for giving a group discount and doing it last minute. She told us that they said she should expect a bonus. Yeah, it's ridiculous. But I nodded my head. Mother-in-law and father-in-law sort of followed my lead like it was no big deal. Let me be clear that I knew it was from John. The bridal party would have signed their names, not wrote from Santa. Emily must think I'm special needs to fall for that. I just got angry in the moment that she had that little respect for me. So, I excused myself to the restroom. Later on, I saw her in the backyard on her phone. She seemed angry and was gesturing wildly. I figure she was reading John the Riot Act for almost exposing their affair. She had the wedding on the 28th and was working with another bride for a wedding on the 4th. Whenever her phone would go off, I'd wonder if it was him. On New Year's Eve during the day, she got more buzzes and dings on her phone than normal. She would look at them annoyed. I asked her what the problem is, and she said the bride getting married on the 4th is a real Bridezilla. That night, she said she had to step out to go meet with Bridezilla. She told me she'd be back in time to kiss me at the countdown. She came back at around 1:30 a.m. She was crying, sobbing, actually, going straight to the bathroom and coming out 10 minutes later. I told her to calm down and asked her what the problem was. She said she was so, so sorry. I asked why she was sorry. She said because I missed the New Year's Eve countdown. I told her she was entirely too upset for it to be just that, but she assured me it was. She even held my face between her hands and stared at me and told me she loved me. I asked her if she had anything else to tell me. She assured me that she didn't. I asked her point blank then if she cheated on me. She swore up and down that she didn't and that she was upset because she missed the countdown because since we have been married, we always kissed each other when the clock struck midnight. I gave her every opportunity to come clean and she still lied to me. Since then, I got the cameras and the other stuff and installed it all. No going back. Now, I'm going to wait to get more tangible evidence. as well as start consulting divorce attorneys. I expect it will be a while before I update again. I'll be hanging out on Reddit, though. This place is addicting. The following part I added for extra information, trying to head off comments. Getting real undeniable proof is important because my family loves Emily. They think of her like a daughter. In her family, she's the golden child who can do no wrong. If she told them I was abusive or a cheater, her family would believe her. My family would probably take my side, but they'd definitely interrogate me to make sure I didn't treat her wrongly. >> Royal AI. >> Since you live in an at fault state, I would advise you to see a lawyer first and to find out what evidence you need before you ever confront her. Recordings may not be legal in court in your state. See a lawyer first to protect yourself. >> Even if they're not admissible, I still need them to control the narrative with friends and family. I did a web search and it said that I'm in a one party consent state. But I am meeting with an attorney just to see what divorce looks like. Oh, brother. I'm sorry this is happening to you. You don't deserve to be cheated on. Since you are in an at fault state, I would recommend hiring a private detective. They will follow her and get you all the proof you need. It's a good investment and it's worth hiring professionals to get that undeniable proof you need. When you get that evidence, confront her and record everything on video and audio. Get that confession for your divorce case. Good luck. Not tipping her off is absolutely key in getting what you deserve in the divorce. I found out that my ex-wife had been in an 8 years long affair with her boss. She was planning on asking me to move out by saying that she no longer loved me and she knew had I not known about her affair that I would have done exactly that. They had an elaborate plan where I would be kicked to the curb. He would move out and give his house to his wife, then move into mine, making me homeless in the process while he took care of his wife and kids and giving him a safe place to go. Problem with their plan is I found out I hired a personal investigator, best 6,000 I ever spent. Gathered undeniable evidence of their affair and that it was sexual. then filed for divorce. I had her served at work while simultaneously having her boss served with a lawsuit for alienation of affection, legal in my state, got them both terminated and ended his marriage as well. I convinced my at the time soon to be ex that if she testified against her affair partner in the lawsuit, answering all questions truthfully, that we would have a chance at reconciliation. That was of course a white lie, but that's how I found out the duration of their affair and just how much and often they were doing it. The extent of her affair that she admitted to left me completely broken. I was getting it 10 to 15 times per year max while she was giving it to him over 20 times per month. It's also how I discovered how much money she was taking out of our joint account to pay for hotels and gifts over the 8-year period. It was estimated to be around 25,000, possibly much more. I won the lawsuit. I won't ever see much from it, but I won the damn thing, and that's really all I cared about. So, OP, your way of taking your time and gathering concrete evidence is the exact route to take here. I never once blew up on my ex, although I honestly wanted to break bones, hers and his. But I kept my composure and won it all at the end of the day. I won the home, which I sold, then bought a better one. She lives in a crappy economy apartment, literally less than about 250 square ft. She's miserable and single, and I'm loving every minute of her pain and suffering because it pales in comparison to what I went through. Good luck. Do absolutely everything your divorce attorney tells you to do. Do not tell her you're contacting one at all. She'll figure all that out when she gets served. Have you got an STD test done already? >> Wow, I totally forgot about that. Thanks for telling me. >> OP, if you still plan on continuing to be intimate with her until this is settled, I'd start to use condoms immediately. One, you don't know if she's going unprotected with her affair partner, possibly exposing you to STI. Two, at this point in your marriage, a pregnancy is the last thing you both need, no less the drama of whether it's yours or John's. Oh, god damn it. I'm sick to my stomach now. Personal note, I didn't think this would blow up like it has after the original post was buried and overlooked. Thank you for all your advice and for the personal stories and experiences you have private messaged me. I'm sorry I haven't been able to respond to you all. Let me say that I'm not really interested in joining any cause. All you need to do is have a cursory look at the relationship subs and you'll see there are just as many women heartbroken by infidelity as men, maybe more even. It's not a sexist issue. It's an issue of low character and morality. Having low character and morality has nothing to do with your gonads. I have had both heartbroken men and heartbroken women PM me their stories and I see very clearly that this issue is not delineated by gender. If you don't believe this is real, I don't know what to tell you. Sorry. Please block me and ignore me if it's a bother. On to the update. She's definitely cheating. I'm angry and heartbroken. I already have a lawyer. I've been looking at lawyers since before Christmas. Like a lot of you said, I'm going to have to get a PI for good evidence for an at fault divorce. My dad is taking out a heliloc home equity line on credit on his home to help pay for it. I checked the recordings from Emily's car and I got some info. There was the usual business and personal calls and some Taylor Swift singalongs. The first call of note was with John. Apparently, she had not talked to him since New Year's Eve. She was angry with him for sending the gift at Christmas and keeping her late at New Year's Eve. Jon was dismissive and cocky at first. Emily then told him about how I asked her if she was cheating on me during New Year's Eve. That got J's attention and he was asking all kinds of questions. He seemed really interested if I had mentioned him by name at all. I didn't. He said he thought she was handling me. He told her that they should be safe, if she has always used the card. She said she did. He then asked her if she wanted to meet and she started crying. She told him that the relationship has stopped being fun for her and that they should stop and she wasn't going to lose her marriage over this. Well, little too late for that, honey. He told her that she should just keep lying to me. He seemed really worried about his wife finding out. Oh, she will, He told her not to call him again on his phone and that they'll talk the next time they meet. He also told her to be sure and delete everything off her phone and computer. She said she already had. Her next call was to her best friend, Jenny. Apparently, Jenny knows about the affair, and my wife was crying. Emily told Jenny about New Year's Eve and that she thinks I suspect something. And Jenny told her to keep lying to me, but also told her she should probably end her affair because I would definitely divorce her if I find out or if she confesses. Ding, ding, bingo. Jenny knows me too well. Emily said she is in the process of ending her affair with John. I always consider Jenny a mutual friend. I've met her husband and we've been out on couples dates. He's going to get a message from me outlining his wife's liberal views on infidelity as well as a link to the recording of her phone call. I'll check with my lawyer first, though. For now, I'm interested in both men and women's views on this. How would you feel if you knew your spouse was actively encouraging their friend to hide their infidelity and talking about how it is with their cheating friend? How pissed should I be at her? I did some web searching and anonymous asking around on social media and on the advice of stuff I got here on Reddit. Met with what I think are the three best family law attorneys in my area. I had official consultations with them. I did this so that two of them wouldn't be able to take my wife's case because of conflict of interest. What they didn't tell me in those Reddit comments and posts is that the really good family law attorneys don't do free consultations, they charge you for them and then some pro rate that charge towards your bill if you select them to represent you. So, I ended up spending $1,600 for all that. Just extra info. Also, I'm not super rich. We have a lot of money saved up, but I don't want to tip her off by touching that. My wife's business is doing really well, but she has the what's mine is mine and what's yours is ours attitude when it comes to paychecks. And I didn't mind until now. I make six figures as a senior developer and we don't have a mortgage or rent payment. When my mom died, my dad moved down to Florida to the villages. He lets us stay in his house rentree. It's already paid for. I say this because my dad is taking out a heliloc on the home to help me pay for the divorce attorney. A really good divorce attorney is very expensive. I've learned the plan is to refinance it in my name after the divorce is over. Meanwhile, I'll be making the payments by writing checks to my dad. The line of credit is still pending, so I'm paying with a credit card I took out for this occasion. I'm pretty much certain my credit score will be shot to hell after this. I talked to my divorce attorney and gave her the recordings and she said it was good evidence. I told her about how Emily is ending it with John and about the card John mentioned. She told me to take a picture of the card if I can find it and send it to her. I asked her if it was legal to do that and she said yes because it's accessible within shared marital property. She's going to subpoena the card statements. As far as Emily ending it with John goes, my lawyer said maybe, but don't count on it. My attorney also told me the same thing y'all told me and that I need to hire a PI. She told me she had a good one. I told her I already had all this evidence and she said that evidence and testimony from a P I carries more weight with the court because a personal investigator knows how to get admissible evidence legally and is impartial. She told me her goal is to get enough evidence so that any attorney my wife got would settle rather than go to trial because she'd subpoena John and John would be exposed too. She told me she wouldn't be surprised if Jon paid for my wife's attorney, which would be a dumb idea for her because that attorney would mainly have Jon's best interest in mind. But since he's paying for everything else, she'd probably go for it. I'll be meeting with the PI on Monday. Meanwhile, Emily is lovebombing me. She's telling me how great I am and how much she appreciates me and how lucky she is. She's talking about starting a family before she's 30. Yeah. Not with me, you're not. She wants us to go on a long romantic trip that she's planning on paying for with her money with Jon's card probably. I want to scream at her, tell her I'd rather slam my D in a car door. But I have to keep playing nice for now. this man. I can't believe this is my goddamn life now. I want to hug her and kiss her and make love with her again. But then I remember her mouth was around that a-holes junk. he completed in her mouth and she came home and kissed me with it. I had sloppy seconds for 9 months. But she loves me. I love her. But I hate her more. I'm a walking cognitive dissonance. My attorney told me to get into counseling and I will. I think I need to. I just want to run away from her and towards her at the same time. Does that sound stupid? Um, am I going crazy? This really sucks. I'm so sorry you have to go through this. It will suck some more, but after all is said and done, you'll feel a whole lot better after. You got this. >> I'm hoping the personal investigator will get results quickly. It doesn't sound like they're going to meet up romantically anymore, but my lawyer says that it's enough to get film of them meeting up with the other evidence we have. I don't know how you are keeping yourself together. Stay strong. You deserve and will find the right person who loves and respects you one day. I hope the PI gets all the evidence you need and your divorce moves swiftly. Good luck. >> From what I've heard in the recordings, she doesn't want the marriage to end. Uh and she wants to start having kids with me. I can tell you right now that the divorce will probably be glacially slow. >> Is your wife giving you some comments about you avoiding intimacy with her or are you just still being intimate just for the sake of not being discovered? The intimacy has dropped off from before. I think the term is hysterical bonding. I do have sex with her, but I pull out and do it on the outside now that she wants to start having kids. She doesn't want me to do it anymore, but I just say I forgot. Force of habit kind of thing. It's all hate on my part. And I think she's noticed it, but she hasn't said anything. Either she has her head in the sand or she's trying to keep it all together. It's working in the short term, but I am worried about STI. I have no idea if he is only banging my wife or someone else's, too. Hell, I don't even know if my wife is only jumping him. She could be pulling a train on an entire NFL team. From the phone calls I've heard, I doubt it, but who knows? I mean, she loves me, right? Pulling out is not effective. Don't let her lock you in with a baby, which she now wants because you asked about an affair. Some part of her brain knows, you know, and wants to make it as difficult as possible to leave. Since she's picking up on you pulling away, go to the doctor. I've just been so tired and down lately, honey. Or pretend to and get diagnosed with something where the condition or the treatment reduces libido. Cite that as your excuse for the future. >> This is a good idea. I'll schedule something Monday. Thanks for this. I just don't want her to be any more on alert than she already is. I don't believe we'll catch them in bed together or anything. My attorney says it's enough to just get them holding hands or crying or just spending time together in a way that can't be excused as being for work purposes. Stop having sex with her. I have two sons now. Because of that method, it does not work. Best not to chance it and be stuck with having a baby with her for 18 years. Not only that, think of the STI you might catch. >> I know I'm an idiot. She's very attractive and I still love her. Gh. And I'm not made out of wood. I'm not a cheating piece of either. The frequency has fallen off though. We've done it four times since the beginning of November. We need her to go meet with her affair partner again. If the PI can get a picture of them standing together, having some kind of emotional exchange, that'll be enough evidence with the other evidence I have. My attorney assures me that they always slip up. Be patient. I get it. Yeah, she can afford being patient at $700 an hour, though. Go for the throat. They will all implode with three ruined marriages and all blaming each other. Give your dad a big hug and kiss on the cheek and a nice steak dinner after this. Also, pull all financial documents about her spending money on the affair, as you can probably be reimbursed, and ask your lawyer when to cancel joint accounts and to take out money and close credit cards. Keep us updated and wishing you the best. >> My attorney is going to subpoena the card she used. I think it's all AP's money, though. >> This is a really hard and heartbreaking situation. You are being really strong. Definitely get therapy. Betrayal trauma is a real thing. I'm sorry your spouse is so selfish that she doesn't care about the damage she has caused. Just focus on yourself and don't let her impact your next relationship. Don't give her that power. Also, people like this don't deserve any kind of closure. Get an exit strategy in place and don't even confront her. Just have her served, preferably at work so it embarrasses her. Try the gray rock method and if you can kick her out or move out yourself, do that depending on your situation. You've got this. Stay strong. >> Well, I have to ghost her. There's no question. I still love and lust after her. Maybe even more now that I know it's over. If she's there before me crying and telling me how much she loves me and deliberately dressed up and made up like she does, I know for a fact I'm going to cave. Then I'll just tell myself, "This is the life I've chosen while being miserable and distrusting of her. And then I'll just live with it until she does it again. I totally am going to ghost her. I don't care how long the divorce takes or what it costs." She had another guy's junk inside of her. She had her mouth around it on her knees in front of him. She probably chugged it down and came home and French kissed me with that mouth. Whenever I think of that, I'm so goddamn angry and sick to my stomach. I go brush my teeth and try not to vomit. She either notices but doesn't say anything or she's just in La La Land. I slap a good boy smile on my face and reassure her. My attorney is confident that her investigator will get evidence soon. I just have to hire him on Monday first. >> Continue to listen to your lawyer. OP, you have the terms correct. She is lovebombing you as she thinks you know and are about to blow up the marriage. You're correct. Jenny is no friend or family. Yeah, let her husband know. Oh, when will your lawyer pounce? >> I'm going to hire her PI on Monday. As soon as he gets pics or video of them together in a way that can't be interpreted as business related. I'll get her to slap Emily in the chest with papers. I got an STI test a couple weeks ago. It's negative, but my doctor gave me the HPV vaccine because it wouldn't be detected by the tests. He said if I've been exposed, it could take years to show up. So, he told me to keep checking my ding-dong for warts for the next several years. So, good news. I have a new hobby now, keeping me busy. It turns out that in my state, you can't record someone one-sidedly unless you are involved in the conversation. So, the conversations between Emily and Jenny and Emily and John are illegal and I broke the law. Since I have attorney client privilege, and she's the only one I sent them to, I'm good. But I have to delete them. The emails I downloaded are still evidence, though, so we have good evidence there. I suppose the recording served their purpose. In that I know for sure about the affair. On the advice of my attorney, I hired the PI she suggested. I gave him the info for the GPS tracker on Emily's car. He said that after hearing my story, including details I didn't share here. He decided he was going to follow John rather than my wife. It didn't make sense to me at the time, but he said that it sounded like Jon was more into my wife than she was with him. So, John would probably be the one initiating contact rather than Emily. I figured, well, he's the pro, not me. He assured me that he's seen cases like mine before where the spouse was not serious but just looking for some fun on the side. And because of the withholding of attention, it causes the affair partner to double down on the relationship and pursue more. He said, >> "Women don't like needy men and men don't like needy mistresses." >> Makes sense. On the sage advice of all of you and my lawyer, I stopped the intimacy with Emily. I told her there were layoffs coming at work and I was really anxious and not in the mood. I don't know why, but she seemed really frustrated by that. It's been difficult living with her and pretending. John and I get the same treatment. Well, I guess he got slightly better treatment for a while, but I'm the lucky one because I get to hear the sound of I love you bounce off of my eard drums from that hole in the middle of her face. And John doesn't. # feeling blessed. It used to mean so much to me to hear that. I'm so angry that she's made me hate her like this. I want to love her again so badly. My therapist says the technical term is ambivalence. Thinking about it makes me want to vomit. Next part of the update. Valentine's Day. The PI came back with new information. He said, "John left flowers and a gift at my wife's salon." The PI said when Emily came to work and saw it, she threw everything in the shared dumpster in the strip mall. Without even looking at it, she was pissed. My PI retrieved the gifts, found it was really expensive lingerie and a dozen red roses. The gift had a Valentine's Day card. The flowers had a message note, too. And there was definite proof in that note and card of the affair. They were practically love letters. Emily left the other girls at the salon and went to meet up with John. The personal investigator got it all. They met in a far corner of a hotel parking lot. The whole thing took around 45 minutes. It was an intense conversation. The PI said Emily seemed angry and shook her head with nose. A lot. He said he thought Jon was trying to coax her into a room. lots of touching and trying to pull her. Nothing overtly sexual happened, but the PI said he's seen cases one with less and that their body language and behavior and the way it panned out is the kind of thing judges look for in adultery cases. It was obvious that they had a relationship. It was at that time that I got a weird I love you phone call from Emily. I remember her voice was off. It was like she was trying to check in on me. My attorney advised me to take photos of Emily's appointment book for the last year or so. Emily likes using a physical calendar book to write everything down. I then noticed there are appointments with Jon in the book, too. Before, I would have just thought of them as business meetings because Emily said Jon was mentoring her in small business stuff. I found a Mlanc pen in her purse near the appointment book. I guess that's another gift from John because I sure as hell didn't buy it for her and she always just used plastic pens before. Emily was busy with work the rest of the day and night on Valentine's Day as she had a bunch of ladies who wanted to get specially made up for Valentine's Day dates with their spouses and or boyfriends. Anyway, she worked as usual on Valentine's Day. She came home tired, half-heartedly tried to initiate something But I just pampered her because she seemed exhausted. And so I put her to bed. I didn't pamper her for her sake. I did it for me myself. I wanted to be a good husband so she'd somehow miss me more when I'm gone. I wanted to prove to myself that I'm not worth cheating on. Does that make sense? Maybe I'm lovebombing her in return in my own way. Is this the pick me dance? Because I don't want her to pick me. I can't decide if I'm doing it so that it hurts her more when I'm gone or because I know I'll miss moments like these when I leave her for the last time. The good news in this zombie show that my marriage has become is that the parking lot meeting and the Valentine's Day gifts were enough that when added to the other evidence, we can finally have Emily served. We're going to have it done privately with the PI. He's also a process server and can get it done quickly. It was probably a mistake accusing her of cheating on New Year's Eve. Emily knows that something's wrong. She's staring at me a lot. I can see it in my peripheral vision. It would be creepy if it weren't so pitiful. She keeps asking for some kind of reassurance that we're doing good since we're not making love anymore. I keep lying to her, but I guess I'm not the great Shakespearean actor I thought I was. I just can't get over this betrayal. I wish I could, but I can't and I never ever will. It doesn't matter that she didn't love the guy. She let his filth all over her and came home and kissed me with that mouth for 9 months. I just hate myself for going back to her. I'd further hate myself for treating her badly because of jealousy and resentment. No one deserves being treated like a convicted felon for the rest of their lives by their spouse. Would any reasonable person want to live like that? Would that be enough for anyone? Should I be resigned to a life of policing Emily and keeping her under lock and key until she resents and hates me later on and probably cheats on me again? Either that or I'll be an emotionally dead zombie who says, "Yes, dear." while stamping down my emotions and anxiety every time she walks out the front door. Who would love someone like that? I'm not going to live like that. I love who I thought she was too much to let her live like that. That's why I'm going to ghost Emily when she gets served. The plan is to have her publicly served to start the process of having Jon's credit card statement subpoenenaed. Lawyer says it could take months for this to pan out. Then tell Jenny's husband about her complicity in Emily's affair and to email or text Emily's dad and sister, also Jon's wife, and some mutual friends with the news. I'll pack and leave before she regains her footing. After being served with divorce papers, I plan on leaving a short note, my lawyer's business card, and my wedding ring. My lawyer told me to leave a note so she doesn't have an excuse to start making trouble. I was thinking about writing. Do you like rich sugar daddies? Add two boxes with a no or yes answer and tick the yes box. My therapist says I use humor as a coping mechanism. I know I won't do that, though. I'll either write this long manifesto or something super short. Another infidelity poster on Reddit wrote to her cheating other. I know. Bye. Brevity is the soul of wit. Well, I know myself. And I know that Emily at least thinks she loves me, whatever that is. I know she'll beg and plead and cry and appeal to me in every possible way. Our history, our families, our plans, what we've built, everything. She'll dress up and make herself look stunning. She'll pull out all of the stops and I'll cave. I'm not ghosting her because I'm strong. I'm ghosting her because I'm weak. I used to think it would hurt worse if she had actually fallen in love with him, but now that would have been easier. If she didn't want me, at least I'd have my answer. Instead, she wants me. But she's already broken us beyond repair. That's worse. I'll update after it all goes down. should only be a few days. Brief update here. Emily is going to be served at her salon tomorrow morning. Fridays and Saturdays are busier for her, so she opens earlier. The PI is meeting me at my hotel in the afternoon to show me the body cam footage. He asked if I wanted to see it, and I said yes. I don't know why. I just want to see it. I'm kind of on the fence, but leaning towards seeing it. He can't email it or post it, so he's just going to bring his laptop to my hotel room and show it to me. I'm staying at an extended stay hotel for a couple of weeks. My dad's friend has a house they're gutting to make an Airbnb out of, and it'll be livable by then, but not yet ready to be rented out. I'll stay there and do some work on it in the evenings after work and on the weekends. Nothing huge. Some drywall, painting, and laying down vinyl plank flooring. My social calendar is going to be pretty empty and it'll get my mind off of things. I'll update tomorrow evening after this crap show explodes. Nice move on the PI. I hope she understands what she lost. Stay strong and ignore it will hurt her more than any words. Well done. Can't wait for the update. These people are such cowards. As soon as you act off, they get all worried that their meal ticket will disappear. Sometimes, I don't know which is worse, the actual cheating or that fake seduction thing they do to put you back to sleep when your antenna goes up. Such intent and calculation there. Often when I read these stories, I marvel at the love people have for their partners despite everything. And I wonder if it's really love or codependency. I have a hard time relating to this because in my experience, heavy betrayal has yanked the halo off the betrayers with stunning speed. It's like they became ugly in front of my eyes within a second. All their flaws became so damn obvious. Maybe I didn't love them as much as I thought. Hard to understand. >> It's pretty expensive, but my half-assed CIA work is inadmissible in court. She never mistreated me or neglected me. If anything, she was more attentive. I've read a bunch of cheating stories on here before, and I thought it was just a fling. In all the evidence I've uncovered from the emails, the audio, and the PI, it points to that she didn't love the guy. I think for her, it was about getting romantic attention from someone else other than me. The classic thrill of it all. In the end, it doesn't make any difference. At this point, it would probably be easier if she didn't gave two Fs about me or our relationship. It would have made my choices and direction clearer. >> She was more attentive because she felt guilty. She took your agency from you. And no amount of cuteness can make up for that. What you don't know won't hurt you is cheater logic. That's like saying if there was a drug that could do perfect memory loss and you gave it to someone, then you do things to them, worst of things, but they woke up and didn't know you'd be morally fine or something. Absolutely not. She never gave you a choice. Whatever the hell she was searching for, attention, thrill, getting back blown, or validation, was more important to her than the hurt you would suffer. Also, so much bodily fluid exchanges makes me feel gross. At least she won't have to keep worrying that you're on to her, so that's going to be a relief. Stick to the short note. Leaving a manifesto won't ever state your case correctly or completely. She knows what she's done and how bad she's hurt you. It just didn't matter to her at the time. Let her fill in her own blanks. Good luck, OP. I hope you find peace and happiness again. I wrote her a long letter, but then deleted it because why bother? My lawyer recommended I leave her a note that basically says, "I'm divorcing you. Contact my lawyer for more info. I'm separating myself until the divorce is over. It's so that she doesn't file a missing person's report. Misleading the cops, using them to find me. My lawyer says she's seen cases where the ghosted person tried to spin it into a lie. as if the person who left want to delete themselves, which affected the outcome of custody. We don't have any kids, though, so that's not a concern. >> Not letting on for a few weeks now. Not every husband is capable of keeping it all under their hat. Don't think I could do it. Well done. >> It was kind of hard to stop having sex with her. There was some hysterical bonding on my part at least, and she was enthusiastic about it. She's physically attractive and the way she is reassuring herself that everything is okay is by seducing me. It's hard to resist and not going to lie. I caved many times. >> Hey OP, I know how difficult this time is for you. It's admirable that you stay focused on your goals. Well, regarding the tapes, it's really shitty that they're illegal. It proves everything. I wouldn't erase them immediately because they can help within the family circles. Having said that, yes, it's a very good idea to serve her at her workplace. So, everyone knows what kind of a person she is. I'm pretty sure if you ghost her, she will try to contact you by all means. I wouldn't block her immediately. In most cases, those cheaters are sending excuse messages where they admit the affair and saying how sorry they are and it meant nothing. These messages could help you to strengthen your case. So, be patient with the blocking in the aftermath. >> That's exactly what my lawyer said. If I leave her on red, I could possibly get an admission over text, which would be really good evidence. >> I'm so sorry you're in this shitty club none of us consented to. I know what you mean when you say it would be easier if she fell for him and chose him. Instead, they blow up our lives and for what? Ego, cheap, lust. I wish he would have just said he wanted a divorce. You've handled this awful situation so well. You're doing everything right. I wish I had. Instead, I went numb. I wish I had gotten a hold of his phone to see the messages before he deleted them. But it really doesn't matter. It happened. I'm planning my exit strategy. And I really hope you end up finding someone who deserves you. No one deserves to be betrayed so terribly by someone claiming to love you. Wishing you all the best. The numbness is where I'm at right now. My therapist says it's all part of the grieving process. The only advice I can give is the closest thing to revenge you'll ever get. It's by publicly serving them with divorce papers in front of family and or co-workers. I left her. I left Emily. We got the divorce papers, summons, petition, standing orders, etc. The PI acting in his capacity as a process server wore a body cam for obvious professional reasons, and I was able to look at the footage when he came by my hotel room later on in the afternoon. The PI walked up to Emily, who was sitting at her station and chatting with the other stylists who work for her. He showed her a manila envelope and told her he had legal documents for her and she had been served. Emily, of course, looked shocked and confused and just stared at him gobsmacked. The PI clarified that the envelope contained legal documents regarding a divorce case filed against her and he told her she should review them and contact her attorney. He reached them out to her, but she didn't take them. Then he dropped the documents at her feet. The drop of the envelope hitting the ground made a satisfying slap, more so since she refused to take them, and told her she's still been served. He then told her to have a nice day and walked out. Morgan Freeman narrated her voice, "Emily didn't have a nice day. I could hear her hyperventilating as the PI left and saying, >> "Uh, what? What is this?" >> Really, Emily? You're actually surprised? I was at home while it happened, and after the PI called and said he was heading in to serve her, I called Emily's dad. Since my mom died, I had probably unwisely been treating her mom, my then mother-in-law, like a mother. I just couldn't talk to her. I told Emily's dad about the divorce. I tried to keep it very simple and quick. Emily cheated on me. We're getting a divorce. I'll send you an email shortly with evidence of the affair. I stressed that Emily was being served divorce papers today. So, she would absolutely need their support and they should head over to our house immediately. Emily's dad acknowledged that and said that he hoped we could find a way through this and it would be a shame to break up our family. I guess Emily's mom was nearby and overheard because she took the phone from him, put it on speaker and asked if this is true. I explained to her about the cheating and the email with the evidence they'll receive. She started crying and apologizing to me. Since this thing started, she was the first person close to me who apologized to me. I was reminded of my mother who always would comfort me when I was down. And I just broke, y'all. Just broke down completely. I started tearing up and croked out, "I have to go." And hung up on her while she was saying, "No, wait." I had packed up my work laptops and got a lot of my clothes in two large suitcases. On the advice of my attorney, I took down the cameras in the bathrooms and bedrooms when I left, but the cameras in the common areas can remain because my dad is the owner of the house. I packed the cameras up in my suitcases, too. My lawyer sent the subpoena to the credit card company on Monday when I pulled the trigger on my marriage. I wrote an email to Emily's dad and sister and to some mutual friends who know both of us, including Jenny's husband. It said, "I never thought I'd be writing this, but after everything that's happened, I don't see another choice. I wanted you to hear it from me directly so that there's no confusion or misinformation. Emily has been having an affair with a man named John with last name. I have evidence, emails, financial records, and an investigation that confirms it. I think we all know that her bracelet gift from Santa was not from a client because the client would have identified themselves by name. And clients don't know her parents' address. She's been meeting John and hiding it from me for months. I know this is painful to hear and trust me, it's even more painful to write, but I didn't want you to be blindsided by all of this later. I'm attaching a few things to this email that make it clear what's been going on and to head off any of your concerns about the truth of my statements. I know this is shocking and I don't expect you to take sides. I just want you to have the truth. I love Emily, but she's broken our marriage beyond repair, and I have no choice but to move forward with a divorce. Here, I wrote the full names of my father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and her husband, with the last statement being, "Thank you for being like a second family to me. I will miss all of you." I wrote a similar email to John's wife and gave her my attorney's name and number. If she wanted to go see the physical evidence herself, it would have to be in my lawyer's office. Personally, I think my lawyer is going to try to get John's wife to give her a retainer. I also sent a group text for them to check their emails. Except for John's wife don't have her number. Then I blocked Emily's family. To the email, I attached a photo of John and Emily kissing goodbyes in the hotel parking lot and a photo of the contents of J's Valentine's Day card to Emily. It was explicit. Finally, I had a link to the recording of Emily saying that I didn't abuse or cheat on her. I just wanted to head that off ahead of time. I texted this to Jenny's husband. Hey, Jenny's husband, I need to tell you something, and I hate being the one to do this, but you deserve to know. Emily didn't cheat on me alone. She had support. She had help covering it up. And unfortunately, that help came from Jenny. I don't know if you were aware, but Jenny knew about the affair the entire time. She didn't just know about it. She encouraged it. She helped Emily justify it. She helped her keep it from me. and she even made excuses for her when she started feeling guilty about it. I have proof and I wouldn't be saying this if I didn't. I'm not asking you to believe me blindly. But I think you should ask Jenny some direct questions. Watch how she answers. Watch her reaction. I'm sorry, man. I wouldn't wish this on anyone, but I couldn't sit back and let you stay in the dark. Believe me or don't believe me. Either way, my conscience is clear. Then Emily. Well, I've thought a lot about this. I then left my wedding ring, a printed copy of the same photo of Emily and John at the hotel parking lot kissing, my lawyer's business card, and a note. Thanks for your help on this, Redditors. The note to Emily said, "I hope your affair with John was worth our marriage. We are getting a divorce. Contact my lawyer if you have any questions or need to get in touch for arrangements regarding the divorce. Otherwise, get a lawyer and let's get this over with. If you're truly remorseful, then do me the courtesy of giving me the easiest, most generous divorce possible. I loved you, and I could have forgiven almost anything except abject betrayal. I would have loved you for the rest of my life. That's it. On my way out, I got a call from Emily that I ignored. I put my phone on silent and dropped by the bank. I took out half our money from the various accounts we have. Checking, emergency, vacation fund. I have already frozen my credit. When I got to the hotel, I canceled our shared credit cards. I made arrangements to freeze our joint investment accounts so that she couldn't withdraw money from them. They're in my name. Adultery subreddit. Pro tip, people. If you cheat, make financial arrangements ahead of time in case you get caught. When the accounts were frozen, my phone buzzed. It was a text from her. I left her on red because my lawyer told me that if she confesses to the affair over text, we can use that as more evidence for the divorce regarding her texts. I didn't answer her back. Just read them while she sent them. I'm responding to her texts here only. Why? Oh, because it's therapeutic to me. So, I messed with the language and writing of her texts because I'm paranoid. This is the condensed version of the past 12 hours or so. >> Uh, what the is this? >> I'm divorcing you. >> Answer your phone. We need to talk right now. >> Nope. I have had enough gaslighting for a lifetime. Thank you very much. This was followed up by a lot of texts demanding I call her or answer her calls. No thanks. Let's not. Then the texts changed. So I presume she got home and read the note and saw what I left. >> I don't know what you think. You know, but I can explain everything. Uh, it's not what you think. >> You're right, Emily. I'm a stupid idiot who will believe anything you say. >> Divorce. We love each other. We're supposed to work through this mistake. >> Mistake? Oops. My slippery hoo-ha fell onto John's stinky wee wee repeatedly for almost a year. >> Oopsie. >> Look, I know I messed up, but don't do this. Don't leave like this. >> Finally, an acknowledgement of the affair over text. Zing. Bingo. Write to my lawyer. >> I never stopped loving you. I never loved him. >> Another gift from Emily. Zing. Write to my lawyer. Then the tone changed later. >> You're overreacting. You're acting like I never loved you. Like I wasn't trying to fix things. Uh but but you wouldn't let me >> fix things. Sure. Build a time machine. Emily, build a goddamn time machine. >> Are you seriously just going to ghost your own wife? >> Consults Magic Eightball. All signs point to yes. Then her parents showed up at the house. Oh boy. >> Oh wow. What the did you do? >> Then it's complete silence for a good 20 minutes. Then she's going at it again. No. You had no right to involve my family like this? Are you trying to humiliate me? Are you trying to ruin my life? Wow. Do you hate me that much now? >> Kind of. It's complicated, you know. After that comes a barrage of phone calls that I didn't answer. >> How could you do this? How could you try to turn my own family against me? >> I'm not. I'm trying to have them not turn against me. >> I told you I never loved him. Listen, I never loved him. >> No one cares, honey. Least of all, John. >> I know you love me. I love you, too. We can fix this. We can fix everything. >> Then there's silence for a bit. followed by, >> "Just tell me what to do. Tell me how to fix this. I'll do it. Anything." >> Let me get this straight. You wiped your ass with our marriage vows and stabbed me in the back. And now you want me to tell you how to fix this >> I had to go to Walmart because I forgot to pack underwear and I don't have a rich sugar daddy to buy me some fancy skibies from Saks Fifth Avenue. >> Uh, you never loved me. If you can do this to me, >> f this I'm going to have to block her instead of leaving her on red. I don't think I can take this anymore. So, this is how a marriage ends. No fanfare, no heroic deeds, just whining, crying, anger, and depression. Just like any other divorce, really. Only this is my divorce, and it feels like the end of the freaking world. But in reality, this is all just the beginning. I feel this whole process is going to take years. I hope not, though. My lawyer assures me that with the evidence we have, it'll go relatively quick. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, what? Relatively quick. Relative to what? Continental drift. At this point, I just want to thank you beautiful men and women who supported and encouraged me. I'd vacuum out all your cars if I could and clean your bathrooms. I just want a falling anvil to hit me in the head and cause amnesia like a cartoon character. I know this is sort off all over the place. I keep second-guessing myself if I did the right thing. I just changed my life today in a fundamental way. I'm wondering if it's a lateral move. I feel like I've moved from a warm cesspool to a cold, gray, rocky place. Is it an improvement? I feel like I have these scars now. And the one who gave them to me is the one person in the world I trusted the most. I will never forgive her. Now I have to buck up and walk it off like a real man because feelings and tears are weak and a turnoff. I I just want my mom. I just want my mom. OP, I am crying for you. How I wish you could just crawl into your mom's lap and find comfort. Even following your journey has been painful to me. This is from a man cheated on by two different wives. It took me a couple years to get over the first one because I left. I stayed for the second wife and she just cheated again. Leaving will be the best for you in the long run. You never deserved this. The pain is so bad, but I promise it gets better. Hell to cheaters. They are abusers. I would rather get hit by a bat. Yeah, I'm really missing her these days. Cheaters are abusers. I felt this. Never thought of it like this. You're so right. So, no apology from Emily. Instead, these very telling lines. First, how could you do this? How could you try to turn my own family against me? Second, you never loved me if you can do this to me. That's narcissism at its finest. Her response shows no remorse and accountability. The gaslighting is infuriating. >> The only one who's apologized to me so far is her mom. That was brutal. Not going to lie. I had hoped she'd just come clean and write me a timeline of her affair in an attempt to show remorse or reconciliation. I mean, it wouldn't have worked, but at least I would have felt a little better, like she was a good person who made a bad choice instead of a lizard man pretending to be human. Don't forget to report him to his HR department. Most businesses hate scandals. Your wife already justified the cheating. She had a cheer section. From all the stories I've read on these Reddits, the way you handled it, quick, decisive, made sure she had support. You even pointed out the obvious that made everyone know about her affair so that she couldn't hide. A cheater that thinks they almost was in the clear is the worst kind. In the end, you'll always be the love of her life, and her biggest regret will be every tear you ever had. not that she either let them fall or made them happen. My point is to her and everyone involved. You are a great guy. Take that to the bank. Focus on you and don't speak to her for a couple weeks until you must. Your ex will do anything to win you back. So, keep space. Even now, your ex may be looking at ways to hurt her affair partner to get you back. Just leave it all alone. Focus on waking up every morning. >> Unfortunately, he's the business owner. He's rich. Hopefully, his wife divorces his cheating ass and takes half his crap. When we get the credit card records, I'll be sure she would want to see them, too. >> It's odd that she believes sleeping with her married affair partner for 9 months is excusable, only because she never loved him. She is sick in the head. She has a warped perception of reality. >> I don't get it. All I know is the typical guy who's into getting his pee pee wet. Could care less about love or not. I mean, so what if he hasn't heard the L-word? Kind of mad that her dad didn't sit her down and taught her or explained this. That's all I can think of as to why she's so goddamn stupid about that. >> So, she knew you knew and was trying to fix it. How? By seducing you, trying to have sex with you, planning a romantic getaway. Basically, all the material things she's willing to accept. You can see her thought process. She figured that even if you found out, she believed you'll talk through it and work it out. She truly compartmentalized the sex with Jon from her emotions of you. She never expected you to expose her like this. This exposure put her in a position she can't come back from. It's evident she's getting defensive. It's a little shocking to read her reactions because it almost seems like she's justifying her actions, blaming your reaction and can't believe you'll just walk away from her. It's very narcissistic behavior. That last statement of hers where she said, "You never loved me." She's trying to force a response from you. >> The plan was we'd go for a 3-w week luxury vacation to the Greek islands in the fall. We'd schedule it during the time she was ovulating. She's pretty regular like clockwork almost and she'd get pregnant then. I've read about compartmentalization and I just don't understand it as a concept or in practice. I'm not saying I'm better than anyone else or incapable of it. Maybe I am. At this point in my life, it just seems like another excuse or deflection for shitty behavior. >> Time to come out on the other side. Get some therapy and relax. Find a hobby. Let her continue to squirm and give you evidence. >> She admitted it via text. I think her parents are there shaming her. I sent it straight to the lawyer. She texted back. Bingo. A lot of you were wondering about Jenny's husband. Jenny's husband texted me back. followed by, "Thanks, man. I don't know how exactly to interpret that, but I'm too tired to be invested in Jenny's husband's marriage." I told him about his wife being a piece of crap. What he does with that is on him. So, good luck, buddy, for the ones calling this fake. Fine. Just block me and ignore me. Go play Reddit Batman someplace else. Emily's mom texted me using Emily's phone. She wants me to unblock her. I ignored it. Several hours later, she asked me again and promised not to bring up Emily if I would unblock her. So, I unblocked mother-in-law's number, texted her, and told her I was still alive. Had no plans to change that status, and that I will unblock her later on so we could talk. I told her in no uncertain terms that I only want to chat about me or her, but not Emily. I told her I need a break from all of this and I'll unblock her later and to be patient. I'll contact her again. Emily tried a preuncter. I'm sorry you're hurt text, which wasn't very comforting. Hints from her texts and the fact that her mom is using her phone to text me, indicate to me that she's at her parents' house now. There was a long silence of several hours. Then Emily texted me to check my email. Went to my spam folder and there it is. As before, I changed the text and writing because I don't want her to do a text search on the internet and find my posts. So, the email she wrote didn't have these misspellings. Sorry for the annoying spelling. You grammar Nazis are now the victims of my paranoia. Also, I am making comments in the email too like before because I'm no contact and this is therapy for me. Here we go. >> My love. >> Insert my name. >> I keep thinking about how this can't be real. It can't just be over. How can you just shut me out like I was nothing to you? It's killing me. >> Yeah, that's the idea, Emily. It sucks when you get abandoned by the one you love, doesn't it? I don't even know how to start this because my mind is racing and nothing makes sense. I know I don't deserve a response, but please just read this. Please don't delete it. I just need you to hear me. I talked with my dad and sister-in-law's husband. I told them how I messed up. They said I was stupid and they're right. I told them about how I never loved John and I always loved you. And they laughed at me and told me that doesn't matter at all. Ugh. I felt so humiliated and stupid. I know you're done with me. I know I don't get to ask anything from you, but don't I at least deserve to explain? To look you in the eyes and tell you how sorry I am to tell you the truth that I never stopped loving you. You think you know everything, but you don't. Yes, I up. I betrayed you in a way that I can't take back. But it wasn't because I didn't love you. I need you to know that it was never what you think it was. It wasn't about love. It wasn't even about sex. I was pressured and felt obligated. >> Oh, sure. Let me just shave my privates, wear some $700 underwear, and trapes on down to the expensive boutique hotel, then get pounded, all against my will. >> John didn't just walk into my life and sweep me off my feet. He inserted himself. He did so much for me and for my business. You know how much I was struggling, how close I was to losing everything. He was the one who helped me. He connected me with the right people. He helped me with my lease, with contracts, with vendors. He got me meetings I could have never gotten on my own. And I let myself believe that he was just being a mentor, that he just wanted to help me. I told myself it was just one time. That if I just gave in once, it would be enough. That he'd stop pressing, but it wasn't enough. And I didn't know how to get out of it. I kept telling him no. But he always had a way of making me feel like I was being ungrateful. Like after everything he did for me, I was selfish for not giving him what he wanted. I hate myself for not shutting it down from the start, for being so king stupid, for letting it go on. I tried to stop it, but every time I pulled away, he'd remind me of how much he helped me. How I wouldn't be where I am without him, how I'd ruin everything if I cut him off. So, I kept making excuses. I told myself I had it under control. I thought I could handle it. What do we call someone who trades sex with someone they don't love for goods and services? Tip of my tongue. >> Oh, and then Christmas happened. New Year's Eve happened. And that's when I knew he wouldn't stop. That's when I knew I had to end it for good. I did end it. But by then it was all up. Everything was up. I knew I had to tell you. I wanted to tell you. I knew that the second I told you that you'd never look at me the same way again that it would be ruined and I couldn't handle it. I know you at least suspected ever since you accused me at New Year's Eve. I just put my head down and wanted it to all go away. So, I kept putting it off and telling myself I'd find the right time. But there was never a right time. And now I've lost you anyway. I can't stop thinking about Charleston. Do you remember that stupid little bed and breakfast where you hated the coffee? And we spent half an hour at a gas station just so you could get a normal cup of coffee. We sat outside that little seafood shack by the water eating fried shrimp and laughing at the seagulls trying to steal our food. And you were acting like a knight with your funny British voice protecting my food and making me laugh. >> Yeah, I love that weekend. Remember that part when you didn't bang other guys? That was a swell time, too. >> I don't expect anything. I don't expect you to take me back. But I also can't believe that you would just walk away without even talking to me. After everything, don't we deserve that much? Gh. I'll sign whatever you want. I'll give you whatever you want, but please don't just disappear. Don't pretend like I never mattered because I know I did. >> She'll sign anything. This smells like a trap. Ugh. I love you so much. I always have and still do. And I'm terrified that I'll never get the chance to tell you that in person again. >> I loved you, too, but I need you to get out of my life for both our sakes. >> Please. I'm yours forever, Emily. >> That was it. When I reread my comments, I sound like a heartless bastard. I'm just tired, I guess. No mention of John's credit card. No mention of how the affair wasn't fun for her anymore. No mention of how she was supposed to be handling me. Is this what they call trickle truth? Because a lot of this sounds like the Emily I know to be honest. Maybe there's some truth to it, but she's downplaying her role in it all. It's like this was all happening to her and she wasn't an active participant. I mean, I feel sorry that she lost control or whatever, but it's not like she didn't have a choice. She chose to sleep with the guy because she felt obligated and he did her favors. Doesn't that mean she's a prostitute? Sounds like I was preient in naming her affair partner, John. Here, I thought it was just four letters that are easy to type on a keyboard. And it turns out to be a role. Should I petition the mods to change my username to Oblivious Pimp 69? I do want to know what you all think about it, but I'm telling you right now, it doesn't make a difference. Ultimately, she's trying to change the narrative to the point where we're both victims instead of just me. And I think that's just shitty. The really up thing is that part of me wants to believe her, that she was just a victim of John. But the problem is that doesn't change the fact that she slept with him for almost a year. If I forgive that, then what am I? Just sign the papers. Emily, and let's move on from this. Can't you do that for me, please? You're young, you're beautiful, you don't have any kids, you are a successful business owner, and you have a whole wardrobe of fancy designer clothes. Courtesy of your sugar daddy, you're killing it at life. Go live it somewhere the away from me. I have to say, as a hair stylist in Los Angeles, California, caring for my child completely on my own, I'm appalled and disgusted with this email. I have a successful business and clientele with a corporate company. I'm an elite stylist with two assistants because I put in the blood, sweat, and tears to make it happen. Never did I accept these obviously inappropriate favors from a man, and I'm single, and I have limitations on my time. I'm 32. Took 14 years to get here. To have a supportive husband who's contributing to household finances, emotional health, and showing love and devotion. Wow, girl. Get out of here with that nonsense. What a weak-minded wife. No spine for dealing with a minor boundary problem. She should have stood ground and run to you with the first sniff of mischief because that's what partners do. She could have built her own way, but instead she took the easy route. It gives me the ick. She was rolling in this stink affair while having the fairy tale life on the side. I was left on the floor to choke on my own vomit during complications after my C-section with a baby, crying in the next room, while my ex walked right on by and ignored us both. My ex, this was 10 years ago, told me I would never amount to anything in this life, being a mere hairdresser. She may be a victim somehow in her twisted mind, but her delusions don't change the reality of the situation. She welcomed those favors with open arms and no regard for you or the consequences of her actions. Poor her, having destroyed multiple lives over the easy route. Cheating is a choice. It is a premeditated selfish choice. Cheaters destroy your past, kick you down in the present, and rob you of the future they promise to work towards. My ex was a serial cheater. Haven't seen him in 10 years. He's never reached out. He still acts like a victim. as if I stole his child. Anyway, I won't get into my story. It doesn't matter. But I need to tell you the real truth. Hang in there, friend. You're going to be all right. Don't ever think that she couldn't have found a way without him or his creepy D. She's just being a whiny while trying to absolve herself of responsibility. My heart goes out to you. You're doing the right thing. Aside from the cheating, this is not a partner that would hold you down in the throws of dark times. What if someone gets cancer, loses a job, bankruptcy, or a car blows up, gets disabled for life? You don't need a weak wife or someone that turns on you at the drop of a hat. I do think, however, when you're ready, you deserve a conversation of reckoning, should that time ever come. Don't deny yourself that for you. Should opportunity down the road ever present itself, now is definitely not the time. Take care of yourself. You're not alone. Thank you so much for taking the time to write to me and for sharing your story. When I started all of this, I was afraid I'd become the poster boy for misogyny. I'll be honest and say that when left alone, my thoughts turn in that dark direction. But it's comments like yours and other women that pull me from the edge. This has nothing to do with gender. It has everything to do with character. Reading your story reminds me that both men and women are wrecked by it. They're Godzilla or Tokyo. Tokyo's not male or female. It's just left totally wrecked. >> I'm joining the posts I've seen from other moms to say I'm truly sorry this has happened to you. Your mention of wanting your mother has clearly sparked something in mommies lurking here. And if we could, we'd reach through the ether and hug you tight. >> Honestly, it's comments from moms like you that turn me into a sobbing mess. but in a good way. I found myself looking at her old Facebook. I had it memorialized after she passed. I highly recommend doing that, by the way. Sometimes when you grow up, you only relate to your parent as a parent. You don't really have anything in common with them other than DNA. I was lucky in that we both had the same sense of humor, and we both were sci-fi and fantasy readers. Her favorite film was The Princess Bride, and we'd spout out quotes from it to each other, which confused my dad. When I told her I was marrying Emily, she said, "Medge tu." And we'd say that to each other until the wedding when she mouthed it to me when Emily was walking down the aisle. I had to stifle my laughter and everyone thought I was crying. So, thanks for being my internet mom. I know that parts of Emily's email reminds you of who you thought you knew. But you also know that the Emily you thought you knew would never cheat on you. Bottom line, the entire content of the email is irrelevant. You need to ignore everything she says from here out and look to her actions. She carried on an almost year-long affair. That says one of two things. One, she did not love you at all because no one who truly loves another could do that. Or two, she is able to dissociate it from her love for you and your marriage. It is almost assuredly the latter. This is supported by her I never loved him defense. This type of person is dangerous. For those in this group, intimacy is entirely separated from the issue of love. It can be either transactional or purely physical and thus cheating has no negative inherent issues. I'm sorry to say this also means both that she has likely cheated on you previously. And would almost certainly cheat on you in the future. None of this changes the fact of your profound and real loss. I've followed your story from the start. You are stronger than you know. I handled a different and less traumatic thing far more poorly in my past. As I heard one person say, "Your approach is the betrayed wet dream. You make us all proud." A question that may inform advice from others. You mentioned that you and Emily were together since high school. Were you, to your knowledge, the only sexual partners for each until now? >> I noticed in a previous post that you referenced FOMO. I also noticed her reference in this email that it would be ruined. Yes, she's been my only sexual partner. I do think there may have been some FOMO. If she got drunk one night and jumped some bozo and came home to me later and tearfully apologized, I may have been able to work it out with her. She'd have to do some work on herself. And there would be strict rules like no more girls nights out or drinking. Definitely some coup's therapy and individual counseling. But I'm not sure I could though. She wasn't the type of girl who liked getting dressed up and going to the clubs. She was usually pretty tired after work from being on her feet all day. She did go out with girlfriends, but they had to beg her and it was few and far between. Sometimes she came home late from work or now that I know from work. But she never stayed out really late like she did on New Year's Eve. If she started coming in at midnight or later all the time, then that would have been a red flag to me and I would have probably known earlier. Her work schedule did change, but it changed from coming home at 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. at night to coming back between 10 and 11:00 p.m. sometimes. It was always attributed to night shoots with an ad agency where she did hair and makeup for the models. Looking back at her schedule book, it seems she and John would meet Friday afternoons. Maybe some of that was business related. But where my mind is now, I'm assuming it was their affair time. She is manipulating you. Jon is a predator and this is probably not his first rodeo. Your wife was a willing and enthusiastic victim, though. Remember how she said that the relationship was no longer fun? At what point was it fun? When she thought you had no idea it was going on. >> Yeah, that's what I can't get out of my head. Whenever I think about her email and feel bad, I think about how she has a credit card. No longer fun. I thought you were handling him. The grooming, getting all made up and wearing nylon body stockings or lingerie for him. That doesn't sound like coercion to me. So, my friends took me out on a night in town. I had informed them ahead of time that I would not be drinking. They informed me ahead of time they would be drinking. Oh well. The dudes who took me out on the town were fake names. Jim, my friend from high school who knew Emily and I both. He's married. Jim was pretty floored that Emily did this. Matt was a groom I met early on when Emily was working her job. Early on in Emily's career before John, a bride had her hair and makeup artist bail last minute. And my wife jumped in because she was the first person they called who said yes on short notice. I packed along her hair and makeup stuff. Emily since has had everything packed up in an efficient way, but this was at the beginning before she had everything down to a science. I sat with Matt and chatted him up and calmed him down before his wedding while his bride and mine did their thing. We had a lot in common and the time flew by fast. Emily and I kept up with him and his wife and went on couple's dates with them occasionally, but mainly Matt and I would hang with Jim. Bob is our single friend. Well, I guess I am too now. He's always the odd man out with the couples, but the married guys would hang with him, so we could live vicariously through his singleness. Like, Bob, you can just set up a board game in your living room and leave it there. We'd mainly get together and play Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah, we're nerds. Bob is the DM. We went out to dinner at a pretty nice steakhouse, which was a nice change from protein shakes, but it was still kind of hard to eat. Eat your steak, you Followed by laughter was the catchphrase. I got it all down like a big boy. After dinner, I recounted to them most of the saga that's in my posts, minus some details. I don't want exactly what I know. To get back to Emily, even though these guys are trustworthy, they were very supportive. They couldn't believe Emily did that to me, and they couldn't believe I did that to Emily. They were pretty upset with Emily. Matt told me that he heard Emily is really struggling. I stopped him right there and told him I didn't want to talk about or hear about Emily beyond what we had already talked about. The steak dinner was delicious but expensive. Afterwards, we went to this country dive bar Bob heard about. It's the kind of place where the floors are one large glue trap for human beings. The floors were sticky enough that I had to retie my shoes with double knots. That's how you know you're in a good dive bar, right? They were drinking beer and bourbon shots while I was staying sober. I don't need the alcohol fairy advising me to call Emily and cry and weep and then eat a bullet. I talked to my dad a couple of days beforehand and he told me to stay away from alcohol. I was way ahead of him on that one. And that real men drink bitters and soda when they're not drinking booze at a bar and not mocktails cuz those are for I asked the bartender for a club and soda, confident that I'd be looked at like a manly man. And she teased me and said, "Okay, grandpa." And poured me some club soda and shook some droplets from what looked like a brown tobasco bottle. Thanks, Dad. I like the taste, though. I soon became stuck in that sober guy limbo where everything is funny. But you know in 1 hour you're going to be babysitting adult toddlers. The guys got more and more buzzed and more and more enraged about what Emily did to me. They were wanting to call her up and yell at her. I told them I took care of it and talked about that video I linked a bunch of times here about how absolute silence and no contact is the right way to treat a cheater. They seemed to agree. Jim was calling the female bartender. Bro, Matt was downing a draft beer while stuffing steak nachos down his throat after a full steak dinner. He and his wife are vegetarians, so I have aided and emedded dietary infidelity, just like Jenny did with real actual wiener adultery. I have no shame now. Matt paid for that sudden intake of red meat later. We had some lively conversations about politics and their relationships, but not mine. Just a head off the questions. I don't know if there were any pretty girls there. I wasn't really looking. I felt like a burn victim, like everyone was staring at me and doing that thing where you inhale sharply between clenched teeth. After the bar kicked us out at the end of the night, I herded them into Jim's minivan and kept Bob from purchasing a homeless man's dog. Jim didn't need that smell in his minivan, and Jim's wife would harpoon me. Matt was moaning and holding his stomach. I stole a trash bag from the little closet in the bar's restroom just in case he needed to throw up. I drove them all home, let them get their own cars the next day. I walked Bob to his bed, thought the better of it and decided to just cut out the middleman, and deposited him in front of his toilet, head hanging over the side. I gave Matt over to his pregnant wife and told her, that it will be Matt who's vomiting for a change. She tried to talk with me about Emily, but I politely shut it down quickly. I don't know why her friends are so invested in us getting back together. I can only assume they don't know the whole story. I don't want to reveal details to anyone until I absolutely have to. I drove Jim's minivan home to his house. I shoveled Jim into his master bath where he proceeded to sacrifice his expensive steak dinner to the porcelain gods. It's fine. I didn't pay for it. Jim's wife gave me a big hug and asked me how I'm holding up. I said as good as can be expected. She said that I should concentrate on whatever new beginning I choose next. I guess I just won at soon to be ex bingo because I think that's the top three things I've been hearing and saying lately. I paid for a ride back to the bar where I made sure all their cars were locked before I drove mine to the hotel where I'm staying currently. Sunday night we played Dungeons and Dragons and Code Names at Bob's place. None of us drank. I had a good time then, too. I'm going back to work on Monday. By that I mean I'll be bringing my laptop either to the public library or a coffee shop to do my work. I don't have any in-person meetings scheduled for my office next week. I think I'm just going to lay low and establish a new normal next week. Or maybe the week after. I'll be moving over to my dad's friend's Airbnb remodel and helping out there in my spare time. That will be my home for the foreseeable future. Right now, we're waiting on the credit card records. And to my knowledge, Emily hasn't gotten a lawyer yet. Come on, default judgment. My lawyer told me John's wife contacted her. She didn't get any more specific than that. Nothing from Jenny or her husband. They're Emily's friends, not mine. I did her hubby a favor. What happens next is up to him to answer the multiple questions here. The only overnights Emily had during the time period of her affair were when she visited her parents three times. I verified it with them each time. Not because I was paranoid, but I just liked talking to my mother-in-law and it was an excuse to chat with her. The third time Emily went, she came down with the flu and mother-in-law took care of her for a couple of days. I called every day. I'm pretty convinced that she didn't do overnights with John. The closest she came was during New Year's Eve. I suppose mother-in-law could have aided and abetted her infidelity, but she's very religious and I don't believe she'd do that. Not going to lie, it would hurt a lot if she did. As far as news of Emily, I have no idea since I'm no contact. Matt said his wife said that Emily is struggling and that's it. I hope she gets help if it gets too bad. I checked the cameras and Emily seems to have moved out of the house. I believe she's with her parents currently, which is a hell of a commute for her, so she's probably taking time off work, too. I'll update if anything significant happens, believe me. Otherwise, I probably won't be as active on here as I was last week. >> Good for you, OP. It's good to hear you got out of that hotel and got to hang with your friends and take a break from all this crap. Hopefully, it gave you some sense of normaly. As the Beatles said, get by with a little help from your friends. No surprise she is struggling. She messed up big time and realizes how flimsy and weak her explanation is. And she is having a hard time coming to terms with her weakness and stupidity costing her you. I doubt she'll ever find anyone who has the same connection and love for her that you did. I hate how tragic this is, but she made these decisions. The more I follow your updates and comments, the more it is apparent that you are just better than her. The manner in which you've handled this demonstrates how strong you are as a person. You figured out what happened and took care of business to overcome the adversity you are facing. Emily faced adversity and took the easy way out, showing how weak she is. How would she handle difficulties of life that married people will encounter? Now you have your answer. No doubt Matt's wife has probably already spoken with her. You being cited might prompt her to spend more time with Matt's wife to try and get a line on you. A conversation with Emily at this point provides absolutely no value to you. You know what you need to know? Everything she needs to know is in the note you already left. It is what it is. I know you're in the thick of it now, but I am completely confident when you get on the other side of this thing. You will be shocked at how much better your life will be. Just ball out at work, keep up the gym, and do fun stuff. You're young and got stuff going for you. You'll be a target for the ladies when you decide it's time. Your friends need to get crap from their wives for drinking when they knew you would be sober. Glad you had fun and also glad you were taking a step back from Reddit. As to the comments you received, I would anticipate that many, many people will be pushing hard to get you two back together. This is a natural reaction to any breakup by many. However, it will be more pronounced here given that you and Emily were first and only for so long. People probably viewed you as the idyllic couple and that ending is something they will not be able to take. Something like if they fell apart, what does that mean for the rest of us? Be prepared. The onslaught will come. A question. You mention here that Jenny and her husband are Emily's friends first and foremost. How did Emily meet Jenny and how long have they been friends? More detail about the relationship between Jenny and Emily would be insightful, as well as the relationship between Jenny's husband and you and Emily, respectively. It is curious that they would primarily be Emily's friends when you and Emily were together so long. I've been following this story religiously. Your updates are always funny and a breath of fresh air. I'm sure it's hard to joke in times like these, but your sense of humor is hilarious. As for your wife, I'm glad she's struggling. My ex-wife struggled after I left her, too. But I enjoyed hearing about it, honestly. Very similar stories, so I feel your pain. Except mine was a cliche personal trainer. I know you're still playing the nice guy and wishing her well, but it's fine to be pissed. It's normal to hate her guts. I know you still feel love in some way. Every time you think that, every time you miss her, you go ahead and lick your lips. Then think about that old nasty nuggets covered by sweat all over her lips. The same lips that she kissed you with. Salty, I know, but to hell with her. A lot has happened and I'll just go through it all in order. I don't have the credit card records yet, but my lawyer says that she successfully got a gag order or something like that. So that Emily and John won't be notified of the subpoena. Until we get the records in our eager little hands, I expect a huge storm from Emily when she gets that news, trying to turn the narrative in any angle she can so that she doesn't come off as some kind of crackhead street walker. I met with John's wife, I'll call her Lisa. She was devastated by all of this, but not surprised. She told me Jon cheated on her when she was pregnant with their third child. We got to talking about the sequence of events, especially towards the end where Jon got more and more invested in my wife. We talked about New Year's Eve, and Lisa said that she had taken their three kids to Orlando for the holidays, and Jon had come, but then left early and wasn't there for New Year's Eve. Lisa said that Jon had facetimed her during the countdown and she's 100% certain that he was at their house. She was so pissed to the point of tears. She had someone check the Ring camera footage and sure enough, there was Jon and Emily both arriving in J's car and him pulling her into their house. She didn't look very excited to be there, but she wasn't struggling either. Emily had driven her car that night during New Year's Eve, so I don't know what happened. I told Lisa at least Emily didn't get pregnant from the guy and Lisa assured me that it wasn't possible or at least not probable. After she caught him cheating after their third kid, she demanded he get a vasectomy as part of the conditions of staying together and she drove him to the appointment herself because she didn't trust him. Wow, cowboys shooting rubber bullets now. Lisa has put my lawyer on retainer, so we're going to be divorce buddies, I guess. We're forming a little club where we have sleepovers, eat s'mores, and braid each other's hair, and spill the tea on Timothy Shalamé. Lisa shared a bunch of stuff with me, which is basically more communications between Jon and Emily, where Jon begs her to see him and compliments her, tells her he bought a new outfit for her and needs to see her in it. The timeline of messages had her being friendly at first, but getting more and more cold over time. Poor Simpy John. >> I asked Lisa if she was aware of Jon's lingerie fetish, and she said she could probably open a resale store with just her stuff alone. Just to head off any comments, Lisa and I are kind of supporting each other through this as we alone know what the other is going through. She asked me all kinds of questions about Emily. I tell her I don't want to know a thing about John. Intimacy is pretty much the furthest thing from my mind. And honestly, I don't think I could get it up for anyone who's been with John. I low-key hate the guy. Also, my lawyer told me to be really careful about being around Lisa because we're both going for an atfault divorce and us being physically close in any proximity could look like we're having an affair, which would count against both of us in our divorces. Always do what your lawyer tells you to do. I moved out of the residence hotel and into the Airbnb remodel. My role there will just be painting some sheet rock work, laying down vinyl plank flooring, and just letting the service people in and out of the place at all hours of the day. It's a welcome distraction to everything that's going on. It's kind of funny, this place. It has thoroughly modern kitchen. The fridge has a touchscreen tablet embedded in it. This kitchen could hack into the Pentagon and turn them all vegan. The rest of the house is a waste pit. The AC works and it's got a new roof and internet though, so I'm happy. I unblocked my mother-in-law and we chatted a bit over text. Just surface level stuff. She asked to meet me and promised that Emily would not be there. I wanted to see her, so I agreed to meet her in a remote spot. I told her that if Emily was there, I'd immediately leave and cut her off forever. She agreed and we met. I drove out to a public park a good distance from where the Airbnb is. She came. Emily was not there. She teared up when she saw me and said I looked so thin. She took me to her car and unloaded a ton of groceries on me. She bought me eggs, chicken, some steaks, homemade soup, homemade cookies, my favorite spinach casserole that she made, and a ton of fruits and vegetables. She told me to start eating well or she was going to move in with me and nag me until I did. I almost took her up on that. Being alone sucks. We chatted some and towards the end she started doing that thing where you want to talk but you know you can't. Lots of starts and stops as she was trying to find a loophole in my conditions. I felt sorry for her. So, I told her we could talk about one thing. I know, but I did it for her. I shouldn't have caved, but that's the reason I ghosted Emily. I cave around people who are emotional like that. I cave around the people I love. I just want them to feel good and to be the person responsible for them feeling okay. The loophole she invoked was that she didn't want to talk about Emily. She wanted to talk about reconciliation. I told her what I wrote in these posts and comments. My marriage to Emily is over. Even if we were to get back together, which we won't, it will be over because we're different people now. I told mother-in-law that Emily wants to reconcile with the person I was. Before I found out the truth about her, I treated her great. I was a good husband. I was loyal and loving. That person doesn't exist anymore. The person I am now would treat her daughter badly. I would probably lash out verbally abusing her all the time. I would be miserable thinking about what she's doing every time she walks out our front door. And I'd make her daughter miserable, too. Emily would no longer love me because I'd be this sad, miserable shadow of who I was. I wouldn't be the guy she fell in love with. I'm different now. Emily might say that she loves me, but anyone can say anything. All I have to go by are her actions. And her actions tell me that she's only sorry she got caught. She is not taking accountability for her willingly destroying our marriage. There's no possible magical phrase she can say that will heal what she did. I can't forget about it. I told my mother-in-law that I have evidence she hasn't seen, which supports my claims that Emily knew exactly what she was doing and isn't a victim in all of this. Mother-in-law was very interested in seeing it, and I told her she will when my lawyer says it's in the clear. I mentioned what I've said before about Emily being with John and then coming home and kissing me without brushing her disgusting mouth first. I think that hit home. Mother-in-law looked mortified. She talked about therapy for us both individually and together and said that she'd pay for it. She said that she'd been reading online about reconciliation and that it's possible. I told her I'd read about it, too, and the stories that stand out to me are the ones where the person who cheated was remorseful and did the work. but after a number of years pass cheats again and is not remorseful and then leaves the cheated on person who took them back for the affair partner only now it's worse there are kids involved the most successful reconciliations I've heard of are with two people who don't fully trust each other and never will I would either be this mentally unstable sucker or a loving husband who has cruel emotional outbursts and PTSD moments I asked her if she would want to live like this. She agreed she wouldn't. I told her that Emily is not telling her the whole story and that I have evidence that this was a willing ongoing affair and not assault or coercion or grooming. I told her to get Emily into therapy so that she can maybe try to fix whatever inside her caused her to do this terrible thing. that if she were able to fix that about herself and be loyal that she'd make a great partner. She's only 28. She's very beautiful. She has no kids and a successful business. I told her there were probably hordes of guys wanting to marry and have kids with Emily and that mother-in-law could still count on having grandkids, but just not for me. She said she wished I would think about it. And I told her, "I've already gone over every possible future Emily and I have in my spare time, and I just can't do it. Emily betrayed me." I told Emily's mom that she needed to either get a lawyer for Emily or to get Emily to sign whatever offer my lawyer puts in front of her. I was kind of hoping for a default judgment, but I think I'll have no such luck. Emily's family will probably get her a lawyer and then crap Hurricane Emily will blow through my life for a bit until we're finally done with this. Divorce is a flaming hellscape we all crawl through alone. I have no kids with her, thank God, so I'll be able to make a clean break of it when this is all done. I'll never be able to forget this, though. It's always going to be a part of me, and that sucks. Why is it so that a person can mark another person so heavily that they're always scarred by it? Maybe it's a healthy thing that I'm more distrustful, standoffish, and skeptical about people now. But I can't help but think that my being changed like this would have really upset my mom. It's probably a good thing she didn't live to see this version of me. >> Royal AI. Did you get any insight on the version of events that was given to your mother-in-law? When given one subject to talk about, she instantly went to reconciliation. But anyone who's been given the list of facts that you provided here would know that is absolutely impossible. So, is your mother-in-law under a different impression of what happened, such as believing Emily was coerced and unwilling, or that it was much shorter affair than it was? Is she aware of the more lurid details of Emily's affair? Also, do you think your mother-in-law's request of reconciliation is out of concern for you or Emily's best interests? Or is it possible she is trying to avoid being the mother of a publicly divorced adulterer daughter? >> Sure, I think she knows with her head that reconciliation is not possible. It's just that she has to come to that realization in her gut. And I think that's going to come later. Stages of grief sort of thing. I didn't talk too much about Emily. Besides shutting down reconciliation, I think she wants to preserve the marriage because she doesn't want to lose me either. She has two daughters. I'm funny and helpful. And sister-in-law's husband is a little standoffish. So, I think she does think of me as a son, especially since my mom died. I did a lot of handyman work and computer maintenance for them. So, I think she'll miss that, too. How well did your mother-in-law know your mom? If they were close or friends, she may feel an obligation to protect you on behalf of your mom, even potentially from her own daughter. Once she learns more about her daughter's actions and motivations, they got to know each other when it became apparent that Emily and I were serious about each other. They weren't best friends, but they were friendly. I think my mom was too geeky for her. My mom liked reading, sci-fi, and fantasy, while Emily's mom is a crazy plant lady, so they didn't have a lot in common. I helped her plant her vegetables and herb garden, and she really was really appreciative of it. Emily's dad was appreciative of the help digging the soil. I think she's really disappointed that the golden child turned out to be brass, but she still loves Emily, as she should. They're not going to throw her out on the street for being a hussy or anything, but I do know for sure their relationship is going to change in a big way. As it should be, her daughter destroyed a good thing and someone they love too because she sold herself for fun. I am so sorry for you. You did everything right and got the shaft anyway. At least you are young and will heal and maybe find someone who will love you truly. That hurts writing it. I can't even believe the amount of pain you're in. Maybe the at fault for you and the other wife will help you heal quickly so you can move on and find someone else. My personal investigator told me that a large portion of his business is rich people doing deep background checks and investigations of potential partners both for themselves and for their kids. He said that a divorce due to adultery would show up in his investigations. So, if nothing else, she won't be able to marry a really super rich guy probably. >> No matter how beautiful she is inside, she must have killed off a part of herself to do what she did. She isn't the woman you married. Are you going to tell or give her mother all the evidence when the lawyers are done? Or do you think the lawyers will give it to her? >> Yes, if she still wants it. I think the fact that Emily had a credit card in her name that John footed the bill for will speak volumes. I don't know how the hell Emily could possibly spin that. I guess it depends on what charges are on the card, but if there are hotel charges that coincide with her appointments with Jon in her appointment book, then that's too hard to ignore. >> Did you mention previously that the family is religious? She's pushing for reconciliation because she wants to save her daughters and her family's image. >> Yes, they're religious. She's a Bible thumper, but she's still kind. I mean, she is more of the forgiveness and love kind of Bible thumper and not the fire and brimstone kind. Is the fact that her golden child is getting a divorce going to affect her social standing? Probably. I'm sure that plays into her motivation for getting us back together. I like to think that it's because she loves me. But maybe I'm just kidding myself. Emily is her kid and not me after all. >> I know it is early days, but have you thought about healing techniques? what you can do to move on and find the real you again. Marriage is compromise and we typically compromise away quite a bit to blend with our spouse in a marriage. Wishing you well, happy to discuss things you can do to heal and become the real you again, that happy guy. I do a lot of deep breathing when I have anxiety episodes. Honestly, writing it all out helps me a lot. Also, my therapist told me to make a big list of everything bad about Emily. All of her character flaws and physical flaws. All of the things she did that annoyed me. All of the things she said that hurt my feelings. Everything bad about her. Then when I start missing her or wanting to call her up and go to her, I whip out that list and read it and it brings me back to reality. OP, I have three questions for a guy living in Europe. Why are credit card expenses important? What does that imply? And do you know what's going on with the husband of your future ex-wife's friend named Jenny? Everybody's so interested in Jenny and Jenny's husband. I'll see if I can ask a mutual friend about it. Honestly, I'm not invested in them. I took pictures of Emily's appointment calendar book. From the recordings and emails, it seems that Emily used the card that Jon gave her to pay for everything related to the affair, including hotel stays. What the lawyer wants to do is connect credit card charges for hotels with the dates in Emily's calendar book so that there's more evidence of the affair. The goal is to have overwhelming evidence for an atfall divorce. With that evidence and the other evidence we have and the fact that Jon gave Emily a credit card with her name on it that he pays for is pretty big evidence of the affair. If we have that evidence, then we won't go to trial. Any lawyer she gets will strongly urge her to negotiate a settlement quickly. The goal is to never see her again and do all the arrangements through lawyers. Thank you for the reply, OP. Second question, what does the at fault really mean in your case? >> One, I don't have to pay her spousal support. Two, it will be public record that she's an adulterer. I'm a vindictive bastard. Three, any money she spent on the affair will be subtracted from any property division. It's not going to be much since Jon footed the bill mostly. Four, I am told that I will be favored and the adultery taken into account for any division of property. Five, rather than go before a judge, they'll be more likely to sign whatever agreement we put in front of them. Without much negotiation, if we settle an agreement beforehand, it will have to be super favorable to me. If she does this, then we won't lay claim to half her business. They'll probably try to switch it to a no fault or at least not have her infidelity on public record, though. That will hurt. But at least I'll get out of this without getting destroyed by the family courts. I think I'll be happy if the following happens. One, I don't have to sit in the same room with Emily ever again. Two, I get my 401k without splitting it with her. Three, I get the lion share of our joint finances. I think I'll probably have to concede on point three, though. If we get overwhelming amounts of evidence, the thought process is that she won't contest the divorce, or at least any attorney she gets will strongly advise her not to contest it. That way, this will all be over in months rather than years. That's my understanding of the process. I may be wrong. I may be throwing good money after bad at this point. So, if John was shooting blanks, the chance that they used protection is well, uh, let that sink in. Oh, maybe you can ask her in front of the judge. >> I don't think it will get that far. My lawyer says that if the credit card records pan out that any lawyer she gets will insist on not going to trial. My lawyer knows that my goal is to never see Emily again. I don't even want to be in the same room with her. That might not be possible, but I will definitely minimize the amount of time I spend with her face to face. >> I've been following your story since the start, and I'm impressed with your composure and levelheadedness through it all. I hope the conversation with your mother-in-law helped you a bit. I'm sure she is glad you had it, but I hope it helped vent too. Someone who knows what's going on. Based on the evidence you have and the other wife have, I wouldn't be surprised if Emily really did regret it or was coerced. Maybe not initially, but at the end, maybe the fog began to clear. I would be interested in how it all began. And if she wasn't coerced by John, would she have come clean? Not that it matters though, how it started, ended, etc. These are only details to the big picture. She can't be trusted, and she made terrible choices every step of the way. >> She was still putting one foot in front of the other while she was being led into J's house on New Year's Eve. She got out of the car on her own. She wasn't smiling, but she wasn't running away either. >> It's only speculation as to why she was unhappy, but I doubt it's because she didn't want to sleep with him that night, as she willingly left you to go meet him at the hotel. She was probably unhappy that her affair partner wanted to leave the hotel to go home to then also take the FaceTime call with his wife at midnight. She was convinced to leave her car and ride with him. She gave up control of being able to leave in her car to get home on time so she wouldn't be caught. She wasn't unhappy to be with him. She was unhappy to have to leave the hotel and go to his home. She seeded him power over timing that night and was late. That's why she was so distraught when she got home that night. >> Yes, that's what I was thinking. She was late because he kept her at his house and wouldn't drive her to her car. I'm sure it was some kind of power trip. >> Also, thing that just seems really odd is how concerned he was about his wife finding out. Yet, he kept doing all these stupid things that continued to increase the likelihood of them being found out. The gifts, Christmas, and then New Year's. I remember he expressed concern on the call. You heard after New Year's about not wanting his wife to find out. Just kind of puzzling. He kept doing crap that would literally cause his wife and you to find out. >> I don't think he's a very wise person. I think he's just a cake eater. He lives in an at fault state, but he's also cheated on his wife before. Is he a serial cheater? Sure, I don't know. I do know he's cheated on his wife at least twice, including Emily. If I had to guess, I think his little head started thinking for the big one. From the emails his wife gave me, he was sexually obsessed with my wife. I get it. My wife is very beautiful. She's very physically attractive. He's not a badl looking dude for a guy in his late 40s, but he's not Henry Caval either. I think my wife did him a lot of favors cheating wise, at least in the beginning. and he got kind of addicted to it. I just think the dude deluded himself into thinking he could have my wife on the side and still have his family. You and I would call on that and tell him he's an idiot. But neither of us are sexually obsessed with my wife. It seems like the more she pushed him away, the harder he tried to be with her. I'm sure his ideal scenario is having her living in an apartment as his regular side piece while having a happy family life at home. I mean, his wife already forgave him once for cheating on him while she was in the hospital having his kid. I lost all respect for her when she told me that. Of course, he thought he was invincible and could have it all. >> Is the penultimate sentence you have written in this reply correct? For example, do you mean you lost all respect for John? If it is correctly written, then I think it is very harsh to say that on postpartum, Lisa, >> I guess it is harsh. I just can't fathom a guy cheating on his wife as she is having his kid. That's so freaking gross. It's unforgivable. I suppose that was harsh though. If she was having his kid and he was cheating on her and she took him back, I guess she was just scared. I think I was wrong to write that just now. I have no idea what a postpartum woman is going through. It seems like it's tough enough without adding a cheating prick into the mix. I can't even fathom it really. I don't want to even think about it. The fact that I'm breathing the same air and sharing the same planet with a low life who would cheat on his wife while she's having his baby disturbs me to no end. It's been a tough 3 days. Jim and Bob are here with me at the Air B&B. They've been hiding all the knives, razors, grenades, and machine guns. We've played some board games today. I'm hung over and they're keeping me away from my phone. Matt put in an appearance, but we shoot him away after a couple of games of katan because he has a pregnant wife at home and she's a good woman. A lot of you asked about Jenny's husband. I can't see Jenny on social media, so I contacted Matt and asked if he could find her. He talked to his wife, and his wife is online only friends with Jenny since she's friends with Emily. Matt's wife couldn't find her either. I asked my lawyer about it and she tried to find Jenny but couldn't. So, I'm pretty sure that Jenny deleted all her social media or set it to extra special private mode. My serious question to all of you is how the hell are we all going to get our daily dose of pictures of restaurant food now? We've been robbed, people. We got the credit card records and I went to my lawyer's office Wednesday afternoon as soon as they called me. Lisa arrived soon after I did. The bills were being charged to John's wedding venue business. So, I guess that means Emily is technically his employee. I don't know how this stuff works. Are street walkers contractors? At the beginning, there are charges for hotels and really nice restaurants. There's one local boutique hotel that's pretty expensive, and they seem to settle on that one mostly. That's the one they were caught at by the PI in the parking lot. The hotels and restaurants started out with one hotel stay every Friday and a couple of expensive restaurant charges every week. The hotel stays lined up with appointments with John and Emily's appointment book. I'm not so naive that I think they only did it in hotels, though, so there was probably more. $500 for a couple of hours at the hotel, though. John must have been their favorite customer. There was a $1,000 hotel charge on New Year's Eve. I don't know exactly what happened, but what I think happened is that she paid for the hotel as usual with the card. They met at the hotel, then he took her home to his McMansion until after midnight. And finally, he took her back to the hotel parking lot. She didn't Uber, though. There wasn't a charge for that on the card, so John gave her a lift. Such a gentleman. The thing that destroyed me was a charge for $174. It was at local name Adult Superstore about 3 weeks after she first got the card. Before I get called out, the records we got from the credit card company were a lot more detailed than regular credit card statements. So, even though the charge was such and such enterprises, it was easy to connect to the adult superstore with the records we got from the credit card company. That's right. Early on, my wife and her affair partner went to the friendly neighborhood sex shop together. Magical. $175. A gross of teeny tiny condoms. Was it a 55gallon drum of lube from Diddy himself? After about a couple of months, more and more charges appeared for Saks Fifth Avenue, local boutiques, spa treatments, gas stations, and grocery stores. A good portion were business related charges for her salon. Apparently, Jon paid for our date nights. I guess this is what was meant by handling me. I remember Emily giving me gifts, but they were clothes and shoes, and I'm not a fashion guy, so I didn't know they were expensive. When she gave them to me, she didn't make it out like it was a big deal. It was just vanillaike. >> Oh, hey babe. I got you some new shoes and clothes. Try it on for me. >> And then, "Oh, Raar, you look so handsome." >> And I would casually be like, "Appreciate it, ma'am." This was when she was paying extra attention to me and really engaging with me. God, I felt so lucky and in love with her at the time. I was so goddamn happy, like an idiot. I looked up my leather loafers online and they were $500. I had two other pairs of shoes from her. Emily had told me that she was doing a lot better in her business and that she could afford to foot some of the bills. Of course, I was overjoyed. So clueless. The charges tapered off in October. In December, the only charges other than the hotel were presumably when she bought Christmas gifts for everyone. There was a charge for a local toy store, the non adult kind of toy store, for a change. All in all, she racked up close to $30,000 on the card. She even paid a few utility bills with it. I mean, who was controlling who here? Um, she was groomed and manipulated by him. It sounds to me like John was a complete sucker for my wife and she was using the hell out of him. I almost feel sorry for the guy. I guess I really am an oblivious pimp. I'm cooked and done. I am so done with this nasty skank, y'all. You don't even know. Whatever lingering doubts I had are completely gone, evaporated. Adult superstore? You kidding me? I'm imagining a Costco warehouse with shrink wrapped pallets of dildos stacked up on top of the shelves, gallonsized bottles of Kirkland lube with pumps on the top. Sold in packages of two. They walked in there together, made purchases there together. I'm done. I think I can meet with her now. Face to face now. I just feel nothing but loathing for her. So, since there's a gag order on the subpoena, Emily and John aren't going to know we have these records until we blindside them with them, either in negotiations or in the discovery process. I was wrong about them being notified. I misinterpreted what my attorney said again. Her goal is to have an early negotiation and blindside Emily and her attorney with what we know. Oh, yeah. Emily has an attorney now. Her parents are paying for it. Her mom texted me when I thought her business was doing awesome. That was just her spending J's money. I have no idea how it is, but if Emily's parents are paying for the attorney, I think either her business is in trouble or she's keeping her success from them, or maybe she's just a leech. I don't know the woman anymore. The truth will come out when she has to give up her business financial records during discovery. My attorney is going to try to get Emily and her attorney into her office for an early negotiation towards a settlement, trying to avoid a formal trial. I want to be there when Emily is blindsided with the truth. Maybe she'll tell the lawyer her parents paid for that she had a credit card from her sugar daddy. Yeah, right. When co had her business sidelined, she raided our entire emergency fund to keep it afloat. I suppose it was an emergency, but she kept it from me. We had a huge fight about it and we ended up putting alerts on the vacation fund and emergency fund. FYI, I mentioned this in comments in earlier posts. Oh, you want to have a laugh? This next part is so embarrassing to me now. After reading the card statements and thinking about my wife and the guy she was going to an adult superstore together, I just looked at my lawyer and Lisa who were going over the records too and cross- referencing things with Lisa's records. I asked them if they thought I was good-looking. They were taken aback and they said yes that I was good-looking. Of course, they did. On hindsight, the whole thing was so embarrassing. I get chills thinking about asking that. and I meant it. What were they going to say? No, you look totally busted. We can barely stomach being in the same room as you. My lawyer figured out where my head was at and told me that she's been representing tons of divorce cases and the people she's seen cheated on were all different levels of attractiveness. Some would put supermodels to shame. She said she's seen cheaters that were very attractive. And she's seen cheaters who she wouldn't touch with a 10-ft pole. she said. In all cases, it was all about the cheater and not the cheated. Lisa started tearing up a little. I barely kept it together. I'm so embarrassed thinking about it now. Afterwards, I asked my lawyer if John could sue me for the credit card charges since I benefited from them. And she said that even though this is America and anyone can sue anyone else for anything, he'd have a ridiculously small chance of winning in court. and no lawyer worth their salt would go after me. Lisa asked if she could sue Emily, but the lawyer shut that down too, saying that Emily was given a card by John. And even though it had her name on it, the person at fault in this case is John and that all money spent on the affair will be accounted for in Lisa's divorce settlement. Lisa was adamant about hamstringing Jon totally and completely. There are no alienation of affection laws in our state, unfortunately. So, John is safe from me and Emily is safe from Lisa. I told Lisa in a mock serious tone that she's not getting a godamn scent out of me and she and my lawyer laughed. The lawyer said she will be handing over the information to the IRS with Lisa's permission. Audit Aoy John. I just want all of this in my rear view mirror so badly. I can taste it. Congratulations, Emily. You've successfully annihilated all lingering affection and concern I had for you. Mission accomplished. I don't give a rats about what happens to you now. I went to my office Thursday and Friday for some in-person meetings to do some pair programming with a new hire for a couple of days just to bring him up to speed on our proprietary stuff. The new hires usually work in the office for roughly 2 to 3 months to evaluate them and to work with the team in person before allowing them to go remote. Since he's on my team, I'll have to go in regularly to help out, but mostly I can pair program from home. Friday, yesterday, I got a call from the guard station in the lobby telling me that I had a visitor. I asked them who is visiting me and they said it was my wife. I told them that I wasn't taking visitors today and to tell her to go away. The guard seemed taken aback by that, but said, "Okay." I ate lunch at my desk and the new guy went out to eat. He came back and told me there was a total smoke show waiting for me just outside the building. Some of my colleagues were like, "Really?" and got up to go look. She had apparently seen his ID key card because he's new and wears it on a lanyard around his neck rather than shoving it in his pocket like everyone else. I told him I wasn't interested in seeing her and he looked at me like I was crazy. I explained that it was my soon-to-be ex-wife. I know he was trying to make friends with the senior guy and he was a little socially awkward, so I tried to downplay any annoyance I had. He asked me why I'd dump a girl who looked like that and I explained to him that she cheated on me. He wanted the gory details and all the little groundhogs were popping their heads up above their cubicle walls. I told him and them. There's nothing more to say, and it's all very dull and conventional. He asked me who she cheated with, and I said, "A business associate. That seemed to satisfy him." And all the little groundhogs went back down behind their cubicle walls. I didn't go down to look at her. The fact that New Guy called her a total smoke show tells me she went fullon glam after knowing she went kink shopping with John. I was afraid of what I'd do or say. I decided I'd get ahead on some tasks that evening and stayed until midnight. Just in case, I left by the somewhat hidden back service or so-called delivery entrance where the smokers go out to smoke and sneak to my car with my head snapping around on a swivel like a godamn crazy person. Dodged. How the f did she know I was there? Has she been showing up regularly or something? I'm usually not in the building. She's turning into this Colorado River of batshit, carving out a grand canyon of crazy in my godamn head. How's that for imagery? I never thought I'd get to this point. I thought I'd always have some kind of affection for her, you know, some kind of pity for her soul. But I'm done. I'm completely done. She could tell me she had terminal cancer and I'd feel the same way as if a total stranger told me. I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you're wrong and it's not terminal. If not, I hope you don't suffer too much. Good luck with handling that. And then just go on with my day as normal. I confess that a tiny part of me was thinking that given distance and time, we might come back together in some peaceful way in the future. That's all shot to hell now. It's astounding to me. Honestly, I thought at least a small part of me would love her forever. You know, even the happy memories I have, especially during our wonderful bonding and romantic times that happened during her affair, are all tainted now. She was the love of my life, and I thought it would be forever, like beyond death, even. But here we are. When it comes to Emily, I'm just a black void inside now. I'm angry that I wasted almost half my life and all of my love on a straightup prostitute. God, what a sucker I am. Here's where the update ended, but I'm back with some mini updates. Here goes. Emily's attorney reached out to my attorney today, and we have scheduled a preliminary negotiation for next Wednesday. My attorney said I didn't have to be there. I asked her if this is where we blindside her with the credit card records and she said yes. So, I want to be there. I'm super nervous though, but I'll figure something out. Jim and Matt usually have some good advice. Bob, not so much. My lawyer said that Emily's side reached out and told me that I could ask Emily questions regarding the affair. So, they're not denying the affair and they're planning on negotiating a settlement and not going to court. My lawyer is going to come up with some demands from our side. But in a good faith gesture, I guess they didn't call it that. They wanted to allow me to give her a list of questions that she would answer truthfully. Like I said in my comments, I enjoy reading science fiction and fantasy as much as the next guy. So, I'm wondering what you guys think I should ask. Seriously though, I was going to ask about what happened on New Year's Eve. I'm not sure if I want to know about the king shopping. Maybe it's a waste of time, though. Maybe I'll just ask her. Prove the collet's conjecture for all positive integers. Do your reptilian masters know that you're freely using the word love without knowledge of its definition? My lawyer says they want the questions ahead of time and will probably coach Emily on the answers. So, I'm not taking it too seriously. It does signal that they're wanting to not go to trial, that they acknowledge the affair, and that they're probably pushing for some kind of reconciliation, which is not surprising. Honestly, the only thing that's boiling my noodle is what happened on New Year's Eve. I think I know, but I want to hear her side. Question update. After taking in some replies, next part is added to the update. I've decided to ask her only one question. What happened on New Year's Eve? That's the only question they're going to get. What happened on New Year's Eve? That's really the only thing that has me puzzled. I'm just wondering about the logistics of it all. She left in her car. She arrived at John's place together in his car. Then he took her away in his car. I asked Lisa about it and she checked the Ring camera footage and they left around 30 minutes after midnight. She showed up at our home at a little before 1:30 a.m. and did the whole waterworks crying thing. I'm not putting any of these details in the question. I'm only asking literally. What happened on New Year's Eve? Be detailed in your response. I don't think I'm giving up any information from our side by asking that. She already knows I thought she was cheating on New Year's Eve. I'll run it by my attorney Monday, which is the deadline. She told me that she needs to approve any questions beforehand anyway, so we don't give up any potential surprises beforehand. I don't think this will reveal anything new. I'm not asking about the Kingshot purchase because that would tell them that we have the credit card records, which they may or may not already know about, but we don't want to reveal that either way. Any other question at this point will just get me a lawyer filtered tapestry of probably the New Year's question will too. I'm just wondering what their answer will be. If it is, I went to the bridezilla party and stayed late. Then I know I'm just wasting my time looking for answers from this woman, which let's face it, I probably am. Just wanted to answer a lot of chats that I got here for everyone to see. No, I'm not a guy who gets off on his wife jumping another guy. And this is not some kind of erotic fiction. I don't see what's erotic about my posts. But no, I'm not that kind of guy. I'm the kind of guy who divorces his wife for doing that kind of crap. I do exercise. I had a scholarship in college for being on the diving team. I still swim laps every day that I possibly can. I'm 6' tall, exactly 6' 3 in if I'm standing on all the red flags I've collected lately. I weigh 180 lb. The reason I'm saying this is to answer the chats that say I've become a fat, ugly, middle-aged dude who let himself go, and his hot wife had no choice but to go outside the marriage. I can't go to my regular club anymore for obvious reasons, but I do have a new gym that doesn't have a pool. I use the neighborhood pool to swim laps now that the weather is warming up. I have been working out lately by lifting at my new gym and hitting the heavy bag in the Airbnb's garage that Jim and I put up. With the owner's permission, we'll remove it when I leave. I've also been going for long walks every day. When I walk, it's for at least an hour. I tried to take up running, but my dad said he took up running in his 30s and got to the point where he was running half marathons, but it wrecked his hips and knees. He said, "I have his shitty jeans, so I shouldn't take up running. I like swimming laps more." Anyway, for those who wrote me saying, "It's very difficult for a beautiful woman in these modern times because she constantly has guys from all over the world trying to pick her up while all these guys are richer and better-l looking than me. Fine. If that's the case, then she should have just divorced me first and then gone on to bigger and better things." However, one of the things I loved about Emily, and that made me secure in the relationship, is that her social media presence was all about before and after pictures for her hair and makeup business. She turns bridge trolls into princesses, and she's very good at what she does. She rarely appears in the photos, and when she does, she's fully dressed in regular clothes. All her other social media is friends and family only. Now, we got that out the way. On to the update. Last week, Emily's lawyer scheduled a preliminary negotiation with me and my lawyer that took place earlier today. They said that in the spirit of reconciliation, I could give Emily a list of questions about the affair. My lawyer said that they'd probably filter and curate her answers so she doesn't look guiltier than she already is, but that it's a good sign because they're admitting to the affair, but not to the degree of the affair. I decided to only ask one question. What happened on New Year's Eve? Be as detailed as possible. I'm only asking that because she knows that I know she was with John after accusing her that night. And I was just wondering why she left in her car, went to John's house in his car, and then came home at roughly 1:30 a.m. in her car. I know they had a hotel reservation. I just wanted to use this as a litmus test to see if she would tell me the truth. And it's also just something I'm curious about. the logistics of the thing. That's the only question I asked. And my lawyer laughed and said that it's probably not what they were expecting. Any other questions would be either pain shopping on my part or filtered through lawyers to remove all meaning since my mother-in-law and Emily were going to be there. I felt like I'd be a coward if I didn't show up. Her lawyer asked permission to bring mother-in-law along because she's Emily's emotional support animal. And I said yes. I told my lawyer I wouldn't be talking to them and she said good and that I didn't have to show up at all since it was kind of an informal meeting. Oh, but if I did show up that I need to shut the hell up. I went to my doc for some kind of anti-anxiety short-term meds and he prescribed me three pills of Clonopin. He said to take one at most an hour before the meeting and to take one the day before to make sure I was ready for the effects when they happened. I took it and it just made me sleepy. I was just at home at the Airbnb and didn't interact with anything that would make me anxious though. So, we had the negotiation today around 10:00 a.m. I popped the clonopan an hour beforehand. Bob drove me to my lawyer's office and waited outside for the circus to end. Angry, anxious me was replaced by floaty me. Floaty me is the coolest. I was wearing the $3,000 suit Emily bought for me with John's money and the $500 loafers and $300 leather belt plus a $175 white silk shirt. Yeah, me and my buddies looked it all up. Thanks for the gear, John. I pitched in $10 for a nice cotton t-shirt underneath and some $4 boxer briefs. I like to spoil myself. I was feeling vaguely nauseated on the way to the meeting. I chocked it up to nerves. Floaty me sat there with my lawyer until Emily, mother-in-law, and her lawyer walked in. We introduced ourselves. I said, "Nice to meet you." to the lawyer out of reflex. And he smiled like, "No, you're not." Emily, as expected, looked well put together, but tired. She had her hair up in a carefully crafted blonde ponytail and was wearing a very short black dress with a suit jacket. Emily looked at me with a pained expression and doing her fake smile. She was shaking slightly the whole time and taking these deep breaths periodically. She didn't say anything, but she sure looked like she wanted to. Emily's mom was dressed in a nice sundress, and she had done her makeup and hair, or Emily had done it. She smiled at me genuinely and reached for me, but then held back like she realized I was the enemy today. I gave her a little smile and wave. My lawyer said that Emily's lawyer told her they had an offer for me. Emily's lawyer said yes and pulled a piece of paper out of his bag and read off the offer before handing it to my lawyer. Emily will reimburse the full amount of $10,000 to the joint marital emergency fund previously withdrawn without my knowledge or consent in 2020 to support her business during CO. Emily will pay for my legal fees incurred to date and up to the conclusion of the reconciliation period. We will participate in nine months of individual and couples counseling to be fully paid for by Emily. Selection of licensed professionals shall be mutually agreed upon during the reconciliation period. Cohabitation is encouraged but not mandatory. We agree to maintain respectful communication and allow for flexibility in living arrangements in accordance with our well-being. If after 9 months I still want a divorce, I retain the reimbured emergency fund. Emily waves any claim to spousal support. Emily affirms no interest or legal claim to my dad's residence or related property. All marital liquid assets shall be divided equitably excluding my 401k. These liquid assets are joint checking/savings, investment accounts, household items, and Emily's IRA. Personal gifts, inherited property, and premarital assets shall remain separate. We agree to enter into a mutual non-disparagement agreement, ensuring that neither party will make defamatory or damaging statements about the other in public, private, or online forums. Uh yeah, too late for this one. Write Redditors. I guess I'd have to delete everything, but I think I've changed enough, especially the names that would give me plausible deniability. In the event of divorce, we agreed to proceed under a no fault basis with mutual consent. Oh yeah, let's not. Hell no. floaty me thought, "Hey, they want me to reboot the shittiest year of my life and relive it. That's great." Then the lawyer handed me an envelope and told me that it was the answered questions from Emily. There was only one question. "Floaty me," said thanks and slipped it in my suit pocket. My lawyer said that we'll take the offer under advisement and have an answer for them soon. But first, we had some questions we wanted cleared up. Emily's lawyer approved, but said they had some questions to clear up as well. My lawyer deferred to Emily's lawyer and told him to go ahead and ask his questions first. Emily's lawyer asked me why I felt the need to put a GPS tracker in Emily's car. I had taken the V out of the car and left it out when I got the evidence I needed for Emily's affair. I kept the GPS tracker in the car for the PI and didn't have an opportunity to grab it later. It's run out of charge, I think, and I've let the subscription lapse, so the lawyer must have gotten the bright idea to examine Emily's car carefully. I didn't answer the question, though. My lawyer interjected and said the car was owned jointly by the both of us, and I was the primary payer of the car note. I was concerned about Emily's well-being due to her unusual behavior, and that any and all evidence we have that will be submitted to the court has been legally obtained. Emily's lawyer acknowledged that and then asked me why I informed Jenny's husband about her involvement with Emily's affair. How did I know that Jenny was involved? Emily's lawyer told my lawyer that he'd like to hear it from me. Fortunately, my lawyer coached me about it and I said that Emily had a history of leaning on Jenny for support. Uh when I saw signs something was wrong and noticed how Jenny acted around me, I put two and two together. Her lawyer nodded like, "Yeah, that's certainly words that came out of your face and weren't coached at all." My lawyer told Emily's lawyer that we would need Emily's business financials as a part of discovery. And he said they anticipated that and handed over a folder of papers. My lawyer then pulled out a folder of the credit card records and put it on the table and told Emily's side that we know she had a Visa Infinite card in her name that was build to John's wedding venue business. Emily immediately tensed up and froze wildeyed. Emily's mom's head snapped to stare at her. Emily's lawyer cleared his throat loudly and blinked like 700 times. My lawyer started reading off hotel charges and dates and asking why those charges and dates coincided with meetings with Jon in her appointment book. Emily started shaking and stammering. Her lawyer instructed her to be silent. He said that they were not aware of any credit card and that they were not notified of this evidence. My lawyer told them that they were notified now and handed him another folder with copies of the credit card records. My lawyer then talked about the charges in December that included the toy store and asked if she bought me and her family Christmas gifts with the card. Emily was breathing heavy and had a nice flop sweat forming. Not a good look, Emily. Not a good look at all. Her mom said, "What?" And Emily's lawyer cleared his throat like a magician's assistant. Who knows the trick is about to fail. My lawyer then asked if Emily recognized the clothes I was wearing, and could she point out in the card records which charges coincided with them? Emily stood up and looked like she was about to bolt. Her lawyer looked annoyed. My lawyer then asked Emily about the $175 charge at the local name Sex Superstore. And Emily's lawyer sighed heavily and said that he felt that the meeting has stopped being productive. Simultaneously, Emily's mom looked down at the floor, said, "Oh, God." And got up and left the room, her hand over her mouth. Knowing my mother-in-law, the Oh, God was more of a prayer than an expletive. God in Morgan Freeman's voice. >> Sorry, I can't answer my phone right now. >> At the same time the sex superstore was mentioned, Emily started going crazy and saying she can explain. It's not what I think. Emily shame has entered the chat. Floaty me just sat there like an ape researcher watching monkeys throw their poop at each other like, "Yep, this is happening." Um, how many eggs do I have left at home? forgot to count this morning. So, I had taken the clonopin an hour before the meeting on an empty stomach, and my stomach was now filing for divorce, too. I hurried over to the small trash can, picked it up, and vomited into it. Not much came out other than the expensive bottled lawyer water I had drank earlier. Afterwards, I sat down casually like, "Nah, I didn't just vomit into a trash can. You're seeing things." While Emily was asking if I was sick and if I was okay, I ignored her. Emily started sobbing and apologizing, asking to speak with me privately, while her lawyer comforted her awkwardly while shushing her and hurting her out of the room, taking the folder and a copy of our offer that my lawyer launched at him as he was gathering his stuff. His face was the color of a tomato. Floaty me observed. I was still sitting there after the door shut. My lawyer grabbed Emily's business records and told me that she was right. It would be a short meeting. Floaty Me looked at my lawyer silently for a bit and pointed at the vomit trash can. Can we make that part of our offer, too? For the first time since I met her, my lawyer started really laughing hard, like stomach holding laughter. She said she'll mention it. As to our offer, here it is. No spousal support. one trash can with maybe two cups of watery puke in it. No claim to my father's house, obviously. Emily reimburses to me half the charges on John's card, excluding anything that benefited me, which would be around $15,000, no access to my investments or retirement. Emily gives my lawyer a signed affidavit chos witness testimony, stating that Jon knew she was married, actively encouraged the affair, trying to influence her decisions, including what to tell me, and that he exploited her emotionally. I assume that part is for Lisa's divorce. Mutual non-disparagement agreement. It's an atfall divorce with Emily's adultery being a matter of record. as to why we're asking for half the credit card charges. Emily didn't just have an affair. She used another man's money to finance a fantasy marriage with me. She bought me gifts, paid our bills, covered up her affair by playing the role of the generous, successful spouse, while the guy she was sleeping with footed the bill. I didn't consent to that. That money wasn't just financial deception. It was emotional and sexual manipulation. She used it to control the narrative. Keep me off the scent and make herself look like the ideal wife while she was cheating. So, no, we're not saying John owes me anything. We're saying Emily does because she used that money as a tool of fraud inside the marriage. The issue isn't who paid the card bill. It's who weaponized the money to destroy the marriage and who got played. As to what Emily said happened on New Year's Eve, it was something I couldn't have guessed. Emily said she actually did go to the bridezilla's get together in order to make an appearance. She was invited but not required to be there like she told me. She met Jon there because it was Jon who introduced her to the bridezilla and got her that gig. Jon had a business relationship with Bridezilla's dad and was invited as well. Jon and Emily left the venue separately but met in the parking lot. Then Jon gave Emily a ride to the hotel because she had been drinking. Instead of going to the hotel though, Jon insisted they go to his home instead. Despite her protests, she didn't want to antagonize him, so she went along with it, but complained the whole time about getting out of there by 11:30. They went to his place. He facetimed his wife. They had very unsatisfying sex in his marital bed, her words, and she drove him back to the venue where the New Year's Eve bridezilla family get together was, which was empty by that time. She drove home, having sobered up some, nauseating, but it's what I needed to hear. I had assumed they went to the hotel, did it there, and then again at his place. Turns out they skipped the hotel entirely. He drove her straight to his house under the guise of needing to FaceTime his wife at midnight and to defile their marital bed. How romantic, right? At least she didn't enjoy herself, though, right? Right. Well, that makes all the difference. Is it the truth? I don't know. She could tell me the sky is blue and I would still Google it. After reading it, I gave it to my lawyer and told her she could use it in Lisa's divorce from John if she wanted to. I don't know the legalities of the situation, so we're now in a holding pattern until they come back with anything regarding our offer or a new offer. If you need me, I'll be throwing up in a monogram trash can. Divorce is glamorous like that. Update: Just got off the phone with my mother-in-law. Their lawyer has dumped them. Surprise, surprise. Their lawyer was basically a friend of a family friend who was giving them a good deal. They were trying for a reconciliation. They didn't sign up to be wrecked like this. I guess Emily was not forthcoming about how deep in it she was. mother-in-law said that before our meeting yesterday, she just knew that it wasn't over between Emily and I, and that Emily was tricked and coerced by a big bad wolf into doing things she'd never do normally. After the meeting, she said the lawyer was kind of cold towards them. When he did talk, he said that when they work with their next lawyer, they need to tell him everything. He then dropped them as clients. Oh, adultery subreddit. Pro tip, tell your lawyer everything. They don't give a flying f if you are a piece of As long as your money is legal currency if they are a good person and you are a piece of crap, they will either not take you on or arrange a legal way to face the consequences with as little negative impact as possible. Emily tried texting me and making lame excuses. She said that early on in their relationship, Jon sent her to an adult store as an errand to pick up a sex toy. She wasn't specific about it and I'm in no contact with her, so I didn't ask. Keep sending she loves me. We have plans. And can't I forgive her? I finally broke silence, though, by telling her to direct all communication through my attorney and blocked her latest number. Mother-in-law said she looked at the credit card statements and asked Emily about them. But Emily was just sobbing and crying and said she didn't want to talk about it. Mother-in-law said she can't even look at her and ask me who is this person. I told her that she's still her daughter and I think we both know that she's struggling right now and she really needs to keep a close eye on her. Mother-in-law said that Emily cried late into the early morning and passed out finally. She said that father-in-law was shit-talking me for breaking his little girl's heart. Mother-in-law defended me but didn't tell father-in-law the truth about his daughter being a sugar baby. She says she doesn't know how to have that conversation with him because it will crush him. I told her that she and her daughter need to go get into therapy and even see a medical professional, then take father-in-law to the therapist with them and talk about it there. She says they've been talking to a Christian counselor. I asked her if he has training or does he just read from the Bible and she said he has training. So, I told her to go see someone who has access to a prescription pad, too. My lawyer told me that if I spoke to anyone from Emily's side to encourage her to write an affidavit about John. I told my lawyer that it's kind of cold to try to get me to help her and Lisa's divorce right now. But my lawyer said the affidavit could help me too. So I told Emily's mom that if Emily wants to get back at John, that she needs to write the affidavit so that Lisa can ass rape Jon in her divorce. So, I guess we're pretty much stuck until they can find a new lawyer. >> A few thoughts in no particular order. The meeting went more or less as your lawyer predicted it would. Not surprising since your lawyer sounds like she's been around the block more than a few times. Orchestrating the question series about the credit card by starting with the calendar, moving through the outfit you were wearing, and ending with the sex shop. Nice work. She's a cold shark of a lawyer. By the way, vomiting is a very common response to the extreme emotions that accompany infidelity. You probably vomited for that reason, not because of the seditive. The details of New Year's Eve are mildly enlightening. Uh, but just mildly. You know that Emily booked an expensive hotel using J's credit card. Ergo, you know, she was planning to have a New Year's Eve bangfest with him. Probably valid. Circumstances suggest she was planning to do this at the hotel and then make a quick getaway so that she could return home to you before midnight. The only augmentation from the disclosure is that John bollocked her plans by driving her in his car to his house instead of the hotel. Her stated reason, because I had been drinking, sounds false to me, by the way. More likely, they always planned that Jon would drive so that her car would remain at the bridezilla location. Why, you ask? Simply in case you got suspicious and drove there to verify her 20. By then, she was alerted to the fact that you were suspicious. He drove her to his home rather than the hotel for two reasons. A, so he could FaceTime his wife from home, and B, so he could control your cheating wife in terms of when she would be able to return to you, preventing her from returning to you in time for the stroke of midnight. This was Jon taking a piss on your marriage, which you had previously inferred, but it was actually worse than you originally thought. The Christmas gift was also him pissing on your marriage, your whole family, really. But in the case of New Year's Eve, he actually took a piss on Emily, too. It was probably the final straw for her. Gh. It shows and proves he really is a dick. If you ever do speak with Emily, you can remind her that in addition to choosing to cheat on you, she chose to cheat on you with an arrogant prick who would mock your and her family by pissing on Christmas and New Year's Eve. She was the one who invited this rotting low life into your family's circle. Talk about having a broken picker as to taking her home and keeping her there beyond curfew. The irony is that he wanted to facetime his wife from home to preserve things on his end. What he didn't count on was that the delay coupled with Emily's obvious irritation when she finally did get home enhanced suspicion on your end that led to you discovering the affair and outing him to his wife. John relied too confidently on the idea that you were a simpleton and thus Emily could keep your suspicions in check with womb pum and bombing. I commented elsewhere about the interplay between Emily's wise and the lack of profitability of her business. It appears that her so-called business has been a financial failure by every measure. Curious if that's borne out by the financials. It needed to be bailed out once by your rainy day fund and then by her sugar daddy. Absent those two bailouts, it would be shut down by now, which hopefully it is at present. A 28-year-old woman who has accomplished essentially nothing in life. My theory is that Emily's failure to be able to contribute financially to the family has probably corroded her self-esteem like cancer. proving that indeed the fact that she is a financial parasite to the family. It's probably something that has eaten away at her for a long time, especially now as she is approaching that event horizon that all hot women approach as their 20s reach their end. That point where random men stop gazing at her with desire and instead switch to indifference. In that context, her affair with Jon becomes understandable. John gave her the ability to live the fantasy charade of finding success in her career. To be clear, explaining a thing is not the same as excusing a thing, but any understanding helps your own healing. To that end, I'd mention that affair humping tends to be transactional. Kitty cat sugar walls for ego kibbles. A giant percentage of cheating wife affairs boil down to that simple equation. In the case of Emily, the ego kibbles assuaged her feelings of inadequacy as an earner and contributor to the family's finances. She could pretend for a time that her business was vital and alive. As I noted in my other post, I think she realized the falseness of this well before you figured out what she had been up to. She had taken steps to stop doing it, cutting off Jon and throwing herself into being a good wife to you. In other words, by the time you caught her, she had lifted her own veil of deception from her own eyes, and she had gazed directly into her own void. She probably thought it was behind her. I say all of this because at present, her entire raise on debt is probably crushed beyond recognition. She's a failed business person, more so a failed wife, miserably failed friend, failed daughter. She's even a failed cheater. I'd submit that somebody ought to be worrying about the possibility that she may selfdelete. >> I am amazed by the morally bankrupt Redditors claiming that being a nice woman makes it difficult to keep your legs closed when wealthy men are swarming around you. This is dumb and disrespectful for women in general. About the offer, did you handle it before the meeting, during the meeting, or is about to be given? I have the feeling that they are waiting for your answer about reconciliation. Nah, we rejected the offer. As to your other points, I agree. It's insane. It's like because a woman has a face that's symmetrical and a healthy body weight that she all of a sudden cannot have self-control. That completely dehumanizes a woman and makes her into some kind of animal acting on instinct rather than a morally and intellectually autonomous human being. I couldn't help cheating. I'm beautiful and he was rich and handsome. Forgive my innocence. >> From the update, my mind is truly boggling that even at this point where you have all the evidence that shows she was a willing participant in the affair, she enjoyed it up until she didn't. Basically, when you confronted her at Christmas, she enjoyed the money, the attention, let's face it, also the monkey business. And still she is trying to downplay and provide excuses. How deep has her disassociation gone? She truly thinks she wasn't into it. It sounds like she's trying to convince herself or doesn't believe it. I also still wonder she keeps emphasizing it isn't what you think. What world could she possibly explain this away? It's truly unhinged. I would expect a partner to dump me for cheating, even if it was just the one night stand, a kiss, or an emotional affair. But the fact she expects you to take her back after 9 months of bouncing once a week, lying, putting you at STI risks, and financial infidelity. It's mental. It's really unhinged Freddy Krueger mental. I hope the next update she truly gets it and just shuts the f up with her tiresome excuses. No, she wasn't coerced. No, she wasn't a victim. Yes, she chose to do this. She only regrets it now that she's lost you and she deserves to lose you. Keep your head up, OP. >> I have no idea. I honestly am concerned for her mental state. I think she was in denial that we have the credit card records and know the extent of her involvement. I think she's just about as embarrassed as she's ever been. Now that a few days have passed, I think the realization has hit her. Mother-in-law tells me that she has only come out of the room long enough to drink water and go to the bathroom. She's silent and avoiding eye contact or engaging in conversation. >> Good god, she's trick-or-treating her lawyer, too. It must have been too shameful for her. OP, you know her better than any of us. But I got to admit, that kind of surprised me. I'll also admit a small part of me was hoping y'all would meet today. She wouldn't be surprised by anything and be upfront and honest. That her reconciliation agreement would come from a place of actual honesty and remorse. How can she ask you to forgive her when she won't even be honest with you or her lawyer about what she is asking you to forgive? If there was ever an opportunity for her to persuade you to at least consider you taking her back, today was the day. And she messed it up again. I'll get downvoted for this. But part me was hoping y'all somehow worked through this or she at least did enough to make you think about it more. It's pretty clear now she is not that person. I'm sorry, man. I guess that was an awkward ride home for her with mother-in-law. Haha. Has Emily tried texting you at all since the meeting? >> Yes, she is texting me. There was a bunch of I'm sorry and it's not like what you think. I just turned my phone off and slept off the clonopit. I woke up and wrote and rewrote the post and posted it. I don't want to turn my phone back on, so I think I'll use my second burner phone that I used for the service people at the Airbnb to call my dad. He wants to know about how it went. I'm sure she didn't think we'd find the card because there was no mention of it. I think her lawyer is going to ask how I found the card. But my lawyer says poison fruit tree evidence is only applicable in criminal cases and not civil shy divorce cases. All evidence is admissible as long as it was obtained legally. >> If it's not what you think, did she text you what it is that you should think or she didn't think of a good answer just yet? >> Oh, yeah. She's saying that she was buying a sex toy for Jon at the adult shop, like she was doing an errand for him. She's not specific about what the toy is. That's the latest I'm getting after turning on my phone. Mother-in-law is apologizing, saying she didn't know and asking why didn't I tell her and that she wished she would have known before the meeting. She's not mad at me, per se, but I think she's pretty disappointed I kept it from her. So, right off the bat, Emily's fine. She's at home resting. She's not a foaming at the mouth insane person who's drugged and in a mental health facility. She didn't try to delete herself. She basically pulled a poison gas attack on our old neighborhood. But other than that, we're all good. So, here's what happened. I was reading at the Airbnb on Sunday around 6:00 p.m. when I get a call from my dad in Florida. He said that our old neighbors called him and they thought there was an electrical fire at our house, but then they saw Emily burning things on our outdoor grill in the backyard. I called up Emily's mom and told her what was going on and she thought Emily was in her room. Apparently, that whole family has been avoiding each other lately, so they didn't notice her slip out and drive off. I told them that Emily was at our old house burning things on the backyard grill and that the neighbors were complaining. The grill, FYI, is a huge built-in thing. They said they'd come. I decided to go over there myself and called the police, the non-emergency number. Told them that we had a small accident in the backyard. But everything's okay and we have it under control. I didn't want Emily arrested for her family's sake. She's already costing them a lot of money. I don't need to add jailbird to everything they're going through. As to how she got in, yes, we evicted her, but the locks hadn't been changed. I thought my dad was going to arrange that, and my dad thought I was going to do it. I've since changed the locks myself. It's not difficult unless you have to rehang the door. Then, it's a son of a bee. I got there before Emily's parents, and the smell was awful. It was this sharp chemical smell, and it was no surprise that people thought it was an electrical fire. I ran into the kitchen and got the fire extinguisher from under the sink and scared the out of Emily by rushing out, shouting at her to get the out of the way. Blasting the barbecue grill thoroughly with the extinguisher. She just stood there surprised to see me gazing at me like setting a fire summoned me like Smokey the Bear. She was in the process of burning her designer wardrobe, her bags, a bunch of lingerie outfits, shoes, makeup, etc. Adultery subreddit pro tip. Burning stuff that's not wood or food gives off a chemical gas that will choke the living out of you. The grill smelled like a department store perfume counter had gotten into a fist fight with a tire fire. Thanks, Emily. There was stuff piled up next to the grill and expensive boutique shopping bags. I shuddered to think what kind of super fun site my backyard would turn into if she burned all that crap. I goon handed her around the side of the house to the front yard to escape the poison. I asked her what in the holy hell she was thinking trying to burn my house down. It occurred to me right then that this was the first time we'd been alone together since the day I had her served. She was a mess. No makeup, dark circles under her eyes, hair up in a messy bun with one of those comically gigantic hair clips and dressed in sweats. Non-designer sweats. Walmart sweats. Oh, what will the neighbors think, Emily? She rushed forward and got me in a hug, and I just stood there with my hands to my side, looking away. After she got it out of her system, she told me she was cleaning house and getting rid of everything he touched. Get rid of yourself, Emily. She said she was trying to make things right. I told her domestic terrorism is not going to get me into reconciliation. She asked me what she could do and said she'd do anything. I told her that it's not fair for her to deliberately smash our marriage into pieces and then expect me to fix it and that I couldn't even if I wanted to. I told her that she sacrificed our marriage for her business. That it would be a slap in the face to me personally if she let it go belly up. So, she needs to go back to work. I don't know if that registered with her. I really hope it did. She kept apologizing and pleading, asking me to give her a chance and that I won't have to do anything. She'll fix our marriage and she'll do all the work necessary. I was giving her non-committal answers like, "Sounds good. We'll see." And I don't know about that. Just to keep her from doing anything else crazy then. I'm full up on crazy now. Father-in-law and mother-in-law arrived and we all had a nice chat about fire safety. Apparently, father-in-law had found the credit card records and asked mother-in-law about it. Yes, mother-in-law came clean to him and filled him in. Now he's up to speed. Mother-in-law and father-in-law had a big fight, and now the three of them are avoiding each other. Not my dumpster, not my fire. I told Emily she could help make amends through helping the woman whose marriage she destroyed by writing that affidavit. She said she would. Father-in-law told me he would pay for the grill and any cleanup. I'm thinking, "Goddamn right, you will." But I thanked him for his generosity. A police officer showed up and he and his partner took a look around. He told me that the grill was pretty much a goner. Uh, you think? And that we needed to break up our little terrorist cell for the evening. Emily and her parents went home while she was swearing to make it all right. I just told her not to burn anything else, please, and to go back to work. Fortunately, the poison gas from the grill didn't hit the house. I hosed down everything because the police officer told me that the fire extinguisher chemicals were corrosive. Dude, you're kidding me. I grabbed the rest of Emily's stuff from the backyard and drove it to a thrift store after hours donation box and dumped it all in. So, if you see a homeless woman with a Prada bag dressed in a garter belt and stockings, you're welcome. The other notable thing that happened is that my lawyer says that Emily's business is doing pretty well. She started turning a significant profit last August and September. Great. So, Emily can now afford all the psychiatric medicine she can stuff in her mouth. I didn't expect to be updating so soon, but I also didn't expect Emily to torch her lacy sins like some kind of dollar store media either. So, here we are. Small update. I went out with Matt and Jim on Friday. We did a little pregaming at Matt's place and Matt's wife made adjustments to my wardrobe before allowing me to leave. I turned off my phone and gave it to her and told her to hide it from me until tomorrow morning. We went to a place that played EDM but still had ESPN on mute playing in the background. So, I don't know if it was considered a club or a bar. I'm leaning towards club because the bartender looked grateful to us when we ordered bourbon and beer rather than some neon colored potion. I don't know if we were just on an off night, but there were way more women than men there. Is that a thing? A cute girl who looked to be in her mid20s came up to me and asked me if I was from Nashville. I said no. And she said I look like a guy she met at a conference in Nashville who was an architect. I joked that the only thing I can architect is my own destruction. Funny, right? I told her I was a developer, the software kind, not real estate kind, and she laughed. She asked about it and I gave her the elevator pitch. We had a nice chat and she asked for my phone. I said I didn't bring it because I wasn't allowed around a phone for 24 hours because of the aforementioned self-destruction. She wrote her phone number on a napkin and gave it to me when her girlfriends told her they were leaving. I kind of didn't know what to do. I felt bad for taking it. I have no intention of calling it. A pretty girl talked to me and I made her laugh though. Let's walk before we run. I met a couple from my new gym who were there. I had talked to the guy briefly before and we had more of a headnod acknowledgement relationship. I met him and his girlfriend formally and we talked some crap about the regulars. His girlfriend was a little handsy with me which made me uncomfortable. She was touching my upper arms and she put her hand on my chest to emphasize a point. I was looking at her boyfriend and he didn't seem to notice or if he did, he didn't say anything. It kind of put me off. Maybe she's just a touchy person. I told Matt and Jim I wanted to get the hell out of there and we ended up going to the dive bar we went to before. I sort of lost track of events after that and woke up on Matt's couch. His wife, still pregnant about 5 months, gave me some Advil water and my fully charged phone. She told me that Emily had been going on an apology tour and has come clean about the affair. I asked Matt's wife what Emily was telling people. Matt's wife just said that Emily admitted to having an extended affair with an older man. Nothing about the whole sugar baby thing and regretted it every day and that I was moving ahead with a divorce. That she knew she had no right to expect reconciliation, but that she still wanted it, asking everyone to pray that we would find our way back together. I guess she found Jesus. My guess is that Jesus didn't see her coming first and was unable to avoid her. Matt's wife said that Emily said she had an appointment to see a psychiatrist, thank God, and had bought a bunch of books about infidelity. I verified this with Emily's mom and they do have a psychiatrist appointment. Emily is planning on doing the longass commute every day to her salon starting Monday. and that she did in fact get a bunch of audio books about marriage and infidelity that her Christian counselor recommended. I didn't ask which ones, and I don't want to know. Mother-in-law says Emily seems to be focused and no longer is just sitting around crying all day, so I suppose that's a good thing. I'm glad that she seems to be pulling out of whatever depression she was in, but I'd hate for her to have false hope. Mother-in-law says that Emily has taken over getting a divorce lawyer and that negotiation should start again very soon. That's all I have for now. Boring update, I know. I guess I'm just journaling at this point. As if you needed any additional leverage. Trespassing and burning evidence in an ongoing legal proceeding is more than enough to get the contempt of your local court. Serious question. Does Emily have ADHD? Her impulsivity and almost complete inability to foresee very reasonable consequences to her actions suggests that she might. I mean, it could also be narcissism or any number of things. But untreated ADHD manifests like this. To be honest, I'd have auctioned the bags and sold everything else on Facebook Marketplace. Try my luck with thigh high stockings from Saks Fifth Avenue for sale. Only worn a few times by a street walker, but otherwise in mint condition. >> We have plenty of evidence. I'm sure with the credit card records, any lawyer she gets will want to settle. I just wanted to get rid of that stuff because firstly, it has Jon's rich loser stink all over it. Second, only I can prevent wildfires. Third, I don't want her to get it into her head to try burning any of that stuff again. Lastly, I'm going to have to get rid of it anyway. And the thought of selling ladies items solo on Facebook or some other platform gives me the ick. >> What did you feel after seeing her? Her hugging you. Uh, looking you in the eyes and talking. >> I felt a little sorry for her. I think she's still not taking accountability for what she did. Mother-in-law has been referring to what she did as prostitution to me in our talks. I think that's what she's telling Emily too daily. Emily is trying to magically somehow undo that. I think she just needs to get to the point that she accepts what she did and resolves to change. I don't think she's there yet. I don't think her pride would let her get there. >> I imagine it's real tough for Emily to get back to work, especially considering the business she's in. I'm sure it hurts being around happy people planning weddings after she destroyed her own marriage. Plus, Jon has his slimy tentacles all over the wedding industry in her area. She probably wants to avoid contact with him as much as possible in an attempt to save her relationship with OP. I assume some of her scheduled engagements go through J's venue. Trying to save a business in this awkward situation must be an uncomfortable spot to be in. >> Jon just owns a very popular wedding venue. He's not the biggest name in town on weddings. He has several other public-f facing businesses. I haven't specified it on here, but he is a landlord and he is at least part owner in some fast food franchises here and even a plant nursery. My mother-in-law is a crazy plant lady. And at their Fourth of July party, John was telling her to come by and take a look. He was doing the whole humble brag thing, which I thought at the time was kind of endearing. I don't know how this kind of stuff works. I don't know if he has some kind of overall management company or he just separates them into separate entities. I'm sure Lisa is getting quite an education on it all, though. >> I have a theory about Christmas and New Year's Eve. Her affair partner was increasingly obsessed with your wife while she was trying to distance herself. I think he got desperate and attempted to create distrust between you and her by sending the gift and keeping her late. What other possible reason could he have for doing these things? He wanted you to leave her. At the same time, he knew if his wife found out, it would be devastating for him, hence his concern about you mentioning his name. He chuckled when she complained about keeping her late, but got serious as soon as he thought you might be on to him. This man is evil. Oh, he was perfectly willing to kill your relationship with your wife as long as it didn't affect him. I can only hope he goes down in flames. Too bad you don't have alienation of affection laws in your state. It might be worth asking your lawyer if there's any way you can pursue something in that regard after his wife takes her pound of flesh. >> Agreed. I think his ultimate goal was to have his happily married life and my divorced wife as his sidepiece. I mean, to be fair, he's about to have his wish. All Emily has to do is agree with it, which I doubt she'll do until she needs money again. >> I'm not sure if you mentioned it, but do you know why Emily still kept going to John outside of the business help? Was he attractive in a way? You mentioned he has a bald spot and is graying that he seems like a sleazy guy. Why the f would she even think about being with him unless she was really obsessed with getting that money? You're already pretty tall and attractive, so it's hard to believe that money was the only reason she did this. You are a senior software engineer, so couldn't she have just asked you to borrow more money? But that would mean she is admitting the business is not doing that great. I just don't get how even if her business is struggling and she has a supportive husband, she still stoops down to that level. You mentioned you had an exciting bed life, so how much more excitement does she need? This is just infuriating and sickening for me to process and I can't imagine how you must feel. I remember that she said on the call with John that lying wasn't fun anymore. I guess the thrill of plotting, scheming, and deceiving as well as the trampoline cowgirl and gifts were addicting to her. Just absolutely sickening. Now I know that I should avoid people who were spoiled as kids. Same for the golden or perfect child in the family. I tried to ask that type of question in the Ask a Wayward forum in the Support for Waywards Reddit board, but they deleted it. I guess they think I'm full of crap. My lawyer said that she's represented people who've been cheated on who look like supermodels. She says the problem lies with the cheater and not the cheated. I can't answer as to what Emily was thinking. The only thing I can think of is that she emptied our emergency fund to prop up her business during CO without telling me about it. We had a big fight about it and I set up notification alerts on our emergency and vacation accounts. John's not a badl looking dude. I mean, he's no model. He's got a bit of a dadbot and his forehead is getting a little high. It can't be him. So, I look at the five-star restaurants, $500 to $1,000 a night hotel rooms, shopping sprees at Saks Fifth Avenue, among other places, and I think that's all the appeal right there. We were well off, but there was some cost of living issues. We were able to aggressively pay off my student loans and other debts. We shopped at Walmart, Target when we wanted to be fancy, regular grocery stores, and not Whole Foods. The fact that she was making it rain in boutiques all around the city is probably what appealed to her more than wiggling. As far as the initial stuff goes, I'm sure he whined and dined her. I have no idea how he is, but he was always a friendly, charismatic guy. I'm assuming he was pretty charming to land a woman like Lisa and my wife. Couple that with a fat wallet, and here we are. That's just my assumption, though. Only Emily knows the full story. Sir, I'm curious to know if John is devastated that his wife is divorcing him and how his kids are reacting to this situation. I mean, does he even love or loved his wife? On top of that, where's the sister-in-law in all of this? All I know is what Lisa tells me. She says that one minute he's threatening her with getting a dream team of divorce lawyers to destroy her, and then next minute he's whining for a chance to come back home. I don't know if it's a good thing or bad thing, but Lisa didn't sugarcoat what he did when talking to their kids. Now, his kids hate him. I think he is supposed to have them in the weekends, but they don't want to go. On the sister-in-law, mother-in-law said she was upset with Emily. They live one state over, so it's not like they see each other all the time. My personal thought is that there's at least a little bit of shot in Freuda now that her golden child younger sister turned out to be brass. Hey OP, I had a couple of questions that are lingering in my head if you don't mind me asking. When you found out that Emily raided the emergency fund, what was her response and reasoning? Did you tell her that if she ever had money problems or any problem in general, you guys could work together? >> It was during CO lockdown, her business was suffering. She raided the emergency fund to pay some sudden costs that came up. I later learned it was due to her letting some key expenses slide for too long. I found out because I was looking at the emergency fund because I wanted to use it to buy a gaming laptop. I discovered the money gone, but it had happened the day previous and she said she was going to tell me. Her justification was that it was an emergency and it was, but she didn't tell me that she was going to do it. She just did it without consulting me first. >> How big was the fight? full-on shouting and screaming, or was it a long argument and you guys were kind of not talking or moody around each other for a bit before it died down? >> It was a big fight and it ended up with her crying and me apologizing for being harsh. I get belligerent and sarcastic when we fight and she hates that. I still put notifications on our emergency and savings accounts so that any activity gets us sent texts, just emails. We talked it out though and I thought we were good after that. We had an understanding about joint funds. >> If possible, could you share more about the card that John left Emily on Valentine's Day? You said it was explicit. Was it sexually explicit or just him describing his feelings in depth? If you sent the contents in the email to Emily's family, why would father-in-law get mad at you when he has evidence and a photo of Emily and John? The Valentine's Day card said that Jon enjoyed and missed their Friday afternoon trrists as well as gross comments about her body specifics and that he wanted to see her dressed up in the present he bought her. I'm not getting more specific than that. >> Has Emily avoided talking about problems with you in the past? Did it take a while for you to know there was an issue or did she still reach out to you first and discuss it? >> We talked about our personal problems or household issues. She never spoke with me about her business though or its problems. I don't know why. >> You mentioned you had cost of living issues. Since you were staying in your dad's house, what were the other costs you had to spend a lot on other than cars, groceries, insurance, etc.? >> I wasn't making six figures our entire marriage. That's a recent thing. During our marriage, we were aggressively paying off my student loans and fully funding my 401k as well as investment accounts. we were setting up for our future kids. We had to pay for home and auto insurance, property taxes, and we were in a nice neighborhood, which meant higherpriced grocery and retail stores nearby. We'd traveled to the discount places on the weekends and saved up our grocery lists until then. I even tried some couponing for a while. We were also using funds to supplement Emily's business expenses, usually a couple of hundred bucks here and there. nothing on the order of $10,000 which was in the emergency fund. Though my lawyer and I are using both the emergency fund and the sporadic payments towards her business as a negotiating factor in the divorce terms. I'm 99% sure her business is an LLC. >> Do you think you would ever ask Emily about the exact reasons for why she did it and why she didn't come to you when Jon made moves on her? Why she kept doing it even after her business started turning a profit? and how she could tell all those lies. >> I suppose I will have a nice long chat with her eventually, but right now I'm just trying to say as little as possible to her. It seems to be working as it's driving her crazy. Just seeing her, let alone being with her, causes me physical pain in my stomach. >> People here seem to think Emily is stupid. She isn't. Wow. Emily is dangerous on another level. Think about it. She knew she'd get away with taking the emergency fund, and she did. She expected to get away with using money from her affair partner to help her business because she didn't expect to get caught. Also, the fire was deliberate and calculated attention, seeking to draw out the OP. She realized dressing hot didn't work, so she made herself look miserable so he'd feel sorry for her. Everything she's done has been deliberate and calculated, and there is zero evidence for any wildly destructive unthinking behavior. Her entire affair was not only calculated and deliberate, but shows plenty of signs of advanced planning. For instance, charging a hotel room for New Year's Eve 10 days beforehand. The reservation may have been made weeks or months before. She probably had to charge the room to secure the reservation. Emily is a smart person. She could have gone to college and done well with a regular career. She is really good at what she does, though, and loves doing it. Like, she's had customers cry after she's done with them. She prefers working with women, which are the overwhelming majority of her customers. She did other jobs as a teenager, and while she was in cosmetology school, she was uncomfortable working with men. She avoided it completely because inevitably she'd get hit on or stared at all the time. It was high school though and I'm sure that kind of crap happens all the time in high school type jobs. She got me through some tough classes in senior year of high school with little to no effort so she's not stupid. I don't look down upon service type jobs. My friend Jim quit his civil engineering job to join his brother's pest control company and he loves his job. >> I'm starting to feel sorry for Emily. She definitely cheated and lied, but it's still heartbreaking. I'm so sorry you're having to still handle her. I do hope you support her seeing a therapist and at least laying all the guilt and lies out to them. There are so many stories on Reddit where the partner gets caught and turns nasty, but this seems to be one where Emily is having a meltdown mentally and is still clinging to hope. This is the lesson from cheating. It's a ripple effect. It affects the cheaters, the cheated, the families, and any friends. And all Emily had to do was say help months and months ago to likely avoid this. >> Whenever I start to feel sorry for her, I recall that she blew that prick, then came home to me afterwards and kissed me with that foul mouth. Then I'm fully cured. I'm starting to slip into indifference when it comes to Emily. Maybe if she took accountability for it all earlier, things would be different. But she just kept hiding and hiding it. Deny, deny, deny. >> This is going to sound crass. Forgive me for asking. How could you possibly know she went down on him before giving you a kiss? >> I put myself in John's shoes. Walk with me on this one. If I gave a girl a Visa Infinite card with her name on it and puted tens of thousands of dollars on the bill, I'd expect PJs to be on the table at all times. I checked her bag and there was no toothbrush or toothpaste in it. I suppose it's possible that she had some dental hygiene stuff stashed somewhere else, but the fact of the matter is that she chose to jump a guy for 9 months. Whatever her reasons are, there's no magical phrase she could utter that would have me say, "Oh, okay. It's a good thing you did that." >> It's not a gun to your head thing or that someone needed an organ transplant or something. >> Just a small question. Is she more upset over losing you, your trust, and destroying her marriage, or getting caught and having it exposed? I also think reconciliation is possible. I survived it, and my marriage is great. On a side note, it's kind of a powerful tool. If you do, a really shitty postnup would be necessary if she does anything remotely shady, like she agrees to whatever you want within reason. Personally, I think she's just upset at being outed as a sugar baby to her family. Before that, she was clinging to the coercion narrative. I hope she does take accountability. That's the only way she's going to change for the better as a person, which despite everything, I hope she does. I mean, I'm like any other betrayed spouse. I'm not above wishing that she ends up a homeless, drugaddicted street walker sometimes. But then I know that I've known her for half my life and that despite everything, I still care about what happens to her. I don't want to be a part of her life, but I don't want her life to end just because I'm not in it. The owner of the Airbnb has started having furniture delivered. I have pushed it around and set it up in places. In some cases, I put it together. In the living area, I set up a huge TV and then set the coffee table in front of it. Placed two armchairs behind the coffee table and the couch behind the two armchairs. The interior decorator the owner hired came in and laughed at me and told me it looked like Star Trek. I impressed her with feats of strength moving around furniture and hanging pictures and shelves. She offered me a job. At the end of it all, I asked if she was flirting with me because I'm stupid like that. and she said yes and gave me her card. I called up my lawyer and she called me back eventually. I asked her about maybe going out on a date with someone and she metaphorically dope slapped me upside my head and told me that no, I could not go commit adultery with anyone during my at fault divorce for adultery. Oh well. But man, she was this beautiful Indian girl with delicate features and a posh British accent. She looked like a Bollywood actress. Oh, well, I guess I know that when I'm single, I'll at least get asked to the prom. It is prom season now, after all. I guess that's why I'm so giddy while writing this. Here's the update for y'all. I unblocked Jenny's husband and messaged him. I met up with him for coffee, or what I assumed would be coffee. This man ordered an iced matcha latte like we were on a Tik Tok date. He's a little older than I am. He works construction and is built like a pro- football lineman despite his beverage choices. We're only acquainted with each other due to our wives. So, after some talk about surface level stuff, I asked him how he's doing with Jenny. He said he thought something was up because he would see her texting and laughing. He thought she might be having an emotional affair because she's always at home with her toddler. She's not conventionally attractive, being around 100 lb overweight, but her husband likes it that way. He was dreading confronting her about it, but after getting my text, he did. She confessed to it and basically living vicariously through it because Emily was talking about their fancy dates, Emily's spa trips, hotel room service, Jon taking her to boutiques that don't have price tags on their items. Cuz if you have to ask, every time Emily would cry and feel guilty. Jenny admitted to encouraging her to have one last big fling of fun before settling down and becoming a mostly stay-at-home mommy like her and telling Emily I'd divorce her if I found out she's dead on right about that one. She deserved this blah blah blah. Basically being an enemy of our marriage. Jenny's husband rightfully figured that if Jenny could do this, she could cheat on him. He told Jenny he was divorcing her. But Jenny put on the full court press, deleting her social media, blocking Emily, and swearing never to talk to her again. Full access to phone, computer, etc. She booked therapy for them and paid for it by starting to work part-time again. She's a nail tech. Those people can make money handover fist, y'all. You have no idea. Jenny's husband consulted an attorney. $400. Ouch. and was basically told that he would lose a lot of money and she would probably get majority custody because what she did didn't constitute adultery or infidelity. So, it' be a no fault divorce since her only infraction was having my wife be her favorite reality TV show. Jenny's husband decided to stay and work on the marriage because he didn't want to lose access to his son. He showed me pictures and videos of the kid, and let me tell you, I don't know anything about toddlers, but that is one cute kid, so I understand. He said that Emily and Jenny have not been in contact, and Jenny has deleted most of her social media and has a Facebook account with only her family, mom, dad, siblings, in-laws on it. He said he doesn't trust her as much anymore, and they're working on it. He said that he respected me, but he wouldn't be able to respect himself and stay with a wife who did what mine did, especially if there were no kids involved. Thanks for the advice, buddy. Now, about Emily. We got an offer from Emily's new attorney. Emily wanted another face-to-face meeting, but I declined. Let's just rapid fire our crap at each other and get this over with Emily. I've had enough of her high-end hooker identity crisis. Their new offer is this. If Emily cheats again emotionally, physically, digitally, or if she even thinks about sexing someone who uses cologne from Italy, I get 75% of our liquid assets and half of her business profits for the past 3 years prior to the adultery, not exceeding $100,000. In all seriousness, there was a full legal, dry, boring definition of infidelity. If I cheat, it's a no fault divorce and we split everything up 50/50. No alimony either way. She'll pay for my attorney and hers out of her business profits and reimburse the $10,000 emergency fund. Postnut becomes void if we stay together for 10 years without infidelity, which feels ambitious. Considering the first 10 years included the Erotic Sachs Fifth Avenue Rewards program, if voided, both parties wave future claims to assets or alimony tied to this agreement. Emily agrees to full financial disclosure, including bank statements, business financials, credit reports, and any business relationships with men named John, John, or Jean. Anyone named John Johnson or Jean Bjon invokes a double indemnity. Kidding here. All financial disclosures will be kept with my lawyer or some other third party of my choice. Total mutual access to all electronic devices with no prior notice for 7 years. Any hidden or burner devices invoke the infidelity clause followed by a dry description of undisclosed devices. If we do divorce after this agreement, she waves all rights to spousal support unless I die tragically while doing something heroic, in which case she's allowed to cry at the funeral, but not speak. Weekly individual and couples counseling. Minimum 12 months and paid by her. with a therapist selected by me and approved by the state bar association, the Vatican, and my group chat capped at $10,000. No contact whatsoever, with her affair partner or any of his businesses. If a wedding happens at his venue, she sends one of her stylists instead or a goat, whatever's available. All I have to do in order to exist in this proposed paradise is to stay married to the prettiest hooker in town. Hey, my lawyer said it's a good deal and she doesn't know a judge that wouldn't enforce it, minus my sass, of course. She said if I was at all hesitant about not staying in the marriage, it's one of the best postnups she's seen as far as judicial enforcability goes. Of course, any judge has a lot of latitude, but she said she couldn't see any judge throwing it out of court, and she knows most of the judges around our area. Just to be clear, I rejected it. I told my lawyer about my bottom line, which are these non-negotiables. She has to agree to an atfalt adultery divorce on the record. No alimony. I keep my 401k. I would prefer for her to pay my attorney fees. Everything else is negotiable. As far as everything outside of lawyer cage match goes, Lisa is still divorcing Jon. Emily gave over her affidavit, which helped, and she additionally offered to testify if needed. John's wiener must feel very depressed because the women he busted nuts with really seem to savagely turn on him. Attend to her needs first sometimes. Johnny boy Keigull. John do some Keeles. They help. Jon's kids don't want to go visit him and he's trying to spin it that Lisa is deliberately alienating them. If telling the truth is alienating, then I guess she's guilty. Lisa is encouraging them to have a relationship with their father because outside of him playing Johnny Apples Seed with his juice, he's been a good, supportive, and attentive dad, attending their events and helping them with their studies, etc. I'm not going into the details of what she's asking for, but let's say that if she gets what she's asking for, and I'm pretty sure she will, I'm very interested in offering my services as a sugar baby myself. Whatever a male sugar baby is, I'm not up on all the horish lingo. Mother-in-law met me at my business and gave me more groceries, baked goods, and casserles because casserole is her love language. Emily was there, but sat quietly in the back seat. Mother-in-law told me that she let her come along just to see me, and that if she said anything or got out of the car, she would lose all emotional support from her family. I was wearing my Wrangler slacks and a black t-shirt. Drink it in Emily. I was pissed at first, but ultimately grateful because my stomach didn't hurt as much seeing her. I think I'm getting over it all. Mother-in-law and father-in-law are talking again, as predicted. They're both very disappointed and embarrassed at Emily's behavior. Matt told me that his wife wanted squid sushi and a can of black olives, so the pregnancy is going strong. Bob is starting to call off our DND sessions in favor of hanging out with his special lady friend, which is unacceptable. I'm going to use an AI video generator to make a video of her cheating on Bob so things get back to normal. Jim is killing it at life, having his pretty wife who doesn't jump other dudes and his job and planned trip to Europe this fall. My lawyer told me that if I want to expedite things, I should abandon my no contact policy and hand write Emily a letter explaining in detail why reconciliation is off the table. I think I'll have to do that. I'll update in a couple of days with what I propose to send her. Even with no divorce, Jenny's marriage is over. I hope she knows the only reason he isn't divorcing is because he'd be ruined financially and not see his kid as much. At the very least, I hope he gets a postnup. Only thing that confuses me on that front is how Emily knew you outed Jenny if she cut all contact. I imagine Jenny probably ripped into Emily when her husband confronted her before blocking or they are secretly in contact. I know many ways they could if you're interested in knowing. I think the fact that Emily's best friend all of a sudden poofed out of her life when she got slapped in the chest with divorce papers would be a pretty big indicator. But I assume Jenny messaged her one last time and told her why she was cutting contact. I mean, that's what I'd do in the same situation. I think I'm already too involved in Jenny's husband's marriage. I don't care if they're in contact. I kind of hope they are. I think Emily needs all the support system she can get now. I just don't know what their conversations would be like. >> Oh, he left me. Wow. I told you he would. But he's a big meanie. >> She'd probably keep giving her sage advice. >> If you want him back, wait until he walks out of his office and run at him skinny dipped wearing a strap on. Hm. Okay. Really? You think it would work? >> Uh, yeah. Men love that. You know, Jenny may not have been cheating during the Emily sugar baby phase, but I think it's a safe bet she had cheated in the past and shared her trrists with Emily. I'm still inclined to believe that some years ago, Emily and Jenny were cheating buds. Emily had to be comfortable telling Jenny about her cheating. seems unlikely. Out of the blue, she said, "Hey, Jenny, want to hear about me getting Mac flurried by John? Something happened in their past together to make the both of them comfortable sharing and enjoying their escapades?" >> The impression that I got from Jenny's husband is that it was mostly Emily calling Jenny and feeling guilty about it all and Jenny playing Pope Skank, John Paul II, and giving her hooker indulgences. If she'd actually felt guilty, she'd have stopped. She called Jenny for encouragement not to stop. Still though, it seems unlikely to me she'd have admitted her cheating to Jenny without some prior history of such discussions. >> H you're hurling truth bombs. >> It's great hearing that you are doing better. I hope you are sleeping and eating well. I was right about Jenny. And I'm pretty sure if we knew more details from Emily, my impression of her personality would be spoton, too. That's why I feel so sad for her. When you write the letter, make sure you describe everything you've been through. Don't hold back worrying about her health. She'll manage. She needs to understand the consequences of her actions and grow through it. And I think it would be great if you meet her and talk. If you are ready, it's heartbreaking when she asks to see you from a distance, even if she can't talk to you. >> She's under the care of a psychiatrist. and taking anti-depressants. So, I'm sure she'll be okay. >> The psychology of cheaters never ceases to amaze me. Why on earth would she cheat and then turn around and offer you the Emperor of the Universe treatment to stay together? It's befuddling. The more logical approach would be not cheating. She would have her husband be free of the skank reputation, have the satisfaction of not being a pin cushion for a wrinkled old man with a weward pecker, and living large with abounding happiness. Instead, she repeatedly jumps a man she clearly doesn't love and ruins her life completely. Then then she desperately develops intricate plans to try to hang on to the life she purposely threw away. Gh, I just don't understand. Oh, the Indian girl's number will still work after the divorce is done. Just saying. >> You've accurately called Emily a prostitute many, many times over the past five or more updates. That description seems to really hit a nerve with you, her, her parents, etc. Do you think things would be different if she cheated due to an emotional connection? Are there Dante-like levels to cheating, such as doing it for love is not as bad as doing it for money? Would her parents be less offended if this were the case? Would you have a different go-to term for her? >> Personally, if she loved the guy, I'd be hurt. But the thing is, I'd at least get it. You fell out of love with me and in love with Mr. Rich Gym Bro. It could happen to me. I could start regularly attending some club or hobby and meet a girl and feel closer to her than my wife and eventually have an affair. But the thought of having sex with someone I don't love for money, and it's not some kind of desperate thing for survival is just alien to me. It's insecttoid. My mind would never go there. >> Why on earth is she pushing reconciliation? Is she really that crazy? I mean, I'm trying to imagine you two going back to the same house and trying to start again after everything that's happened for so long. How is that even possible in any possible universe? It boggles the mind. >> I guess she figures because she didn't love the guy and because we're soulmates or some other Taylor Swift sing along that we'll just have a nice cry and move on to a deliriously romantic life. Personally, I think she doesn't want to get divorced for being a sugar baby. I think she's really embarrassed about that and how it will look. I do think she loves me, but she'd rather I divorce her for conventional non-horish reasons. My boy is not on the market yet, and ladies are already trying to get some. Proud of you, OP. And that, my friend, is exactly what a man needs. After a shot to the nuts of being cheated on, just being hit on by a lovely woman is precisely what the doctor orders. Not that you have to take it anywhere, but some things are just good to know. >> I will admit that I'm noticing there may be a life after this. I read somewhere that if a guy gets in a relationship right after a divorce and it fails, it's actually more traumatic than the divorce. Hey OP, I'm Royal AI. From the start, I've been following your story and I can't help but feel sorrow. My thoughts are with you. I do like your mother-in-law. Her care seems genuine still. I saw your story on YouTube and socials with or without your permission. I noticed the delivery of those isn't what your story deserves. I wish to ask your permission to cover it myself personally and if I can, I will put my body and soul into creating an episode that's worthy of what you shared here. I promise you I'll give it my agame as I feel your story deserves it. Thank you for the updates. Please let me know and take good care. Oh yeah, go ahead. I haven't trademarked it or anything. I'm certainly not monetizing it for myself. I want to stay as anonymous as I can. Seriously though, you're going to read all this out loud? Be sure and title it the cure for insomnia. I can't decide which way to go in my letters to Emily. I decided to write three different approaches. Coldly logical, raw emotion, and dismissive and insulting. I'll share them all three. So, for the ones curious and willing to hang in there, here they are. Coldly logical. Emily, my lawyer has advised that I write to you explaining in clear terms why reconciliation is not possible. After considerable thought, I've decided to approach this from a logical perspective rather than an emotional one. Let's start with a definition. Love, noun. A complex set of emotions, behaviors, and beliefs associated with strong feelings of affection, protectiveness, warmth, and respect for another person. Love involves caring for another person's well-being, prioritizing their needs, maintaining their trust, and being honest with them even when it's difficult, looking at the evidence objectively. I need to assess whether your actions over the past year demonstrate love as defined above. Consider the following: trust and honesty. You maintained a secret relationship with Jon for approximately 9 months. You consistently lied about your whereabouts. When directly questioned on New Year's Eve, you denied any infidelity. Even after discovery, your account of events changed multiple times. Coercion narrative, business mentorship narrative, etc. You only disclosed information when faced with evidence. Prioritizing partner's well-being. You risked my health by being intimate with both Jon and me. You diverted resources from our marriage, time, energy, and attention. You shared intimate details of our marriage with Jenny. You damaged our shared property and put others in danger by burning your possessions. Respect for partner. You came home after being with John and were intimate with me. You allowed Jon to finance aspects of our marriage. You portrayed a false version of our relationship to others. When analyzed objectively, these behaviors demonstrate a fundamental incompatibility with the definition of love. This isn't about moral judgment or punishment. It's about recognizing a factual misalignment between your actions and the definition of love. Your recent actions such as therapy, church attendance, and your proposed postnuptual agreement suggest you're experiencing guilt, shame, and fear of loss. These are understandable human emotions, but they're distinct from love. The post-nuptual agreement you proposed focuses on controlling future behavior. Rather than addressing the fundamental question of whether you genuinely love me as defined above, I believe you care about me and wish to maintain our relationship. But caring about someone even deeply isn't the same as loving them in the complete sense of the word. Your actions reveal a prioritization pattern where your desires, needs, and comfort consistently ranked higher than my well-being, dignity, and trust. The logical conclusion is that you do not love me according to the definition of love. You may believe you do, but the empirical evidence contradicts this belief. This isn't your fault. We can't control who we love. It would be unreasonable of me to expect you to manufacture love where it doesn't naturally exist. The rational solution is for both of us to move forward separately. You deserve to find someone you truly love, someone whose well-being, trust, and dignity. You naturally prioritize without requiring contractual obligations or monitoring. I deserve to find someone who loves me in the complete sense of the word. someone whose actions align with their professed feelings. We both deserve relationships built on genuine love rather than obligation, guilt, or fear. I'm proceeding with a divorce for these reasons. It's not a punishment or an act of revenge. It's the logical outcome of the situation we find ourselves in. The terms I've communicated through my lawyer remain my position. I wish you well in your journey forward. I hope you find happiness and growth and that you discover what genuine love means for you. We had good years together that I'll always remember. But we need to acknowledge reality and make decisions based on facts rather than wishful thinking. Sincerely, OP. The end. After reviewing this letter, I realize it comes across as cold and clinical. That's not entirely unintentional. It's easier for me to process things logically right now than to dive back into the emotional tornado. But please know that I don't hate you. I just can't pretend that what happened doesn't fundamentally change who we are to each other. Here is what I'm feeling raw. Emily, I don't even know how to do this. I don't know how to say goodbye to you. I keep starting this letter and stopping because every time I try to write the words, it feels like I'm stabbing myself in the heart all over again. I loved you so goddamn much. I loved you with a kind of blind faith that I didn't even know existed. And you knew that. You knew it. And you still chose to hurt me. You didn't just cheat on me, Emily. You ended me. You shattered something in me that I don't know if I can ever fix. You made me feel small and worthless in a way I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I can't even look in the mirror without seeing the you made out of me. I was proud to love you, proud to be your husband, proud of the life we were building. And now when I think of our life together, it feels like rotting wood under my hands, like something hollowed out and dead that I still try to lean on out of instinct. I hate that part of me still wants to believe this nightmare isn't real, but it is. It's so real it feels like it's crushing my chest every time I breathe. I'm not the man you married anymore. And I'm not the man you want to reconcile with either. He's gone, Emily. You killed him the second you decided someone else's attention, someone else's money, someone else's arms were worth more than my heart. I can't come back from this. I can't pretend that it didn't happen. I can't lie to myself just to make you feel better. You're not my home anymore. You're not my safe place. You are not a person to me anymore. You are a shitty traumatic event that I have to survive. God, Emily, I would have given you anything. I would have burned the whole world down if you asked me to. and you threw me away like it meant nothing. Maybe someday you'll understand what you did. Maybe someday it'll hit you like a truck when you're standing in an empty house or staring at yourself in the mirror. Maybe someday you'll realize that you didn't just lose a husband. You lost someone who loved you so deeply that he never once doubted you until you forced him to. I can't do this anymore. I have to let you go. Even if it kills me, even if I feel like I'm ripping out my own heart. Even if I never really heal from it because you didn't just kill the man you married, you killed the future we were supposed to have. Goodbye, Emily. I will love you for the rest of my life. But I can't be with you anymore. The woman I loved is gone. O P. The end. This following is the first letter I wrote, included last. After I wrote it, I felt I had to write a logical analysis of the situation, which became the first letter I put here. Then writing the logical letter got me into a dark place and I wrote the second letter. So here's the first letter I wrote when I was still giddy and happy. Emily, congratulations. You managed to kill a marriage that could have survived a zombie apocalypse, two hurricanes, and my cooking. Seriously, I would have walked through fire for you. Hell, I would have walked through a Bed Bath and Beyond on a Saturday afternoon for you. And I did. Remember that? Would John have done that? Remember when I paid retail for a air fryer from Bed Bath and Beyond? But you know what? Even I can't survive being downgraded from husband to set decoration while you played the lead role in a shitty Netflix romcom. I know you're sorry. I know you're desperate. And I know you'd love to rewind the clock and stop yourself at whatever moment you decided that our marriage needed a supporting cast. But here's the truth. You didn't just make a mistake. You made a lifestyle. You didn't trip and fall into a boutique with no price tags. You chose it again and again. And while you were busy sipping champagne and pretending you were a pop diva, you didn't notice the man back home trying to figure out why he wasn't enough anymore. I'm not angry. You have to care to be angry. I'm just done with this With your I know you want to reconcile with the guy you married, but he's not here anymore. You buried him under a pile of hotel receipts, fake orgasms, and Nordstrom bags. You don't love me. You love the way I make you feel. The safety, the loyalty, the guy who never left, no matter what. Except surprise. He finally left. You loved what that guy did, but you didn't give a about him personally. Never at one moment did you love this guy. Do not yourself into thinking that. You're saying that to yourself now out of guilt and not out of love. You're thinking, "Why couldn't I love this guy?" The fact is that you've always only had one soulmate, Emily. Yourself? Certainly not me. You'll be okay. You're smart. You're beautiful. You're resourceful. And you can spot a delicious brunch menu from 500 yd away. You'll land on your feet, but not with me. Take care, Emily. And when you tell people about us years from now, feel free to lie a little. Make it a good story. Lord knows you're good at making up Goodbye. P.S. The air fryer is non-negotiable. Seriously, I'll fight you. So, after writing everything, I've made a choice. I'm favoring a combination of coldly logical and emotional to drive it home. Here's what I have and what Emily will read. Emily, my lawyer suggested I write to you explaining why reconciliation is impossible. After thinking it over, I realized I owe it to myself to be clear both logically and emotionally. First, the facts. Love means protecting, respecting, and prioritizing someone else even when it's difficult. Your actions, namely the lying, the infidelity, and the humiliation, are the opposite of that. You hid an affair for nearly a year, lied straight to my face on New Year's Eve, risked my health, shared our marriage with strangers, and only confessed pieces of the truth when you had no choice. You chose yourself every single time it mattered. That's not love. It's selfishness. Cosplaying is love. I don't doubt you feel guilt now. I don't doubt you wish you could rewind the clock. But you're not mourning me. You're mourning the man you could always count on. The man who forgave everything. The man who's gone now because you killed him. I don't exist anymore the way you remember. You didn't just end a marriage. You burned down the man who believed in it. I was proud to be your husband once. Now when I think of us, it feels like standing in the wreckage of a house that used to feel like home. You are not my partner anymore. You're a traumatic event that I must survive. I have to let you go because there's nothing left for me to hold on to. We are divorcing. That is final. You need to wrap your head around this fact. Please direct all future communication through our attorneys. OP. This was the end of the initial episode. Lucky you, cuz here are the next 10 updates. >> Emily has started an intensive outpatient program at a local mental health facility. It's not like a bars on windows and padded walls facility. It looks more like a collection of residential homes. She basically does her work during the day, goes there around 5:00 p.m., stays until 10:00 p.m., and then arrives to her parents' home around midnight. For Mother's Day, I watched Princess Bride, mom's favorite movie, and I sent Mother-in-law a cool house plant with a card. I also called Mother-in-law and spoke with her a bit. I told her I was moving back into my parents' place in order to fix the grill and do some other light maintenance. My dad wants to rip out the old wood floors in favor of vinyl planking, which is bananas to me, but it's his house, so I'll do it. I think my dad has Airbnb fever thanks to his friend talking it up to him. The plan is to turn it into an Airbnb in case I can't live there anymore. Putting in a remote control combo lock and a Ring camera. Basically making the whole house remote control. All of Emily's stuff and pictures of us have been moved out of the place and given back to Emily. My plan is to rearrange the furniture around so that it looks and flows completely different. I read that on a separate post as a suggestion on how to get over something like this and it sounded like good advice to me. I'll get rid of the bed and mattress and replace it with something from IKEA or Walmart or whatever my dad wants. The rent is pretty high in the areas of the city I'd want to move to. So, I think I'll see if I can live at our old place. Emily's been respectful of boundaries so far when she's come with mother-in-law to drop off groceries to me. So, we'll see if I can make it work. She hasn't shown up at my work anymore. Lisa has me in a group chat with her friends. I never type or say anything in it, so I doubt they realize I'm there. All of her friends are laughing at Jon's stupid BS. Apparently, Jon is telling Lisa that my wife is a jilted lover who's trying to get revenge against him because he refuses to leave his true love and family after she blew up her own life to be with him. She texted a picture of a diamond bracelet John gave to her for Mother's Day. She had the kids that weekend. Don't you just wish you could throw cash at a betrayed, enraged wife and make her docile and obedient, Johnny boy? Apparently in John's world, women are robots powered by money. Father-in-law invited me out to the driving range. It was an olive branch. I am not a golfer. When father-in-law met me there, he apologized on behalf of himself for thinking I was the bad guy in all of this and for his daughter's behavior. Then he handed me a long skinny metal stick with a shiny toaster attached to the end and called it a driver. He had two buckets of balls. I alternated between digging for gold and attacking ghosts. After father-in-law dried his eyes from laughing so godamn much, he started talking about the family therapy that he, mother-in-law, and Emily were doing. I'm probably doing the drama a disservice, but here goes. He said that Emily grew up thinking that she had to be perfect all the time because that's the only time she received any kind of praise or love from her parents. She initially went out with me in high school because she thought I'd be the perfect boyfriend. I guess on paper I'm quite the catch. How flattering. She fell in love with me, she says, only after we had been going steady for about a year, which doesn't sound like any big revelation. I mean, that's how it's supposed to be, right? You don't fall in love and then go out. You go out and then fall in love. I don't know what the hell she meant by that. She'd known Jon for a while through his wedding venue, but when her business started floundering again in 2022, that's when she really started leaning on him. This means that their professional relationship started before I knew about it. It was framed as a business mentorship where he'd unofficially float her some money occasionally to keep her business propped up. He apparently started demanding more and more of her time, making her into a personal assistant where she'd run errands for him. That's when she started putting him on her schedule book because of all the time she was spending with him. And that's when I became aware of their professional relationship. He did legitimately mentor her in small business stuff and she learned a lot from him. Take a night class, Emily. She knew she had crossed the line when he gave her the credit card. She was making purchases towards her business on it, which we had already verified in the credit card records we got. Jon started expecting more and more from her and basically told her the gravy train would end if she didn't do something a little extra in return. Father-in-law said that Emily called herself a prostitute in their sessions, but justified it at the time by telling herself that she wasn't asking for money. It was offered and she merely accepted it. I laughed at this. It's like me saying, "Hey, I'm not gay, but if someone helicopters their wiener sausage in my face, I'm going down on him." I remember I was always supportive and complimentary of her business sense. I was telling her at the time how impressed I was that she dug her business out of the hole she was in. father-in-law said that she said I was the one thing in her life that made her feel like she could be a better person. And when she started lying to me about how her business got out of trouble, that illusion shattered. So, she decided she must be a bad person after all and acted accordingly by giving in to J's advances. So, my TLDDR is that she spiraled because being loved while lying made her feel like a fake, so she leaned into the fake. She didn't cheat because she stopped loving me. She cheated because she thought she couldn't live up to the version of herself I saw. I don't know what to do with this info. I don't think this fundamentally changes anything. At least she's acknowledging what she did constitutes prostitution. That's something. Emily's attorney has our offer, and I asked father-in-law if they had considered it, and he said that he would talk to Emily about it as soon as possible, but that it was attorney client privilege, so he didn't know if it was his place. I'm glad that Emily is getting the help she needs. I am sad and angry at the thought that I projected some kind of atmosphere that made the idea of being truthful with me such a bad thing. I shudder at the thought of having to wait until Emily sorts out her BS while I'm stuck in limbo. That's where we are. I just wanted to answer a ton of comments here for everyone. The reason I went is because father-in-law is old school and wanted to profusely apologize, but he wanted to do it face to face. This is not the beginning of a wonderful teamup where we travel around the USA fishing and solving crimes. I am not going to hang out with him again or text or write or anything. When the evening ended, he shook my hand and said, "Goodbye, son." As far as mother-in-law goes, I'm delaying that as long as possible. If you've read all my posts, y'all understand why. I know the relationship will end very soon. I'm just delaying that as long as possible, and I think maybe mother-in-law is, too. But I know I'm going to have to cut off that whole family in order to move on. It just hurts, you know. Mother-in-law hurts. Another small update with good news. 18th of May, 2025. I just learned from mother-in-law that Emily is going to agree to my terms. Father-in-law and mother-in-law want to pay my lawyer's fees as well. This is great news. But my mother-in-law told me the following two things. one. In order to help her therapy, Emily wants to read me a statement about her affair and apologize to me while taking accountability for what she did entirely. This is, of course, after we sign and notoriize everything. We can have a conversation after she reads her statement if I wish. This is not conditional. I mean, it's not a part of the divorce agreement. It would be a tacit and informal agreement on my part, but not legally binding in any way. What I'm saying is that I can just walk out if I want to after everything is signed. I think I'll take the opportunity to talk with her, especially if she's willing to sign everything. I think it's appropriate for being together for so long and maybe we should at least say goodbye formally. Two, she wants to make an agreement with me entirely and completely separate from the divorce agreement. She wants to meet with me in one year's time with a mediator and a counselor for a couple of hours. She and her parents have put $7,500 in escrow for it. They told me they'd pay for the therapist and mediator. All I have to do is show up and participate in a good faith manner and I'll get the $7,500. This is entirely optional. There's no penalty for me not showing up other than not getting the $7,500. $7,500 is a lot of money. I think as long as my lawyer looks it over and there's no gotchas or hidden BS, I'll sign it. Maybe in one year I'll be desperate for that $7,500. I'm assuming our lawyers will work out a meeting time next week for signing everything. If this is true, I'm relieved. I'm also a little sad, but mostly relieved. I will post a minor update once we get the meeting scheduled. Super quick update on top of that one. Okay, so I listened to the video you guys are linking to on YouTube. Not going to lie, I freaked TF out when I started listening. First, they got the emergency fund amount wrong. It wasn't $12,000. It was $10,000. They slipped up and referred to Trevor as John multiple times. You people need to edit your crap. Emily's sister is older than mentioned in the video. They weren't in high school together. Emily's sister graduated the year before Emily was a freshman, so I'm calm now. I was surprised that I was so popular with the girls in high school, though. Makes me want to kick myself. I didn't carry myself well in high school. I was pretty much a wallflower. Didn't they say at one point I ate and breathed and lived him or some crap like that? Emily is a person with autonomy, not a godamn golden retriever. The affair details are weird. My favorite part by far is when the old guy tried to get her to be his sugar baby while John/Trevor is in the restroom. That made me laugh. It's not true, but I kind of wish it was. Words cannot express how freaking alarmed I am that my posts are inspiring fanfiction. Whoever wrote it sure is reading all my posts and all my comments, though. I don't subscribe or listen to those types of channels. I'll listen to them if they put up my story just because I like reading the YouTube comments calling me a fake incel, alpha, omega, beta, iota, sigma, pi, epsilon. I did find some videos when I was researching infidelity, red flags, how to catch cheaters, etc. I will admit that some of the writings that others did inspired me to a degree just because they crystallized my thoughts well or the way they described what was happening to them was so similar to my story. Also, at the beginning, I was so out of it with grief and then paranoia that I look back on it and cringe. But I did listen to some YouTube videos on dealing with cheaters and read a lot of stories where people dealt with cheaters here and on other sites I've mentioned in the comments. Inevitably, these channels seem to devolve into misogyny. As I said before, just a cursory reading of the infidelity/ relationship type subreddits will show that cheating is independent of what type of genitalia you own. Some of the worst stories I heard are from women. Heartbreaking and enraging stories sent to me via PM or even mentioned in the comments. So, false alarm people. It's fake. Okay. Last update added. The signing and meeting is scheduled for my lawyer's office next Wednesday. I had my weekly checkup call with my dad yesterday and he said he's coming to the house then to support me. I'm moving back into the old house tonight. It's not going to be a big deal. Just packing suitcases and going. The Airbnb is rented out for Memorial Day weekend. Now that I have a hard end date for my marriage, I'm feeling pretty down about it all, so I haven't been responding much. You'd think I'd be happy, but I don't know. I'm definitely going to live my life. I don't relish the idea of chasing anyone or anything, though. My plan is to get a dog. I'm wanting a young adult one that's pretty much potty trained. I volunteer at a pet shelter, so I'm thinking I might be able to hook that up. Here goes nothing, y'all. Off I go. So, Emily and I met at my lawyer's office. Both her lawyer and my lawyer were there, as well as a notary. Mother-in-law was in the waiting room and I gave her a hug. She was crying. Way to set the tone, mother-in-law. My dad sat down with mother-in-law and was polite. They never really hung out together, so it was not an emotional meeting for him, just awkward as f. I left them in the waiting room sitting. While we were waiting for the notary to come back from the restroom, we were all standing around awkwardly in the conference room. Because yours truly can't stand uncomfortable silences. I asked Emily if she wanted to leg wrestle for the air fryer. Didn't land. She looked at me like I just flung a turd into the punch bowl and screamed, "Suck it, nerds." at someone's funeral. Emily and I were in the conference room signing papers, getting them notorized. She was crying, but not heavy crying. I was keeping it together like a big brave boy, quietly shooting my marriage in the back of the head, mafia execution style in between the chunk chunk of a notary stamp. Once the legal stuff was handled, I signed the separate agreement, $7,500 in exchange for a meeting with Emily one year post divorce. My lawyer had vetted it. No downside. One year of no contact, then a meeting. Mediator required, therapist optional. We each show up, try in good faith for a couple of hours, and then part ways. If I skip it or ignore it, I get nothing. I wanted to put that I should get cash in $10 bills in a briefcase like a drug deal in an old movie. Then it was time for the most brutal chat of my life. Emily had some papers that she was reading from. She handed over a manila envelope that she said was a copy of what she was about to read to me. During the whole thing, she'd stop and cry and say she was sorry and that she loved me. At one point, she put her head in her hands and cried for a bit while I was waiting awkwardly. I'm also paraphrasing a bit after the fact, so the meeting took longer than it seems here. She started off by saying she will love me for the rest of her life. She will never forgive herself for hurting me and she will work on herself in order to be a better person. A lot of it echoed what father-in-law told me at the driving range. This time it felt more real. She said she'd been ashamed of her failing business and didn't want to dip into our joint funds anymore. Not to impress or protect me, just her ego. She admitted Jon was a full-blown affair. Jon never forced or coerced her. She let it happen and she wanted it to happen. It was on me, she said, and then cried some more. John helped her with her business and gave her the credit card. He basically seduced her with his charm and the fact that he took her to all of these super exclusive and expensive places and she willingly allowed herself to be seduced. It's not an excuse. We both grew up in the upper middle class economic niche, but we never went out to super expensive places. A rare expensive date night for us would be around $250. And that's like an anniversary dinner. $250 was cheap for them. The wine/ champagne alone cost $250 at minimum. Seeing the credit card records, I already knew about the expensive restaurants and money spent on stuff, so it wasn't exactly news to me. What stung was how she said it felt like success. Being wanted by a rich dehead validated her in a way she couldn't admit to herself at the time. She said it was fun in the beginning because she was able to separate it from our life and she was swept up in the romantic dates and the boutiques and him working his charm. Compartmentalization. She did repeat that she was never in love with him. It was just exciting and forbidden and sneaky. I'm paraphrasing here. She didn't use these exact words. I honestly am having trouble remembering exactly what was said at this point. She said the adult shop purchase was a remote control vibrator, some costumes that she said were cheap and humiliating, and she threw them away because they didn't fit well, condoms and lube. She insisted they always use condoms, but they didn't in actual practice. She was aware of his vasectomy. At this point, I was looking longingly at the pen we used to sign the documents and wanting to jam it in my ears one at a time. She said she enjoyed the hookups, also known as full-blown intercourse at first because of the excitement and forbiddingness and new relationship energy. But then it became like a chore because Jon ultimately wasn't particularly great in bed and she started to feel guilty all the time. And yet again, she said she didn't love him. She said it stopped being fun when Jon started acting like he owned her and she owed him her time. She didn't like how possessive he was getting or how he treated her like a thing he bought rather than a person he cared about. She didn't end it then, though. When I asked why, she said she didn't have a good answer other than she felt stuck. She said the gifts and the credit card and the help with her failing business blurred the lines. She and Bev, Bev is the same as Jenny, apologies for editing this in this way, told herself to keep it going just a little longer until she could untangle herself because she was too deep in to cleanly break away. She said she had already started doing this in October when her business became profitable on its own. On New Year's Eve, she met Jon at Bridezilla's party and thought they were just going to a hotel as usual. Instead, he took her to his house without asking. They had intercourse in J's master bedroom, reluctantly on her part. And then, right after, he facetimed his wife while Emily was still right there. She said the way he looked at his wife and the way he stole glances at her during that call made her feel sick. She said that because of their actions at J's home and after I accused her of cheating that night, she saw it for the ugly thing it was. That's when she decided she was done. She bought all the gifts and date nights for me out of guilt, which is not a big revelation at this point either. Same with the intimacy and lovebombing for me all through the affair. And then she decided to get specific. I won't repeat what she said. I won't put those words in writing. Just know it sounded like she was reading from the script of a low-budget adult movie shoot. Every word shredded me. Hearing what she let him do. what she chose to let him do felt like being erased, like our personal intimate life had been overwritten by some horrific BS. I don't know why she thought I'd want to hear it. I've since learned that it's part of radical honesty in reconciliation. I guess nobody told her that reconciliation requires consent. I didn't sign up for that. I didn't agree to this. After a bit of her reading that nightmare out loud, I was done. I was looking around for another lawyer's trash can to throw up in. At that point, I couldn't hear anymore. I felt like this balloon of ice cold water exploded in my chest, and I started breathing heavily, and I just had to get the hell out of there. I ran out of the lawyer's office with Emily crying hard like she was surprised I didn't want to sit through this crap. My mother-in-law called after me and my dad scrambled to follow me like, "Oh, damn. He's leaving." I didn't want to wait for the elevator. We quickly moved down the stairs and got in the car and my dad drove me home. I shivered uncontrollably the whole drive home, teeth chattering. He turned the heat all the way up. Tunnel vision. I couldn't catch my breath. Dad wanted to take me to the ER, but I told him I want to go home. When we got home, he gave me a hot bath. I was so out of it. Imagine giving your 30-year-old son a hot bath. All I was missing were my rubber ducky and Transformer action figures. After that, I crawled into bed and sobbed myself to sleep while my dad rubbed my back. I woke up and it was nighttime and I drank like a gallon of water. I desperately wanted to go back to sleep, so I took some Nyquil. Second worst day of my life. So, my understanding, which is flawed, I'm not a lawyer, is that there's a 30-day waiting period. Then the superior court reviews all of the documents and then it all goes over to a judge who reviews and signs off on it. Should be mid July at the minimum, probably well into August. Depends on how backed up they are. I don't care to hear any more of Emily's statement. I don't see how it matters at this point. Just the details I heard were bad enough. She started reading it off quickly like she was galloping through it to get it over with. You know that monotone reading voice but quivering papers held out in front of her with her face up against it like she's hiding. I'm feeling really depressed. Loving Emily is like this terminal habit I have to break. It's like I've been eating the tastiest, healthiest food and a doctor just told me I've developed a fatal allergy to it. I can't eat it anymore. But nothing else appeals to me, so I'm just going to starve. I don't know how to not love her. I'll just have to learn, though, so I can have peace again. My therapist mentioned meds. I don't want that, but I might have to. Everything feels like heavy lifting, even merely existing. I effing hate this crap. I need to take my own advice and start doing some intense exercise. I know that it's an allnatural mood elevator. Endorphins. I've decided to start going into the office to work. I don't want to be alone with my thoughts for a while. I'll take breaks to go somewhere private and feel feelings if I need to. Emily and her family are officially no contact with me. If they break NC and I can prove it, then I get the $7,500. But that's so far off my godamn radar right now that it's in a different time zone. I guess I'll update again when I have the official divorce paper or whatever it's called in my hands. Until then, thank you everyone here. I don't have better words than that. I wish I did. When I get my feet under me, I'll try to keep the karma train rolling and share with people in the same situation. Maybe answer some comments. For now, I want to go out in the garage, grab a hammer, and slam it into my skull until I forget my own name. I just feel so godamn tired, man. Second part of this update added on the 5th of May, 2025. Just wanted to clarify a few things from PMs and comments and do a little journaling. First of all, I'm doing okay. I'm breathing. No plans to change that fact. My therapist recommended a low dose of Lexapro and my GP agreed. Filling that now. I found out about the reconciliation thing from Bob of all people. When I was telling the group chat about Emily's confession, Bob talked about how that's what you do in reconciliation. And Matt and Jim were like, "What the f, dude?" That's when Bob confessed about doing research on reconciliation and that he's a romantic who believes that love conquers all. I think his girlfriend is a lucky woman. First, the random questions. We were waiting on the notary because she was a very pregnant woman and she said the baby regularly uses her bladder for field goal kicking practice. When Emily read her statement, we were alone in the conference room. The papers were signed, dated, and notorized, and whisked away to magical legal land. So, the lawyer's jobs were basically done. At that point, she could admit to having intercourse with the entire city of Cleveland, Ohio, and it wouldn't affect the divorce outcome. After talking with my dad, he was having a chat with mother-in-law while this all was taking place. He's not great with subtleties of communication, but he said that she seemed crazy and just kept talking. He said she told him that she told Emily that she'd better do whatever the books and therapists tell her to do in order to reconcile with me that day. When I met mother-in-law, she didn't seem crazy. She just seemed very sad. I do think that explains Emily trying to speedrun reconciliation. The thing I'm losing sleep over, which I probably shouldn't, is what she's thinking. I think I understand why she did it at this point. I mean, if a rich 25-year-old bikini supermodel took an interest in me and knew exactly what to say and what to do, I would at the very least be tempted to cheat. I don't understand why she wanted to come back so badly. It can't be for financial reasons. She's already proven to herself that she can get with a rich guy who'll take care of her. I'm doing okay financially. I can afford to live, but she has her own business and it's making a good profit now. She doesn't need my paycheck in order to live. I make it sound like I'm a big pushover for her, but I wasn't clingy. I didn't make her the center of my universe. I had my own life. I had my own friends. I didn't wait on her hand and foot. I did little things for her with no expectation for anything in return. But isn't that the bare minimum in a relationship? She's already proven she doesn't respect me or our marriage. Why the hell would you want to be with someone you have no respect for in a relationship you have no care for? Is it just habit? Is it the fact that she'd have to train a new guy in what she likes and doesn't like? I'm not ugly and I'm funny and there's no other person in the world like me and I'm special and all that other PBS kids BS. But come on, I'm not that unique. If she were a quadriplegic burn victim, I could see how it would be tough to replace me, but she's not. She knows she's attractive. Any room she'd walk into, she'd be one of the best looking, if not the best looking women in there. She has a sweet, nice personality, you know, other than the adultery. And she was never super dramatic or chaotic. Our life was pretty peaceful. She's not a single mom. She'd find someone fairly quickly and that guy would be a quality guy. I don't think asking a woman like Lisa or Matt's wife or Jim's wife would help because they're not cheaters. I tried to go to ask a wayward in the support for Wayward subreddit, but they deleted my question. I guess they think I'm full of crap, too. I'm going to have to accept that I'll never understand. like a shooter that kills an entire classroom of preschoolers because the sky was too blue today. It's just crazy people being crazy, I guess. I told my lawyer to keep a copy of Emily's confession for Lisa's divorce and send the other copy to me. Now I have some quality reading material if I ever start missing Emily or romanticizing her. I thought the list I made was good, but wow, I have the silver nuclear bullet for those kinds of thoughts now. Small update added here. I wanted to clarify why I sat through Emily's statement. First, it absolutely was not a condition of the divorce. There's no legal stipulation possible where someone can make someone listen to a speech in order to sign divorce papers. I did it as a favor to Emily because she through mother-in-law said it would help her in her therapy. It sounded legit to me because it seems to me that improving your life after something like this would mean admitting your fault to the person you've wronged, which is what she did. The problem is she didn't just say, "I'm sorry. It's on me. You did nothing to deserve this. She also treated me like some kind of Catholic priest and tried to confess all her sins in detail, which I didn't sign up for. I don't think she was deliberately trying to hurt me, which ironically makes it worse. I think she's just that out of it. To a certain degree, it might be on me because I've been completely no contact with her. However, in my defense, in my letter to her, I think I made it pretty clear I have no intention of reconciling. Maybe mother-in-law didn't read that letter because it was sent to Emily. I don't know. Maybe she's getting pressure from mother-in-law and father-in-law. Until the details, it was kind of cathartic to hear her take complete responsibility for it and not put any blame on me, which seems typical in these situations. I just wish it had stopped there. When she started going into detail, I sort of froze like I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Like, is she really saying this crap? Am I being pranked? I was in shock and then the fight or flight kicked in. I couldn't very well throw my fist across her jaw to shut her up. So, I got up and ran. The $7,500 thing is also completely optional. The money is being held aside somehow. Escrow, I think. Not sure. It is not a condition of the divorce and has absolutely nothing to do with it. completely separate thing. I think I made that clear, but apparently not. I realize it's a ploy. The idea, I'm sure, is that absence will make the heart grow fonder and we'll miss each other like crazy. And then one year later, after we haven't seen each other, we'll meet again and the music will rise and we'll run slow motion into each other's arms and I'll start singing a romantic song about reuniting with true love from a long absence like a Broadway musical. Then grab her, dip her, and kiss her longingly. Cue the wedding bells. Not going to happen. Last short update added. Lawyer FedExed Emily's confession to me. She told me not to open it and just keep it for my records just in case. It's sitting there in the FedEx envelope, unopened, in a drawer in the guest bathroom. And there it shall stay henceforth. Our wedding anniversary is on the 10th. Jim told me he's getting Matt and Bob together for a non-drinking party. our final anniversary being married. What a effed up celebration that will be. Maybe she'll break no contact and I'll get myself a $7,500 anniversary gift. I've been pretty down. The Lexapro is taking its sweet time kicking in. I deal with it by kicking up the endorphins, usually by hitting my neighbor's lap pool and swimming like a refugee escaping communism. neighbor and wife are retired with grown kids and they've left for the summer to go to their place in Idaho. They gave me free rain to the pool as long as I keep an eye out on the place. I'm sorry I'm not very communicative. I will update later. I'm alive. I have no plans to change that because f them all. I'm not going to be anyone's oll. Kind of a stretch there, but you know what I mean. June 10th was my wedding anniversary. My last wedding anniversary. I had some drinks with my friends. Not to the point of vomiting, just enough to invoke the dark spectre of nostalgia, my greatest enemy at this point in my life. I missed Emily so badly. It felt like I was drowning. I kept thinking about good memories, like how she'd laugh at my stupid jokes. the way she'd curl up next to me while I was reading and her excitement when she had some kind of triumph at work. My brain started doing that thing where it minimizes the bad stuff and amplifies the good stuff. Maybe the affair wasn't as bad as I remembered. Maybe I was being too harsh. Maybe she really did love me and just made a terrible mistake. So rather than break no contact, I went to her confession and tore into it. I figured that would be the cure. And yep, that was the fix. All fixed. Now, within 10 minutes, all that nostalgic BS evaporated like a fart in a hurricane. I won't go into the details because it's way too graphic. But yeah, the stuff she said before I ran out was maybe a quarter of it. They did it mainly at hotels and a few times at John's office. They pretty much did everything except for backdoor stuff. Emily didn't want to do the prep work for that. She had fun in the beginning, but the guilt and the fact that Jon really couldn't give a f about her enjoyment meant she was ultimately unsatisfied. The lifestyle perks were what mainly motivated her with the shopping and Michelin star restaurants making up for it. In addition to keeping her two stylists paid and her business afloat when she felt guilty after being with Jon, she'd come home and be extra affectionate. She'd initiate intimacy more often, buy me little gifts, suggest date nights, tell me how much she loved me and how great I was. She'd cook my favorite meals and suggest we watch movies together. She wrote that being sweet to me made her feel less guilty about what she was doing, like she was balancing the scales somehow. Every time I thought things are really good between us during those 9 months, it was because she just banged another man and was trying to manage her conscience. A little background you may have missed in my comments on my earlier posts is that John and his wife and two youngest kids attended my father-in-law and mother-in-law's Fourth of July party last year. They have a piece of land out in the country where they can shoot off fireworks without getting the law involved. There's a concrete foundation there of a house that used to be on the property that they use as a launch pad. They rent a porta potty and bring out a barbecue and cook hamburgers and hot dogs, plus a cooler of drinks. It's actually a pretty big event. 50 plus people. I have no idea if they're doing it this year. It was fun to go to though. Yet another thing I'll miss about my old life. Emily said in her confession that she felt it was pretty effed up that John and his family were there. father-in-law invited them because he was aware of how much Jon helped Emily with her small business. She didn't think he would come and didn't want to throw up any alarms by blocking them with father-in-law. She felt guilty seeing his wife and kids. So, that was the first time she decided to end it. And how did she decide to end it? By stopping her birth control. She figured Jon had a vasectomy so she couldn't get pregnant by him because who would lie about that, right? Right. So, the reason she was increasing the intimacy with me, at least after July 4th, 2024, was not only guilt, but to get pregnant with my baby and use it as a human shield to get rid of John because pregnant women aren't sexy. I'm not you guys. This was in her confession. She actually wrote, "Pregnant women aren't sexy." Rule 34, Emily. Rule 34. At the time, I thought I was so lucky to have a beautiful wife who wanted me so much. Ha, what a sucker I am. So, if her plan worked, I would be nice and baby trapped and she'd be able to end it with John because pregnant ladybbody and he'd find some other girl to desecrate his marriage with. But she didn't get pregnant. Thank God. She got more and more frustrated after each month. Her periods are very consistent and so she timed it so that when she was ovulating, she avoided Jon as much as she could during those days. Intimacy between us was pretty frequent all the time. So, I didn't notice any increase during those days because I didn't keep track of that kind of thing. Because she kept not getting pregnant, she started obsessing that she was infertile or that I was infertile. Anyway, NY happened and she decided that baby or no baby, she was ending it. So part of her anxiety and depression was due to not getting pregnant during that time and thinking that she had some kind of condition. So that got me obsessing that maybe my soldiers are pacifists rather than marines. It was a tough cell telling my doctor that I need to know if my swimmers are capable of swimming because my cheating ex-wife couldn't get pregnant while using me as an unwitting sperm donor in her scheme to escape her affair. So, I had to repeat my story to him a couple of times until he said, "Yeah, sure. Go Jack in a Box." And made a lab order for me. Because I'm a shy boy, I elected to drop off my sample rather than collect it on premises. However, I later read in the instructions that I had to get it to the clinic at my appointment time within an hour of collection, like some kind of precision military operation. That might be stretching it where I live if there's traffic. So rather than being smart and changing my mind about going to the clinic for collection, I prevailed upon Bob to use his place because he was within 20 minutes of the clinic. Boy, that was an awkward AF conversation. Bob was like, "Are you okay? You seem stupid." Bob wasn't home during that time because of course not. I had to balance my weew wee a cup and my smartphone pointing at some tasteful American you know what movies not a communist or circus animal insight. I ended up lying on my side on the floor of Bob's master bathroom in front of the door because I'm not a sharpshooter. I'm a flamethrower and I promised Bob I wouldn't use his bed because I'm not an prick. Besides, Bob has a lady friend now. And like most bachelors, he doesn't clean or change his sheets on a regular basis. I am never going to live this down. I should have just rescheduled and gone to the clinic. Jim, Bob, and Mike have ammo for years now. Bastards. God damn it, Emily. I got the results back today. And good news, my soldiers are fighters. Seerfi. So hide your eggs, ladies. I don't want you getting pregnant through the internet. That's pretty much the drama in my life right now. Part two of this update, I'll add here. Look, I know this is tonally inconsistent with my sheer shock and depression around May 30th. I'm just starting to get over this latest bout of depressive anxiety. What you haven't seen and I didn't write about is roughly 20 days of me lying in bed crying, having my dad kick my ass out of the house, and my work giving me stern warnings that I need to stop messing up. My goodwill credit at my workplace has run dry. I'm in trouble, but I'm confident that if I put my head down and burn the midnight oil, I can get back to where I was in no time. This sounds stupid, but the fact that my sperm is okay is what perked me up this time. The accusation that she thought that I could be the culprit that foiled her little Bond villain pregnancy plan was one emasculation too mother effing far. I freaking had to prove her wrong, and I did. It seems petty and ridiculous, but I felt a sense of triumph and vindication that I haven't felt in a long, long time. And that snapped me out of this particular depressive episode. Let me state that again. I felt a huge wave of endorphins and happiness because I blasted my sperm into a cup and a lab told me everything was fine. I did this because I read the confession of a somewhat demented person who used to be the most important person in the world to me. I think that is crazy funny and I had to write about it. I'm sure it's all temporary. I'm sure I'll dwell on all this later, especially when I get the divorce decree in my hand and spiral right back down into hell. But I looked back on this time yesterday after getting the results. And I realized how absurd and stupid my actions were, and I just had to journal because it's funny. When I have a choice between angrily shouting, "Godamn it!" or laughing my rocks off at the weirdness of it all. I choose the latter every time. And this has been the weirdest time of my life to say the least. As far as Emily's confession goes, that wasn't all her confession stated, and that she would work on herself intensely between now and then. I'm not going to post all four pages of timelines, full-blown intercourse acts, begging, hopefulness, her detailed plans to better herself for me, and her shame and guilt. She took responsibility and ownership and accountability like you should in these kinds of confessions. But that doesn't mean that I can get past it. In fact, the petty boy inside me is pissed off by the prospect of her improving herself and becoming the perfect woman for another guy in the future. I should be the bigger person. I should congratulate her for getting her priorities and morals right and wish her luck with whatever guy she ends up with. I'm not there yet, and I don't know if I ever will be. I'm not indifferent to her fate. Would it be a good thing if I was or would lose a huge part of who I am if I become indifferent to her? My brain is all over the place. I've been with her my entire adult life and I don't want to lose her. But I've already lost her. All I have now is this new person. And the only thing I know about her is that she cries and says she loves me but has a bloody knife in her hands that she says she regrets holding. I'm in therapy myself. The Lexapro is kicking in. I think I appreciate all of your comments and I wish I could comment back on all of them and appreciate all of your analyses. Thank you so much for this. So, I got a package from my lawyer last Friday. Final judgment and decree of divorce, said the first page, signed by a judge and stamped/sealed below the signature for good measure. Game over. Roll credits. That's a wrap. 13 years together and 7 years married and it's officially over. The only thing that I didn't see in the document was any kind of last name change language for Emily to go back to her maiden name. It just said that she had the right to change her name back to her maiden name. I thought that kind of thing just sort of happened automatically, but I guess not. I guess that's just an extra headache that women have to go through in a divorce. She's still using my last name on social media though, according to Matt's wife. So, I guess I've been reduced to a blue check mark now. My forefathers would be so proud that our last name lives on. Matt's wife, by the way, is in her third trimester during a hot, humid summer. Pray for her, y'all. Oh, yeah. It's a girl. I brought a fire extinguisher to the gender reveal party just in case. Matt thought it was hilarious. Matt's wife rolled her eyes and chuckled. I had to get a new extinguisher anyway. Ever since Emily made her burnt offering to Prada, the god of luxury, I'm getting used to living alone. I can take care of myself like a big brave boy. Been doing it for almost 9 months now already. I miss someone giving a rat's ass about whether I've eaten or bathed, though. I'm currently going through the process of getting a Labrador Retriever puppy as well as a kitten. Yeah, I'm a glutton for punishment. I do have a line on a trainer for each of them, though. That is a puppy trainer and a cat behaviorist. I'd like both, so I figure adopting them both as toddlers will acclimate them better with each other. My goal is for them to become such good friends that they freely and equitably share feasting on my dead body when I inevitably fall over dead from apoplelexy. I found a therapist who does EMDR therapy for PTSD and I'm on the waiting list for that. Should only be a few weeks. Any therapist could attempt to do EMDR therapy, but I wanted one who had a genuine certification in it. First thing I did after getting the papers was to call my dad. He's back in Florida. He asked me if I wanted him to come back up, but I told him he didn't have to. I'm okay. Second thing I did was to try to connect with Shrea. She's the interior decorator I met while staying at and fixing up my dad's girlfriend's Airbnb. Yes, you read that right. Turns out the owner of the Airbnb I was staying at is not only a neighbor of my dad's at the Villages, they have been dating or FWBS or whatever the equivalent of Netflix and chill people pushing 60 are doing at the Villages. I'm meeting her on Labor Day when they come up here. Probably to dodge whatever category 5 hurricane is destroying Florida. Shrea and I started talking on the phone and texting. One thing that felt off was when I asked her to text me her picture so I could show it to my friends. She said she wasn't comfortable with that. I assured her I just wanted a pic of her face and not a nude photo, but she said to just show them her professional Instagram as she's in a lot of her interior design showcase shots standing with customers. It just struck me as odd and I pressed her for why she didn't want to do that. And through a lot of subtext and talking with my Indian co-workers, it seems that if we went public on social media that it would look bad to her prospective groom's families, like it would count against her a lot in the Hunger Games of arranged marriage or whatever it is over there. The more wealthy and influential families do deep background checks on prospective partners, especially the females. It would look bad if she had a fling with a guy before settling down. The more I thought about it, the more it seems like I'd be committing premarital infidelity with her, if that makes sense. It's like I'm helping her do something that she knows is wrong. At least from the traditional Indian perspective. Maybe that's part of the appeal to her. I don't know. It just made me feel a little uneasy. Maybe I'm not ready for any of this crap yet. Lol. I better get ready, though. I'm turning 31 in September, and I'd like to have a family where I can still bend down and pick up my kids without the cartilage between my vertebrae snapping loose and flinging away like a clay pigeon. Well, my job is doing uh better. That's why I've been pretty scarce online. They came to me in early June with a performance review, which is IT business code for get your together or we'll throw you out on the curb, but we need a paper trail first. The worker part of me is happy that they're giving me a chance to redeem myself. The part of me that holds a lot of stock options in the company thinks they should just fire my lazy bum. Shareholder me is a prick. News from the Lisa/Joh divorce. All gotten from the group chat. So apparently Emily gave a copy of her confession letter to Lisa. My lawyer is Lisa's lawyer. So on the day I stormed out of there, she asked Emily to sign a copy of her confession and had the notary public, who was already there for the divorce papers, notoriize and seal it. Emily expressed her willingness to testify on Lisa's behalf, so the confession isn't dismissed as hearsay. Lisa left her copy of Emily's confession on her desk at home, and J's oldest daughter saw it and read it. The next time Jon came for his interim custody visit, his eldest daughter slapped him and spit in his face. Then she refused to go with him. I feel so sorry for John that he has to go through this with his children. Not really. F that guy. She certainly did many times. Jon is now screaming at Lisa, saying that he's going to sue for parental alienation or intentional infliction of emotional distress or liel or whatever he can throw against the courthouse wall that sticks. Lisa isn't admitting in the chat that she deliberately left it out for her eldest to find. I wonder though, probably not, because then she would have left it on the kitchen counter or something instead of in her office. I hope not. She doesn't seem the type of person who would intentionally warp her kid's psyche for revenge against her husband, no matter how crappy of a partner he is. Who knows? My judgment when it comes to people is suspect at this point. I mean, look who I married. Stabby McBack. Anyway, Shrea invited me to come over to her condo so she can cook me an incredible curry and some samosas next Friday. I love curry and samosas, so I'm going just for the food alone. I asked her to keep the spicy heat down for the weak gora that I am. Look at me learning the lingo for her already. I'm planning on just dining and dipping out of there after an appropriate amount of awkward after dinner conversation. I'm not planning on staying the night. Anyway, that's the latest. I know I was probably divorced already back at the tail end of May when we signed and notorized everything, but it's pretty much carved in stone now. Signed and sealed by the state. I'm single. My marriage is over. It's gone. All that remains are memories that make me smile and hurt at the same time, plus a lot of scars. Another update I've added to this one. This is a response to the callouts. In order to explain, I have to mention the whole story so you understand. When I first posted in November 2024, I made an account in order to post and get support for my suspicion of my wife cheating on me. I was freaking gutted. I posted on two subreddits, infidelity and cheating stories. I was under the impression those were the places to go for support with the BS I was dealing with. Both of my posts were put in limbo. The one on cheating stories is still in limbo. AF AI. The one on infidelity got approved after 5 days, but it had 5 days worth of posts in front of it, so no one read it. In the infidelity subreddit, you have to have a certain amount of karma in order for your post to go through immediately without having to wait for approval. I have no idea how much. So, while I read a bunch of stuff on Reddit as well as on surviving-infidelity.com and talk about marriage.com that dealt with strategies on how to deal with this BS. I also tried to build up karma so that I wouldn't have my post buried. So, in order to build up karma, I began commenting on posts with the aim of gaining karma. I don't remember half the stuff I wrote because I was quite frankly drinking too much at the time, trying to pass it off as holiday cheer, but secretly eating my whole heart out. So, in order to build up karma, I would go to subs and craft comments designed to get karma. A lot of times, I just use chat GPT. Someone would post something like, "My sister-in-law poops on my chest every night while I sleep, and I don't know how to confront her and tell her she's naughty." I would then paste that post in chat GPT, and old Chatty would respond with something like, "Confront her and tell her you don't appreciate her stealing your agency in accepting her nightly toilet activities." I would then paste this as a comment and it would get a couple of few up votes. Lather, rinse, repeat. I did this until I got enough info and enough happened in real life that I was able to update my situation and link to my first post. This time, it went right through without waiting for approval, and I got the support I needed. Thank you all, by the way. I was also deliberately obfiscating details about my personal life at the time. Because if you read my posts and comments back then, I was extremely paranoid about Emily, not her real name, by the way, finding my posts and then spinning the narrative so that I'm an abusive person or that she was somehow justified in cheating. Drum up sympathy. or worse yet, she'd take my posts and somehow use them against me in real life with my family, her family, and our friends. I'm not so scared of that now, but before I had her served and dipped the f out of there, I was extremely effed up mentally and paranoid to a ridiculous degree. It was weird because I loved her so godamn much, but I also hated her guts for wiping with our marriage license. It was like I had matter and antimatter inside of me at the same time. I was very messed up. So, if there's inconsistency in my earlier comments on Reddit, that's why I was building up karma so I could post on a sub that had karma limits because I was desperate for some kind of support that I couldn't at that point in time anyway get in real life without alerting Emily and it turning into one big giant crap storm before I was ready for it to turn into one big giant craptorm. I'm also flabbergasted at how people are actually creating Reddit accounts solely for the purpose of trolling me and performing weird half-ass investigative journalism on what constitutes essentially a rather dull run-of-the-mill cheating story to wife cheated with a rich guy who bought her nice things which gave her the tingles. doesn't want to break up because I'm her emotional support husband and the rich guy just considers her a nice warm place to put his dick. >> I mean, the only way it could get more generic is if it were a coworker and she was leaving me for him. Anyway, as I've said before, if you think it's all BS, then by all means, block me and ignore me, please. To those who have helped me out with emotional support, there aren't adequate words to express how much this has all meant to me. I can only say thank you, which is a phrase that can't express how I really feel. So, here's an update on the date with Shrea. It's been a busy week at work. Yes, it was a date. Let me be clear. I have not gone on a date since high school and I'm a 30 almost 31year-old man. That is to say, I'm super out of practice. I don't have a date mode. So, because y'all are interested, I'll give you the details. I say this because I have obsessively gone over what happened over and over again in my brain because I have a black belt in overthinking. I journaled. I spoke with my buddies. I spoke with a couple of Indian guys at work. I wrote and deleted this like 100 times. So, here goes. I was wearing khakis, a button-down long-sleeve shirt with t-shirt on underneath because it's sweltering during summer where I'm at, and dark pit stains make a bad impression. My belt matched my shoes. I wore the expensive leather loafers and belt Emily John bought me. shined him up real nice. When she answered the door, she was wearing what I later found out was a modernstyle lehenga choli. It's that Indian outfit that consists of a fitted cropped top and a separate skirt. It wasn't super fancy like in a Bollywood movie, but more casual, if that makes sense. Her entire midriff was bare, and she had a belly button piercing. So, being the suave debonire international playboy like I am, I stared at her tummy like a creep for way too long. I may or may not have actually drooled. She looked incredible. I said so, but it was too late. My social anxiety and betrayal trauma grabbed whatever riz I had and threw it down the stairs. I stood there holding my expensive loafers and spent like 15 seconds in her entryway like a confused robot vacuum. Her condo smelled like heaven because she had this unbelievable chicken curry that was good. She also had made potato and pea samosas which I immediately began inhaling because I forget to eat a lot of times and when the smell hit me I was like, "Holy crap, I'm starving." She said I was being really quiet and I realized that I was making it super awkward. I found it hard to make eye contact because I'd try and then my eyes would wander to what she was wearing. It's been a while, people. I was on the verge of having a panic attack. Not because of the way she looked, but because this is my first date since high school. I've had so many panic attacks since I first started down this crappy path my life has taken that I have begun to notice when one is incoming. So, I just decided honesty was the best policy. I apologized profusely and told her that she looked incredibly stunning and that I was way too distracted by the way she looked and that I was way out of practice with all of this kind of thing and asked her to be patient with the weak Gora. She laughed and excused herself and came back wearing a hockey jersey. Apparently, she is a Detroit Red Wings fan. I don't know anything about hockey. After that, my brain stopped shortcircuiting and I was able to loosen up some and the rest of the date went pretty well. She made chai. We chatted for a while on her couch and were able to slip into the same dynamic we had before when we were first meeting at the Airbnb. It did get a little physical, but it stayed PG-13. First time kissing a girl romantically who was not my wife. So, big milestone moment. I ended up leaving around midnight and we agreed to meet up again. I scored some tickets to a baseball game Saturday and we're going, weather permitting. Kind of boring update, I guess, but I got a lot of messages about the date. I just turned 31. First birthday in over a decade without Emily around, which felt weird. My last birthday, she was still in the middle of her affair with John. She made a really big deal out of my birthday at the time because it was my 30th and she was still cosplaying as a loving, loyal wife. She didn't give me anything especially great, just a couple of shirts. But she threw a huge party with all our friends there with the typical gloomy decorations like I'm old as f now. She made a big heartfelt speech about how great I am and how much she loved me. Really moved me at the time. My Google account sent me the memories including the video. I have to remember to turn that stuff off. Shrea and I are officially a couple until December. December is when she's going home to India to start meeting guys for the matchmaking process. It's weird having an expiration date on a relationship, but there's also clarity there. Like I know I am not going to surrender my heart completely and neither is she. She's the first girl I've ever been with romantically besides Emily. And it was awkward as hell. Ngl. She was patient, thank God. And now we're both enjoying each other. Either that or I'm enjoying it by myself and she's really polite. For my birthday, she gave me a leatherbound journal. Bob is talking about moving his girlfriend into his house. Jim and I are going to have an intervention with him because they have only been exclusive for a few months, and we're concerned it's a little soon. However, I do see the irony of a divorced guy offering relationship advice. Maybe I can just tell him what not to do. Lisa and John's divorce is still proceeding. I think it's probably going to go to trial. I knew it was going to be contentious, but damn, my lawyer should thank me for Lisa's referral. Lots of billable hours for her. Jon's oldest daughter, 16, I guess, doesn't want to talk to or visit him at all, so he's crying parental alienation. Lisa told the group chat that Jon's being audited. Adultery subreddit pro tip. Don't write off your gifts and activities with your side piece as advertising and networking expenses. I don't exactly know why he's being audited, but I'm guessing it has something to do with that. I guess he filed his taxes before Lisa got my email earlier this year outlining his relationship with my wife. I'm assuming he got a love letter from the IRS. I don't know the details, but he's not happy, and that's the important thing, right? Matt's wife had their baby. I visited him and his wife in the hospital. I brought flowers and a onesie with a DND character sheet for a baby on it. Strength three, Charisma 20. He was so proud and happy, beaming with a goofy smile on his face. His wife was smiling, too, and looking tired, but also glowing. They had that closed loop of joy between them. I couldn't help but think about what it would be like if Emily and I were at that point. I'm not saying I wouldn't be proud and happy, but I'd be holding back on all of that until a DNA test came back. It would never be like it was with Matt and his wife. Yet another nail in the coffin of my relationship with her. Thank God we never had kids. Their baby wasn't in the room with Matt and his wife when I visited. The nurses had taken the baby away to do whatever it is they do to newborns. And Matt's mother-in-law and his mom accompanied the baby like a little secret service detail. So Matt whipped out his phone to show his kid off. And I told him he has to pay my therapy bills if I see a picture of his wife's hoo-ha with a baby launching out of it. He scrolled through about 150,000 photos of their newborn. So, for the reason I wrote a blog post, there were a couple of photos of Emily holding the baby and smiling. She had visited earlier that day. Her hair was cropped very short, but not shaved off. It was also its natural color. Like most blondes, Emily's hair color is actually brown. Matt tried to awkwardly scroll past the pics really quickly, but Emily captured on camera with her natural hair color is like taking a photo of Bigfoot, so I had to take a second look. She was smiling for the camera, so I guess she's doing okay. Matt went from proud papa to a semi-serious look on his face. I didn't want to hijack the occasion to be about Emily and me, so I just waved him off and kept scrolling. It's a little bit concerning because as long as I've known her, Emily has always had long hair. It's always been naturally full. Like, she rolls out of bed with hair that other women take hours to prepare. I'm just saying this is quite a radical change for her. Bob, Matt, and Jim know about Shrea, but I told them to keep it to themselves. I verified with Matt that he hasn't said anything to his wife about Shrea. They have bigger fish to fry at this point. Anyway, I know it's probably inevitable that Emily will find out about it, but I want to hold off on that potential crap storm as long as possible. Ideally, if slash when she finds out, it'll be after Shrea goes back to India. That's where I'm at. 31, divorced, dating on a timer, watching my friends build families while I rebuild myself. It's not where I thought I'd be. So, I got a lot of comments asking why Matt and his wife are still friends with Emily. So, in order to adequately explain it, I have to explain what it's like down here in the American South. Basically, we're all Baptists down here. Even the Jews and the Muslims are Baptists. It's just a matter of degree. It's a spectrum. On one end, you have the Baptist who, on special occasions or holidays, swagger into church with dirty dicks and black hearts, chew up a dry cardboard square, down a thimble full of grape juice, wink and give a thumbs up, and tell the J boss to sit tight until next time. Then on the other end, you have your Shiite Baptists who use laser measuring tools on hemlines and solve the world's problems by throwing casserles at them and saying, "Bless your heart." They attend Sundays, Wednesdays, prayer breakfast, and small groups. They sacrifice by shopping for clothing at Walmart and feel guilty for any Target purchases because it's excessive. Matt and his wife are in the middle of the spectrum. The type of Baptists who have religious verses/poetry on their walls. And any friend who has a problem suddenly becomes their ministry. That's what my ex is to Matt's wife, a ministry. A while back, I talked about my wife's apology tour and how she found Jesus because Jesus didn't see her coming first and was unable to avoid her. Turns out she was serious. So Matt's wife has been ministering to Emily and Matt has been ministering to me. Matt's ministry consisted of him chucking a book called Healing Your Marriage When Trust Is Broken at Me and then playing the hell out of a lawful good healing/buffing cleric in Bob's DND campaign. We have a tacit, unspoken agreement that I tell his wife that he's given me a lot to consider and he's been a godsend and I take responsibility for him getting jack-faced occasionally. Sorry, Matt's wife. I'm a bad influence. The Holy Spirit turns a blind eye to the first three drinks, but then starts clucking disapprovingly upon the fourth. The only time Matt got really drunk was when we all went out at the beginning of this crap show, and they consider that a strange and weird special occasion. Now that he's a new daddy, I expect we'll see a lot less of him, which is to be expected. Frankly, I'd probably slap him silly if he showed up too much now that he has a new kid at home. Matt tells me that his wife wants me to forgive Emily and go through some kind of reconciliation with her. Hosea married a prostitute and he did good, right? I could become a rock star at church if I just stand next to my wife, give her a nice side hug, and paste a fake RTU smile on my dumb face and proclaim that the Jman has moved me to forgive my wife. Songs will be written. Blog posts will be made. Black and white Tik Tok videos will be produced with Hillong background music starring the Jesusfilled forgiving husband and his hot, regretful wife. Matt himself understands my position, though, and he hasn't forced anything and has been a true friend by listening to my sarcastic rants. It's kind of hard to take his reconciliation stuff seriously while he's laughing his socks off listening to my sarcastic comments about my ex-wife. I know what you're probably asking. Why are they peshy vegetarians? It's not for religious, philosophical, or political reasons. She read somewhere re on some blog or something that it was better because beans and avocado have a ton of folic acid in them and the protein quality of fish is better than cow for baby bodybuilding. I cannot verify this or defend it. Just regurgitating here. The gym rat in me scoffs at that. But what do I know? Most of my protein from the past 9 months or so comes in powder form mixed with water via a shake cup. Small thing to end with. Someone asked if moving on and being with the new girl sort of soften the anger in my heart towards Emily. Well, I am more hurt than angry with Emily. I suppose I fluctuate. The EMDR therapy helps a lot when I feel a bout of sadness or anxiety coming on. It's kind of tiring. At one point, I get enraged and want to just flame the skank out of her for ruining the best thing in my life. Then that leads me to the best thing in your life was a girl who cheated on you and threw your marriage away. You're pathetic. And that leads to a depression spiral where my brain goes to, you're too old to have a meaningful relationship with anyone. You're too old to have kids and enjoy early retirement like you planned. Women don't like men that other women have thrown away because you're a loser and they can smell that on a guy. With Shrea, I know that I can go out and find a partner to search socks with together, but that's not really what I want out of life. That's not how I'm built. I'm sure there are plenty of guys out there who just want to spread their seed everywhere like some kind of a booty farmer, but that's not me. If I want to get off, I can just use my smartphone in my right hand. Saves money and time. I don't want that. I want to be an old guy shuffling around the kitchen not finding the salt and annoyingly asking my old dusty wife who I've been married to for decades where it is. And she snaps at me annoyingly and says it's where it always is. Why do you keep asking me every time? And then I grab the salt and kiss her on the lips and say, "Thanks, baby. Why don't the kids call more often?" That's what I want. Also, someone asked me if I'm scared of Emily finding out about my new relationship. Yeah, that's a good question. Maybe both. The first thing that comes to mind is I don't want her to harm herself. Maybe I'm being narcissistic, though, thinking she'd do that. If she were going to do that, maybe she'd already have done it. It's not like I can turn off the fact that I care about what happens to her. I didn't say I don't care what happens to her. I just don't trust her at all. I can't be in a relationship with someone I don't trust. She already wiped her behind with our relationship. How do I know she won't do it again? Also, I don't want any more dramatic scenes like when she set all of her trash on fire. I don't think she'd harm anyone, but I do think she'd yell and scream. Yeah, I'd be $7,500 richer, but I think I would pay that much money not to be part of a scene like that. Another question. Someone asked if Emily's salon was still in business and if Jon's partially the owner. Emily's salon is an LLC. However, she stole our emergency fund to keep it afloat during CO. We kept using joint funds to keep it alive, but not a lot of joint funds. Most of that was coming from money given to her by Jon until she was able to start turning a profit, which it started to turn about a year ago. Now, as far as I know, there wasn't any formal contract between Jon and Emily about that. He'd write her checks at first, but then she'd use his Visa Infinite card to pay off stuff and buy supplies. My understanding is that they got together after he saw her doing hair and makeup for events at the venue he owned. It's big enough to do weddings, proms, etc. He started putting her on his suggested vendor list because not everyone can or will hire an event planner. They go and rent his venue and tons of people who do that inevitably ask him if he knows any photographers, caterers, DJs, etc. And he hands them a list of people. Usually, there's multiple ones to choose from, but he only put my wife's business there under hair and makeup header of his list. Then after he started mentoring her at the beginning before it got physical, he introduced her to pro photographers who would hire her to do hair and makeup for photooots, both commercial and personal. He basically just introduced her around at lunches or having coffee. He even found a way for her to get the beauty products she used at her salon cheaper. I don't know how. She just told me that she got a better deal from a supplier. She may or may not have been lying. I don't know about small business. Maybe I should have schooled myself better so that I could have spotted any BS sooner. I don't know if John can claim ownership of Emily's salon. He did pay a lot of the bills, but they had no formal agreement between them and they weren't married. Not my problem. He certainly doesn't seem to be going after her business at all. But I'm only getting my info from Lisa's group chat. I never say anything. I doubt they remember that I'm even there. So, I got a call from Matt's wife about Emily. Some background first. Shrea and I are kind of sort of dating. I say that because I'm not being myself around her. I'm not overly investing emotionally in the relationship. For the few hours that we're together, when we're together, I'm funny, fun guy. She knows I'm recently divorced. I didn't say why I'm divorced. I only say it didn't work out between us or we were fundamentally incompatible as people and it just made sense to end it. I don't vent about my ex. I don't share about my struggles. I don't open up to her really. I mean, I listen to her and comment about what she says with limited info about my own experiences where appropriate, but she really doesn't have much idea about the ordeal I've been through. I use the time we're together to forget about my life and to pretend to be a normal human being, and I like making her laugh. I don't stay overnight. I think we're pretty clear with each other on our relationship. Spending more time with her, I see things that I am not comfortable with. She's super competitive. It was cute at first, but is kind of annoying now. Also, she wears tight little shorts and sports bras when she works out with nothing else on. I know I'm going to incur the wrath of a bunch of people, but Emily used to wear that outfit. However, she'd wear a loose t-shirt over it and keep it on the whole time at the gym. I know everyone's different with their own style. Call me controlling if you want, but if I were seriously dating a girl and she worked out every day in basically a glorified bikini, I'd be uncomfortable with that. I do realize that I'm a hypocrite because I didn't mind Emily or Shrea wearing a bikini to the pool, lake, or beach. It's just a thing with me. Maybe I need to change my attitude, but it just makes me uncomfortable. That being said, I never never mention to Shrea anything about how she dresses. I just keep it to myself because I figure we're not going to be long-term anyway. I can shrug it off for a couple of months until this thing ends naturally. I see these as relatively minor issues at this point. So, there's no wedding bells in our future is what I'm saying, which shouldn't be a surprise to you guys at this point. She's still talking about going home to India this December, and we both know it's for matchmaking. It's weird. This relationship is not something I can do long-term, but it fits where I am right now. She's helped me realize that I'm desirable as a person and not trash that was thrown away, a participation trophy or a human safety net. I don't see myself getting into another relationship after she leaves. I don't even think I'll casually date. Now, on to the thing that started this. Last Monday was Dvali. It's an Indian holiday. Shrea hangs out with a bunch of friends during this time and they have a big party since her family are all in India. They're all expats and in various stages of life. Most are around her age, but there were older couples with kids. I went with Shrea, who was wearing a very festive lehenga choli. One thing I've learned about Shrea is that she likes showing off her belly. There were other girls dressed similarly. The guys wore those long sleeved shirts where the hems go down below your knees. Yours truly was in his business casual attire sticking out like a sore thumb. There were other non-Indians there, but they all got the memo apparently. Meanwhile, I'm dressed like, "Nice party, but can I interest you in some term life insurance?" I brought a $100 bottle of wine with me because that's my default holiday party bring. If hospitality and friendliness were an F5 tornado, it would be Dvali. Plates of samosas, desserts, and wasted destroying carbs were pushed on me and I devoured them all. Lots of curry type things soaked up with paratha and naan and other incredible food. After the initial onslaught of hosts and aunties, I talked with the guys there. A lot of them were fellow tech industry types, so we found common ground. Everyone was super friendly and accepting. Then came the event that made it a memorable evening. I grabbed what looked like a crispy pita chip and spooned a bunch of green salsa stuff on it and took a bite. That's when the blazing heart of the sun entered my mouth. About 30 seconds after swallowing the chip and salsa, demons attacked my tongue with razor blades. I could feel heat coming from my stomach. My face turned red and I had sweat pouring out of me. I grabbed a bottle of water and it did nothing. Nothing. I went to an older lady there who I thought was one of the hosts and asked for some milk. I was doubled over with my hands on my knees. She gave me some kind of yogurt drink that toned down the pain from Satan's hole to blast furnace. Shrea was there laughing and wiping off my face with a hand towel. Pictures were taken. FaceTime calls back to India were interrupted and turned towards me. They didn't make fun of me too much and were even sympathetic, some telling me about the time they made a similar mistake. I laughed. It was funny to me. It was a blast overall and I had the best time I've had in quite a while. The Friday after Dvali yesterday, I got a call from Matt's wife. We talked a little bit about motherhood and the new baby and how she wistfully remembers what sleep is. After that, she just comes out and asks if I was seeing someone. I told her no and asked why she was asking. She said that Emily had called her and was very upset after seeing a photo of me with another woman on social media. I played stupid and she said, "Hold on." and texted me a screenshot of a post that had a photo of me and Shrea at Dvali. I was red-faced and sweaty and Shrea was towling me off. We were both laughing. From the screenshotted post, it looked like someone from my work reposted a post from someone at the party. It was one of the women who works at my company who goes to my wife for hair styling. It was reposted for laughs like, "Look at this white boy eating a big glob of the green chutney." And not like true love. I laughed and told Matt's wife that I went to a Dvali party. While there, I accidentally ingested the Fukushima reactor core and kind-hearted people rescued me. Matt's wife commented that my rescue squad was really pretty. I was non-committal, like, "You think so?" She repeated that Emily was very upset upon seeing the photo and contacted her about it. I told her I was merely socializing with friends at a party. I also said that how Emily feels is not my problem anymore. Matt's wife said I shouldn't let this change me into a bitter person. And I said she was about a year too late for that and any bitterness I have only extends to Emily and not my friends. I told her to kiss her new baby for me and that I had to go and hung up on her. I think Matt's wife must be bored on maternity leave. She's really sharp. She's an actuary. So, I think she just needs some kind of brain stimulation, and this is it. I called up Matt this morning and asked him if he said anything about Shrea to his wife. He assured me he didn't. He said his wife talked to him about the photo and showed it to him and asked him about Shrea, but he played dumb and shrugged his shoulders. I told him to tell his wife that she needs to put all of her attention on their baby and give her ministry a rest. I told him to tell his wife and Emily that it's nothing and even if it wasn't that it's none of their business. I haven't ever seen Emily angrily confront anyone. So, I don't think that's in my future, but I don't know. I've been enjoying relative peace here and I don't want that to end. I'll fight that battle and make that confrontation if I have to, but I don't want to have to do it until much later. You know, I think maybe I'm used to taking other people's feelings into consideration too much and I need to just stop it. Lol. This is high school crap. I'm 31, right? Please tell me I'm still 31. Someone in the comments told me to be direct with Matt's wife to cut her off from bringing up any BS concerning Emily and that Emily's a cheating abuser. That's actually pretty solid. You're right. Cheating is abuse. It's psychological warfare disguised as romance. And I think I've been so focused on being reasonable that I forgot I'm allowed to protect myself from it. Matt's wife means well, but her ministry is towards something that I think she doesn't have a full understanding of. She sees Emily as a redemption story, while I see her as a lesson in entropy. Those two worldviews are never going to overlap. I like your boundary speech and I'm going to rip it off and there's nothing you can do about it. Someone told me I'm giving Emily hope. That seems mostly unwarranted. Well, yeah, you're not wrong. You've been calling this for a while, and I hate that you're not wrong. I didn't mean to give Emily hope. I honestly didn't. I agreed to that eventual meeting because part of me still thinks there should be some kind of final conversation. Not a reconciliation or a maybe someday, but just a punctuation mark at the end of a very long and ugly sentence. But I can see how from her side that looks like an ellipsus instead of a period. And yeah, the no contact part cuts both ways. She fills the silence with wishful thinking and I fill it with sarcasm and avoidance. Neither of us is probably handling this gracefully. As for being clear, you're right again. I've been ducking full honesty with people around me because I'm tired of explaining it. But the truth is exactly what you said. I'm divorced. I'm seeing someone. And there's zero chance Emily and I are ever getting back together. She needs to heal for her own sake, not because she thinks I'm a prize waiting at the finish line. And I need to stop acting like it's my job to manage her emotions. Appreciate the straight talk. Seriously, I think I need to sit down Matt, Jim, Bob, and Matt and Jim's wives and go over in detail what happened. I probably should just show them her confession, but it's embarrassing to me. I do think that if I do, it will go a long way towards quieting any reconciliation talk. However, I would want to emphasize that Matt's wife should still support Emily. I don't want to take away her support system. I think she probably needs all the help she can get. My goal is to get Matt's wife to stop saying stuff to her like, "It's not over for you two." And start saying stuff like, "You know, maybe we should put our efforts into self-improvement and being the best you you can be." Hm. Let's read the entire book of Hezekiah together. One other comment said that based on how visceral Emily's reaction was to seeing the photo of me and Shrea, hardly a romantic photo at that, it proves Emily wholeheartedly believes that reconciliation is on the table. Well, you're dead on about that. Emily seems to think reconciliation is a when and not an if. That's been the story of my entire relationship with her. She mistakes boundaries for invitations and consequences for temporary setbacks. I thought the letter and the divorce decree would, you know, hammer that clue into her head. As for Matt's wife, I've considered telling her everything, but I think she'd probably just start praying harder. The sanitized version of Emily is the only one she can stomach. And if that's the lie she needs to sleep at night, fine. I've got enough insomnia for both of us. I'm keeping the $7,500 meeting on the calendar, not because I want it, but because closure is expensive and I might as well get paid this time. But you're right that the rope still there. When it finally snaps, it'll be a relief, not a tragedy. So, a lot of you have shamed me for making Matt lie to his wife about me and Shrea. I still technically think it's not a lie because I merely asked him to not offer up any information, but I suppose if he answers no to a question about whether or not he knows about this, it might be perceived as a lie. I've said elsewhere that when Matt's wife is not breastfeeding or taking care of an infant, she's an actuary for an aerospace company. Not getting specific here. That is to say, she's very sharp. She's smarter than I, smarter than Matt, smarter than any of my friends, and probably smarter than you. No offense. So, she's bored taking care of the newborn. She realizes the importance of what she's doing, but she can't wait to get back to work when her maternity leave runs out. She has freely offered this info up in our conversations. Matt's super hands-on with his new infant, and that gives her even more downtime to sit and think. Unfortunately, right now, her focus has been on Emily and me. Because of that, and because of a lot of comments on my last post about her informing me about Emily's umbrage at me daring to be in a picture with another human with two X chromosomes, I figured I needed to stop this high school telephone BS before it skids further out of control. So, I called up Matt last Wednesday and he looped in his wife and we agreed to meet yesterday evening. I told them I was bringing dinner and they wanted this seafood Italian pasta from their favorite place. It's local, not a chain. I ordered an overpriced but delicious pizza from the same place, making sure to pile on the cow and pig meats so that they'd make me take home the leftovers. They're peshy vegetarians. We chatted about the infant because that's been their lives for the past month and a half or so. I got to meet the kid a little bit, but all that thing does is eat, sleep, and make dirty diapers at this point. Matt's wife talked about breastfeeding shaming among the new mother's circles in the area, which sounded like next level mean girl trash to me. I had no idea. She showed me her breast pump, which looked like an air horn. Pregnancy, birth, and newborns are truly a different universe than the one I'm familiar with. When the subject came to me and Emily, I patiently waited through her spiel about reconciliation. She cited examples from her church, from Christian pop culture, and the book of Hosea in the Bible. After she was done, I asked her what she knows about Emily's affair. I told her I wanted to know what she knew in detail. As expected, she didn't know the gory details of the affair. Matt knew about the credit card, but she didn't. And Matt didn't know the details about the credit card. According to Matt's wife, it was a conventional affair where a rich, successful, charming, established older man gave Emily attention and compliments and treated her like she was an equal in business. Even though Jon was much more successful, she developed an attraction to him because of this, but never loved him. She gave into temptation and met with him willingly at first, but then kept it going because he threatened to tell me about the affair. She kept trying to end it, but he kept pulling her in with flattery and threats until I found out about it after she had already ended it. She never loved him. She only loved me. She made horrible choices and is solely responsible for her own actions. It was not my fault. I told her that all of that was true to a certain extent. Then I told her about it from my perspective. I told her how I discovered it. I told her about living with it at the time. Then I whipped out the credit card records and showed her how the card was in Emily's name and the charges for hotels for gifts for me for dates with both John and me. I didn't point out about how Jon was funding her business. I showed her the adult shop purchase and went into detail about how the nightmare of them strolling together hand in hand in the aisles of an adult perverted superstore haunted me. I told her about my physical reaction to the idea of her blowing that prick's vener schnitle to completion in her mouth and coming home to kiss me with that same mouth not an hour later and how it caused me to lose my appetite and lose weight to the point where my doctor was concerned and how the thought of kissing her makes me throw up in my mouth a little. I'm 6 feet tall exactly and I went from 185 lb to 160 lb over 2 months. She apparently had not opened the attachments in the email I had sent out in the beginning. I showed her the picture of them kissing the contents of the Valentine's Day messages and played the recording of the conversation between Emily and me where she said I didn't abuse or cheat on her. Then I took a risk and played the recordings of her and John and her and Bev. Specifically, the part about handling me, continuing to lie to me, and using the credit card for everything. I told her that I had a written confession of the affair in detail from Emily. And when I feel any kind of nostalgia for the past, all I need to do is read it and I'm cured. I told both of them not to mention the recordings of Emily with Jon and Bev because the legality of the situation is a gray area and I could get into big trouble if they came to light. One thing I didn't do was accuse Emily of prostitution or being a sugar baby because that could technically be considered slander. At the very least, it could get me back in court, which I want to avoid. Matt's wife was quiet throughout. I ended up by apologizing for lying to her about Shrea, then told her about the relationship and that it helped me feel better from the emasculation that Emily's affair gave me, but that there was not a future there with us. Not because of who Shrea is, but because of where my head is at now. It just wouldn't be fair to Shrea. I told her that Emily's betrayal is too deep and thorough for me to forget it. I would rather take my chances with finding a new relationship or not than live in a haunted house for the rest of my life. I told them both that it was important to me that they not spread this junk around as it is as mortifying to me as it is to Emily. I told them that since they seem to have the most invested in us getting back together, that they should know at least part of the truth so they could understand why reconciliation is impossible for me. It seemed like Matt's wife wanted to leave right then, but I stopped her and told her that it was important for her to keep being a support for Emily. However, I wished she'd point Emily towards therapy and becoming a better person and stopped talking to her about reconciliation and encouraging that delusion. She knows about the no contact and the meeting next year, but I told her that if I went to that meeting, it would be for closure and a post-mortem/lessons learned on the relationship and nothing else. She left to go to her room. I had no idea if she was sad or angry. Maybe both. Matt gave me a side hug and said he had some idea from what I've said before, but no idea the actual extent of the affair. I told him not to think about it, but just make sure he was the best daddy and husband he could be or he'd end up like me. Kidding. I'm kidding. I got a call from Matt's wife this morning after they came back from church. and she mentioned that she's not going to talk to me anymore about reconciliation and she apologized. I of course told her she didn't know the full story. She still doesn't, so it's okay. And I also stressed that it was important to me that she still supports Emily, but to support her by telling her to move on and get therapy rather than hope for reconciliation. She confessed to me that she overexaggerated Emily's reaction to the picture of Shrea and me. Emily was more depressed about it than angry or outraged. It was Matt's wife who was outraged at the time since she was pushing the reconciliation plot in her head and not the we're effing done plot. She apologized and I could tell she was holding back tears. She said that she'd still pray for reconciliation. Do you have ears, woman? But that she wouldn't talk about reconciliation with Emily or encourage it. I restressed for her to actively encourage Emily to get help fixing whatever caused her to do this terrible thing, and she agreed. I also asked for her help in shutting down any reconciliation talk in our friend group that I might not know about and to do that without mentioning what I told her about the affair because it's important to me that Emily not spiral any further than she has. So that's that all fixed. Right. Okay. Smooth sailing from here on out. Holy crapfest. It's been a whole year. So much has changed. December 7th, 2024, I was the clueless husband thinking I had a great marriage. She was super affectionate, making a lot of effort to give me gifts, seducing me, telling me how great I am, how lucky she was to have such a great guy like me, and doing way more than her fair share of housework. Bro, I thought I had it on easy mode all the time. Then I saw an email notification on my wife's computer. Subject: Re lunch tomorrow. Preview: Hey honey. I was like, "Honey." I opened up the email. Here's where I'm supposed to apologize for invading her privacy, but f that. If someone calls my wife honey and they're not some 70-year-old alcoholic grandmother with a lit cigarette slurring from a bar stool, I'm damn looking into it. The email ended up with, "You're incredible. I can't stop thinking about last night." After looking through the previous emails, this was the first one that had a term of endearment. I guess he was getting sloppy. There were previous emails calling her stunning and beautiful and plenty of ones that were hotel booked, usual place, call for schedule. I think it was purposefully like that so it would read like she's a personal assistant. It's like I panicked and froze at the same time. I'm kind of glad I did because if I had only panicked, I would have just gone to the gym and yelled at her, which would have screwed me in the divorce, I'm sure. Hell, I probably would have ended up arrested. Some dude screaming at a petite, beautiful blonde girl at the gym in public. Yeah, that would have turned out great for me. That one email notification set off a chain of events that radically changed my life. I got the evidence, hired a PI, got a lawyer, informed the betrayed spouse, Lisa. Emily burned all her gifts from John on my grill. We signed papers where Emily read off the trashiest, erotic story I ever heard. I had intercourse with someone other than my wife for the first time, and now we're here a year later. If I could tell my past self something on December 7th, 2024, it would be, "Brace yourself, mother effer." I got a sweetheart deal from this divorce. That doesn't mean it hurt any less. I know it could have been way worse. We didn't have kids together. I was lucky enough to file in an at fault state where adultery makes a difference in divorce. I had all the evidence. Hell, she confessed to it all in texts and emails. Adultery subreddit pro tip: deny everything until the very end because you may be in an at fault state. Research it before you unzip your pants for God's sake. As far as Lisa and Jon's divorce goes, I think he's betting on Lisa taking a settlement for less than she's due just from sheer attrition. No news on that front other than J's kids don't want to spend the holidays with him. What a shock. I picture him out in the cold, bundled up and shivering with a big frown on his face weekly scratching at the window while his wife and kids eat a sumptuous meal and open expensive gifts and tell each other how much they love each other. That makes me happy. After getting the evidence we had and her confession early on and knowing that Emily is not rich, my lawyer knew that it wouldn't go to trial. It was pretty much a slam dunk. That's why she took Lisa's case after a signed waiver from each of us. I went back and read all my posts and one passage stood out to me where she was frustrated because I stopped having intimacy with her. Knowing what I now know, I think that was probably because I foiled her little babymaking strategy. Curses. I don't know that for sure, though. I haven't had any direct contact with Emily since signing papers with her at the lawyer's office. She cut her hair really short, stopped dying it, and she got sad because I was at a Dvali party with another woman. That's all I know, and I didn't even want to know that much. I spent Thanksgiving with my dad and his girlfriend. She has two grown sons. It was a pleasant time. Shrea spent Thanksgiving with her friends. I might be mistaken, but it didn't sound to me like the Dvali crowd made Thanksgiving a big deal. She's leaving for India on the 16th. Depending on what happens there, she might come back for quite a while or just long enough to pack up her life here and scadaddle off to married Bliss. I'm going back down to my dad's again for Christmas. I'm sure my dad's girlfriend and her sons will be there, too. She's a widow. My dad's a widowerower, so they're bonding over that. I'm sure she and her kids are good enough company to spend the holidays with if Thanksgiving was any indication. I'm helping to move all of Shrea's stuff to a storage unit this weekend. Then she'll stay with me a couple of days and I'll take her to the airport. I'm kind of indifferent about it. It's kind of the same feeling as if your cousin lets you borrow his elite supercar while he's on a long trip and then he returns and gets it back from you. Yeah, it kind of sucks that you don't have it anymore, but you knew it wasn't yours for good to begin with. If Shrea doesn't find anyone, she'll come back and maybe we'll start up again. I'm pretty sure she'll get engaged, though. She's from a good family and she's beautiful in her mid20s. Matt and his wife are getting into a steady routine. She's back at work, thank God. And between that and their kid and their relationship, she doesn't have time for Mai and Emily's BS. Jim and his wife got back from a trip to Europe just before Thanksgiving. Bob is complaining about his girlfriend wanting to redecorate his house. I told him to make sure he keeps the receipts for everything he buys. She's cool, though. She plays D and D and is pretty good at it. She seems to like Bob's hobbies, which is good. The only hobby Emily and I shared was going to the gym, but we did it every day, and we'd almost always work out together. I'm back to my old gym now. It has a pool, so I'm happy. I didn't get as much swimming in before, and it shows. Thanks to Shrea's cooking and my lack of self-control, I'm about 15 lbs heavier than I was this time last year. I'm part of an accountability group there now where we encourage each other to be consistent. I don't really need it, but it's a way to get back in the social side of things. Before today, I think part of me was in a fist fight with the past. Like, if I deny it enough, it'll change. If I keep shouting at it and claiming how wrong and unjust it all was, it'll somehow loop back on itself and become right again. I think I need to just accept it all. It happened. It didn't not happen. Move on with my life. No whining or depression or cutting myself off from life will make it right. It's wrong. It'll always be wrong. But it's not my whole life. It's just a piece of it that's behind me. It only messes up my present and future if I allow it to. It's easy enough for me to say that, but living it is the key, which I'm trying to do. Pray for me, y'all. Lessons learned. There's always a reason for drastic behavior changes, and sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting la is not the correct response. I think maybe this whole thing may have been avoided or at least less time wasted if I had just asked her about her behavior changes at the very beginning and been very insistent upon getting a straight answer and investigating it. The person who ruins the relationship does not dictate its outcome. If you f up a relationship, just admit it. Ask the person you wronged what they want to do while telling them what you want to happen. And then just accept the consequences with grace and f on off to the sidelines if that's what the wronged party dictates. Talking to cheating women and men both here. Silence is strength. The best way to punish a cheater and simultaneously begin to heal is by not saying anything to them. Think about it. Even if you want to reconcile, you need to get that knife out of your back and stitch the cut before you negotiate with your terrorist. When you're still bleeding, you don't have the right mind to figure out your stuff. Anything you say in the heat of the moment can and will be used against you in divorce court. It'll come back and haunt you later. It'll give them a basis for a defense with friends and family. Silence also gives you the opportunity to collect evidence against the cheater so you can overwhelm them with the truth. Which leads me to controlling the narrative with friends and family is more important than financial division in a divorce. I'm sure this will be controversial. Maybe it's because I'm a people pleaser or something, but I'd rather lose most of my assets and have everyone know that I'm the wronged party than vice versa. Relationships are worth more than money. Make those recordings, even if they're illegal. You won't be able to use it in court, but you will be able to show your friends and relatives the truth. To me, that's more important. No one ever went to jail for recording their cheating spouse, unless it was part of some greater illegal activity. At worst, they'd plead it down to a fine and maybe community service. I'm not a lawyer, though. But talking to lawyers, they say a jury wouldn't convict you. And in these types of cases, a judge prefers a civil penalty rather than jail time. Just don't publicly post the recordings. Play them in person. They may even be important in future relationships to prove you're not the cheater in the relationship. If you aid or abet a cheater, male or female, you are a scumbag. Period. Fix yourself. You're subhuman. A true friend points out crappy behavior and expects a certain level of behavior from the people they call friends. Boundaries are useless unless they are enforced. Uninforced boundaries make you look weaker than a person with no boundaries. I think the fact that I didn't enforce boundaries with Emily early on gave her the notion that I would accept her infidelity. If I had stuck to my boundaries, the cheating either wouldn't have happened or we'd be divorced for irreconcilable differences and I wouldn't feel as emasculated and heartbroken as I do now. A good lawyer makes all the difference in a contentious divorce case. Beg, borrow, or steal to get one. Get a prenuptual agreement. I didn't do this. Get it after the proposal, but way before the wedding date, not the day before. Get a lawyer to draw it up. Get another different lawyer to advocate for your potential spouse. Come to an agreement. Put in as severe an infidelity clause as you can get away with. Throw in an abuse clause and an abandonment clause for good measure. Come up with an equitable distribution plan while you still love each other. People will tell you that they nullify prenups, but they only do that if they're signed under duress, like if they're thrown at you the day before the wedding, if they contain stupid and unrealistic terms, you get nothing if you get fat, or are just a filled out form document you got from lawyers-4-free. Sure, you can fight a prenup if you have a ton of money to go to court, but 99% of the time you don't. So, the judge just invokes the prenup because that's the easy thing to do. They don't want to work hard and the next case on their docket is a couple who don't have a prenup. You have car insurance, health insurance, home insurance, and life insurance. You never want to have to use your insurance. A prenup is marriage insurance. Looking back, I think I've taken more than I've given. I've leeched validation, advice, and warm feelings from all of you wonderful people like some kind of vampire. There are no words to express the appreciation I have for you kind people. This includes people telling my story online like SSM and Royal AI. I may not agree with all of what you represent, but I hear what you and your listeners say and the support you give, and I take it to heart. I don't take it frivolously and I can't express my appreciation for you all adequately enough. I am humbled by all of the support I've gotten here and I feel like a leech sometimes, but here I am appreciating and loving your support and validation. It means more than I can express with words. Thank you. Here's to a better year next year. 2025 can f right off. I was a damn crazy person this time last year. I think I've accepted that when Emily says the word love, she really means something else. Safety, maybe, reliability, dependence. I'm not sure. But it's not really love by any rational definition other than fuzzy feelings and kitty tingles. As far as my future goes, I'm going to put myself out there. I'll be open. I do feel a little sorry for any future partner because I'm at the point where I will not tolerate BS anymore. I mean, I'm willing to just turn and walk away at the first hint of bull crap with no apology and no excuse. Nope. No thank you, ma'am. Good luck in whatever you do going forward. I'm out. I'm done for good. And there are no second chances in my world. My tolerance for relationship bull trash is so low that I feel any dating profile of mine should start with an apology and a disclaimer. So grab whatever bourbon is on hand and give me a toast. I made it a whole year without eating a blast or compromising my self-respect. I'm right there with you. FYI. If you live in the American South and you start dating a beautiful blonde hair and makeup artist, be sure and ask how her last relationship ended. If she stutters, looks off to the side while hesitating, or otherwise hems and haws, excuse yourself to the restroom, and run. Run like hell. My cake day on Reddit was the 15th. That was the first time I reached out and told my story. I had already been on Reddit with a different account. Honestly, I didn't know subreddits like infidelity or cheating stories existed. While looking at where to post, I happened upon the adultery subreddit. In case you didn't know, the adultery subreddit is where people who are cheating on their significant others post and get support for one another. So, you have mistresses complaining about how their sugar daddy's wife and kids are monopolizing his time and other scummy, demented stuff like that. That's where my adultery subreddit pro tips come from. I created a new user and decided to post on infidelity and cheating stories, and my posts were promptly put in limbo due to the fact that my new user had zero karma. The infidelity one eventually got approved, but it had several days of posts in front of it and very few people saw it. I realized I needed to build up karma in order to get support. I talked in a previous post about what I did, but I eventually built up enough karma to be able to post and not have it wait for approval. Then people started reading my posts and the rest is history, I guess. I looked back on the infidelity subreddit and the post where I served Emily divorce papers is like the third top all-time post behind the guy whose brother fathered his kid so he knocks him out every time he sees him and a poor lady who thinks something is wrong with her because she was cheated on by her husband and then her first boyfriend after her divorce. Just goes to show you that cheating is a character thing and not a gender thing. Last weekend, some of Shrea's other friends, I'm calling them the Dvali crowd, and I helped move her stuff into a storage unit. She gave away a ton of her furniture and clothes to her girlfriends. I noticed the clothes she got rid of were pretty much all of her less conservative outfits, swimsuits, workout gear, club wear. Ha! Mom and dad wouldn't approve. She took about four huge suitcases full of stuff to my house. She's ready to pay the extra fees for the plane, I guess. She seemed very interested in staying close together with me, and we didn't leave the house much. I ended up taking a couple of days off. She was pretty emotional at the airport, but she said that her parents wouldn't accept a divorced older Gora for a son-in-law. I felt sad just because of the role she occupied in my life as the only other person I've ever had a sexual relationship with other than my wife and her help in getting over the emasculation caused by my wife's cheating. We both knew going into it that it was a temporary thing, but I think it may have hit her harder. Either that or she was putting on a show for my benefit. I appreciate it either way. It's weird. I feel a vague sense of loss, but I know it was expected and life will go on. It was a sharp contrast to the end of my marriage, which was a fundamental paradigm shift of where I thought my life was headed. I think the difference is that I had a vision and expectation of the future with my wife and absolutely none with Shrea. I'm kind of torn now. Should I enter into any relationship with no vision of its outcome and no expectations of the course it will take? Just go day by day with the knowledge that everything could poo the bed at any minute? I think I should at least withhold myself until I see some kind of reciprocity from the other end. But what if the other person feels the same way and also holds back? then it's some kind of messed up lovebased Mexican standoff. It doesn't seem fair or realistic to wait for reciprocity while not giving anything of yourself. Since Shrea is gone, the only female companionship I have is my kitten. She's completely black, so it's hard to take a good picture of her. I call her Beans because she's outgoing and sassy. I say I call her beans because she doesn't respond to anything except the sound that a shaking can of cat treats makes. I didn't end up getting the puppy. The deal fell through and I haven't tried very hard to find any replacement. Beans has decided that I am a piece of furniture like a favorite lamp or something. She'll sit 3 ft away facing the wrong direction pretending she's not keeping tabs on me. If I move, she relocates. If I stay still too long, she leaves like I've become boring. It feels familiar somehow. She disappears for hours at a time, then reappears like nothing happened, demanding food and affection on her terms. Honestly, she might be the most emotionally welladjusted female in my life right now. On the female prospect front, I figure I'll enjoy the quiet for a bit, at least through the holidays. There is a girl in my gym accountability group that I work out with sometimes. She seems pretty serious about losing weight and getting fit due to the doctor diagnosing her as pre-diabetic. She said that's how her grandfather died, so she's determined. She's been at it for 3 months and has lost 20 lbs. She's down to earth and pleasant, but she's all business at the gym. She's already planning on being at the gym on the 26th. Like I said, serious. I don't want to screw up the accountability group, though, so I'll just be nice, funny, and helpful for now. I'm pretty thick when it comes to girls indicating interest, so it's probably a dead end. But I really admire her drive and tenacity. In the group chat, Lisa said her oldest daughter wants to change her name to Lisa's maiden name. Lisa is changing back to her maiden name as part of her divorce with John. And their oldest daughter wants to do that, too. She's not 18. I think she's still 16 or maybe 17 now. I doubt she can change it now without J's consent. I don't know the law, though. If I were her, I'd hold off until Jon paid off my college tuition. I think she really needs therapy. Infidelity is a bomb with lots of collateral damage. I'd also like to announce my greatest achievement this year. When we talk, Matt and his wife always refer to their baby as the baby. So, I took it upon myself to name her Baroness Peabody von Poopen Schlabber. The oo is important. I stressed this. You can't just slap an umlout on a name and not commit to it. That's cultural appropriation. I told them that the name gives her old money gravitas while honoring her life's achievements. Much chuckling and eye rolling ensued. I'm sure they're seriously taking it under advisement, but either way, she's Baroness Peabody von Poopen Schllober to me until she gets married. I'm headed down to the villages on the 24th to spend Christmas with dad and his girlfriend and her two sons. I'm leaving Beans with Bob and his GF. I briefly considered taking Beans with me, then remembered she panics if I moved the coffee table 6 in. So Bob's babysitting because he and his girlfriend are the only friends Beans has met. So I told him that this will be the test as to whether or not they can be good parents. No pressure, guys. Boring update, I know, but I was feeling a little introspective the day after dropping off Shrea at the airport. Merry Christmas and happy new year, y'all. I got a couple of phone calls on New Year's Eve. First, a little background. I figured that when Shrea went to Mumbai to go get paired up with a future husband, that would be the end of it. We'd cut it off clean and she'd go on and find some guy, get married, and then that's it. We never explicitly said we'd not talk again. I just sort of assumed it, bro. I assumed wrong. She texted me to say that she landed in Mumbai. I just texted back. Great. Hope the flight was good. She texted me pictures of her parents' place in Mumbai, which looks like a hotel in Las Vegas. I commented that it looked fancy. She texted me pictures of her grandma and mom, who were both really good-looking for women their age, ngl. Her mom apparently got married and had her, she's the oldest, when she was very young, like 20 years old. She texted me pictures of the files she received of the guys she's choosing from. At this point, I'm kind of uncomfortable with the whole dynamic. So, I wanted to just tell her that I'm at my family's house for Christmas/ New Year's and will be out of pocket. But, I figured I should probably make myself clear and not deflect. So, I told her that I'm not going to be playing the Bachelorette home game with her and good luck with those file dudes. I told her I thought it would be best if she concentrated on the future and not the past and that she shouldn't be distracted by her past relationship with the divorced Gora. I didn't hear anything back, so I figured that was that. My dad's girlfriend invited her two grown sons, and one of them brought his girlfriend along. I'll call him G and her Q because I can't think up any more fake names. My dad invited my cousin Josh for Christmas and New Year. We don't see each other very often, but when we do, we have this bro chemistry where we break each other's balls constantly and crack each other up. He's got this loud New York energy, while I'm more of a softspoken southern gentleman. It's a fun clash. Breaking balls is our love language. We don't go below the belt or anything, so it's not like a real roast battle, but it's funny enough that we attracted a very small crowd when we were out at a bar. Anyway, G was trying to join in and I figured I'd let him because I wanted to keep everything smooth with my dad and his GF. It went okay. The guy hasn't honed that muscle and Josh and I went easy on him. But his GF Q went fullon savage. It was funny but got really personal. At this point in my life, I don't think I would have tolerated that kind of disrespect. But I didn't say anything because she's not my girlfriend. He didn't say anything either, but after that they seemed a little distant. My ex was never that disrespectful to me. You know, besides the infidelity, so I'm not sure how I would have reacted to it before. All I know is that now I wouldn't tolerate it. I don't think I would slam her in public, but definitely we would be having a come to Jesus talk privately, which would probably be relationship ending. I don't know how y'all would want to classify it. A more fragile male ego, intolerant douche, or someone with more defined and stricter boundaries. Maybe I'd be more tolerant if it was a first offense and we were still getting to know each other. I'm not sure. It would just set off a huge red flag alert in me, though. One that I'm not sure I'd easily get over at this point. Other than that minor incident, we all had a pretty good time. It was really good to see Josh. I forget how much I missed that guy. Around early afternoon on the 31st, I got a call from a plus 91 number. It was Shrea. They had just celebrated ringing in the new year and she was at some rooftop bar. She had been drinking, but she was still able to hold a bit of a conversation. She said she missed me and wanted to fly me out to India first class on her dime. I told her it would be kind of inappropriate to have a FWB hanging out with her while she interviews potential husbands. I'm not going to be a side piece or a fallback plan. she shouldn't waste time with a guy she's not going to be able to marry. She confessed she told her mom about me and her mom told her to talk to her dad. She talked to her dad and predictably an older divorced Gora from a nondescript American family is a big no way for the guy. I can't blame him. I'd probably say the same if I were him. I told her she should concentrate on finding a good guy and that talking to me is probably setting her back. She agreed, but she was whining a lot. We said happy new year and hung up and that was it. Later on, we rang in the new year in my dad's backyard. I was expecting a call from Bob because they said they babysit Beans on New Year's Eve, specifically all night because I was concerned about her being alone with fireworks going off outside. I didn't check my phone and I answered when it rang shortly after midnight. All I heard was some breathing followed by some sounds that may have been crying. Not sure. Then they hung up. The voice from what I heard was female. I did an online search for the number and got nothing. It wasn't a VIP, so I'm guessing it was a burner phone bought from a store. It was obviously Emily calling, but I don't have any proof of it. I suppose I'll call my phone company and see if they can give me any info, but I doubt it if it was a burner, it was Emily, or it was some kind of strange and weird new marketing strategy. return a weeping woman's call and you get a commercial for adult diapers. I tried calling back, but no one answered. I don't know what I hoped I'd accomplish. Like, if I punched in the number, she'd just answer and tell me the checks in the mail. Like, I'd do an online search for the number and it'd come up as Emily's super secret burner phone or Joe's Street Walker House and Crabshack. I'll call my phone company and see if they have any ideas. I'm so excited. I love the generic piano music that I'll get to listen to on repeat for 12 hours. Living the dream. Thanks, Emily. I think I'll just make a note of it. If she keeps calling and it becomes a problem, I'll do the phone company thing. I walked in my place this morning and Beans greeted me with a resounding me and began actively ignoring me and grooming herself. She's still a little when I shake the cat treat can though. I was feeling pretty good until I got that call from Emily. remembering the crying and sobbing that she missed the countdown and the vehement almost insulted way she reacted to me asking if she was cheating on me. Then me shrugging it off and telling her I was kidding in order to try to lull her back into complacency while my fingernails dug into my palms and I quietly kicked myself for putting her on high alert. For eth's sake, that was a bad time. I had to go to an empty bedroom and do my EMDR techniques, but I got through the aftermath of her phone call quickly like a champ. Other than that little hiccup, I had a great holiday. I said it before though, 2025 can go suck itself. Here's looking forward to 2026. Happy New Year, everyone. Thanks again, That brings us to the end so far. What would you advise OP? Let us know in the comments. You like the way these stories are brought to you. If so, I got you covered. More like this on my channel. Thank you for staying till the end. Let me know if you enjoyed this episode. See you in the next one.