Infidelity Support Group
Any relationship in which one partner engages willfully in sexual relations with another outside of the partnership is considered to have experienced infidelity. This breach of trust is often traumatizing for the faithful partner as well as the relationship, and support is often needed to heal emotionally and to decide whether or not the relationship should continue after...
My SO and I have been together 15 years. After many failed attempts (not our fault) we finally got married in August 2021.
He was acting odd for months leading up to the wedding but I thought it was nerves. He had had to take a job out of town for the first time ever and I was left at home working full time, raising our daughter, caring for our pets and house and planning a wedding. He felt guilty he wasn't there.
We got married and I forgot all about him ever acting strange because he went totally back to normal.
Last week, I was looking for a message from a mutual friend with a recipe, I decided to cruise his phone. We don't hide phones from one and other and are frequently on each other's phones. It's never been an issue. He doesn't text a lot so about 14 messages down was a text from an unknown number. I know I betrayed his trust looking but he shattered mine by what I found.
While I had been at home planning our wedding he had spent hundreds of dollars on an escort. He had lied to me, taken it out of accounts I don't check, and spent days trying to hook up with one. It was a scam, so he never physically did it. And he did a 180 in the messages and started demanding his money back and saying he never should have done it. But I felt like everything I had ever known just exploded into stardust.
I confronted him and he cried, he apologized, he said he was wrong, he told me it was one time he tried and he can't even tell me why he did. He's spent a week telling me over and over I'm the one he wants and he can't believe he was ever that stupid and he will wait as long as it takes for me to get past this. He's been giving me space, checking in daily, being very aware of my needs. He even offered to install a tracker on his phone but I declined.
I love him. Despite this. And I don't want this to be the end. But there's just so....MUCH. I'm angry, sad, scared, broken, sick all the time in this crazy rapid succession and I can barely day to day function. I cry at random times and other times I feel like I'm going to be physically ill.
We can't afford a marriage counselor but he offered to look into any programs that would help us.
I feel like I NEED a reason. I need to know why. And he said he literally can't tell me why because he doesn't even know himself. He said the months leading up to the wedding and after the wedding were the happiest he's been in a long time. He also keeps telling me it's not my fault, at all. It was all him. But then why do I feel like it is my fault?
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I'm horrified! I knew my insurance would go up due to getting a new car but I didn't expect it to go up over $2,000. I did have an accident with the snow/ice in the winter. I was just telling my brother that I have had my car since March 2, 2026 and have only spent $75 on an oil change. Now this! I called another insurance company and their quote was over $4,000. I guess I have to pay...
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I remember before, you two had an issue with how many kids you both wanted. That you wanted more than one. Did you two resolve that issue to your satisfaction?
Yes, you deserve to know the reason WHY. Him spending hundreds of dollars looking for an escort is not just a one time thing. He needs to tell you why. Not an "I don't know" answer from him. He does know why, so he should just tell you what it is, so that you can see if you two can work on his issues.
No, none of this is your fault! He is the one that made these choices. That was all on him.
What else is he saying now?
I'm also going to "broken record" on this (anyone who has been here any length of time has heard me pimp the program). Still, Marriage Builders has a LOT of information about infidelity for free, and if you write into the radio show, they will very often send you a free book that might help you, too. We used several books and all of the free materials through Marriage Builders during our recovery. But - it is just *a* program, not *the* program.
By the sounds of it, your husband wasn't unfaithful - but he did commit a big "love buster" (Marriage Builders term) that pretty much broke your love bank. That doesn't mean all is lost, but it certainly needs to be addressed. It sounds like he started having pre-wedding "one last hurrah" kind of thoughts. I don't think those are unusual - but ACTING on them certainly is. Part of the issue is that you had already been living as man and wife (for all intents and purposes), so you had different expectations than him going to some bachelor party and having a last free night. (Even then, I'm not a fan of bachelor parties that involve anything that could be considered unfaithful, but I know others have different viewpoints.)
Basically: don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, but don't accept him shrugging and getting away with "I dunno." By participating in independent behavior (taking mutual money to pay for something you most certainly did NOT agree to) and plotting infidelity (even if he didn't go through with it), he showed weaknesses that you two need to address. If you can do that, there most certainly is hope for your relationship. If not, I would expect similar future behavior.