My husband DISCOVERED the truth about me and his boss… he did not take it well! - r/relationship_advice | Reddit Stories | EP2211 - ok storytime

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:04):
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Speaker 2 (00:14):
My husband discovered the truth about me and his boss.
He did not take it well. Uh oh. The truth
is here trigger warning for self harm. So if you
do not want to read about that or hear about that,
skip to the next story. My husband hates his boss,
I mean loathes him and has since he was transferred
to his division almost a year ago. He would come

(00:36):
home almost every single night complaining about him. By the way,
this comes from Peppy Schnaps and if you want to
spit your own stories, go to the r slash Okay
Storytime Separate it.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
So.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
He works in a very specific creative job and there
are very limited jobs in this area for his field
of work. He has paid very well for his job,
and if he wanted to stay in the same field,
he most likely would have to move halfway across the
which all of our family and friends are right here,
so neither of us want to do that. It had
gotten so bad that he was looking at quitting and

(01:07):
just taking a cut and pay. I told him I
was fine with it, but he spent his entire life
studying for this job. So his company had an annual
holiday party, and last year we were gone, so we
did not attend this year. However, they had it this
past weekend and lo and be old, we were available
to go. This is a very large corporation, so there

(01:27):
are literally hundreds of people at the party. When we
go in, we start to talk to people and I
go sit down at our table. Well, he goes to
meet with some of the people who work in his
division who were standing at the bar. Well, I'm sitting there,
I feel a tap on my shoulder and there stands Paul.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Oohoo.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
I have not seen Paul in years, and I immediately
got up and we hugged each other. Paul and I
used to date in college, and we parted amicably because
we were both going separate places in life. But we
did date for over a year, and as I said,
I hadn't seen him in a long time, so I
was thrilled to see him again and catch up on
our lives. I have no feelings for him other than

(02:06):
that of an old friend, and I just was happy
to catch up. We talked for a good long time
until he asked me why I was there, and I
said I was there with my husband. Yes, you can
see where this is going. Paul, my ex is the
boss that my husband hates. He asked who my husband
was and I said his name, and Paul kind of
looked stunned and asked if it was the same person

(02:27):
he knew, and I said I don't know. He said
he was the department head of title of job, and
that is when it struck me that this was the
boss my husband had been complaining about for the past
year or so. He just said that he knew my
husband and didn't see anything else. We continued to talk
for a while and he said he would love to
speak more with me, but he had to go back

(02:47):
to his table as he was one of the speakers
for the night. We both hugged each other and left.
My husband walked up, just aspiritre pulling apart from our
very platonic hug. As Paul walked away, my husband asked
me what that was all about. I could tell he
was very upset, and he asked if Paul was trying
to hit on me. He of course, has no idea
we knew each other. He was starting to rant and

(03:07):
rape about going to HR to file a complaint on him.
I mean, he was fuming mad. I bet he's happy, though.
I was kind of stuck because if I didn't step
up and say something, I think he would have gone
over to the HR table and filed a complaint right there.
And I just told him that we were old friends
from college and that we hadn't seen each other since graduation.
I think you should have told him the truth. Hopefully

(03:30):
you tell him the truth tonight. Well does she not
tell him the truth? She just said we're old friends? Well, yeah,
I feel like that is the truth. Though the truth
is out the ex's though. Oh yeah, didn't catch that.
Yeah he dated for a year in college. Oh yeah,
yeah that's right. But slip slatonically. I could see the
color drain from his face. We spent the rest of
the night with him watching his phone and leaving right

(03:51):
after eating. He did not say a word to me
on the way home. Once we got home, I tried
just to talk in general, and he wasn't having any
of it. I got the grilling up lifetime. I could
tell he was completely unhinged. He wanted to know why
I didn't tell him I knew him. He went on
to accuse me of laughing at him behind his back.
This baby's crazy, Yeah, very insecure. Oh my goodness. He

(04:12):
even went so far as ask me if I was
having an affair with him. He oh, ah, so much,
he really does. I mean, he was in a total meltdown.
This is not normal for him. In case you're wondering,
He's honestly the most rational person I know, and he
has never even so much as raised his voice to
me in all of the years I've known him. He
did eventually apologize to me, and then went on to

(04:34):
continue to talk about how his life was heck because
of his boss. Now Here is the issue. I was
absolutely petrified to tell him the real truth about Paul.
He was completely irrational, and I was honestly afraid he
would have spiraled out of control if I told him
that Paul was more than just an old friend, what
was actually an ex I was not afraid for myself,

(04:55):
by the way, I've never feared that at all, But
I honestly don't know mentally if he could have had
handled it at that moment, I think he might have
done something irrational to himself or our relationship. Honestly, if
you think that, you should tell him to get therapy
because whoa. Yeah, just finding out that his boss used
to be his current wife's ex is going to make
him spiral out of control. Yeah, I want to know

(05:16):
what this boss did. I knowed. I never hid this
relationship from him. Neither of us have ever asked about
previous relationships. I only know about one of his previous
girlfriends because her sister said hi to him when we
were at McDonald's. He knows nothing about any of my
previous exes. We both agreed that the past didn't matter. Well,

(05:37):
I have a feeling it's going to matter. I am
deathly afraid that Paul will say something to him now,
not in a mean way, but just in a passing
way that we used to be a couple. I think
you need to tell him because if he finds out, Paul, dude,
it's gonna be so much worse, so much like it's
already kind of a baud that you didn't tell him
that from the start. But at the same time, it's
like it's just gonna get worse. So you got to

(05:58):
do it so much worse. I have no idea how
my husband will handle this. He is the love of
my life and I do not want to hurt him.
I don't want to hide this from him, nor lie biomission,
but I am very much afraid what this will do
to him mentally. I'm open to any suggestions here. Also,
please don't think poorly of my husband. He's a great
guy and it's been more than anything I could have
ever dreamed of as a partner. But whatever Paul has

(06:21):
done over the years has just made him insane. He
needs to quit his job. Yeah, Like what happened to
make him so incredibly insane? Like this? So ask him?
Be like, dude, what did Paul do to you?

Speaker 3 (06:34):
Well?

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, probably she probably knows, but just won't tell us. Yeah,
but there are still end an update, but what does
O p do? Well? Op definitely starts with the truth. Yeah,
and be like, hey, I know that that really threw
you for a loop, and I don't want to make
things worse, but I should tell you before this gets
even worse that like, yeah, we did date, Yeah, but

(06:57):
like we split so long ago. Oh w we were fine,
So that's why we kind of caught up as if
we were friends. Yeah, you know, I hate that this
is the paw that's torturing you at work. And then
you go he sucks, he sucks for what he's doing
to you. Yeah, at work, and like try to save
it for that feeling. I truly did, and then go

(07:19):
to therapy and then be like maybe therapy, Yeah, I
don't know, Yeah, could be good. Common one. This truth
will have to come out. You have lied by a
mission too much already. Encourage him to resign. This place
is no good for him. Yeah, be ready for reduction
in your lifestyle, hope, he says, to my defense, I
only lied by a mission out of fear of what
it would do to him. That night, I mean, he
was literally rotating between a raving loon and being so

(07:41):
mad he was crying. I've never seen him do that
before this. By the way, at the moment, I didn't
want to make a bad situation into a disaster, although
all along I knew I was going to have to eventually.
Was I doing self preservation as well? Of course, since
we've never talked about exces, I had no idea how
the conversation would have gone. But this it wasn't just
some random ACX to my husband. This was the personification

(08:03):
of all that is evil in the world. And for
me to have to tell him that we used to
be a couple was Slash is not gonna be easy.
Does anybody think for a minute, I want to lose
my husband for something that I did not know, Slash
had no control over and was with someone I haven't
seen or spoken to for almost ten years. I know
my husband loves me, but I also know that, for
whatever reason, when it comes to Paul, he is completely unhinged.

(08:27):
I am very much afraid he will hurt himself or heck,
he might even try to hurt Paul. But mostly I'm
afraid that I'll try and throw away everything we've built together.
I know in the long term he would not end us,
I hope, but the damage he might do in the
short term really frightens me. And there is an update.
I really need to know what Paul did. I need
to know, you need to know. Hopefully she gives that

(08:48):
to us in this update for context, has been pranking
him for a year. Update. He came home, I had
supper prepared. He was in a fairly good which at
first I thought would make this a little easier, but
in retrospect it did not. In fact, it made it
worse because I hated seeing the happy look dissolve. After dinner,

(09:09):
I took him to the living room and sat him
on the couch. I had a pretty lengthy speech prepared.
It was a combination of facts and well, honestly a
list of all the great things about him that I love.
Knowing that I was going to have to be there
to support him, he pretty much cut off my flowery
speech and just said to say what I was going
to say, because whatever I was trying to say, obviously
it was important, So I just said it. I just said, Look,
I didn't tell you that night because I was very

(09:30):
much afraid of how you were going to take this.
But Paul and I dated for almost over a year
in college. I had no idea he was the Paul
you were complaining about. I didn't even know he lived
around here. I have not in contact with him prior
to the Christmas party for almost ten years, and even
that night, I had no idea who he was in
relation to you until just literally moments before you came over.

(09:52):
He just sat there for what seemed like forever, and
then all he said was I understand. That was it.
It was monotone and passionless. I asked him if he
believed me about the timeframe and that I did not
know who he was that night. He said yes, and
that was it. Oh boy. So I now go into
my speech about how embarrassed I am about all of this,
that under no circumstance on the planet would I ever

(10:14):
do anything to jeopardize our marriage, that he was my
number one focus, and then I started talking about how
much I loved him and would do whatever he wanted
to do, even if it meant moving or doing something different.
While I was talking, he stood up and said that
he would like to be alone for a while and
that I needed to leave to do this. Like I
start crying. I tell him that if he needed to
be alone, that's fine, but I would be happy to leave,

(10:35):
and he said no, he wanted to go out to
clear his head. He left in his car. I waited
for a little bit, not nearly as long as I
should have, I'm sure, but I then start texting him,
telling him how much he meant to me, telling him
that I would answer any question, and well, you can
imagine all the things I texted. He never replied. He
left the house somewhere between seven thirty and eight. At
ten thirty, I received a phone call from a number

(10:57):
that I do not know, but I did not want
to be tied up that he might call me. At
a little after eleven, I saw car lights pull in
the driveway, so I was thinking he was back. But
then the doorbell rang.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
What.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
There is no worse feeling on the planet Earth then
having two State troopers with their hats in hand at
your door. Stop it stop stop. We're gonna have to
put trigger one in this. No, this is going where
I think it's gone. Oh my gosh. As soon as
I opened the door, I started screaming and crying. One
of the troopers told me that my husband had been
involved in serious auto accident and that I needed to

(11:31):
either go with them to the hospital or have someone
take me. He's alive. Oh my god, my gosh, so terrified, insane? Whoa, jeez,
whoa this man needs intense therapy. Yeah, intense therapy. Oh
my god, gracious, that is so not where I was
expecting this to go. No, also for anyone, just a PSA.

(11:55):
A lot of people say, oh, yeah, you know, don't
drink drive, Yeah, obviously, but also if you're having intense
don't drive. Yeah, take a minute. If you're if you
start crying, pull over. Yeah. You gotta be able to
see through those tears. Yeah. The number I ignored was
the er calling me, oh, oh, my gosh. I grabbed

(12:15):
my phone and went with them to the hospital. On
the way, I called his parents and told them to
meet me there. I called my parents to let them know,
but they were out of town for a few days,
so I left a voice message. I got to the
er and the troopers took me in through a back
door as to avoid having to go to a desk.
And my heart is about to explode, and they tell
a nurse who I am, and she walks over and
pulls back a curtain, and there sat my husband in

(12:38):
an er bed. He was awake and held up his
arm to show me his cast I was both relieved
and overcome all the same time. Of course, I held
him and bawled for quite a long time. He apologized
for scaring me and said he would have called me,
but his phone was still in the car. I asked
him what happened, and he said he hit some ice
on the road and lost control, then slid off, hitting

(12:59):
a tree. He said he thought his car was totaled.
The rest was pretty much a blur, but eventually, once
his parents got there, I left them in there with
him to call my parents again to update them. This
is when the state trooper approached me and wanted to talk.
He said that while they can't totally dispute what my
husband was saying, that his story about ice did not
hold up. Yes, it had snowed lightly, but there was

(13:22):
no real ice on the road, and that there was
no evidence at the scene to show where my husband
attempted to either break or swerve. They also said that
the only real reason his injury was as minor as
it was was because of our air bags, because they
do not believe he was wearing a seat belt. At first,
I had no clues to what they were trying to say,
but ultimately it's sunk in that they were implying he

(13:43):
did it intentionally. Ooh, yeah, so this was so far
probably yeah. No matter how bad this made me feel,
and believe me, I felt like crap. My top priority
at that time was him. So I went back into
the room with him, and mind you, he's acting like
everything's fine, like our conversation from earlier didn't even happen.
In fact, he was definitely overcompensating, trying to act happy

(14:06):
and nonchalant. I stuck with him in the room for
a while, and then eventually went out and spoke to
his mom. She, by the way, was fully aware of everything.
I had confided in her after I got off work
because she and I have a great relationship and I
wanted her advice on how to handle this. She was
a wealth of information and was very supportive. That afternoon,
I told her what the troopers had told me. She
said we should ask the doctor if there was any

(14:28):
way to tell if this might be intentional. We spoke
with the doctor, then he spoke with the troopers. I
went in to speak to my husband and see how
he was doing, and finally the doctor came in and
started questioning my husband, and he started to get very defensive.
Finally he asked why he wasn't wearing a seatbelt, and
he started to give some excuse, but looked at me

(14:48):
and saw I was crying and just mouthed to him
to please be honest. After denying it for a good
long while. He finally admitted that he was just reckless
since there was no real proof that he tried to
do it intentionally. The doctor doctor told us that there
was nothing he could do. He said he could not
justify an emergency detention order and that while he tends
to believe us, there is just not enough to work with.

(15:09):
He was, however, admitted for twenty three hour observation. He
ended up with a fracture to his right forearm and
bruising to his chest. Wall I stayed with him and
his dad went over the next morning to the record
service to get things from the car. When we went home,
he went from overcompensating to him turning on me, accusing
me of trying to have him committed in the er.
He became very mean and isolated himself in our bedroom

(15:32):
for the next day. Eventually he came out to eat,
and that is when he dropped his request for a
divorce on me. He needs therapy so bad, yeah, whatever,
his relationship to Paul is just so he's so irrational
about everything. Yeah, And the fact that he already felt
very like strongly like this just by thinking that they

(15:55):
were just friends. And then of course and then obviously
this is happening now after realizing they were dating, Like, yeah,
like what, I'm so curious of what Paul has done
to make him like feel this way. Even if he's
done all this stuff like leave your job, Yeah, leave
your job, I'm surprised he hasn't already. As you can imagine,
I was a little distraught, but I told him that

(16:17):
he needed to focus on getting better before we make
any kind of decisions or even talk about it. The
next day, just let me have it. He totally believes
that Paul and I have been conspiring against him for
over a year. I honestly think he has like a
mental health probably like schizophrenia. Obviously I'm not a doctor
or anything, but he believes that everyone's conspiring against him. Yeah.

(16:39):
Like that's not normal. That's not normal. Yeah, And that
would make sense if he has some sort of like
existing mental health issue. If this is how he's reacting. Yes,
so this is like way over Yeah, like yeah that
the reason Paul has been so bad to him is
because of me. He basically said a lot of vile,
mean crap, and well, frankly, he was not the man

(17:01):
who I knew and loved at that moment. I let
him say whatever he wanted to say and didn't argue
with him. After he settled down, I just asked him
to explain logically how I manipulated him into this department
to so that I could get him to work for
a person I didn't even know was there. Obviously he couldn't,
but that didn't make him any more rational or less angry.
There is a little bit left to the story. But

(17:22):
what does hope do? I mean, it seems like she's
doing all this. She can't just like trying to get
through to him and being like, well, this is the truth. Yeah,
this is what I knew, But who knows if it's
gonna work. They definitely should wait until he kind of
heals a bit or for them to continue this conversation.
But absolutely, absolutely there's a little bit more. The next
day was a little better. He did apologize. I told

(17:44):
him that of course I accepted his apology, but that
I wasn't going to take being called those vile names
by anyone, let alone my own husband. We both agreed
to just let him heal and not to bring up
divorce in the meantime. Later in the day, he agreed
to get marriage counseling, and I told him that he
needed into visual therapy for himself. Great, because it wasn't
healthy to be this angry. However, I am committed to

(18:06):
making this work. This is not him, This is him
having a psychotic break, but he is not himself. I
will stand by him throughout this, even if he has
to be angry at me for some time. I know
I did not do anything wrong, but I also understand
from his point of view, this all looks very suspicious.
Commenter says, BS, you didn't have to hug Paul. You
didn't have to lie to your husband about your relationship
with Paul. You don't have to keep nagging husband to

(18:29):
admit he tried to hurt himself. You don't have to
keep trying to get him on a cycle because you
know it will help in the divorce. You could go
to husband's HR now and most likely have Paul fired.
Ohp you are in no way a victim here? Mean
what that commenter is way off base? Wow? Wow, you're
off base. So the commenter is just basically saying, like OPI,

(18:50):
you can't complain this is you could have done something
to fix it? What OPI, It was just like a bystander,
like he literally ran into her. Yeah, that's it, that's
all that happens. That's it, that's all that happens. You
cannot behave this way because your partner runs into your
ex even if Op intentionally lied about something, yeah, still

(19:15):
not okay behavior if she was cheating or something like that.
I mean, like something like she like even if like
you know, you shouldn't expect people to intentionally injure themselves
in a car crash because of something like this. Not okay.
And no, even more insane that he did it with
absolutely no proof of anything like this man deeply needs
like just intense therapy and intense psychiatric help because this

(19:38):
is not normal. And oh he is taking on the
burden of this in a very intense way that I
worry for her. Yeah, so com to you're wrong, wrong, wrong,
and then Op just refutes that. But that is the
end of that story. Wow, that is a wild story.
I mean, so not expecting that you never find out
what Paulta did. Ye's a horrible lot. But I really

(20:00):
think if anyone who's watching this has a boss that
is just so horrible that you come home and you
literally feel like you're going crazy. Yeah, nothing is worth
your mental health. Yeah, and it's possible like he already
had like self harming tendencies before this, because this is
probably a very intense way to self harm. So I'm
sure he worked his way up to it. Yes. So yeah,
if you're in any situation where that is the case,

(20:23):
then get out of there. Yeah. But that is the
end of that story. My wife kept embarrassing me every
time I had a Zoom lesson. Stop it. Being a teacher,
I am currently giving lessons over Zoom. I recognize that
studying math of Zoom isn't the most exciting thing in
the world for students, and I can barely get them
to even pretend to be interested in my lessons when

(20:45):
we're in the classroom. But they have done an admirable
job of staying focused. My wife is making it extremely
difficult on my end though. By the way, this comes
from throwaway sabotage and if you want to submit your
own stories, go to the ur slash okay storytime separate it.
So several months ago, when my lessons began, I went
from working long hours to being at home all day. Unfortunately,
my wife does not seem to understand that while I'm

(21:06):
at home, and while I can occasionally help out with
chore too, I still have actual work to do. Between
lesson prep, grading, and meetings, my schedule is quite full.
The first time she interrupted my lesson, she abruptly opened
the doors to the room where I was teaching and
loudly asked me to do the dishes. This was unbelievably awkward,
as I was in the middle of teaching three dozen
tenth graders geometry. I told her that we would talk

(21:29):
about it later, but not being deterred, she asked if
it was a yes or no. I said it was
a yes, but that I was in the middle of
a lesson. Without a word, she closed the door. I
got some chuckles from students, but a bit of red
cheeked embarrassment was the extent of the damage. The next time,
two days later, she again barged in, holding a pair
of my pants that I left on the floor of
our bedroom. She loudly stated, you need to pick up

(21:51):
after yourself. This time, before responding, I muted my mic
and turned off my camera, telling her that I was
in the middle of a lesson. Again, she walked away
without a word. At this point, I moved my setup
into the basement of our house so that I can
avoid further interruption. Since my basement looks like it probably
has a few passed away bodies buried in it, my
students have begun to call me basement Dad, which is endearing,

(22:16):
but I would rather teach it a room where I'm
not going to get asbestos in my lungs. The trouble
really began when I started locking the door to prevent interruptions.
My wife will begin by rattling the door a few times.
What does she need? I don't know. Oh my goodness,
does she not know his hours? Literally, I'd be like,
oh my goodness, you cannot do this. I'm literally this
is my job. Say your job, leave me alone, followed

(22:40):
by pounding on it. Then she'll grown loudly and say
something negative about me. After that, I can hear her
walking around the house slamming doors. A few weeks ago,
she was literally jumping up and down stomping her feet
in the room above mine. Why is she actually like
a child? Is she just be so bored during yeah,
like the pandemic that she to entertain herself by bothering you? Yeah? Like,

(23:02):
what is going on? My goodness. In the first few
months of these online lessons, I set up a hot
key to mute my mic and disable my camera instantly
when needed, and luckily my reflex is honed from counter
strike in my teens has paid off. You shouldn't need
to do that. Have you had a conversation with her,
We'll let's find out. I don't know, but there have
been times where she has sneaked in an embarrassing moment

(23:24):
for me. Every time I have patiently explained to her
that I need complete quiet to teach my lessons, she
says yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay. Then in the next lesson,
without fail, she'll find something new to complain about and
throw a tantrum, trying to humiliate me in front of
my students while my mute game is on point. Students
have recognized that something is wrong. One of my ninth
graders even send me an email asking if everything was okay.

(23:46):
I had to make up a lame excuse about needing
to mute my mic because of a sudden grinding noise
that happens in my old basement. There's no way that
she bought that. Since I'm unable to go out, unable
to even enter the school grounds and have no place
to go to avoid my wife. I'm unbelievably anxious when
I teach. I have tried talking to her calmly, and
I even tried to get angry at her when I

(24:06):
yelled at her for forcefully sliding plastic files under the
door so that they'd float down in the background during
my lessons. She expected me to apologize for getting angry
at her. How can I even approach this kind of problem?
And we do have an update, but my gosh, what
do you do. You've had a conversation with her. Yeah,
I don't even know, Like I guess you just like

(24:27):
sit her down again, you say, hey, you know what
you lie? You said, Hey, I've gotten complaints from students. Yeah,
they are sending stuff to my bosses. They have threatened
my position. Said that if this doesn't stop that you
know it could I could have some more severe consequences. Right.

(24:47):
If you want me to lose my job, then continue
as you are. Yeah, during this literally pandemic like recession
that they're going to go. And also, I'll the rat
if you don't lie. But it isn't a complete lie.
People our message in you Yeah, if you don't want
to lie. Other out is why are you bored? Yeah?
Why do you need to do? What do you do

(25:07):
if you need like a Rubik's cube? Why do you
feel the need to come in put on the TV
for you? Yeah, but we do have an update so
my first lesson. After making that post, my wife went
straight back to her old antics. I was in the
lesson room as students gradually joined, talking to a student
who was interested in luxury cars. At some point during
the conversation, I said, yeah, I think I'd have to

(25:28):
go with the Lamborghini. There I heard from behind the
door in the basement where I was teaching Lamborghini, in
this sarcastic, exaggerated tone of voice that kids will use
to mock you. I realized that she was being childish again,
but figured that she'd eventually tire herself out. A few
minutes after the lesson started, I used the word circumference
to describe a word problem. Then I heard circumference from

(25:51):
behind the door at the top of the stairs, followed
by giggling, girl is so bored, She's so bored bored.
Since the time was right as I was about to
have the students take a shot out a problem. I
set them to the task, muted my mic and disabled
my camera, and quietly crept up the stairs. I suddenly
opened the door to find my wife with a cup
over her ear, pushed against the door so she could

(26:12):
hear me. I whisper shouted at her for her behavior
for about a minute. I asked if she was five
years old and what the heck was wrong with her.
She feigned fear and shock, as if I had held
her against the wall with my hands wrapped around her throat,
which made me just sigh and go back downstairs to
finish my lesson. For the rest of the lesson, she
was quiet, but after it I went upstairs to bring
up what she did, she started asking if I was

(26:33):
going to yell at her again. I responded that I wouldn't.
I tried to get back on topic, but no matter
what I said about her behavior, her response was the same.
When I brought up her stomping in the room above before,
she said, are you going to yell at me again?
When I brought up her sliding plastic files into the
door during lesson before, oh, are you going to yell
at me again? And when I brought up anything that
she has done during lessons. The answer was the same

(26:55):
over and over again, which is so difficult because it's like, Okay, yeah,
you shouldn't yell. Yeah, get what you did because you
tried to talk to her, call me, and when you
feel like no one's listening to you, you want to
yell yeah. But so I get that, like she could
be upset about that. At the same time, she's totally
avoiding the question. Really, she's just blaming Yeah, She's pushed
you to the point where you feel like you need

(27:16):
a yell yep, and then she's like, perfect, Now I'm
in the right Yeah, exactly. Now you messed up, so
you can't blame me anymore. There's absolutely no way to
broach the topic with her now. I called her doctor
and said that her behavior is erratic and that she
might have PPD. The doctor said that he could ask
about it when she came in, but there is not
much else he could do. The next day, I tried

(27:36):
to set my wife down for a calm discussion about
the possibility of her having PbD, to which she responded
that she had PTSD from my shouting right. When I
suggested therapy together, she said, oh, to fix your anger
management problems. She sounds good. Literally, I'm so pissed at
this woman. Yeah, absolutely, she sounds like a nightmare. Nightmare,

(27:58):
But oh my gosh, there is more to the story.
But I desperately need this story to end with some
sort of conclusion. Yeah, that isn't just man, she won't
listen to me, so, like if nothing is getting through
to her, Like nothing he could say is getting through
to her. I wonder if he can like talk to
the principle. Yeah, I'd be like, hey, I know we're

(28:20):
not supposed to be in there. I know there's like
regulations and stuff, but like, this is my situation. Can
I please come into the classroom to do these lessons?
Because I can't work at all, can't be there, So
now I teach in my car in front of Starbucks.
Outside of the lesson time. We haven't really had any issues.
Now that I'm outside the house teaching, we are strained
but stable. I know this is not a very satisfactory outcome,

(28:43):
but I think she has deep underlying issues that are
going to need professional intervention. When I said I would
happily go to therapy with her to find a solution
to our communication issues, she told me that I should
go alone. I think that that may actually be a
good step, because having a neutral party to listen to
my worries and guide me towards better dsa scualation tactics
would be highly beneficial. I could also try to entice

(29:03):
her to join gradually. There are some comments. Comment number
one says, she acts like she's twelve. I mean, does
she not like a living wage? Or is she against education?
Someone responds, I wonder if some kind of resentment of
Ope's intelligence and teaching degree is going on here, Like
maybe she didn't like her high school math teachers and
had a hard time with math, so she thinks that
Opie is being dull and the students will enjoy her

(29:25):
livening things up. Is this some weird kind of rebellion
against authority? Opie says this is definitely a possibility worth exploration.
She could believe that what she's doing is funny, good
for the students, or something else along those lines. The
only flaw in this theory is that she doesn't really
protest when I leave to teach lessons in my car
where she can't touch me. Comment tar Hen number two says,
you may have found a work around for this particular instance. However,

(29:47):
whatever the underlying problem is, it is still there. You
should continue to insist on her telling you why it
is she feels the need to try and embarrass you.
If you don't find and deal with this root problem,
she's going to continue to act out in different ways,
Mark Myer. She will find another way to undermine and
belittle you. Don't let this go. Also, be fair to yourself.
You don't have a communication issue. You have a Your

(30:08):
wife is an a whole issue. You can go to
therapy if you want, but I don't think therapists fix that,
and particularly not if she isn't there. You need to
deal with this. Maybe the right therapist can give you
some advice, but you have to be the one to
really put the work in on getting her to talk
to you about why she's pulling these stunts. Someone else responds,
it might be beneficial for op to record a video

(30:28):
of himself saying everything that he needs to clearly and calmly,
and sending it to his wife. I have done this
in the past with my husband, who doesn't really hear
me in these moments. He's too focused on his rebuttal
and he walks away from it with the completely wrong
message and tone, like you yelled at me the whole
time when all I did was express my feelings. With
the video that they can replay and understand the message.
There's also evidence of exactly what you said and that

(30:51):
you were calm. I'm not saying this is the best solution,
but it can be worth a try. And that is
the end of that story. Those are some good comments. Yeah,
I hope help Yeah, man, because yeah, I could see
that too, Like if she was thinking it was kind
of funny, but if he's clearly getting annoyed and being like,
you need to stop, then that's when you stop with
the jokes. Yeah, that's when you stop the funnies. Sometimes

(31:13):
it's too far, and it is too far, and you're
being an a hole Opie's wife, and good luck to you, Opie. Hey,
it's John here.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
We're gonna get back to this episode, but a quick
three minute break with aswramur sponsors.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
My husband prioritized his mistress over me. Now he wants
me to adopt their baby, just like do it. My husband,
Tyler forty one, male of fourteen years, is a huge
fan of this reddit and the oh my God and
the Okay Storytime podcast us dude like, and that's it

(31:45):
really does. So I'm writing this here so that he
can really hear me. By the way, this comes from
Puzzled and Broken, And if you want to submit your
own stories, go to the r slash Okay Storytime Supper
in it So background, I thirty eight, female, and Tyler
met in high school. We started dating in my final
year and stayed together through college before moving in together
and getting married in our twenties. We have three children,

(32:07):
one boy eight, two girls, five and two months. Last night,
our pretty wonderful lives got destroyed when Tyler came home
visibly upset. He bored himself a large drink and sat
at our dining table with his head in his hands.
I've never seen him like this. I put the kids
to bed, fed the baby, and then went to talk
to him. I wish I hadn't. I feel sick to

(32:29):
my stomach. So he starts with how sorry he is
that he missed Camille's birth, How he missed what he missed?
Your birth?

Speaker 3 (32:39):
The two months, yeah you knew her too, month, the
new one, the new release, the new newest edition.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
How odd we'd talked about this. He'd been in Canada
on business when she decided to make an early arrival,
except he wasn't. He was in Canada but at the
birth of his other daughter by his mistress, Emily of
four years. Ah okay, I'm sorry, Okay, one crazy two?

(33:11):
What are the coincidence?

Speaker 3 (33:13):
Like?

Speaker 2 (33:13):
What coincidence it is to have your affair baby the
same time as your other baby?

Speaker 3 (33:20):
Man Man's biological processes run like flock.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
Aparently they were born less than twenty four hours apart. Twinning.
The universe wanted him to get caught. They wanted him
to get caught. I nearly threw up there and then,
but I'd not long cleaned up from dinner, So I'm
very glad I didn't, as if Tyler hadn't just burned
down our entire family, he continued. Emily is not okay.

(33:44):
She can't care for the baby, and she wants him
to have her. She wants to give up all her
parental rights and that we can raise the baby as
Camille's twin. Though through all of this, I haven't said
a word, I hadn't shed a single tear. But that
was the straw that broke the metaphorical camel's back. I
walked out and myself in the bathroom. Tyler knocked on
the door about fifteen minutes later, telling me he has
the effing paperwork for me to sign to bring his

(34:08):
daughter back to our home country. Hey, so I don't
know shot in the dark here.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
I feel like your secret baby has nothing to do
with op nothing.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah, not absolutely nothing. Yeah, and he really needs me
to sign at ASAPS to get things moving. No, the
only thing you'll be signing a divorce papers. Yeah. I
don't understand any of this though. I don't understand the affair.
I thought we were happy. I feel so numb, so
freaking stupid. I'm walking around in a dream like haz
hoping to wake up before I knew any of it.

(34:42):
We are pretty religious, and divorce normally would never even
be an option. But how can I stay with this man?
But if I leave and reject his baby, I'll be
shunned by our entire community, as well as our children.
I feel sick and ashamed, and I have no idea
what to do. I'm wondering if they're Mormon. Yeah, there
are some comments in an update, but uh wow, do

(35:05):
one do not sign that paperwork. No, no, no, anyone
who would ostracize you for being like, hey, my husband
telling me we had to adopt his affair baby.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yeah was kind of my like, ah, like that was
my limit. It crossed the line. I had to leave
anyone who would judge you for that, Jess, you don't
want it away.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
From them anyway.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
Yeah, that's a terrible community, absolutely, whose values are completely skewed.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
Common one, do not sign any paperwork your husband gives you.
That affair baby is not your child. They may be
innocent in all this, but that doesn't mean you need
to take on the raising of them. Your husband's a
fair partner, should have thought about how she couldn't take
care of a child way before now and use the
proper birth control or terminated the pregnancy, not count on
her affair partner and his wife to raise her baby.

(35:51):
The absolute audacity. As for your community, if they will
shun you because your husband cheated and tried to bring
his affair baby home as a twin to your actual baby,
well that's a religious community that's full of hypocrites, ain't it.
You can also move away with your children. There's nothing
keeping you there. This is exactly what I said. Your
husband made the conscious choice to stick his wiener in

(36:14):
another woman, you can make the conscious choice to leave
his cheating. But nowhere in the Bible is cheating condoned.
It's actually frowned upon, and there are multiple passages referencing it,
which you should know but can look up. I mean,
it's one of the ten commandments, thou shalt not seek
committed a tree. I committed all treating that one that one.

(36:34):
Yeah you're thinking of eleven B. Yeah, eleven B.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
That's what that was one of the rough draft commandments
to make it in.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
He came with twenty and he was like, we gotta
cut this down. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:42):
He's like, I really feel like the one about the
secret baby in the affair can be rolled into one. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
I think so. But there is an update. Today. I
dropped off our children at school and the baby to
my in laws and return home to talk to my husband.
We talked for hours. I told him I needed the truth,
all of it. And now I don't think I've ever
known this man. Tyler strongly believes he's done nothing wrong.
That's insane, that's insane. This man is clinically insane. He's

(37:10):
not married. To anyone in the countries where he works. Wow,
he actually, that's crazy. I feel like we're just like
reading ahead, but we're not.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
It's the most unhinged thing you could ever But it's
to those of you that said Emily might not be
the only one gold stars.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
There are several other women, some pass, some present, and
even another child who is thirteen years old. My god,
I went to collect our baby after asking him to
pack a bag and be gone before I got back.
I need time to think. But my in laws knew
the second I arrived that something was very wrong. I
broke down and told them everything. Mother in law is

(37:49):
defending him. Of course, he is saying he's married a mistake,
we were young when we were married, and that babies
are a blessing wherever they come from. Father in law
is raging. However, he tries to tell his wife that
no matter how she tried, he was indefensible. Father in
law is a lawyer and immediately jumped into action. He's
signing over a portion of the family trust so that
I can support myself and the children. At least the

(38:12):
father in law is on your side. It's more than
generous and will be needed as I'm not getting a divorce,
are you.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (38:20):
Okay? He thanks giving the information we have that I
can apply for an annulment sick right. Yeah, that's great.
You get the support of the community, I guess still,
and also leave your cheating husband. That way, my standing
is intact and I can move on without the stigma
of divorce. So Tyler, if you're reading this or listening
to this, I want an annulment. And I really hope

(38:41):
you read the comments, and I hope you've listened to
this episode. Some people are really captured your essence in
describing you. And there is a second update. So this
is my second update. The first was a quick edit
to my original post, but a lot has happened since then,
so I thought I would come on and alleviate my
stress by getting it all up here. I can no
longer say it feels like I'm in a haze. My

(39:03):
emotions finally kicked in and they hit my butt hard.
I've spent a few days being the second worst mother,
non stop crying and shouting at my little ones for
just being tiny humans that don't know better.

Speaker 3 (39:15):
I admit it, I suck. I mean, but you're a human.
Well you're pretty you're yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah, be gentle with yourself. But at least I don't
win first place. That honor goes to my mother in law.
Not only did she know she was encouraging his behavior.
Shortly before my wedding, Tyler went to her and told
her that his bit on the side was pregnant. She
was in yet another country, so out of fear of
losing her baby boy to another continent, mother in law

(39:43):
decided to tell him to go forth and multiply, but
not poop where he eats. And so he kept it
from me and married me. Anyway, What an idiot I
am for never noticing a darn thing. Mother in law
not only knew about his other two children, She's met them.
She travels a lot. I would suspect the sneaky bee
sent to them the gifts. She even set up college

(40:04):
funds for each of them, all behind father in law's back.

Speaker 3 (40:07):
Dude, this is like the epitome of like wow, baby insanity,
like the grandma yeah, like grandchild insanity.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
She's like, go forth, my son, multiple meet grandchildren on
every continent as many stars in the sky. I have
many grandchildren I want to see. I deserve to have
a hundred grandchildren. Yeah, your mother in law is a
x father in law is not a happy camper, and
I guess we will have to wait and see how

(40:37):
he handles the situation. Of course, I hope hopefully. But
for now he's staying at a five star resort, so
at least he's grieving the demise of his family in
well or in comfort. Good for him. On to Tyler,
he did see the post. The last thing he said
to me was, how could you destroy the thing where
I find my piece? You shall find no peace here

(40:59):
like a side peace. No USh us.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
No, I meant oh, I meant oh, you make it joke. Yeah,
and yeah. It was sort of like a play on words. Uh,
it's advanced. I'm trying to develop it. Like I feel
like playing on words could be like clean next, it
could be the.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Next big thing. Right back at you. Well, he has
now deleted all socials, So I'm very sorry to opik
to us as you've lost a fan. That's all right,
that's okay. We didn't we didn't need him, don't worry
about it. We haven't spoken for a few days, but
the last time we did he agreed to sign over
the house and won't contest the annulment. He doesn't want

(41:38):
to see our children, and we'll sign away his rights.
After all, if the marriage didn't happen, the kids didn't either.
Rites I'm not sure what the deal is with Canadian mistress,
and maybe other than mother in law is determined that
I should at least sign the adoption papers so that
poor little thing could be with a family.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
Hey, mother in law, why don't you sign the adoption papers?
You adopters and she love her so much?

Speaker 2 (42:01):
I wonder if they're just trying to get her like
an American citizenship, Like if that's the trick keeping here,
I don't know, but I don't know why they would
need O Pea's signature for that. I'm not signing anything.
I don't blame the baby. I understand it's time sensitive,
but what's to stop him abandoning this baby girl when
something else comes along, just like he has with our children. Exactly,

(42:23):
I don't have the emotional capacity to take on the
baby whose existence brought my life crashing down, no matter
how innocent she is. I truly hope she ends up
in a home where she's cherished forever. But that home
won't be mine. Which brings us to me and my children.
We are all going to therapy individually and family. We
need the help, jeez, I need the help to navigate

(42:45):
this huge, life changing mess that we find ourselves in.
We had our first session on Friday, and it could
have got better, but it could have been a lot worse.
The children know and an age appropriate roundabout way what
is happening. There have been tears and tantrums, but they're
just trying to app to a range of motions they
don't understand, and I'd never have wished on them. Once

(43:06):
the dust settles and all the legal stuff is over,
I want to sell the house and move. We need
a fresh start and new people around us. I'm not
sure what to do about the in laws yet. Obviously
Father in law has been amazing putting everything into action
and getting us in to see the right people. But
I'm not sure I can ever forgive mother in law
enough to look her in the face. There is a

(43:26):
little bit left to this story on your face. Do
you have any final thoughts?

Speaker 3 (43:32):
Yeah, I think I don't know if i'd ever forgive
mother in law or my ex either.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
I don't think you should. Yeah, I don't think you should.
I think there is a I mean, we always talk
about forgiveness in the concept of like eventually letting that
you know, anger or releasing that anger. So you're not
always thinking about these people and they don't occupy your
mind at every moment. But I don't think you ever
have to forgive them the sense that, you know, welcome

(44:01):
them back into your life.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
Now.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
Yeah, I think I.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
Think if your mother in law ever is in the
same location as you and tries to talk to you, you
should literally just don't say anything.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Just look around, like.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
Not don't even talk to me, don't even say is
someone talking, Just be like.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Yeah, like you kind of do like a it was weird,
it's buzzing, hmm, exactly. There is a little bit left
to the story, so we're gonna read it. Oh Pa,
I truly hope you're okay. Tyler wants no contact and
I'm fine with that, but mother in law adores her grandchildren,
not enough to keep our family together. Though clearly I

(44:36):
don't know if I should let her see them. I
really am not sure of much right now, and quick
at it. Having read this back, I just wanted to
clarify I wasn't shouting at my children for days, just
snapping at them when they wanted things like snacks or
to play, or constantly asking questions about why Mama was
so sad. I'm disgusted with myself, so please be kind
in the comments. Be kind to yourself. I'm getting professional

(44:58):
out with my mental health again. Comments comment one. The
majority of these comments are saying to not let the
mother in law see the children. However, I will be
the devil's advocate for the sake of the kids. Their
father already abandoned them. I would not cut the entire
side of the family off yet, because they will feel
more unwanted if you do. Do not do it abruptly,

(45:19):
gradually ease them into it, even if you have minimal
contact with his side of the family. You don't want
to villainize yourself even more in the situation. Good Luck
and Opie says, the children haven't seen mother in law
since we found out that she knew and encourage Tyler's behavior,
but they have seen father in law several times. Mother
in law messages several times a day asking about the children,

(45:40):
but until now I haven't replied. I will speak to
the children's therapist about the best way to go about
any contact she has with the children moving forward. Comment
to says, I think it could be incredibly damaging to
your children to have anything to do with your ex's
side of the family when he is completely abandoning them,
and when your ex mother in law has proved yourself
to be pretty immoral human being. But that is definitely

(46:01):
something to discuss with a good therapist. For now, I
suggest you keep her massively at a distance until you're
clear on what to do. I wish you and your
children the very happiest future, Opie says thank you. For now,
I'm only keeping in touch with father in law, who
is not talking to his wife at all. Everybody is
still stunned by her attitude to the entire situation. If

(46:22):
they get back together, I would have to set up
strict boundaries for the children to have contact with father
in law, as I really don't want to filling my kids'
heads with horrible nonsense. I really appreciate all the comments
and support. I genuinely just feel really lost right now,
and that is the end of that story. Oh to
find find a little bit of peace.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
Somewhere now that you're at least out of this situation
with the fam. I hid late utility bills from my
husband and it destroyed his trust in me.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
That is usually how that goes.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
You didn't have the skills to pay the bills. Hi all, uh,
I messed up back and need some advice. My husband
and I have been married for fifteen years and generally
have a great relationship. I really admire him. He's a
wonderful husband. He's kind, conscientious, and loving. He's a nurse
and works hard to support our family. He is the

(47:16):
sole breadwinner. I'm in charge of paying bills in the family.
By the way, this comes from user limp Dot eighty
six forty eight and if you want to submit your
own stories, go to the horse slash Okay story time
sabredd it. So three months ago I got behind on
our utility bill. We rent and pay gas and electric
to the landlord. I didn't tell my husband and plan

(47:38):
to pay the back due over a few payments in
order to get current. I should have told him though.
For background, my family is harmful and I was raised
with a lot of guilt and secrecy around money, and
I've had issues in the past with my husband where
I wasn't honest in my communication with him about financial
issues or have kept information from him. I have bipolar

(47:59):
disorder and and he has been patient with the complications.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
This is at it.

Speaker 3 (48:03):
He's also dealt with a lot of bs from my
family being intrusive and verbally harmful to us. He asked
me to promise to never keep things from him again,
and we moved forward. I thought I had been doing
much better with these issues, and we were really on
track until November. Just after Thanksgiving, my mom got sick
and passed away about seven weeks later from the VID

(48:26):
in January day. Well that's a lot, yeah, a lot
to deal with. During this time, we were also dealing
with major winter storms and our car was crushed by
a falling tree.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Dude, can't catch a break, truly.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
My dad and my sister ramped up their harmful behaviors
in the wake of my mom's passing. I thought I
was generally coping all right, but I fell behind on
paying our utility bills and I didn't inform my husband.
I mean, it's honestly, you've got so much going on.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Yeah, No, it's prey understandable if it's just that you,
like truly just fell behind and forgot about it, right,
you are going through a lot if you were.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
If you were not paying the utility bills and instead
using it to buy like an excursion. Like Okay, now
I'm really I'm upset, but you're not hearing that. So
with all these chaotic events, I let myself fall back
into old patterns of behavior like secrecy, and I was
afraid to tell him. I felt like a failure and

(49:31):
I should have just told him. But now I'm making
payments and getting back on track and things are fine
with the landlord. However, this morning my husband got an
email from the landlord's office with the statement of the
past bills, and he's understandably furious with me for not
telling him.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
I don't think he wants a relationship with me anymore. Wow,
that is like, I mean, I think I would. I
do understand that he's probably upset and frustrated that he
was not told about any of these like financial things.
But I do think that I if I run this situation,
I'd be more mad if they were still in that
financial situation. But it seems like she, yeah, fixed it,

(50:09):
she like was dealing with the problem, fixed it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:13):
I think given the context of everything you described you as.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
That would be a little bit more forgiving.

Speaker 3 (50:18):
Perfectly reasonable that, given everything going on, you went and
I really can't tell my husband about this because of
old patterns.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Yeah, not to say that those are okay, Like those
are still things that need to be you know.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
A bad passion dealt with, but it's understanding where it
came from.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
I think I would be a little bit more understanding. Yeah,
of course don't.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
Anyway he's thinking because op he continues here that my
husband thinks I'm hiding other stuff from him. Oh, does
anyone have any advice on what I can do? Thank
you in advance for your help. I feel like my
heart is being crushed out of my chest.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
There's an edit. Sorry, I wasn't very clear.

Speaker 3 (50:57):
He's not angry that we were in a financial situation
where we got behind. He told me he would have
understood that he's angry because I didn't tell him about
this when he's repeatedly asked me to be fully transparent
about financial issues. There are some relevant comments from wompared
what did you do with the money instead? Opie says
there wasn't any Instead, finances were just tighter. In November

(51:19):
December January, the months that I fell behind due to
higher costs of everything and then us not having a
car so having to deal with that. In early March,
we finally got the insurance settlement for the total car
and we were finally back on track financially. So now
I'm in the process of paying back those three months.
But I didn't tell him at the time, and I
should have. Was the husband's anger directed at the financial

(51:41):
difficulty or the lack of transparency we already know, but
Op says he was aware of rising costs of everything, definitely,
but when I'd go to the grocery store or get gas, etc.
I wasn't as forthcoming as I should have been about
how those costs were affecting us.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
At the time.

Speaker 3 (51:57):
I would say things like Wow, things are a lot
more expensive now, and we'd kind of talk about it
in an abstract way, but I didn't clearly say it, like, Hey,
I'm going to pay the utility bill late because the
landlord is okay with a late payment and the other
bills don't have that option. I hid that fact from
him because I felt guilty and embarrassed because I had
failed quote unquote, So that's why he's so upset because

(52:18):
there wasn't a good reason not to tell him. I
felt ashamed because I wasn't able to make everything work
because costs were higher, and I felt responsible for that.
So he would ask how things were going, and I'd say, oh, yeah,
we're doing okay. But I should have just told him
all this, especially since he's asked me to be transparent
with him on this stuff. I understand why he's angry
with me. So he did ask yeah, and you would

(52:40):
kind of just be like, we're fine, which you were
because you had worked it out with the landlord.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
Yeah. So in my head, you didn't really lie at all,
and you didn't fail. You perfectly handled the situation. I
think that I think I would have a different take
if you guys were in like thousands of dollars in
debt and getting evicted. Know, but I think because this,
I think you guys just need to work on your communication.
I think that there was some kind there's like not

(53:08):
there's some sort of disconnect here.

Speaker 3 (53:10):
It feels like he's more talking from a place of
principle yes, and don't like, then this is actually your situation.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
I agree, yeah, in which case that like you both
need to go to couples counseling and figure out how
do you communicate without ope falling back into like the
trauma response of wanting to hide things and him maybe
taking a less active role in the finances. Like we
need to switch those.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
Yeah, especially communication styles too, because it's like you literally
responded the exact way that she was afraid you would respond,
which is kind of deepen the you know, trauma.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
Response, so excellent.

Speaker 3 (53:44):
Mango seventy three, seventy seven says, you didn't say what
you spent the money on? Again nothing, Yeah, there's no money.
It would just the building paid because there wasn't a money. Yeah,
they didn't have money.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Nothing was being spent the op's partner, Uh he was
mad because he was not aware that they didn't have
the money to pay for the bills.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
Right, I'm skipping the rest of that comment. Yeah, it
asks how much money? How much money in total are
we talking here?

Speaker 2 (54:11):
Uh? Oh?

Speaker 3 (54:11):
He says it was a total of about seven hundred
dollars And it was just that finances were tighter for
about three months because of higher costs and not having
the car, and I wasn't communicating how that was affecting
us at the time, and I thought I could just
take care of it once we had more money coming in,
and he was upset that I hadn't been clear with him.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
But we do have an update. Yeah, so let's get
into it.

Speaker 3 (54:31):
I'd written the post Friday and my husband slept in
the spare room that night. When I got up on Saturday,
he told me he'd actually found the Reddit post when
he couldn't sleep and read everyone's comments. Oh boy, that
gave us a lot to talk about, and again, I
really appreciate everyone's input and good ideas. We had a
really great talk about everything that's been going on. I

(54:52):
told him again how sorry I was that I'd broken
his trust and that I completely understand why he's upset.
My husband said that some of the comments reframed the
situation a little bit for him, and we were able
to have a long talk about all the fear and
shame and issues with communication we both have around money.
He said he realized he should have been more involved
with the finances, but he's also had some anxiety about

(55:16):
money in the past, so he was basically leaving it
to me so he didn't have to think about it, and.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
He was sorry for that. Somebody give me my blue ribbon. Yeah,
I think. I mean, that's all we're saying. Like the
whole it was a problem on like both sides of
how they were communicating this. Oh, and it's good that
they're both like recognizing this. Yes, this is good. I
like this trajectory.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
We're going to be doing things differently in the future,
As several redditors suggested, going forward, my husband and I
will be having weekly check in meetings to review all
the financial stuff, what bills are paid that week, et cetera.
I never want to go down this path again, so
we're feeling really good about this plan and sticking to it.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
I had my first therapy appointment this morning via zoom
and a will noise.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
My husband is super excited for me and really happy
in general that I finally took the step of seeing
a professional. The therapist seems like a good fit so far,
and I'll be going weekly. Seeing so many comments telling
me I needed to get in with a therapist was
a wake up call. All the comments reminding me of
the toll my actions were taking on my marriage were
a wake up call. My husband is a great guy,

(56:23):
and I'm so thankful we're working to move forward on this.
I'm looking forward to working with the therapist. It's a
little scary, but definitely for the best. My husband is
really excited for me to feel better, so that is
helping me feel more positive about it too. So all
in all, things are looking much better and we have
an action plan for going forward. I was really blown

(56:44):
away by all the sincere and wonderful advice and support
I got from the kind folks of Reddit. Always, which
is not always always.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
Well we read you always get kind and supportive, kind
supercons from Reddit, level headed, cool, calm. I've never never
known anything else to force your husband sit his house
on fire. Yeah, don't do that.

Speaker 3 (57:06):
So I really don't know how well I would have
handled this situation without you all.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
Again, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (57:13):
And that is the end of that story.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
Hey, it's Sam. We're going to get back to these stories.
But here's three minutes of ads from our sponsors. I
discovered messages on my wife's old phone, and now I'm
feeling guilty. I turned the flashlight on, I say where
were you last night? As per the subject, I know
I am at fault for reading my wife's old messages.
I was tasked with clearing the Apple account on an
old device, and while doing so, I curiously looked at

(57:41):
some old text. Yes, right, buddy, you knew exactly what
you were doing. You knew what you were doing, and
now I know things that I don't know how to
move forward from. Oh no, by the way, this comes
from throwing three four five three four five four three
five And if you would have spent your own stories,
go to the r slash okay story times upreadit for context.
My wife for female and I forty one male, have

(58:01):
been together for around eight years. Prior to our relationship,
my wife was married and living in America. I was
told her husband had a drinking problem and was harmful.
She returned to Australia after divorcing, and we were set
up by mutual friends around four months later. I was
aware at the time that my partner had been on
a couple of other dates with a guy who owned
a local coffee shop, but apparently the dates fizzled. My

(58:24):
wife and I have a pretty good relationship for the
past eight years, and we have two children together. I
have never had reason to be jealous. My wife always
seemed fairly conservative, spicily and in the early stages of
a relationship. I remember it being nearly two months in
before we had spicy Sleep. However, with access to the

(58:45):
old phone, I was curious to read how my wife
described me to her friends. I was fairly shocked when
reading through the message history from that time period to
see that, while early into our dating phase, my wife
was clearly involved spicily with the guy from the coffee shop.
Oh no, in fact, it reads us. So this guy

(59:06):
was clearly the one my wife preferred, but she ended
up settling for me when his interest didn't seem to
go beyond spicy sleep. However, the overlap of the obviously
spicy related relationship goes for around two months into a
period where I would have considered my wife and I
a couple. Comparing dates to text hisstory on my phone,

(59:27):
there is one particular date where I had organized dinner
during the week. I remember taking her out and dropping
her home by ten pm. Around thirty minutes later, she
wrote to the coffee shop guy, come over. He simply responded, okays, Winky.
This I get that this is probably normal and modern
dating for people to be juggling a few possible contenders. Yeah,

(59:49):
this is my issue to deal with. They call it
the roster, the rasta, the rasta, but I am certainly
surprised at this point. However, it doesn't end there. It
turns out there is an entirely separate thread from another
person named Joe who's based in the US. Around one
year into the relationship with my wife, Joe is sending

(01:00:10):
messages professing his love for my wife. From what I
can tell, my wife and Joe hooked up while she
was living in the US. That seems like more certainly
or more certain that it's into your like actual official relationship.

Speaker 3 (01:00:24):
Yeah, that seems like it was probably during Yeah, yikes, because.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
The other one I could have been like it was,
you know, a little bit uncleared. Sounds like Joe is
a little bit more certainly.

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
That was like a whole baby's time into your relationship
at that point. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Uh. This is referred to as one of the main
reasons my wife ended up divorcing as her husband at
the time found out.

Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
Oh wait what yeah, wait what who's who's was based
in what?

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
Oh wait? Wait wait, I think Joe was a guy,
so she she was like messaging him while she was
in a relationship the he but with this guy Joe,
who like ended their old relationship, oh ended her relationship
with her ex husband. Oyack, I think that's what she's saying.
What I read describes a whole different scenario to how

(01:01:13):
my wife became divorced and moved back to Australia. Despite
these messages being twelve months into my relationship with my wife.
She is clearly very forward with Joe. My wife mentions
to him that she wished she could go back in
time to when she was still in America. That's not good,
that's pretty bad. Yeah. She says to him that if
he had been as forward with her back then, things

(01:01:36):
would have turned out different. She even said she found
him so hot she didn't trust herself around him. So
here I am feeling guilty for having exploited my wife's privacy.
I know this was wrong, but now I know what
I know, and I feel like crap because but I
can't even bring it up because the focus would be
on what an ale I am for reading the messages do.

(01:01:57):
I just need to accept that we've been together long
enough that they that occurred when the relationship was new
or shouldn't affect us going forward. There are comments there
is an update. But what do you think, Dakota. I
think your gut is telling you, yeah, what you already know.
You know she cheated on you, dude. It doesn't matter
if it was eight years ago. She cheated and then

(01:02:18):
lied about it for eight years, regardless of what she
did with that first guy when you guys were dating
or not dating, we don't know. She was talking to
Joe flirtatiously a year into the relationship, saying that she
wished that she could go back to having this relationship
with them.

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
That's not okay, Pretty pretty bad vibes from that Yeah
comments comment one says, Honestly, I don't care about supposed
modern dating scene normality.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
Inviting a guy over after your date is just the
biggest ick ever. You know, she's also a liar and
a cheat. I'd have punted her to the curb before
you were even able to type this post.

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
I feel like that's actually way more common than that
commenter is trying to make it out of me, is it?
I would assume i'd like back to back date, well,
because imagine you're like, man, I really can't like figure
out like who who's better?

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
Yeah? What better way to figure it out than to
have two dates on the same day. I The thing is,
I wouldn't have like if that was the only thing
that she did, and it was before the relationship was official,
I wouldn't have been like break out with her. But
we know she, like for sure cheated, So.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
Right, if she's going on dates while you're already together,
that's cheating. That's cheating, that's not playing the field. Yeah,
that's cheating.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Yeah. Comment to all of this information came from her
old phone. Why don't you try looking for her new phone? Uh,
maybe there's more. Good luck, brother, Comment three. Talk isn't
going to fix this, so she doesn't need to know
what you know or how you know it. Your challenge
is simply to assess accurately whether the relationship still makes
sense now that you have a more accurate picture of

(01:03:50):
what it is based on. If you ever imagined that
being with you had driven all thought of being with
other men out of her mind, then that illusion has
to be gone. If at forty her options are no
longer that good and are unlikely to improve, then you
may be able to keep her. What that's weird, that's
a weird response.

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
That sentence disqualifies everything that this commenter says, because that's nonsense,
goober talk.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Comment for what you described is normal in the dating scene,
but that doesn't mean you have to be okay with it.
That is true. That's a good one, especially considering y'all
we're basically a couple. Why are you feeling guilty? I
think you have every reason to be concerned, considering now
you know what happened with your wife's divorce. You could
be next and that's a bad concern, especially when you

(01:04:34):
know you were the one she settled for. No one
here can tell you what you should do, but me personally,
I wouldn't be able to stay loll quote. Oh but
it's been eight years. What if she hasn't lied in
a while? Okay, what if she has? There's no way
to know, and my mind wouldn't be able to deal
with that potential. And there is an update. Oh boy,

(01:04:54):
oh boy, But do you have any thoughts? It's all
about the timelines. About the timeline, is all about the timeline.
And like we know, it seems unclear whether or not
they were officially dating with the first guy, the coffee
shop guy. Yeah, that's a little bit unclear. We know
for a fact that a year into the relationship, she's
talking to Joe and at least emotionally cheating. But we know, also,

(01:05:15):
do we know for a fact how her previous relationship ended?
We know for well, it seems like op is implying
that her previous relationship ended because of.

Speaker 3 (01:05:22):
Joe, right, because we know that they have passed Joe
and her Joe and her cheating.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
Yeah, so given that it's happened once, would it be
crazy if it happened again?

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
No update? Okay, So I brought this up with my
wife in bed last night. It started out as I expected.
She was furious that I looked at our messages. I
stated that I wasn't proud of this, but it's not
something I'd ever felt I should do previously, and I
never expected to read what I did.

Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
You know, It's it's the I get being like, you
gross what you read my messages? Yeah, that's like gross,
but being furious it's like, okay, So yeah, I was
right at that, Right, I was right.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
Because you're furious. Yeah, So what's there that you just
can't let me see? I'll address what was talked about
in each issue Coffee Shop Guy. So she acknowledged they
did have spicy sleep once. However, she said he had
no interest in her, which is why she proceeded to
set updates with me. She said that she absolutely did
not have spicy sleep with him once we started dating,

(01:06:25):
but they did remain friends a little bit. I don't
think that's necessarily super bad, unless depending on how close
the friendship was. Apparently, he helped her look for her
unit she had purchased, and her asking him to come
around was to show him the unit is unit. I
don't know if I believe what kind of unit she's adamant.
They did not have spicy sleep. Again, I have no

(01:06:47):
idea what to believe. I was such a lie. He's
a liar. I think you should point out like, oh,
he was helping you look at a unit at ten
thirty pm, which is not a thing that happens. Yeah, no, no, no,
oh crazy. However, to add more context to this guy,
I could see in the text conversation that it did
fizzle out. The small talk conversations did cease altogether about

(01:07:09):
three months after I began seeing my wife again. If
you guys were official and they were still talking, that's
I don't know. I was just seeing Is that a fish.
I don't know. I don't know. That's why i'm asking.
That's why i'm asking if you were official adding to
this coffee shop guy actually passed away unexpectedly about two
years later. Well, that takes care of itself. Ouch, this

(01:07:31):
was something I was aware of. As for Joe, my
wife recalled him texting her after she had returned to Australia.
She stresses they never had spicy sleep in America, but
she acknowledges she did kiss him. Sorry, in America, this
was pre their relationship, which created all the drama with
their previous husband. She began saying that when she was
responsive to his text, this was before our relationship. Let

(01:07:53):
me get this straight.

Speaker 3 (01:07:53):
She's trying to say, no, no, no, no, we just did
a little want kiss. How about my marriage? That's what
ruined my I would never sleep with another man. I
would just kiss him.

Speaker 2 (01:08:04):
I simply mentioned that the text are time stamped and
it was around ten months into our relationship. She keeps lying.
He literally has all the proof and she keeps lying. Ah, dude,
you've got the pudding, bro throw it. I guess the
story changed from there to saying that she had low
self esteem after her marriage, and that this guy was
forward to her in a way no one else was so,
knowing he was on the other side of the world,

(01:08:24):
she flirted back for the validation and confidence boost. I
guess in a way I can accept this, as per
the coffee shop guy's message, this message that'd also fizzle out,
my wife being the one to stop responding. I explained
how hurt I felt, and that I feel like this
confirms I really was just settled for I'm not out
to judge someone's spicy history. That again is not the point.

(01:08:47):
She cheated on you during the relationship. Yeah, but when
you feel like your own partner has never really been
particularly forward in a spicy way, it's demoralizing to read
and know they were previous much more promiscue with girl.
To answer some other questions raised in the comments, my
kids are mine, my wife treats me fine, has been

(01:09:08):
a rock for me in a relationship. Some personal circumstances
affected me massively at a midpoint in a relationship, and
she stood by me, as did her family stand by you?
Or did she cheat on you? Yeah? Despite being surprised
at the texts from the very start of our relationship,
I do actually believe her when she says she has
definitely never been with anyone else since we've formally been

(01:09:29):
a couple. There is a little bit left to the story.
I fear that op he is going to stay in
this relationship based off of those last sentences. However, I
need him to remember that she just lied to him.
She literally He asked her, He showed proof and said, hey,
says that you were talking to this guy ten months
into our relationship. What's all that And she said, no,

(01:09:51):
I didn't do that.

Speaker 3 (01:09:52):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
And then he called her out and she said, oh, well,
yeah I did do that. At she's lying to you,
but there's kids, which makes it harder to be lying. Absolutely, absolutely,
But I think that he cannot. It seems like he's
pushing it under the raw like rug, like he's believing
her lies. Yeah, the fact that she's just there, she's
lying so poor. Yeah, Like you have to address those lies.

(01:10:15):
Even if in the end you stay together because of
the kids, those lies still need to be addressed.

Speaker 3 (01:10:21):
Tobably just gonna cheat better next time if you stay
with her. Potentially she's just gonna cheat better. She's gonna
go I've taken my notes. I know what works and
what does it?

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):
Here we go, But there's a little bit left to
this story. I know there have been lots of comments
saying I should simply leave while a lot of damage
has been done. It feels hard to consider throwing my
life away and resigning to one of shared care with
kids and being broke. I appreciate the comments that understand
this aspect. Also, I'm forty two. I know nothing about
the curtain dating world other than knowing I wouldn't fare

(01:10:52):
very well. I know a lot of the issues going
over my head stem from my own feelings of being
an inadequate man. I keep fits, but I'm ner. I
was never that popular with girls, and I've only had
a few spicy related partners. I know in the past
my own inadequacies and insecurities have created issues in a relationship.
But I guess I feel what I read confirmed and

(01:11:13):
justified how I feel. And that is the end of
that story.

Speaker 3 (01:11:16):
Wow, didn't really reach any point of finality there, did
we Nope?

Speaker 2 (01:11:21):
Uh, it seems like op he is thinking about stand
though I think that's kind of where he's at. Wow,
but I think absolutely go to therapy and like sort
out these lies because she hasn't told you the truth,
that's for sure. Yeah, but folks, that's the end of
that story and the end of this episode. So if
you love us, make sure to subscribe. We love you

(01:11:43):
and see you tomorrow.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}My husband DISCOVERED the truth about me and his boss… he did not take it well! - r/relationship_advice | Reddit Stories | EP2211