“[Lauren*] has been acting different for a while now,” Jacob told Reddit, outlining her “skittish” behaviour. “[She’s been] attached to her phone… long gaps between the time she leaves work and the time she gets home,” said Jacob.
“I had a feeling… [but] I would then write it off to my overthinking and push forward.” Lauren had been studying respiratory medicine, so Jacob rationalised that her unusual behaviour was down to stress and it would soon be over once she graduated.
Jacob said: “Fast forward to Valentine’s Day… I treated her to a shopping spree and dinner. Once we get home I give her a full-body massage and she falls asleep. As I was preparing to go to bed, I had the sudden urge to go through her phone.”
Jacob did not like what he found. On Lauren’s messages on Instagram, he discovered she had been having an affair with a co-worker.
“He has been trying to cut it off. She has been chasing him,” Jacob revealed, feeling his heart shatter when he saw Lauren telling her lover how much she misses him.
“She was speaking to him like she used to speak to me. Using my nicknames, my memes,” said Jacob. When confronted, Lauren told Jacob him and her co-worker had only been sexually intimate one time.
She said it happened at work, in the hospital’s car park, and that it didn’t last a long time because they were both feeling nervous.
Only married for less than two years, Jacob felt hurt and confused about what to do next when it came to his marriage – was it salvageable?
“Part of me wants to ruin her. Report her to her job, have her fired and kicked out of her [educational] programme,” Jacob said.
“[The] other part of me wants to try to understand and fix it. I love her so much and have centred my everything around her.”
While he may be in love with his wife, he “can’t stop thinking” about the messages he saw, “the lies”, and the thought of his wife getting intimate with another man.
“I need guidance,” Jacob pleaded. “Is being so early in our marriage a sign that she never loved me? Or those that mean that there is plenty of life left to figure this out?”
The comments flooded with similar advice, with the majority of people suggesting he should file for divorce from his cheating wife.
Beachbum_binbo said: “Reading all the comments and not one is motivating for you to stay in your marriage. I have to agree with everyone else this marriage is over and there’s no amount of therapy, or counselling, that can fix it.”
Once trust has been broken, it’s very difficult to rebuild, although it’s not impossible if both partners are committed to moving forward.
Luckytohavemywife posted the answer to Jacob’s question by saying it was a “no brainer”. He said: “No brainer, dump her immediately. You are very young, no kids, no huge financial entanglements.
“Like it or not, statistically, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Cut your losses now and move [on].”
*Names have been changed.
