SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi all,

I am a 33 y.o. male, my fiance is a 33 y.o. female. Almost a week ago my partner admitted to having a drunken one night stand with a random person we both met whilst out on a night of heavy drinking. Even typing this seems like a fantasy.

Some context - we have been together for 11 years and have been engaged for the last 2 years. My partner has been severely depressed for the last 5 years, unsatisfied with her career path and a lot of her surrounding life decisions. I have tried to support her through all of this as best as I possibly could, but over the last 2 years I have become fatigued with trying to support her. During this period she has heavily relied on alcohol to escape her problems. I think we were definitely in a bit of a rut with our relationship during this time. We sought out couples counselling who encouraged us to chase our 'dream life' together to reignite our zest for life and our relationship.

My partner always had dreams of moving overseas for a period, so after some convincing, I decided to support her in this and take a year off from my career to do a working holiday with her overseas. I knew financially this was a bad idea, but she has backed my career in the past and moved to other parts of my home country to support my work endevours, so I went along with it willingly to support her.

To cut it short, four months into this venture her depression only deepened. We went out for dinner one night and met up with some locals and ended up getting extremely drunk with them. I don't remember much of the night, honestly, but I do remember witnessing my partner kissing one of these random men - I just thought it was a joke cause i kissed him on the lips right before hand as a joke. She revealed to me the next day that she kissed him repeatedly that night, and he may have touched her downstairs but she can't remember. I was hurt, but I tried not to make too much of it given how stupid we were both acting that night.

Fast forward two weeks, and she reveals that after dropping me off home that night, she went back to the restaurant to collect my phone from this guy and proceeded to have unprotected sex with him. He also went down on her. I'm just so stunned at this. We have what I would consider to be a very happy and healthy relationship, we are each others bedrock who have supported each other through good times and bad, generally with a smile on our faces. She tells me it has nothing to do with her love for me, or wanting to end our relationship. She said she is just so depressed that she wanted to escape herself for a moment, relive past time of being young, single and carefree. She is so regretful and distraught and wants to do anything to show that she can rebuild us. Rationally I understand this, and I believe her when she says she still loves me. But I just can't fathom how someone can love you so much and so selfishly give this away so easily.

Needless to say, I caught an early flight home, and am now jobless as I took 12 months extended leave off work, have no car as her car was our sole vehicle, and am sleeping on a blow up mattress at my mum's house. I feel worthless and betrayed. I sacrificed so much to support her in this overseas move. And the worst part is I don't feel like I can open up to my family about what actually happened as I may want to salvage the relationship. I have a harsh family that will never forgive her if they find out.

I don't know if i want advice, or guidance, I think i just want to be heard as I feel I can't express what truly happened to many people in my life right now. I want to organise therapy ASAP to work through this. I am just not ready to give up our old life, and I feel like i'm grieving so hard for our future also.

Thanks for listening.

You came to the right place.

I would say you tried the best that you could. Alcohol and depression are not good together. If you talk with her suggest she stop all drinking.

What can you do now?

Work on your own health. Read here in the healing library. Examine your own mind to find out what you really want from life. Exercise to burn off stress. Try to maintain a sleep strategy. Give your mind periodic breaks from racing and recurring thoughts.

You just had an injury. You are in the shock part and you will feel lost. You might not know what you want. You might change your mind a few times. This is normal. Your choices are yours. Her choices are hers. No one's to blame for the others choice. It's good she told you. Most don't get that consideration.

This is important

You're not worthless.

You're a good person who was hurt by someone they love and trust. It doesn't change your value. You are still you.

Why she chose this? She has to ask herself. It wasn't anything because of you.

Hi OP, sorry this happened man.

Its the trifecta for your fiance - severely depressed, heavy drinker, and a cheater.

You're entertaining ideas of getting back together with that? Good heavens buddy, there's less painful ways to kill yourself.

If I read your story right, you've got a year off work. Yep you could mope about at mom's place, or, you could get up and get going. Get a part time job for the next year; or travel on your own. Or get active in your local singles community and go on some dates.

Your horrible ex (I hope she's your ex) has taken enough from you, don't let her wreck the next year for you.

You're only 33. You've had a bad experience no doubt about it. Hey most of us here have, too. Hurts like a son of a bitch. But you know you've got something to maybe laugh about some day, how bad you got burnt on this trip.

Tell your family so you can get support from them. This ex deserves every broadside from your family that lands her way.

End this awful relationship.

Please don’t let her crappy choices lead you to feel worthless.

Depression + alcohol + poor choices — those are all on her.

Your focus now needs to be on your healing and your recovery. She needs to manage her depression on her own. You should stop putting yourself in the position of trying to "fix" her.

Just know you will survive this. We all do. Unfortunately the healing process is slow. But you will get great advice here. The good people here at SI will support you.

Be thankful you have a mom to come home to. It’s the glass half full theory.

You did the right thing by leaving her there. Let her go have her whatever it is. Not your problem anymore. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

Thank the good Lord that you never married her. You have dodged an enormous bullet my friend.

Now go back to that apartment and clear all your stuff out of there. Then move forward, into your future, sadder but wiser.

Chalk that girl up to experience and never look back.

She drove drunk to "get your phone". Possible alcoholic, stays depressed, cheats. Please ask yourself why you are involved in a loooong relationship that appears to be stalled. Why haven’t two 33 years old people not married? Not a lot of superfluous info needed. Booze, chronic sadness, cheating.

I think she wanted a short term high from cheating to boost her depressed mood from rock bottom to wow which lasted a few minutes.

Please ask yourself why you would give up a good job for this.

Look after your health. This is like being shot by your best friend.

I remember the movie the Longest Day or something like that, where the troops were pinned down on Omaha Beach. Then one guy told the troops that there were o ly two types of men on the beach, men who were dead and men who are going to die. So let's get moving...

You have been dealt a pretty shitty hand by a very challenging partner. Your relationship was in deep trouble before the cheating and now it is worse. I'm sorry for that.

You've gone home and are in the process of locking your wounds and trying to make sense of things, but you cannot do it alone. Get some support. You need it.

Second, flip the script. Try thinking of this as an opportunity, as shitty as the circumstances are, to rediscover your purpose. You have some time off, do something with it. Most of us are anchored to our lives and cannot take risks. You have an opportunity to get off of that mattress and move forward. You will get through this.

While you'll feel hurt for some time, we all do, you are in a far better situation to get out of infidelity than many of us were.
If she dropped you off and went back for sex (she did, it not about a phone) she said a lot to you about who she really is. And consider it will most likely happen again in the future. A wise person would call her an ex-fiance now.
Unprotected sex indicates your health meant nothing to her. Find help if you need it, but consider moving forward and finding someone who isn't your ex (or should be ex) that wont put you through this.

All the above posts make sense to me. At the same time, if you want to consider R, there could be hope. If was a one time event, as far as you know at least. She was drunk, which is no excuse but does have an impact. She apparently confessed to you even though you had no suspicion. And she wants to fix it. All those are good signs that R might work.

Of course all the negatives are there that other responses highlighted. It's a steep hill to climb because she needs alcohol treatment and depression treatment from a doctor on top of the ONS.

In the meantime, you need an STD test and so does she. Asap. And therapy is a great idea for you.

When she dropped you off after you were both drinking…
Dropped you off as in she packed you into the rental car and got you home before driving back or taxi or walked you to the room or what?

Reason I ask is if you are using alcohol as some tool to minimize her actions (a very common thing we see here) then she wasn’t that drunk that she could dispose of you and return.

Friend – 11 years is quite the commitment. Nine years before proposing is unusually long. A 2 year engagement is long too… Is there a reason for the delay(s)?
Who initiated the changes? Did she delay proposals? Did you propose? Who decided the marriage date? I’m just wondering if this is her method of saying "no". A bit drastic, but maybe for her it’s somehow easier to create the conditions where she can tell friends "no – we broke it off after I mistakenly and completely accidentally had a brief ONS and Anthems is so possessive he can’t forgive me".

Sorry you find yourself here. Others here have given good advice, and some others will be along to add to what has already been said.

I just want to emphasize two things:

One, as has already been said, you need to get a full panel of STD tests pronto. Some of these diseases can be spread by saliva.

Second, I hear you about fiancé's cheating. I was betrayed by my fiancé 65 years ago. The engagement period is like having a final exam before graduating. It is best you found out about her loyalty and character before you married her. It doesn't hurt any less, but the hurt will eventually go away. She is toxic and it is best you found out before marrying her.

While you are unemployed you need to find some things to do to fill your time and take your thoughts away from her. Exercise is my choice of activities. It also helps you sleep.

I'm so sorry that you are here. Infidelity is a horrible, emotional, life altering roller coaster - and as I need to get this out of the way first and foremost - it does NOT matter that you are not married. 11 years is 11 years of commitment. The lack of a piece of paper that says the state sanctifies your commitment is irrelevant to the emotional toll this takes on you, nor is it "easier" in any way. I'm sorry if anyone who came before me made you feel like your situation is somehow simpler because you haven't entered into a marriage contract with your partner - sometimes it can be MORE complicated because you have fewer legal protections regarding joint assets and debts etc. 11 years is LONG time and that betrayal and pain that comes with it is no less real and the aftermath may be no less complicated.

I mention this because this type of response rubbed me the wrong way when I first started posting here - while I did have a marriage contract I did not have kids and countless people gave me advice to leave because it was easier for me without children - I make no such judgment upon you now. IMO you have a WP who confessed to a ONS - which is somewhat of a rarity around here. I doubt you would be getting nearly as much "cut and run" advice if you were married. I just wanted to indicate I'm sorry if you feel like the answers to your issues are somehow simpler because of your lack of marriage certificate - they are not. IMO your situation is no different. Please go to the healing library on this site - there are a lot of great resources there.

Deciding if infidelity is a deal breaker for you is a choice only you can make. It sounds to me like your WP needs to do quite a bit of work on herself, regardless of whether you try to work it out with her. She has depression and substance abuse issues and boundary issues which needs to be her main focus - for her - and now she also needs to help you heal from this - all of which is likely a lot for the two of you to deal with. The good news is you do not need to decide what you want to do right now as far as your relationship with her goes. But you have not mentioned (or if you did I missed it) what she is doing with herself now? Did she stay behind? Are you communicating? Is she doing anything to address her depression and substance abuse issues? Counseling? AA? Anything?

You also do not mention if you have children and/or what, if anything you may own together or are legally bound to together. For example, you moved to another country but do not mention where you are living or if there are any expenses you are required to pay, even in your absence, aside from your own living expenses. To the extent you have joint obligations you unfortunately will need to work those out amongst yourself, and the downside of not having a marriage contract is that a lot of these types of debts/obligations are less structured. You need to have a talk with her about those things, to the extent any of them exist.

I have a lot more questions for you but you have been heard. I know and understand how shattering infidelity can be. Breathe. Be kind to yourself. You will get thought this.

ThisIsSoLonely I seriously doubt anyone meant easier in the emotional aspect, but clearly were referring to not having the financial and legal issues involved. I thought much of that was very clear.
I know thats how my post was meant. If you wish to take it wrong, you do you.

@Thisissolonely - thank you, I found your words the most comforting and reasonable of those that replied. In regard to your questions she got a flight home the day after me. She is going to get therapy to work on a whole range of personal issues including the alcohol abuse. She is fully aware she has made a mistake and takes responsibility for her actions. We do not have children, but do own a house together. As for the others insensitively commenting on the length of our relationship/engagement - marriage was just never a priority for us. We took time in our 20's to study, travel and work in various parts of our home country before settling down. The proposal was just something we both wanted to do, and we were going to take our time figuring out the wedding. But honestly we had other priorities such as more fully establishing our careers and saving for a dream property. I think we can all agree that each people do things differently and some people prfioritize marriage, a house and kids etc more than others.

She didn't drive back to the dude, we were within walking distance to our accomodation. But that doesn't matter, she made a conscious effort to go back and exacerbate everything by fucking this guy. That's the part that kills me the most - even is she was wasted she made a conscious choice to go back. I keep reliving that in my head and it's fucking me up.

In regards to STD testing, I haven't engaged with her sexually in any way since that night. Even revealing just the initial kiss was enough to not make me want to go there. She will be getting checked today for any STDs.

I'm also surprised but how quickly people just want me to disregard someone i've spent a third of my life with. I do not think it is as black and white as "she's cheated - forget her forever". I will need time alone to reassess how I feel about our relationship and this woman, I am not committing to ending it nor am i committed to continuing the relationship at this present time. But I appreciate we are all coming in with biases and baggage from out cheating partners, and some may feel differently to reconciliation.

What has been everyone's experience with divulging the cheating to friends and loved ones? I feel so sick lying to people about the details of what actually happened, but I feel that telling everyone I'm close with could have really negative consequences also. It just annoys me that I have to tell a watered down story of why we decided to have a break, and why we decided to come home early from this massive overseas venture.

As with all of these posts, the devil is in the details. Any advice provided should be prefaced with the admonishment that it is given based on limited facts. That being said, here is my two cents.

You are 33 years old. You are entering your prime years career wise. It is paramount that you now direct your full attention to that aspect of your life. You certainly should now realize you have sacrificed more than enough by taking a one year leave of absence in order to support your fiancé's desires. You have certainly reimbursed her for any perceived debt you may have owed her for her past support. You were repaid by her with her continued severe depression, alcoholism, and infidelity. Not a pretty picture.

I urge you to focus on your career. Your relationship with your fiancé should, minimally, be reduced to status of girlfriend. Being the victim of a cheating spouse, my advice is to move on and not look back. Your relationship with her, if it is to continue, should take a back seat to your career. If she doesn't like it, that's unfortunate but her concerns should have no bearing on your decisions. She is not a prize by any stretch. She is extremely damaged. She will be an anchor that drags you downward. She has been in severe depression for half of your relationship. The depression has now morphed into infidelity. Think long and hard before you continue with her.

Edit: Should you tell others of your fiancé's infidelity? I told my parents, brother and sister-in-law of my ex-wife's first infidelity. It did not ultimately change their outward relationship with her. On the contrary, they helped rug sweep her cheating. I wish one of them would have knocked sense into me. All I needed was a little push from someone I respected to get out of a toxic situation. I threw away six more years on an unworthy person. That is my experience. Of course, every family is different and how they react cannot be necessarily reflected by the reaction of others who faced similar situations.

[This message edited by src9043 at 6:48 PM, Wednesday, October 26th]

She purposely failed the wife tryout.

If she did that while you were over there, what do you think she's doing now that you're gone?

I know it sucks, but it will get better. IMMENSELY BETTER.

Yes we all come with our own baggage, thats why you take what you want here and leave the rest.
I spent a many years with my first wife and we had a son together, but for some of us we see infidelity as a deal breaker, I am one of those, and thats how we roll. For you whatever you feel is right is right, regardless of how we dealt with the shit sandwiches WE were given.
As for telling everyone what happened, as infidelity is a deal breaker, I had no reason not to tell everyone. I didn't see it as a slam against me, my ego or any other of the things some take it as.
This is entirely up to you in this case, not everyone needs to know. Its between you and your fiance and how it fits within what you want do going forward and how it may impact that.

Anthems,

I’m sorry that you are here and that she betrayed you in this way. You’ve been given some sound advice and some that might seem ill informed or alarmist. Like you said, you’ve been together for eleven years. You speak of the two of you as a single unit: we…us. But SHE did this and broke that we/us.

The harsh comments are trying to bluntly state this: Things were never quite what you thought. It means there is a fundamental disconnect between who you thought she is and who she actually is. Her work is to figure out her messed up self, but how does this work for you? It wasn’t a mistake. It was twenty to thirty intentional choices that turned what should have been your shared vacation into a bad Cheers episode.

Eleven years is a long time. A long time that meant exactly what? That’s your choice. She didn’t tell you the next day, horrified. She waited. For weeks, right? Maybe because she knew your response, but my God, wouldn’t a horrified response to a drunken night have been…I can’t believe I did this.

Cheaters lie. Yours did. Said it was only a kiss. If you are comfortable you have the truth, how does that truth change things? Is her regret just that or true remorse?

I hope you can move forward. I hope she can as well. I hope you can become we/us again. But right now you need to take care of you. Put the invested time, those eleven years aside. Is this person, right now, who you want to be with? Time spent loving someone is never wasted, even if the relationship fails, because we become something more when we love. But now you get to decide what you want, and what you can live with.

So, whatever choice you make, you are not trapped and you haven’t wasted anything. You still have agency and a bright future. Relationships can recover from this. Our founders on this site prove it. But it’s years of work, gallons of tears, and gigabytes worth of mind movies. And that’s on your end. Hers includes processing her shame, figuring out her "whys", and providing for you what you need to heal. And that’s just to consider reconciling.

Again, I’m so sorry that this has happened. My thoughts are with you. We are here to help.

Anthems,

I am sorry you are here, and that things have reached a bit of a crisis in the relationship. There may be a lot more information that you could give about an eleven year relationship, but people can only go by what appears in this thread.

The biggest issue I can see is that your wife has to take ownership of, and responsibility for, her life, because she is the only person who can change things for herself. You cannot fix her, but in your position it can be very easy to believe you are being supportive, when you actually be enabling her to avoid addressing the cause of her problems, whether by joining her in drinking to excess, or embarking on dream trips that are a form of escape from reality. That is not blaming you at all; I am hoping to offer a different perspective for you to consider, even if you ultimately reject it.

The most significant theme I see is your fiance's avoidance of taking control the direction of her life, and therefore her own happiness.

For example:

My partner has been severely depressed for the last 5 years, unsatisfied with her career path and a lot of her surrounding life decisions.

Depression is a very real condition, for which treatment is available, but that has to be sought out. Careers can be changed, and decisions can be reversed, if effort is made to do that. I am not saying this in any kind of accusatory or blaming way, but it sounds like instead of attempting those changes, your wife has been passive, and in some ways become a helpless victim of herself.

We sought out couples counselling who encouraged us to chase our 'dream life' together to reignite our zest for life and our relationship. My partner always had dreams of moving overseas for a period...To cut it short, four months into this venture her depression only deepened.

This suggests strongly that whatever is causing your wife's depression cannot be alleviated by dream trips, dream homes, etc.

Another thing I noticed is the impact of the engagement on the relationship (and particularly your fiance).

we...have been engaged for the last 2 years.

over the last 2 years I have become fatigued with trying to support her. During this period she has heavily relied on alcohol to escape her problems. I think we were definitely in a bit of a rut with our relationship during this time.

She tells me [her infidelity] has nothing to do with her love for me, or wanting to end our relationship. She said she is just so depressed that she wanted to escape herself for a moment, relive past time of being young, single and carefree.

These things struck a cord with me, because a good friend of mine was with a woman for several years, in what appeared to be relative happiness, before they married. The marriage lasted six months. It seemed like the dynamic between them worked on a less committed 'boyfriend-girlfriend' level (which sounds juvenile, as they were in their late forties when they married), but struggled as husband and wife.

I hope this does not sound cruel, but do you think your wife is struggling with the change in the dynamic of your relationship from drifting along together with no commitment, taking life as it comes, to being engaged, with a view to getting married?

Given the point that has been reached, after 11 years of being together, I think the most important thing that both of you should do is honestly and frankly consider your expectations of each other, how you envisage the future of the relationship, and then compare notes to see whether or not they match.

Hopefully they will match, but if there is a divergence in your ambitions, and you find you want different things for your future, the two of you will have to see if a workable compromise can be reached. Nobody can predict that, but both of you should be 100% honest with yourselves about what you want, to ensure that neither of you ends up in a situation in which you will be unhappy.

It could be that your fiance is not comfortable with commitment, whether to a career, or a relationship. That is likely to be a product of her feelings about herself, and I hope she will finally face them and explore them, rather than seeking the escape of alcohol, avoidance, and reckless misadventures with random strangers. She needs to be honest with both of you about what she was trying to achieve by her return to the bar and then confessing her actions to you, because elements of it could be interpreted as as an attempt to sabotage the engagement and shift the making of significant decisions onto your shoulders.

I am sorry to say a lot of those things, and I hope I am wrong. Trust me, the vast majority of people here know how they felt when a missile unexpectedly descended on what they thought was their perfect corner of the world. They do not want to kick anyone when they are down. We have been where you are, and our thoughts are very much with you.