u/AdOrganic4077

Met him on a dating app almost 4 years ago and genuinely believed he was single. He never mentioned being married. We spoke daily, got emotionally attached, and stayed involved for years on and off.

Recently I found out he had actually gotten married a few months before we even met.

Apparently I also wasn’t the only woman he was involved with during this time.

After finding this out, I contacted his wife and told her everything. I wasn’t trying to ruin his marriage or get revenge. I just felt that if I were in her position, I would want to know.

AITA for telling her?

23F met a 26M online four years ago. Thought he was emotionally intelligent, mature, caring. Turns out he had also gotten married 4 months before we met. Minor detail, apparently.

The fun part? I didn’t even know UNTIL LAST WEEK.

And before anyone asks, yes, I did the “maybe it’s complicated” mental gymnastics. Olympic level, honestly.

This man somehow managed to:

• include me in his day to day life

• trauma dump poetically

• say “I love you, you are amazing” at 1:30 AM like he was auditioning for a low budget Netflix romance

• then later clarify that he does not LOVE love me

Sir, thank you for the distinction. Very helpful. Revolutionary even.

Meanwhile, he wanted exclusivity in his marriage. Open marriage was NO NO for him (yes, got to know this from his wife lol).

Every time we tried to end things, one of us would come back. Like a toxic subscription service nobody remembered signing up for. “Are you still watching?” YES unfortunately.

And the weirdest part? It wasn’t always bad. Sometimes it felt genuinely warm, loving, peaceful even. Which honestly made it worse because now you’re grieving something that technically never even existed properly.

I spent years trying to “understand” him. PTSD, emotional unavailability, confusion, attachment issues, existential crisis, Mercury in retrograde, the economy… at some point I realized I was building psychological TED Talks to justify bare minimum clarity.

Current status:

Recovering.

Embarrassed.

Slightly wiser.

Still shocked that married men have the emotional bandwidth to maintain double lives while I forget to reply to one person for 3 business days.

P.S. I wasn’t the only one.

And also, we are 27/30 now.

Met him online four years ago. Thought he was emotionally intelligent, mature, caring. Turns out he had also gotten married 4 months before we met. Minor detail, apparently.

The fun part? I didn’t even know UNTIL LAST WEEK.

And before anyone asks, yes, I did the “maybe it’s complicated” mental gymnastics. Olympic level, honestly.

This man somehow managed to: • include me in his day to day life

• trauma dump poetically

• say “I love you, you are amazing” at 1:30 AM like he was auditioning for a low budget Netflix romance

• then later clarify that he does not LOVE love me

Sir, thank you for the distinction. Very helpful. Revolutionary even.

Meanwhile, he wanted exclusivity in his marriage. Open marriage was NO NO for him (yes, got to know this from his wife lol).

Every time we tried to end things, one of us would come back. Like a toxic subscription service nobody remembered signing up for. “Are you still watching?” YES unfortunately.

And the weirdest part? It wasn’t always bad. Sometimes it felt genuinely warm, loving, peaceful even. Which honestly made it worse because now you’re grieving something that technically never even existed properly.

I spent years trying to “understand” him. PTSD, emotional unavailability, confusion, attachment issues, existential crisis, Mercury in retrograde, the economy… at some point I realized I was building psychological TED Talks to justify bare minimum clarity.

Current status:

Recovering.

Embarrassed.

Slightly wiser.

Still shocked that married men have the emotional bandwidth to maintain double lives while I forget to reply to one person for 3 business days.

P.S. I wasn’t the only one. And also, we were 23/26 4 years back.