My wife and I have been together for nearly 15 years, since we were 18. During the early years we constantly broke up and got back together.
One time, she went to Bali with her friends while I was in Melbourne with mine. About a week after we got home, she told me she’d cheated on me. She said she kissed a guy she knew from back home, that they were in the pool at the same hotel, it was a one-off, and there was nothing in it.
I was 19 and didn’t know how to handle my emotions. She wanted to work it out. I was drinking and taking drugs through most of it, but we got back together. About a year later, we broke up again for a few months. During that time we were single but still in love, and we’d catch up. I told her I’d been hooking up with people. She told me she had too, with the same guy from Bali. Again, she said they hadn’t had sex.
Around then, I was seeing a girl whose best friend went home with that same guy one night after the club. We dropped her off, then went back to mine and slept together. The next morning, the best friend rang the girl I was seeing and told her the guy had said, right before they got into bed, “we won’t tell people what happens.” They had sex.
My ex called me, furious that I’d slept with someone. I worked out she only knew because the guy had told her, so I said, “Well, did he tell you who he slept with?”
A few months later we got back together. It wasn’t easy, but we loved each other and decided to give it a real shot. We travelled, did heaps of awesome things, came home and started our family.
Then one night I was on Facebook and stumbled across a photo album from Bali, 15 years ago. A group of guys, including him, and my wife. The story in those photos is very different to the one I’d been told. There was a house party with a lot of her friends and plenty of guys. I can see my wife’s teddy bear on the bed in one of the shots, so I know it’s her room. There are photos of him drinking in that same room, with comments underneath like “this is the last time I saw you,” “Bali had a tight grip on you,” and “she wasn’t letting go.” The next set of photos is everyone at the club, except him and my wife.
I confronted her. She still denies they ever had sex, including during the time she was actually single.
She says she was really drunk that night in Bali, throwing up, and can barely remember what happened because it was 15 years ago. I asked why she didn’t go to the club. She said she can’t remember. I asked why they didn’t sleep together when she was single, and she said it was his decision, that he didn’t want to be the first person she was with after a relationship.
I moved past this ages ago. My wife is actually one of the best people I understand that she was 19, drunk and all that.
But seeing the photos, hearing the story, knowing the behaviour he did with other girls, I just feel like I’m being lied to, even 15 years on.
I don’t even know what I’d do if it was true. I feel like a proper mug. I feel like I was the relationship option, not the one she actually wanted. I feel like shit about it and I’d really love some help and opinions.