I (24F) have been dating my boyfriend (28M) for 4 years, but I found out 3 months in that he was still married.
I met my boyfriend about four years ago. At the time, I had no idea he was married. He had been married to his ex-wife for about five years in total.
Three months into our relationship, he suddenly confessed that he was still legally married. I was honestly shocked. He explained that it was a shotgun marriage. His ex-wife already had a child from another man, and later had a second child with him. He said he felt responsible for getting her pregnant and for the child so he married her. Mind you, they have only been together for about 3 months before she told him she was pregnant.
I immediately asked why he was dating me if he had a wife and child. He told me they had already been living separately for about six months after he found out she cheated on him with the father of her first child. When I asked why they didn’t just divorce, he said she wanted to stay legally married for practical benefits (like tax relief) until either of them found someone else. He agreed to that at the time. She was actively trying to reconcile, but he had no interest in getting back together because of the cheating and constant conflicts between the both of them. She was an ITE dropout who stopped studying to give birth to her first child, and he is a finbro. According to him, even though she had no money, she constantly wanted to live an expensive lifestyle like going out to drink with her friends weekly. And she was a lazy person in general.
Things got messy when he introduced me to his parents. His ex-wife showed up and caused a scene, and his mum had to ask her to leave. After that, she started telling people that I was the 小三 and that he cheated on her with me. For a while, that’s exactly how his friends saw me. It was only later, when I met some of them, that they realised they didn’t know the full story, especially about her cheating and their prior arrangement.
At one point, I told him I needed space because I wasn’t comfortable dating someone who was still legally married, no matter the situation. He said he understood and told me to take all the time I needed, and that he would make things right. Despite everything, I still continued seeing him.
They eventually divorced about 8 months after he told me the truth. He said he had already wanted a divorce the moment he found out she cheated, and that staying married under that arrangement wouldn’t be fair to any future partner.
But even now, part of me can’t help but wonder if I played a role in pushing him towards the divorce. And despite their agreement, I sometimes feel like I was still “the other woman” in some way.
I believe he isn’t lying because he’s genuinely a kind person. His friends, his family, and my family all say the same that he has a good heart and that I should treasure him. And I do see that in him, which is why I’m still with him.
To add on, his extended family also had issues with her. Both his maternal and paternal aunts told me that whenever they visited during Chinese New Year, she would barely interact with them and often had a constant RBF. Apparently, she even got into an argument with one of his aunts over how she responded to his grandmother. From what I was told, his grandmother was just asking her a series of normal questions, but she became visibly annoyed and reacted rudely, which escalated into a conflict.
What do you guys think? Am I really a 小三?