u/Exciting-Spirit-3424

I need you to read this and not make it about you.

Not your shame.

Not your guilt.

Not your childhood.

Not your inadequacies.

Not your addiction.

Not how bad you feel.

Not how hard it is to hear.

Because I am the one who has had to live inside what you did.

And I need you to understand something that I do not think you have fully let yourself understand:

This has made me want to die.

Not as a phrase.

Not as drama.

Not as punishment.

Not as something I am saying to hurt you back.

I mean there have been moments where the pain you and **first husband have caused me has been so deep, so humiliating, so psychologically brutal, so spiritually crushing, that my mind has gone to the darkest place a person can go.

There have been moments where I have felt like the only reason I am still here is because my children deserve their mother.

Do you understand the gravity of that?

I am not saying you made me sad.

I am not saying you hurt my feelings.

I am saying that between **first husband's destruction and your betrayal, something inside me has been killed.

The woman who trusted easily, gone.

The woman who felt safe in her marriage, gone.

The woman who believed she was chosen, gone.

The woman who could rest inside love, gone.

The woman who could look at her life and feel solid ground beneath her, gone.

You did not just wound me.

You helped destroy the last safe place I thought I had.

After everything **fist husband put me through, after all the manipulation, the emotional wreckage, the years of having to survive him, you were supposed to be my refuge.

You were supposed to be the man I could collapse into.

You were supposed to be the one person who did not make me question my worth, my reality, my body, my place, my safety.

You knew what it had already taken for me to keep going.

And then you became another man I had to survive.

I need you to feel.

You were not betraying a woman who had never been broken.

You were betraying a woman who had already had to claw her way back to herself.

You were betraying a wife who had already endured more than enough.

You were betraying the mother of your children while she was postpartum, depleted, overwhelmed, touched out, exhausted, sick, and still trying to hold a family together.

And while I was doing that, you were giving yourself away to countless others.

To them.

To women who knew I existed.

To women who knew our children existed.

To women who still stepped into my marriage.

And you let them.

You opened the door.

You made space for them.

You gave them access to the pieces of you that should have belonged to only me.

You allowed my marriage to become crowded with demons and ghosts.

And now I am the one who has to live with them in my head.

I have to mother with images in my mind of you fucking them. you summing to their words and images.

I have to look at you and wonder who else had your attention.

I have to lie beside you and fight the feeling that I am sharing space with every secret, every message, every fantasy, every betrayal.

I have to try to feel beautiful in a body that now feels compared and inadequate.

I have to try to feel sexually safe with a man who trained himself to reach elsewhere first.

I have to try to believe I am wanted when your habits taught me that when you wanted release, validation, escape, intensity, or attention, your instinct was not me.

Do you know what that does to me?

It makes me feel erased.

It makes me feel stupid for trusting.

It makes me feel like my love was being used while the truth was hidden from me.

It makes me feel like I was standing naked in a room full of people laughing at what I did not know.

I am still feeding children.

Still folding clothes.

Still answering questions.

Still making meals.

Still keeping life moving

But inside, there are parts of me that feel dead.

Parts of me that used to feel soft are now guarded.

Parts of me that used to feel desirable now feel humiliated.

Parts of me that used to feel safe now feel constantly braced.

Parts of me that used to believe love could be home now feel like love is just another place to be harmed.

And I need you to understand when you make this about your feelings, you abandon me again.

When you collapse into shame, I disappear again.

When you get defensive, I disappear again.

When you tell me I am “defaulting” to pain, I disappear again.

When you rush me to believe what you want me to believe, I disappear again.

When you need reassurance from the woman you shattered, I disappear again.

I need you to face the fact that your choices did not just damage trust.

They damaged my will to live.

They damaged my sense of being loved.

They damaged my ability to feel safe inside my own mind.

They damaged my relationship with my body.

They damaged my memories.

They damaged my sexuality.

They damaged the home I thought I had in you.

And I need you to sit with that without trying to escape it.

Not because I want you destroyed.

Because I need you awake.

I need you to understand that you became one more source of trauma in my life.

I need you to understand that you betrayed me when I were already carrying too much.

I need you to understand that your choices made me question whether staying alive is worth it.

I need you to understand that your shame does not get to outrank my pain.

I need you to understand that you do not get to ask ne to heal faster so you can feel less guilty.

I need you to understand that if youI want to be my husband now, you have to become safe in ways you have never been safe befor

That is what I need.

Not panic.

Not self-hatred.

Not dramatic apologies.

Not you falling apart so I have to take care of you.

I need steady, sober, grounded accountability.

I need you to understand that I am standing here with a wound so deep I do not even know how to measure it.

I need you to stop asking, directly or indirectly, for my pain to become smaller so you can tolerate it.

I need you to become strong enough to witness what you caused.

Because I am not just angry.

I am grieving myself.

I am grieving the wife I was before I knew.

I am grieving the marriage I thought I was in.

I am grieving the safety I thought I had earned after surviving **first husband.

I am grieving the version of me who still believed that you were the one man who would not make me feel disposable.

I am grieving all of our happy memories, for the monstrosities  that were occurring on the other side of them. 

And I need you to understand that I am still here, but I am not okay.

I am still breathing, but I have been fighting for my life inside this pain.

And if you truly love me, then your job is not to make this about whether you are a monster.

Your job is to become the kind of man who can finally protect the woman you broke.

Not with words.

Not with defensiveness.

Not with shame.

With truth.

With patience.

With consistency.

With humility.

With complete transparency.

With the willingness to sit beside me in the ashes without asking me to pretend the house is not burned down.

Because that is where I am.

I want to rip out of my own skin. 

When it’s unbearable I feel on fire, and my instinct is to reach for you, and start to move as I do in labor. 

Movement of life and death. agony. Soul consuming. Then even that, takes my mind right to what you were doing as I was 

growing yet another beautiful child for you, you were sending photos of your cock to other women. Maybe even while I was birthing your child. 

All the while having just overcome the obstacle of “accidentally” getting another one of them pregnant…..granting her the grace and space to decide

What she would like to do. How she would like to turn MY LIFE and our CHILDREN’S LIVES upside down. However SHE sees fit. 

Fuck you both.

Fuck you ALL.

God, you must hate me. 

I hate me. 

I hate that I don’t know how to not love you. 

I cannot unlove you. 

Can you teach me? 

How to remove the person you “love” from your mind? 

Make them nothing temporarily?

Kill me now.

I do not grieve being undervalued by people with no values.

That is the truth I return to now.

Because they were not powerful.
They were pathetic.

People with real strength do not hide, lie, sneak, and feed themselves on secrecy.
That is not passion.
That is weakness.
That is small, hungry, undisciplined behavior.

They traded integrity for cheap validation.
They risked real love for momentary ego strokes.
They chose crumbs and called it a feast.

That is not something to envy.
That is something to pity.

So when my mind tries to make you larger than life, I answer it with the truth:

You were not special.
You were weak.

Not irresistible—empty.
Not chosen over me—beneath me.

People who betray in the dark are not powerful.
They are small.

And I do not compete with small people.
I walk away and let them live with themselves.

I was not rejected.
You revealed yourselves.

A woman who knowingly steps into someone else’s home and then feels entitled to be chosen is not a victim.
She is participating in destruction and then crying when destruction reaches her too.

You were not “better.”
You were willing.

There is a difference.

People like that are not winning anything.
They are building their lives on dishonor and then acting shocked when it collapses under them.

You did not take something precious because you were extraordinary.
You accepted scraps from a man already betraying his wife and children.

That is not a prize.
That is humiliation dressed up as romance.

And if you let yourselves believe, “he’ll leave his family for me,” then you were not chosen—you were foolish.

Because a man who betrays his family does not suddenly become trustworthy just because he picks a new audience.

And him?
Same truth.

A man who can look at his wife, his children, his home—and still choose deceit—is not powerful.
He is spiritually bankrupt.

I was not competing with better people.
I was surrounded by people with lower standards.

She did not win.
She volunteered for a man with no integrity.

He did not choose better.
He chose easier.

And I do not envy women who accept leftovers and call it love.

Thank you all for your kindness regarding my last post “you all sleep”. Here is another if you feel inclined to read/relate.

You took the person
I felt safest with
turned them into the source
of the deepest pain I’ve ever known.

I have to grieve someone
who is still alive
because the version of you
I loved wasn’t true.

The cruelest part
isn’t that you enjoyed
someone else’s flesh,
you looked me in the eyes,
let me trust you,
let me build a life around your lies
and let me feel safe in a place
that was never safe at all.

you taught me
that betrayal does not
always arrive loudly,
as it did with him,
or he before that.

sometimes
it looks like a hand on your back
a kiss on your forehead
an i love you before bed

while somewhere else
you are becoming a stranger
who erased our existence
so you could get hard together

and the cruelest part is
i still have to teach my heart
that the home I had
was never really a safe home

i mourn.
like a death no one attended

because how do i explain
that the man i loved
is still breathing
still speaking
still reaching for me

but who I thought you were, never was

you buried us
with every lie
and left me standing
at the grave
holding memories
that now feel like evidence

the cruelest thing

you did not break me softly
you took a hammer
to everything i trusted

you stood there
with my love in your hands
and chose to treat it
like something disposable

do you understand that

while i was building a home
you were setting fire to it
and smiling at me
through the smoke

i loved you honestly
you disrespected everything about me

the weight
of what you did
the twists and turns you’ve
created in my mind
no apology
will ever return
the woman
you all forced me to bury

they looked at a woman
they had never met
and decided
her pain was an acceptable price
for your shared pleasure

AND YOU LET THEM.

I feel like I’m living the same wound twice, just in a different form.

I’m a mom of three, in the middle of a custody situation with my ex over our oldest, while also trying to hold together my current marriage after discovering my husband has been living a hidden life behind my back.
This wasn’t a one-time slip. It was ongoing—secret sexual behavior, conversations, lies, deleting things, and maintaining a version of himself that I didn’t actually know. I was fully invested in our life and family while he was actively choosing things that would have broken me if I had known in real time.

What’s been hardest to process isn’t just what he did—it’s realizing that my reality wasn’t real. I trusted him. I felt safe. And now I look back and question everything.
There’s also context that I’m trying to hold without excusing anything. He has significant unresolved childhood wounds—neglect, and a very rigid environment where emotions, sexuality, and honesty weren’t handled in a healthy way. A lot of what’s coming out now seems rooted in deep shame, avoidance, and compartmentalization.
I can understand where it comes from. But it still wrecked me.

And this isn’t my first time here.
My first husband cheated on me while we were trying for our second child—and instead of repair, he left. I had to rebuild my life pregnant, with a child, completely on my own.

So now I’m in a very different situation. My current husband is staying. He’s in recovery. He’s taking accountability and actively trying to rebuild trust.
And honestly… that almost makes it harder in some ways. Because now I have to sit in it and decide whether I can rebuild, instead of just walking away.

My brain feels like it’s constantly on fire.

I’m dealing with:
Intrusive thoughts that won’t shut off
Comparing myself to other women
Feeling like I wasn’t enough, even though I know that’s not the truth
Questioning my judgment and my reality
Not feeling emotionally safe in a way I used to

At the same time, I’m:
Managing court stress and co-parenting conflict
Advocating for my child constantly
Raising three kids who need stability
Some days I feel strong and clear. Other days I feel like I’m quietly falling apart but still functioning because I don’t have another option.

I’m trying to approach this with honesty and intention—not excusing anything, but also not ignoring the effort he’s putting in now.

I just don’t know how to carry all of this.

If you’ve been in something similar:
How do you keep repeated betrayal from defining you?
How do you trust your own judgment again after being this wrong before?
If you stayed and rebuilt—did the intrusive thoughts ever actually quiet down?
Right now it just feels like too much, and I don’t know where to put it.

I’ve been writing to cope and process. Willing to share one in hopes of making someone else feel seen or less alone in this. Here it is:

You all sleep.

That’s a part I can’t understand.

You close your eyes,

pull the blankets up,

and somehow your chest doesn’t cave in

under the weight of what you did to me.

How?

How the fuck do you do it?

How do you lay your head in peace,

knowing your hands were the reason

mine will never fully release?

How do you rest

knowing you took a woman

who loved like religion,

who gave like spring rain,

who built a home with her bare fucking hands,

and turned her into a ghost

that flinches at silence

and bleeds in private?

How do you breathe so steady,

how does your conscience stay still,

when you took a woman made of gold

and taught her how to kill

her softness,

her safety,

her trust,

her light,

and left her learning how to survive

what you did those twisted nights?

How do you sleep

knowing you stood there

and watched a deadfish drown

while you all spoke dirty in the bathroom?

I was not hard to love.

I was not some impossible storm.

I was warmth.

I was loyalty.

I was soft places and fierce prayers.

a kind of devotion

people spend their whole lives

begging for.

I was your woman lost with a sickness

scratching, clawing and pleading

with God to heal in time for

her lover to not run to another

And you traded it

for cheap attention

and temporary flesh.

And you

you all make my ruin look casual.

You lied

like it was breathing.

Came home and touched me

with hands still dirty from betrayal.

how does that not haunt you?

How does your stomach not turn?

How do you watch me burn alive

and never feel your own skin burn?

begging God

to let me be wrong.

Let it be a dream, let ME sleep

So I can wake up from this nightmare

shaking so hard

my bones would confess for you.

And still

you slept.

on the bathroom floor

trying not to die.

was holding children

with a smile stitched to my face

The sickness eating me alive

from the inside out.

While you fuck, fuck, and fuck.

While I was learning

how to mother her, and her

and mourn the abuse of the man from before

and survive

at the exact same fucking time.

You sleep.

at the grave

holding memories

that now feel like evidence

in a trial

where I was both

the victim

and the fool.

Tell me

does it haunt any of you yet?

Does my name catch in your throat

when the room gets quiet?

Do you ever see my face

in the dark

and think,

holy shit

what have we done?

We took a “goddess”

and taught her to question

her own divinity.

We took sacred

and made her feel disposable.

We took love

and made it feel like humiliation.

Do you understand that?

You did not just hurt me.

You altered me.

You all carved your cowardice

into the architecture of my nervous system.

You made home feel unsafe.

You made tenderness feel like a warning.

You made love wear the face of grief.

And still

Somehow I am alive.

I hope that terrifies you,

I may be little but my will is not

I am the aftermath of the previous storm

I am the woman who crawled

out of the fire the other men started,

with her own name in her mouth.

And one day,

when the guilt finally arrives,

when your perfect little silence

splits open

and the truth comes crawling in,

I hope it is unbearable.

I hope you lie awake

staring at the ceiling,

sick with it.

I hope the guilt is the loudest thing in your life.

I hope love never feels simple again.

I hope every good thing you touch

asks you who you had to destroy

to deserve it.

And I hope,

for one sharp, holy second,

you feel even a fraction

of what you left in me.

Because I was a good woman.

And you all

you fucking knew it.