AITA for being hurt and considering confronting the woman my husband was emotionally involved with after he ended our 13-year relationship?
My husband (29M) and I (29F) have been together for 13 years, married for 10. We met as kids and started dating long distance between Northern and Southern California. After I graduated high school, I moved to be with him, and we built a life together through military life, multiple state moves, two kids, and eventually settling in Tennessee.
I don’t regret our life together, but looking back I realize I spent most of our relationship putting him and our kids before myself. I handled most of the home and childcare so he could focus on work, training, and hobbies like the gym, golfing, Ironman training, and church. I supported his goals, but often felt left out of his personal world.
We also went through two miscarriages, which were very painful for both of us. After the second one, and after he completed an Ironman, we both seemed to drift emotionally—he lost his routine and I focused heavily on surviving emotionally and caring for our kids.
Around that time, a female coworker entered the picture. She got his number from a work group text and began texting him. I told him I was uncomfortable with it early on, but he continued anyway. Over about three months, they exchanged nearly 5,000 messages. I found out he had been deleting messages, hiding notifications, and concealing the conversation.
Whenever I confronted him, he insisted she was “just a friend” and promised to stop, but the behavior continued. The secrecy and dishonesty completely broke my trust. I tried to leave once, but he convinced me to stay. We briefly tried counseling, but he didn’t want to continue.
Since then, my confidence and sense of self have been really damaged. Even now, he doesn’t fully believe he did anything wrong.
Recently, he told me he no longer thinks he loves me and ended our marriage, saying his feelings changed over time because he felt unloved. I’m devastated because I truly gave everything I had to our marriage and family.
We haven’t told our kids yet, and I’m struggling most with how this will affect them. Our oldest will be heartbroken.
I feel completely lost because I thought we would be together forever.
AITA for wanting to confront her? She likely doesn’t know she had a role in this—should I say something to her, or just leave it alone and focus on moving forward?