TL:DR – My (M32) wife (F33) of 8 years met a “musician” on tiktok and ended up talking and exchanging inappropriate pictures and texts with this person only to find out this person wasn’t real and either a bot or scammer. Am I overreacting for being hurt and not knowing how to move forward?
I (M32) noticed a couple weeks ago that my wife (F33) was acting distant and very uninterested in me. I asked her if she was mad at me to which she said “no…just have been in a funk.” I just felt something was off so I waited until she fell asleep and I went through her phone, something I have never done since we were together (over 10 years). Well upon opening her phone, I found a text thread with a guy and they were calling each other babe and stuff along with some extremely explicit texts and pictures. I woke her up and pretty much told her we were done.
I left to cool off and came back and her and I talked more to which she said he was a musician in Nashville and he randomly added her on tiktok and they started talking innocently to which it lead to something more. She told me she hadn’t felt appreciated or wanted in awhile and it just sort of happened but “she didnt know what she wanted.” I basically told her that if she wanted to run off with some musician then whatever but she can be the one to explain it to our kids (we have 2 young girls). She went to bed and I just stayed up all night just in complete disbelief trying to work out my feelings.
In the morning, her personality changed and was very apologetic and asked if we could talk later that day. I said sure for the sake of our kids. I pretty much cried all day, something I rarely do, but wanted to try and work through it because I don’t want my kids to grow up with me only in their lives 50% of the time. I went through their messages as I took pictures of them in case I needed them for divorce court and I noticed that all the pics that were sent to her from this guy were from this persons social media which seemed odd. As we talked later that day, I asked her more.details of them messaging on tiktok and she said “well it wasnt his main account it was another account and that’s why she gave him her number because he said his other account was going to be banned soon.” This immediately confirmed my suspicion that it was a scammer or catfisher and simply did a google search of “Tiktok Musician Scam” to find a video from the actual musician saying he was getting reports that people were making fake profiles pretending to be him to scam women. So yea, my wife of 8 years was emotionally cheating on me with a fake person.
I honestly don’t know what to do. I love her with all my heart but I’m honestly broken. We have never had a trust issue in 10 years of being together and all of that is gone. I admit that I havent been the perfect husband. I work in professional sports so I’d work 14 hours a day and come home and just play video games for an hour before bed to destress and then do it all over again 5 more days in a row. So I get that I can be responsible for the deterioration of our relationship that may have pushed her to do this, but I just don’t know how I am supposed to trust her and also unsee the texts messages, especially the sexual stuff that I wish she would do with me.
Am I overreacting for being hurt and not knowing how to move forward? – Hurt and Confused