TLDR: Wife cheated on me with 6 men and one women since January while using work as the excuse of where she was. Was into the BDSM scene and now wants to make things work with me and possibly bring me into that lifestyle. How do I move on, with or without her and the kids?
Hold on to your seats. I think this is a doozy. I could be mistaken and this is just par for the course for cheaters.
I'll start with the background of our relationship. We would be married for 13 years this year. Together for 22 years. Yes it took me a while to propose. I wanted to be sure. I thought I was. I'm not sure of anything anymore, but I digress. We had an abortion before due to the medication my wife was on for an autoimmune disease. The medication was known to cause birth defects and complications. Due to our age and financial status at the time it was something we both felt we did not want to tempt. So an abortion was had after consulting her neurologist. After the abortion we talked and decided that once all the medication was out of her system with the blessing of her neurologist that we would actively start trying to have a child. I had suggested we wait until whenever she wanted. Her neurologist suggested to start as soon as possible, so we did. The outcome of that was a baby boy. Two month before he was born we moved 17hrs away from where we were currently living for my work. A better opportunity with the parent company I was working for. She was on maternity leave and was considering not going back to her employment as it was burning her out. I don't think she had an issue with not going back. Where we moved to was also where her parents lived and much closer to my own. Having some grandparents for support we figured would be a benefit. That was seven (7) years ago. Well one child prompted us to have another. By the time we were pregnant with our second child, a girl this time. We had a diagnosis of our son as severely autistic and non-verbal. He is currently 6.5 and is still non-verbal. Our daughter was recently diagnosed as autistic as well; however, she is not nearly as severe and most people would not assume that she is.
As one can imagine, young children, especially with special needs puts a substantial amount of stress onto the relationship. I had figured it was a rough patch. Perhaps a long rough patch but that we would get through it as we had for our relationship in the past.
A week before Father's day, I found proof that she was cheating on me. I was devastated. I'd never been so angry in my life. As much as I don't want to get into specifics, I feel they MAY play a factor. I will try to explain as much as I can from what we have discussed in the days since I found out.
How did I find out? I looked at her phone and undeleted text messages. Yes I have the passcode to her phone, she had the passcode to mine as well.
Why would I even bother to check for undeleted text messages you might ask. In the beginning of the year, Jan or Feb, she said she wanted to go out with some friends of friends and maybe meet new friends, all well and good. I said yes, perhaps grudgingly as I would be left to get both our kids to bed, who won't fall asleep without someone with them. So be it. Everyone deserves to have a fun time. As I said I track her phone simply with Google maps and location sharing. Well wouldn't you know it, the cell service that night for her was not great. Yeah, I was too trusting. It would show her location at where she told me she was going and then offline for the next X number of hours until I went to sleep and she came home.
In the city we live, I can't say that it was to be unexpected. I should have picked up on it when it happened at her work and it didn't do that during the days that I knew she was at work.
She would constantly be on her phone at home and ignoring myself and our children, when I'd ask what she was doing it was the typical, scrolling facebook/instragram. She was not doing that, but was rather good at changing apps on the iPhone if i were to try to take a peek at the screen without me realizing she was changing apps.
It turns out she was either texting other people, one of which she told me the name of, as it was her friend to go out with for girls nights. It wasn't girls nights. Or other men or using the website fetlife.com.
I had actually seen some text between her and this girl which got my spidey senses up. In this girls text she referred to Dad, Daddy, Hubbie and Husband. I asked my wife what's up with that and are they all the same person? She assured me they were. Surprise, they were not. As far as I know now, Dad and Daddy are the same person, a side piece she's had on Hubbie/Husband for at least a year. In fact it may have started as them trying to spice up their life with another man, so be it, who am I to judge.
On this morning I thought I'd see, as I am nosey and I thought we had open communication in our marriage, of what the texts to this girl were about. I know, invasion of privacy, probably not a good thing. Well there were no messages to this girl, even the ones I had seen before. That's weird. How do you undelete text messages on an iPhone? It's really easy, two taps. Well that did show approximately 100 text to this girl, ok AND a hundred or so to another guy and another 300 to yet another guy. Curiosity got the best of me and I undeleted EVERYTHING I COULD.
I went straight to the texts with the most deleted. Started scrolling up the messages, not really reading them, scanning, looking for words that might stand out. What did I find, honestly, the first thing that made me question would have been the latest picture she sent which was really just a nice selfie, perhaps showing a bit too much cleavage for a friend, but not so much that I should be overly concerned, other than why are you sending this person I don't know any pictures of yourself without telling me?
So I confronted her. This was say around 9am. She had been 'working' the day before and 'on call' the night before. Not getting home until around 4am? I'm not sure, I was asleep. She wasn't at work that day, nor was she on call. She was at her parents house as they were out of town for the week and she had organised a foursome. She tells me the foursome fell through but she did have sex with some of them there anyway.
I yelled, I screamed, I asked who the F*ck this is? What have you been doing? I hadn't gone through much of the texts and she was panicking and said nothing happened, they only kissed. I accepted this, as I still had the phone and went upstairs to look at the texts some more. It became very apparent, far to quickly that they did a lot more than just kiss. I then went and confronted her again. This time the admits to sleeping with him, she says 4 or 5 times and blowing him. I asked is it 4 or 5, she then says 5. Turns out, it was a lot more than 5. I yell at her to get the F*CK out. She doesn't. I try to leave, she hugs my leg, crying begging me not to leave. I knew I couldn't stay at that time as I didn't trust myself with the anger I was feeling. I eventually left and went to a friends to talk about things.
While at my friends she tries to delete her fetlife account. It sent an email saying the account is in the delete queue. I had her phone, access to her email. I undeleted the account and found WAY more to spark my anger and hurt and feelings of absolute betrayal. I saved as much as I could from the account, screenshots of the text messages. Screenshots of snapchat as she was sending a lot of people snapchats of herself, in very NSFW poses. Turns out one of the people she knows personally and he was aware of what was happening and never once tried to tell me.
I did return home that evening to keep the routines with our children and get the to bed as normal. I then told her I didn't want her sleeping at our house that night. She can go stay at her parents. I did allow her to come back in the morning to help with the morning routines to get our children to school/daycare/therapy.
What did I find on fetlife? Her first encounter with another man was for impact play. I feel this was because she did suggest flogging sometime in January. I admit my answer could have been better worded. I said that the idea didn't do anything for me but I would be willing to try it for her.
Another thing we did try, apparently when she was already stepping out on the marriage that I again said the idea didn't really do much for me but again was willing to try, and did, was an anal hook. Yes, she's clearly into some kinky things. Not a bad thing, I was willing to explore that aspect of her sexuality. It was apparently too little too late.
She had a few encounters with other men, all under the guise of working or working late/on call. These encounters were of the BSDM nature, impact play, flogging and such. One person was very much into the CNC (Consentual Non-Consent). She tells me of two such encounters with this one individual. The first at his house? The second was supposed to be in a public washroom, apparently it was too busy so they played it out at her work. Both of which seem like a telling of a rape or domestic violence victim. Except she liked it and wanted it.
Then she met up with a Dom, who eventually, probably rather quickly said he didn't want to share her with other men unless he met them first and some other rules. He had said that he wanted to 'break' her, whatever that meant, I haven't got a good answer for that either. He also collared her, with a collar she bought. She spent a fair amount of money from our joint accounts on lingerie that I saw a small selection of, toys, BDSM paraphanalia, hotels and clothes. The clothes was under the guise of a new job that encouraged business casual instead of her usual scrubs from previous jobs.
All of these meetups her phone would be on incognito mode in google maps so I wouldn't know where she was. Very dangerous and I'm surprised and thankful nothing worse happened. The city we're in, while small, has a substantial amount human trafficking.
Back to this Dom. The stories she told people were obviously false, with crumbs of the truth. This Dom that she was with never told her his real name. Was very careful to not have identifying comments on Fetlife. He never let his face be posted. She had a few pictures that did show his face.
Once she told him that I had the phone, which I pay for, in my name, with my discount. He freaked out. He was also married, less than a year, with a 3yr old. He dropped a name of someone that I knew of. I knew her husband. I cropped the photo for his face to get his name. It was provided to me eventually the monday after I had found everything. I was told his wife's name on Facebook and I told her. The Dom was kicked out of his house that night. The person I asked for correctly assumed that the person he was with was my wife. I wasn't about to say otherwise.
She tells me she wants to work things out. She does accept that she messed up and it's all her fault. Says part of the reason is that I've been distant, haven't made her feel attractive or desirable. Our sex life has not been what either of us have wanted for a while either. It wasn't down to zero, but it wasn't much more than that. Maybe once or twice a month. It's hard to find time with young children that fall asleep around 830-930 and then are in our bed as early at 1130 sometimes earlier. Not excuses, simply circumstance. We're also very tired, illness with young children, the usual.
She says she got caught up in it, feeling attractive and desirable. Apparently she had ~500 followers on fetlife and they created a fetish? or something about her and the pictures she would post on there. No I won't say what it is. Don't ask.
Before she says it became physical she talked about setting up an onlyfans account, which I was all for. Why she didn't show me what was happening on fetlife then is beyond me and hurts me deeply.
In conversations to many men she told them that we were separating, already separated, moving out soon, already moved out with the kids. And that I was physically abusive towards her. Just to be clear, I have never hit a woman. I have never hit my wife. I would never and could never. Harsh words were obviously spoken in the past. She made comments about my fat lazy impotent ass. Again, I've never had an issue in performing, not that it matters.
She did not sleep at the house for two nights. On the third night, we talked until the wee hours of the morning where it didn't make sense for an hour drive round trip to be able to be with the kids in the morning. I let her sleep in the spare room.
I was looking at her snapchat pictures, and apparently I'm a foolish man and made a comment of I don't know if I want you to leave right now or blow me. Well she decided that meant I wanted her to blow me. She did. It didn't end with oral. We tried flogging and paddles. It was a sexual release. I hate myself that I allowed myself to do that. It didn't stop with that night. We've done something pretty much every night since then and I hate myself for it.
I keep reading older messages as I apparently like to pour salt into this wound. I'm a mess. She broke me.
She has since been tested for sti/std's. She says then all came back clean. I have a dr appointment coming up, I will be asking for the same tests.
I tried to get in contact with a lawyer to understand the process and to be honest to see what I could do if anything to protect my assets as I don't want to be take to the cleaners in the event of a divorce on top of everything else. Also how my chances of custody of the kids would be. Unfortunately the law firm I contacted said there was a conflict of interest and I now need to find another one.
I'm sure there's a lot I've left out or forgotten to include. Even though this is a very long post. If you made it this far, I commend you. This is obviously a throwaway, she knows my main account. I know her main account, I didn't know her alternate reddit account. I do now, she may have more.
At this point I'm open to any comments/suggestions. I'll read them all. I'll reply when I can. I will try to get this throwaway on my phone so I have access to it.
What are peoples opinions of partners that stay with their partner that did cheat on them? I'm not sure what to do. Some people tell me staying with her is the hardest choice. I'm not sure I agree. It seem too easy to me. I want to do what's best for my children first and foremost.
Again if you read this far thank you. I'm not sure writing this all out has been cathartic or not.