Mom's Reason for Waiting 10 Years Before Leaving Cheating Husband Applauded

The internet has backed a mother-of-three who left her husband 10 years after he cheated on her.

When the poster served him divorce papers, he called her "cold" and "calculated," accusing her of "deceiving" him for all these years.

The post was shared on Reddit earlier in April, under the username u/SteppingStone23. The woman revealed that, 10 years ago, her now ex-husband cheated on her and she only found out about the affair by chance. Despite all of this, she kept it secret from their children.

About 63 percent of Americans who have ever been in a monogamous relationship say they have never cheated on a partner. Only 33 percent admit to cheating, either physically, emotionally, or both, according to a 2022 survey by YouGov America.

The Reddit poster wrote: "I got a call from school saying that our youngest, then 9, was sick and needed to go home. When we arrived I heard them in our bedroom. I panicked made loud noises to let them know they weren't alone and that our daughter was with me. I'm crying just writing this, I still cry whenever I remember that day."

The poster added that the first year after the affair was the hardest on her, that she felt "insignificant and inadequate," as well as "ugly and undesirable." No matter what her husband would promise or do, things just weren't the same anymore.

The poster wrote: "We started therapy and my husband promised to do anything to make it work again. We moved apartments and bought new furniture and I started a new habit of changing the sheets every night before bed. All of this wasn't as effective as that one morning when I woke up and realized that I wasn't in love with my husband anymore.

"After this realization, everything seemed easier moving forward," she added. "I saw him as a roommate and a great support raising the children. A good friend. We love our children and we wanted the best for them."

From that moment, the poster and her husband never fought again, and stayed together for about 10 more years, raising three "beautiful happy, and successful young people."

The woman added: "When I realized that I didn't love him anymore I also stopped caring what if he did it again. It was one of my nightmares in the beginning. I didn't care anymore as long as I slept in clean sheets every night."

Last Christmas, her youngest daughter, who is now 19, signed a contract for her own first apartment. After she moved out, the poster finally found freedom.

She said: "That's when I knew that I was free. I also set in motion my plans of moving out and getting my divorce. I found myself an apartment too and I thought my husband can live in our apartment until we settled everything up. When I told him and handed him the divorce papers he was in shock and when I moved out the day after my daughter, on April 2, he was even more shocked and distraught.

"Now he is telling me that I have deceived him all these years acting like I was fine when I wasn't, while he lived in regret every day for how he hurt me," the poster added. "I am cold and calculated and I am vindictive. I don't recognize any of these accusations. I don't see things that way. I saw it as me (and him of course) doing the best with what I was dealt to make a happy and content life for our children, our whole family really and I think that I succeeded. What more could anyone ask of me?"

Soula Hareas, a mental-health counselor at Florida-based McNulty Counseling, told Newsweek that a loveless marriage is one of the loneliest places to be. However, sadly, this is more common than people think.

Hareas said: "Many people would have left the moment that they caught their partner cheating. That seems like the logical next step. For some people, things aren't always so black and white.

"Many times, both men and women will stay in a loveless marriage because of the sake of the children. As parents, they feel that sacrificing their own happiness for the sake of their children is best. Others would argue that children pick up on these things and that two happy homes are better than one unhappy home," Hareas added.

"This woman made a conscious choice to emotionally disconnect from her husband in an effort to give her daughter a two-parent home. This type of self-preservation is not so easy. It means that anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, and special occasions go by without excitement about sharing them with your partner."

According to Hareas, the void of not receiving physical touch is like living every day of your life "in an empty shell with no range of emotions." She added that this is not a healthy existence, and to endure this for years and years is "mental torture."

"What people may not understand is that she was probably counting the days until her daughter moved out so that she could finally be free," Hareas said. "Having sex with a spouse [you] are disconnected to can bring on all sorts of negative feelings about not being loved, desired, or safe, and for that she should have gone to therapy instead of trying to deal with all of this mental anguish on her own."

Hareas added: "Many people don't realize that they project those built-up feelings of resentment onto other people in their lives which is not fair. Friends, loved ones, and co-workers get the negative emotions that can't be honestly communicated to the spouse. They sometimes shut people or push people away unknowingly because of all the darkness inside," she said.

Hareas believes that most women in this situation choose to stay for financial reasons and security, adding that "being a single parent is difficult, but it is not impossible."

She added that the poster's reasons for staying, her children, are noble ones but that she should have sought therapy before making the decision.

"It is that moment when she was hurt but BEFORE she fell out of love with him that I would have encouraged her to seek therapy either alone or with her husband," Hareas said.

"Although it may not be a popular mainstream opinion, marriages can be repaired after infidelity. Either that or therapy could have empowered her to leave him or at the very least taught her some coping skills better than just changing sheets to make herself feel better," Hareas added.

The post, originally shared on the r/TrueOffMyChest subreddit, where users discuss their actions with strangers, has now gone viral, receiving more than 16,600 upvotes and 2,000 comments.

Elvishgirl wrote: "I'm not sure how he didn't come to the conclusion that she was checked out. I think I'd notice something was up after less than a week." And HughDanforth posted: "He'll get over the shock like you did. Congratulations."

Newsweek reached out to u/SteppingStone23 via Reddit for comment. We could not verify the details of the case.

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