'AITA for taking my ex-husband's mistress' side in their fight?' UPDATED

"AITA for taking my ex-husband's mistress' side in their fight?"

HistoricalSherbet890

About a year back, my husband, Jack (39M) and I (36F) got separated with plans to divorce. Long story short, don't leave your phone on and open with the nudes you just received while you go jerk off in the bathroom. I confronted him, he basically admitted to cheating, though it was a "one-time thing". In hindsight, I probably wanted to believe that.

We had a huge argument and he agreed to go to his parents place for a few days while I tried to figure out what the hell to do with myself. That sinking feeling, that everything is going down the drain... or lives together, all of those years, memories, our kids. It was without a doubt the worst time in my life and I was so angry.

Jack was super apologetic and begged me to no go straight to divorce, that it was a misstep and we could work it out. I really wanted that to be true, so we went to therapy to try to talk it out.

All the way, he was saying that he would do anything to make it right, I just had to name it. But in the end I just couldn't see how I could trust him again, so we agreed to separation.

Jack moved out and all in all it was rather civil. We thankfully had an apartment that I could manage rent for on my own and he was agreeing to everything I wanted done in a certain way.

The only issue was our kids. I'm not going into details about them, but they are in the age range 10-13 y/o, two girls. Jack was living on a friend's couch and couldn't have the kids there for sleeping over.

So the first about six months he would pick them up after breakfast on the weekend and drop them off after dinner the same day. I want to stress that I never held the kids from him.

He is a loving dad who cares greatly for them and we were in agreement that it was more important for him to save on rent and find something permanent, even if it meant seeing the kids less in the beginning. They missed him but understood that it was temporary.

About a month after the divorce was final, Jack texted me (we communicated primarily about the kids) that he had found a place to live and wanted to kids to come over for the whole weekend.

Part of that hurt a lot, that we were really not married anymore but my kids come first, always. So we arranged it for the following weekend and they were over the moon. Frankly, I was looking forward to a weekend to myself as well.

The kids come home on Sunday and they want to tell me everything about it, Jack has found a nice place and is settled in and there is a guest room where the kids can sleep and everything seems great. We decide (over text) that they can come over every other weekend so he can start seeing them more.

After their third visit, kids come home and I just know something is up. Like, I can feel it, they are not nearly as cheery. I end up setting them down with a bowl of ice cream and start trying to talk about their visit. That's when the words "dad's new girlfriend" come to light.

That a$$hat has introduced them to his new girlfriend, who is actually the owner of the apartment. He had moved in with her and she made herself invisible the first few times.

After bedtime I text Jack to ask what this is about and why he didn't let me know beforehand. Basically he confirms that his new girlfriend is the woman he cheated with. That was like a knife in my heart.

This whole time he had been telling me that he wanted to give me space and I just had to say what would make it better for us to get back together. He was so thoughtful and attentive that I almost considered giving him a second chance... while he was moving in with his mistress!

Ever since then, I have asked him to ONLY contact me if it is about the kids. I want nothing to do with him besides that. The girls are definitely feeling the tension but they do tell me that the new woman (Jane) is nice to them and really does try to give them time to get used to things, so I kinda settled into this being how things is now.

Okay, now for the actual AITA part.

About two weeks ago, I get a text from an unknown number. It's Jane, introducing herself and apologizing for reaching out to me but she has a concern about one of the girls and Jack is telling her it's nothing and not to worry about it.

This has me pretty worried, so I agree to meet with her at a Starbucks in town because I couldn't forgive myself if something horrible happened to my kid and I ignored the warnings because they came from Jane.

We meet up and it is super awkward because she dives right in and starts apologizing for the affair. I try to tell her that I do NOT want to hear it, she can tell me about my daughter or I am leaving.

She blurts out that Jake told her that we were already divorced when they met and only lived together while things were getting settled between us. That "couch at a friend's house"? Never existed. He moved right in with her. He knew the kids would give it away, so he made up that lie to hide it.

I basically tell her that she had ten seconds to get to the part about my daughter and she tells me that she is going to break up with Jack and she wanted me to know because she knew that this would mean another uprooting for my kids and she felt genuinely upset at having to do that.

She told me she had found out because she had been cleaning up her office that he uses when working from home and had found some of the papers from the divorce and saw that the date was way off from what he had told her.

I thanked her for the heads up about the break-up, because I know my kids are going to be upset and now I had a chance to try and soften the blow. We both leave and I was just readying myself for Jack to share the news (I was confident he would go back to trying to "save" our marriage once the bomb fell).

Little over a week goes by and I make up an excuse to keep the kids that weekend, just in case. Still nothing until Jane texts me again. She had confronted Jack about the papers but he had already hidden them and has spent days trying to gaslight her into believing that she must have seen it wrong and convincing her to stay together.

She asks me straight up for a copy of the final document, which we both have of course. I ended up sending her a scanned copy by email with a note that I do not want to be contacted again by her.

Well, Jack got himself kicked out, he's living with his parents (for real this time) and he is blowing up my phone and my email and work email, calling me A-hole and a vindictive b-word for getting involved in their relationship.

Basically he blames the break-up on me for "getting revenge" and is telling everyone in his family and social circle that I made up lies to poison Jane against him because of the divorce. Even some of my family says I should have stayed out of it.

Maybe I shouldn't have sent her those papers but on the other hand, he put himself in this situation with his lies, she was going to find out sooner or later. AITA for giving her proof of his lies?

Here were the top rated comments from readers:

elcasaurus

I mean good on the girlfriend. She never knew she was the other woman and ditched him as soon as she found out.

God. People think they can get away with anything.

ActonofMAM

Yep. At the minimum, she was trying to be decent to the girls, who are and were innocent parties. I'm also a big fan of telling the truth as close to all the time as humanly possible. She had every right to know the facts about the divorce. No reason anyone should lie to keep whatsisname from facing consequences for his actions.

flipside1812

This reminds me of a clip I saw once from an old black and white movie, where the wife literally catches her husband in bed with another woman, and he denies the whole thing while he and the woman gets dressed, and then the woman leaves and he's like "What are you talking about, there's nobody here" to his wife.

Beautiful-Story2811

Gurl, sleep well at night and don't give this a second thought. You EX is a lying, cheating AH who f***** around and found out. BOO. HOO. IF you feel so inclined, and you just have to clear your name.

You could share the text and email exchanges, etc. that you had with Jane, with any flying monkeys for John, and let the chips fall where they may. But I'm petty like that. Don't waste your energy. Mute and Block are a whole mood. NTA.

pickensgirl

Well, well, well. Look at Jack. Reaping what he has sown. He planted lies and that vine grew so rapidly. Expanding. Taking over. Leaving no room for the new life he was scheming to create. Pushing him out. Back to his parents. Which feels right. He has the emotional maturity and self control of a ten year old. Parenting is needed.

Fluffykins0801

Situations like this make me happy I’m single.

Update from OP after reading the comments:

First, I want to thank everyone who took time to comment, and thank you to those of you who shared similar experiences. I might update at some later point, but right now everything is pretty chaotic and I'm looking into therapy for myself (kids are covered) because I feel like I don't even know who my husband was anymore.

I called his mother last night. They are my kids' grandparents and I want to have a good relationship with them, despite what their dad is doing. I told her that they had the right to support their son but I wanted to tell them my side of things and then we could deside how we moved forward in regards to the kids.

I've always had a good relationship with my inlaws, so I figured she would be open to at least hearing me out.

The call ended up being more than 2 hours because, surprise, surprise... he fucking spun this far out lie to them about the whole divorce and everything. That we split because he fell out of love with me and found his soulmate in Jane. That I held the kids from him to spite him because of Jane. That I sabotaged his new relationship because I am bitter.

I took the advice of a lot of you and just laid it out, pure facts. What happened when, nothing else. She was not too happy to say the least. I know they had a serious talk with him because a handful of unknown numbers have been calling and texting me as fast as I can block them.

I'm going LC with a lot of people right now and just focusing on the kids and helping them through this because they didn't ask for any of this.