'AITA for hooking up with a married woman and causing her divorce, knowing she has kids?'
"AITA for hooking up with a married woman and causing her divorce, knowing she has kids?"
I (21M) have been hooking up with a woman (32F) for about six months. It started as something casual; we met through a mutual friend at a party, hit it off, and things escalated from there. I knew she was married, but she told me that she was in an unhappy marriage and was planning to leave her husband. She made it sound like the divorce was already a done deal, so I didn’t feel too guilty about it.
We continued seeing each other, mostly late at night or during the times she said her husband was out of town. I’ll admit, it was exciting at first. I was young, she was older, and it felt like something out of a movie.
But things started getting serious when she began texting me constantly and wanting to spend more time together. She would vent about how terrible her husband was and how she couldn’t wait to be free from him.
A few weeks ago, her husband found out about us. He was devastated and immediately filed for divorce. She called me in tears, blaming me for everything. She said that if it weren’t for me, her husband wouldn’t have left her, and that now she has nowhere to go and nothing to her name. She even suggested that I should take responsibility and help her out since I "ruined" her life.
She has two kids, a 10-year-old son and a 7-year-old daughter. She claims that her husband is going to fight for full custody and that it’s all my fault that her kids might end up living with him instead of her. She says that because of me, her life is falling apart and her children might grow up without their mother around.
I feel bad about the situation, but I also think it’s unfair for her to put all the blame on me. I never forced her to cheat, and I wasn’t the one who filed for divorce. I’m also not in a position to support her financially or emotionally—I’m still trying to figure out my own life.
So, AITA for hooking up with a married woman and causing her divorce, knowing she has kids?
One person had a very long and popular response:
ESH. You hooked up with a married woman. Of course that's an a^%$ole thing to do.
You fell for the oldest line in the cheaters handbook. Either you are thick as two short planks or you are lying to yourself and us on how believable she actually was because you wanted to hit that without feeling guilty.
You did not break up her marriage because you were not married to her husband. Can you remember putting on a pretty white dress and standing at an alter making lifelong vows of fidelity, loyalty and love? No? Then you weren't the one that owed her husband those things. They were her vows to break and she did. If she doesn't like the consequences she shouldn't have tripped and fallen on 21 year old [____].
Now you are discovering the s^%$show that inevitably comes with sticking your [____] in the middle of someone's family situation. You didn't have to do that, but you did. This is the fallout, and who it hurts is the kids. Who is to blame does not change your involvement in that harm. You get to live with that.
Take it as a life lesson. Learn from it. Discover better morals going forward and BLOCK HER. This is not your dumpster fire and the only way you can compound your current home run of stupid [____] driven decisions would be to getting any more involved in this toxic vortex. Or fall for her immature and manipulative attempt at making you feel beholden to her or the mess she has made of her life.
Block. Block. Blockblockblock. Get out your phone and press the button, before you reach the event horizon. It is the single best decision you can make this year. Feel guilty about it if you like, but do it. Now.
Or at least come back and entertain us with an update after she's ruined your life a bit and given you relationship issues for the rest of your 20s.