'AITA for wanting to divorce my wife after discovering the full truth of her cheating?'
"AITAH for changing my mind about forgiving my wife for cheating after she signed a post-nup in my favor?"
ThrowRA661155 writes:
My wife, Ella (32), and I (35) have been together for seven years, married for five. Two years ago, she admitted to cheating on me with a co-worker. I had always believed that cheating was a red line for me, and I was initially determined to divorce her.
However, she did the work to regain my trust (or so I believed at the time). I also factored in the following, which allowed me to eventually move past it and forgive her: She confessed to me voluntarily; she wasn’t found out and forced to tell me.
It happened one time at a housewarming party with a co-worker. I remember that night; she didn’t return home until 4 a.m., and I sent her several texts checking in to see if she was okay and if she needed me to pick her up (she normally doesn’t like to drink but occasionally succumbs to peer pressure, so I was worried she might have been too drunk to drive).
She quit her job after confessing to me. This was her own choice to prove that she was prepared to hold herself to better boundaries (I actually discouraged her at the time because I was set on divorcing her and was concerned that her lack of a job would mean I would need to pay higher alimony if she was unemployed).
When I was 19 years old, I also cheated on my then-girlfriend (not Ella) via a drunken kiss. Obviously, it wasn’t as bad as what Ella did, which was full-on intercourse, but part of me felt like a hypocrite for not being able to forgive Ella (because my college girlfriend had forgiven me).
Given the above—and the fact that Ella genuinely seemed remorseful, everything else in our relationship was great, and she was the most compatible person I had ever dated personality-wise—I decided to forgive Ella and not divorce her on the condition that she signed a post-nup.
She enthusiastically agreed. The post-nup isn’t overly harsh, in my opinion; aside from affirming that our pre-marital assets won’t go into the settlement in the event of a divorce, it also included an infidelity clause with the penalty of the cheater forfeiting our jointly owned home, the car, and alimony in the event of a divorce.
The balance would also be split 60/40 in favor of the cheated spouse rather than 50/50. We both had independent legal advice when this was drafted and signed. Fast forward to last month when I was contacted on Facebook by Alice, the wife of my wife’s affair partner. She had tracked me down by going through Ella’s social media.
She told me that she had caught her husband, Bill, cheating on her and discovered their affair from two years ago after going through his electronic devices. She asked if I knew, to which I replied that I did, but I thanked her for telling me anyway.
She asked what had happened between Ella and me, and I told her that we had reconciled. She said she was determined to divorce Bill because, unlike my wife, Bill had proven to be a serial cheater and never confessed to her.
The part that has since changed my mind about forgiving Ella is the fact that she revealed that Bill and Ella had actually been having an affair for five months. I clarified if she meant an emotional affair, but she clarified that it was a physical affair and that they had hooked up over ten times.
In my mind, this makes the affair so much worse. It wasn’t just a drunken night; it was a long period of planned and deliberate choices, and I feel like an absolute fool. This past weekend, I confronted Ella, and she admitted it.
I asked why she didn’t tell me the full truth, and she said she didn’t believe I would have forgiven her if I had known. She’s been trying to convince me that it’s in the past, we’ve made two years of progress since, and it doesn’t matter whether it was once or ten times. She argues that her confession showed true remorse.
But my current thought is that the omission shows that even in her confession, her main concern was protecting herself rather than respecting me as a spouse by giving me the agency to make a fully informed choice—not that different from never telling me in the first place. I am now strongly considering divorce again and relying on the post-nup for a more favorable divorce settlement. AITAH?
OP responded to some comments:
_Ravyn_ says:
While I cannot blame you for divorcing her over the fact that it was a full blown affair rather then just one night cheating. I am not sure your post-nup will hold up in court because of the fact that the infidelity happened before it was signed. I'm not a lawyer and could be wrong, but you should definitely inquire with your lawyer about it before making that decision.
OP responded:
Thank you. Honestly even if the infidelity clause doesn't hold I'll be glad if the other clauses of the post-nup still remain valid. But you're right I'll get some further legal advice.
DelseresMagnumOpus says:
The fact that’s she knew you’d get upset if she knew how many times she cheated on you is admission enough. She framed it as a one time thing, and that’s somewhat more forgivable than a period of months.
You’re NTA, and if you feel that you can’t come back from this, you’re not wrong for wanting divorce. However, you guys have supposedly worked through this and although the circumstances are no longer the same, you might want to talk things through and have some counselling, regardless of what you decide to do.
OP responded:
I still had a lot of trust in her at first because she had voluntarily confessed. My thought process then was that "okay so you at least have a conscience to tell me after but you clearly are able to do some kind of mental gymnastics to excuse it to yourself in the moment. How do I trust that this won't happen again."
I guess this is what made her decide to quit her job to try to prove this part to me. But now that I know her truth to me was actually quite far from the actual truth, I feel I can't trust anything she says now so how do I rebuild trust when there isn't a shred of trust left to rebuild from?