'AITA for wanting a divorce after my husband gaslit me over his flirting with a coworker?' UPDATED
"AITA for wanting a divorce after my husband gaslit me over his flirting with a coworker?"
I’m a 30y f married to my 34y m for over six years. We have two beautiful children, a three-year-old and an eight-month-old. We’ve been together for over 10 years, and our relationship has been amazing from the beginning.
About a year ago (I was approximately 6 months pregnant), I noticed my husband paying more attention to his phone whenever he came home from work. So, one night during dinner when his phone kept dinging, I asked him about it. I asked, “Who has your attention lately?”
It was a female coworker who had just transferred to his department, along with a good colleague of his in this group chat. I had never heard of this female coworker, so I tried to play it off as my husband being nice to a new colleague.
Days went by, and that phone became the bane of my existence. It constantly dinged and I was fighting for his attention whenever he got home from work. I had enough. So, one night while he was showering, I went through his phone. And there it was, the group chat, along with instagram messages of just my husband and his female coworker teasing each other about work.
I confronted my husband immediately and confessed that I had indeed gone through his phone. I was certainly embarrassed, as this was a first for me, but I explained that I had a hunch something wasn’t right and needed to see it for myself.
I pointed out that the group chat was quite unusual, but the private chats on Instagram were highly inappropriate for a married man. I simply requested that he refrain from having private chats with her, but I was comfortable with the group chat. He agreed and apologized for making me feel that way.
A few months later ( I am approximately 8 months pregnant), as we were returning home from a summer vacation, my son’s iPad began dinging repeatedly in the backseat of my car. Unbeknownst to me, my husband had inadvertently connected his iCloud to our son’s iPad. Suddenly, there she was, repeatedly appearing on the iPad, sending texts after texts. And this time, there were even pictures…
I was at my wit’s end. I confronted my husband with such rage, anger and distrust. His reasoning was, “You’re just feeling hormonal right now. This isn’t you. You’re not the jealous, insecure type. Once you’re no longer pregnant, you should get to know her, have a drink with her, and you’ll like her.”
Using my own hormones and emotions against me, at 8 months pregnant, I unfortunately caved and believed him and left it at that. Shortly after welcoming our newborn baby and adjusting to our new family of four, we experienced pure bliss. However, our blissful state was short-lived as paternity leave ended, and my husband returned to work, along with my husband’s female coworker.
One evening, after we had tucked the children into bed, I found myself browsing through my husband’s phone, admiring pictures of our children. DING it’s her…
I instantly and without hesitation opened the conversation, and my mouth dropped. It was a conversation where my husband was begging her to work a specialized assignment with just him. The two of them, alone in a car, five days a week. I felt an instant wave of regret.
Regret for not listening to my gut months ago and letting him gaslight me into thinking this situation was all in my head because of my “hormones.” Now, I want a divorce but my husband is now begging me to “not ruin our family”. So, AITA for breaking apart this family?
What do you think? This is what top commenters had to say:
Starry-Dust4444 said:
It’s so disingenuous of your husband to beg you not to divorce him when he was actively pursuing this other woman until you confronted him about his behavior. Had you not gone thru his phone, he’d still be sniffing around that woman & lying to your face every day about it. You should most definitely divorce your husband. He’s not worthy enough to be your partner.
OP responded:
I did ask him this too. I asked him, what would happen if I never saw this conversation? He told me, he’d most likely continue to lie to me about it…
First update:
After reading all these comments and absorbing the advice, I finally realize that I’m not “hormonal” and not the sole reason behind this marriage’s failure. So, thank you for validating my feelings all along.
As for my husband, I’ve asked him to leave the house until I’ve made a decision. Initially, he didn’t believe me, but when I took the kids and told him he better not be here when I return with them, he was beside himself. He completely lost it. He’s begged me to reconsider, offering to block her, leaving his job, and doing anything else to keep us together.
But a few months ago, I politely asked you to stop texting her privately. His response was, “I thought I was just being her friend. I didn’t see it the way you did.” What upsets me is that he didn’t take me seriously back then, but now that I’m packing up our kids and leaving, he suddenly takes me seriously?… We will see what happens when I get home… To be continued…
She later shared this second update:
I returned home from an evening out with my kids, grateful that my husband respected my wishes and wasn’t home when we arrived. After putting the kids to bed, I received a text from my husband asking if he could come over and talk so we could resolve our issues without involving the kids. I agreed.
As soon as I opened the door, he handed me his phone. On the other line, I heard her, the female coworker. She was saying, “Hello? Hello?” I immediately hung up his phone and demanded to know why he wanted me to talk to her.
He claimed they had been discussing all night about how they could convince me that they were nothing more than “just good coworkers.” I reminded him that this marriage is between the two of us, not three, and that the only person who needed to address this mess was himself.
He insisted that I speak with her and even had the audacity to suggest “getting that drink I told you to get with her a few months back when you were no longer pregnant and crazy.” I told him, “Get out and have that drink for me because we are done.”
It took considerable effort to get him to leave, as he sobbed about leaving his children, but I didn’t care. He clearly still wants to gaslight me into believing that this is my issue with her, not his issue with disrespecting our marriage and his “crazy hormonal wife”
Here's what people had to say after the update:
I hate that he did this while you were pregnant and used that against you but I'm glad you found out.
Doesn't sound like they were physical but based on some of your other comments he was interested and so was she. He was headed to a full on affair. And with someone who he was well aware slept with other coworkers.
Is this the type of man you want? One who will accept sloppy seconds, thirds, and fourths?
As for her, she is just as bad as he is. She knew he was married, with kids. And she continued to engage with him after you confronted her? Man, I would blow up her life! Talk to the other wives about her as well if possible.
I absolutely agree. I may be naive but I personally do not think they had an affair. He works day shift, surrounded by tones of people, in the public eye at all times, comes off right after work, drops the kids off at daycare every morning. I just don’t see where he would find the time.
But if there is a will, there is a way. I think that if this doesn’t stop NOW, it will absolutely lead to a physical affair. That I am not naive about.
Every time I have caught him texting her, it’s gotten more and more inappropriate.
I can't believe he had the nerve to say that aloud to his WIFE. I'm so sorry you're going through this but you and the kids deserve so much better than this fool.
About 5 months later OP added this:
Hi! It’s been almost FIVE MONTHS since I’ve updated all of you on my original post! I haven’t forgotten about you all and I’ve been thinking of updating you all many times!
I was just waiting for the perfect time and I feel like now is the perfect time to update you all.
We. Are. DIVORCING! Finally!
Originally, we took some time apart to cool off, dig deep and think about what WE really wanted while not letting any of this affect our children (to the best of our ability).
We did couples therapy, individual therapy and even a vacation away, just the two of us….
Everything just felt like it was falling back into place, like before any of this was even a thing. I was starting to come to terms with the emotional affair and the gaslighting until… well I’m sure you guessed it, the female coworker came back (not that I think she ever left).
I was so close to trusting him again, but for s's and giggles, I went through his phone ONE. LAST. TIME.
And by god, wouldn’t you believe I found a picture of my husband in his female coworkers car, running errands for her. I didn’t need an explanation, I didn’t even read the context of how and why he was there. I simply laughed.
We put the kids the bed and I said, “do I need to make you an errand list in order to get your full attention?” He automatically knew exactly what I was referring to. I told him to get out, and maybe call into work the next day because he should spend the day looking for a divorce lawyer.
And really… that was simply it. We are currently in the divorce process and it’s going as smooth as you can imagine. Getting all his legal advice from “coworkers”. L. O. L.
Again I just wanted to say thank you all for all the love and support. My hormonal self thanks you all from the bottom of my heart 💙