Husband learns of wife’s emotional affair with 18-year-old online; 'he has sung my daughter to sleep.' AITA? + UPDATE
"I [m27] found out my wife [25f] has been cheating on me online with a young guy [18m]."
I also just heard he's had conversations with our kids as well on voice call doing impersonations of Sebastian the Crab from the Little Mermaid and gave my daughter a nickname.
She first started talking to this guy last year, when he was 17 and my wife 24. She became withdrawn, would let a lot of things slide, lose interest in her hobbies, the household, the kids, her friends, me... she admitted to me, in tears, that she had started chatting a guy from Omegle one night when bored.
They had exchanged contact details, she made a Snapchat just for him and so did he, they began chatting there regularly. This guy is handsome, he's young, he's an athlete and he's fit as can be. He's funny. He's awesome. He mesmerizes her. Makes her laugh all the time. She finds herself falling for him, and she admits her mistake to me.
I am so sad and upset... but I forgive her. She promises to block him. Remove her app. Things are cool for a while but months later I find out she still has Snapchat. She says it's "for her other friends", I push the issue, turns out she still talks to the guy. I am not okay with this. She says they are just friends. I tell her to block his ass. She says she does.
Around December last year I discovered she never did block him. Still talks to him. I am so freaking mad... I break into her phone one day, see her Snapchat open and a message from him. "I love you" it says. Scroll up more and see a picture of my own wife's breasts staring me in the face. She sent him her chest for his birthday...
Once more she blocks the guy. I think things are fine but I am starting to lose my feelings for my wife. One time around Christmas my oldest daughter tells me, excitedly, that she "had a phone call with Sebastian the Crab".
Like the buddy of Ariel the Little Mermaid from the Disney Movie? I shrug it off. I mean four year olds make stuff up all the time right? And she has a very rich imagination. She constantly insists she's a real fairy or princess and claims to have magic powers and whatever.
I find out just yesterday that my wife never stopped talking to the guy until this past February, when he suddenly ghosted her out of nowhere. Which makes sense because she was very sad and depressed at the time.
She then deleted all her apps and accounts in anger, and now has no way of contacting the guy or being contacted by him. Not sure if I even believe that anymore, but sure...
She was sharing all she did to me. Like she wanted it off her chest. I just let her talk and talk, and she admits to it all. She says she really fell in love with him. She mentions how she read a lot on Quora about polyamory (Quora is her Bible!) and that she feels like she can love multiple people at once, that her love for me has not diminished by loving another guy. I call BS.
Then she admits she even had voice calls with the guys at night when I am away (I often work night shift). At times our oldest daughter would wake up and he'd talk to her too. He sang her to sleep a few times. And he pretended to be Sebastian the Crab, which is what my daughter tried to tell me.
She tried to tell on her mama, I think... but I shrugged it off. I am so insanely angry she would allow herself, as a grown woman, to fall for some boy on the other side of the globe. I am feeling betrayed by the fact that she showed her body to him.
What makes me the most mad however is that he talked to my freaking daughter... he even saw her picture and a video. He called her "Little Dua", like the singer Dua Lipa because he thinks she looks like a toddler version of that singer.
The whole thing is so creepy. The fact that he was just seventeen when my wife and him met online is creepy to me. The fact that she allowed him to talk to our firstborn daughter. It's all messed up. I fear she may have wanted to run off with the guy. She's talked a lot about the place he lives, California, and I'm just weirded out by that, too.
I don't know what to do. I'm heartbroken. My wife and I have a daughter, 4, another daughter, 2, and she is currently pregnant as well. She blamed some of her behavior on "pregnancy hormones", which is nonsense.
She also tried to subtly push polyamory on me as well. I'm so... done with her. But I also love our daughters and do not want them to grow up in a broken home. She's gone back to normal in some sense... she does her hobbies, she cares for the kids and runs the household as before.
She is sweet to me, at times. We make love often. But most of the time, as much as it pains me to say... I feel nothing. I'm 27 years old. I felt last year that I had it all. I felt on top of the world. Now I feel like I already lost it.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP’s initial post:
OP - Your wife lied to your face on 4 separate occasions about ceasing contact with this guy, shared explicit photos, and allowed him to speak to your daughter. Only after he ghosted did she delete everything and express she still “loves” you.
Obviously any semblance of trust between the two of you is gone. What happens if she gets bored and starts chatting with a different guy? The fact that it appears she feels she has done nothing wrong or only slightly wrong because she still loves you lots and lots is alarming. Do you think you will trust her again? If not, protect you and your daughter and start anew.
Dingdongdante (OP)
I don't believe I will ever be able to fully trust her again. She's hurt me too much with what she did. The awful thing is that I still love her in so many ways... I still love her mind. I still love her sense of humor. Her passion and her drive. I think she's an amazing mother, or well I used to think so... right now I'm not sure. I just don't know.
But I don't think I can trust her anymore. And if I had the means and it was as easy as snapping my fingers, I'd have her leave by tomorrow. Thing is, I can't. My parents have busy careers, my siblings are busy too, no one could help me out in raising the kids if my wife was out of the picture. I want her out, but then what?
What if next time she starts “talking” to someone nearby? This time I’d think it would be a complete affair with and not just phone sex. (Cuz if you think THAT wasn’t going on I got news for you.)
Four days later, the OP returned with an update.
So here's an update... I have read all the responses to my previous topic but did not find time to respond and reply to each and every one of them individually. The common thought seems to be that I need to "man up" and "take responsibility of my life" and many have advised me to "kick out my wife" or seek legal council and start gathering evidence.
Financially speaking as a young father of soon to be three kids, I cannot just call up a lawyer like that. We are not Americans and we are not in America either so I do not know which laws do and do not apply to our situation.
The guy she had her emotional affair with, however, is in the States but they lost contact and my wife claims she does not know his last name or exact location, only his first name. Some have suggested she was the one being catfished but she says no, because she actually had video calls with the guy and he looked like the images he had previously sent her.
My wife admitted a lot of things to me in our talk... for example, she's a singer-songwriter, or rather, she tries to be one. She has written a lot of songs, passionate, romantic and sweet loving songs over the last half year. I was touched by them before, thought they were about me. Turns out they weren't. Turns out they were about that guy. This devastated me.
The whole affair, my wife said, "inspired her". She told me about how hard-working the guy is. How he is going to a top university, how clever and bright he is, blah blah blah.
She said she considers me lazy, not ambitious enough. That I am good with the kids and all that, a decent provider, but that I am not really someone she sees as being "capable of greatness". She likes the fact that I look good and our kids look good, and that I have a lot of focus on their well-being.
But she "needs a life partner, not just a babysitter". This infuriated me because when I take care of my kids, I am NOT just a babysitter, I am their father and I am caring for them because I love them and I am responsible for them.
She admitted she often thinks of "going back to her own country" and living with her parents (my in-laws are quite well-to-do and my MIL has a lot of time on her hands to help out) - my wife is not originally from the same country as me.
My wife said she'd take the kids... follow her dreams in the city she studied in which she things will give her a better chance at success. She also regrets having married me in the first place. She says that she wouldn't have married me if she knew at the time "how lazy I was".
For the record, I am not lazy. I work night shift three nights a week, also work during days several other days. On the evenings I am home I manage to cook at least twice a week. I do groceries, pick the kids up from school, make them sleep too regularly.
I handle the kids on evenings I am free to allow my wife to go to classes to develop herself. She is pregnant and I massage her at times for up to 90 minutes so her back and legs won't be too painful. I'm a freaking HERO to that woman and she does not realize it.
Instead she compares me to some other guy she's never even met in person and somehow, I don't quite measure up because I didn't go to a top school, I'm not rich, I'm less ambitious and this makes me lazy and useless.
So now I'm looking at my options. I'm 27 years old. I am in decent shape and I am not a bad looking guy. I'm a good father. I'm a good provider. I'm a good son and a loyal friend. I've been a good husband, too, but apparently I'm not good enough.
Well, guess what, neither is she... she's far from sufficient. She's far from "good enough". But I never say even one percent of the hateful and negative nonsense she tells me. Never.
I've told her all this. I have told her how I feel. I told her that I do not feel respected. That I feel like trash, treated like trash, tossed aside like trash. That I will not continue to support her and her dreams if this is what she wants to do.
I also told her that she is not going to take the kids anywhere... that if she wants to leave, she can leave, but she will do it by herself. She is not a citizen yet of my country and I reminded her of the fact... whereas our kids are.
I have taken hold of our kids' passports and now hold them with me as I write this, I am not letting go of them. If she wants to leave she can but it will just be her and the unborn baby leaving and she won't bring any of my stuff with her.
That laptop she has been using to chat to the guy, it's now with me too. I bought her that stupid laptop, I'm taking it back. I'm taking back control of my life. I am still considering what further steps I will take but whatever she has planned I'm not about to lay down and take it.
Since telling me all this, and her hearing my response, all of us as a family have attended a family event. My wife pretended to be fine. She has stopped saying negative things to me.
She's not on her phone any more. I distrust her. But even though I have told her where the door is, she has not left the house either. I think she is backing down a bit by now.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP’s update:
Can your kids have dual citizenship? Just be careful she doesn’t start applying for passports in her nationality. In the absence of a lawyer try google or reddit. Your situation sounds horrible - I couldn’t live with her after what she said.
His wife sounds like an immature brat. And chatting up 17 year olds online - blech. She’s just gross, I wouldn’t want her around my kids anymore.
How’d OP have 3 kids with this horrible person?