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'Just found out my late husband was cheating on me and his mistress is coming to the memorial.' UPDATED

'Just found out my late husband was cheating on me and his mistress is coming to the memorial.' UPDATED

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"My [30F] husband [33M] [8 years] died two months ago and I just found out he had been cheating for the past two years."

First I apologize for any English mistakes, it’s not my native language. I lost my husband and my sister-in-law in a car accident about two months ago. We had been together for eight years, married for six. He was the light of my life, and someone I was extremely excited to spend the rest of my life with.

We were compatible on so many parts, the intimacy was amazing even after eight years and I still got all giggly just by thinking about him. I think I’ve coped with his death quite well. The first month was just a big shutdown, I didn’t leave the house, I hardly ate and all my time was just spent looking at our wedding video over and over.

Luckily I have a great boss who understand and without hesitation gave me a four months leave. In november I pushed myself to get out of my bubble. I’ve tried to keep busy to get back to my everyday life. I’ve cleaned the house, had people over for dinners, gone out for lunches and tried to be a good support for my husbands family who lost two precious family members in one day.

We're all devastated, but we cry it out together and I feel we’ve become even closer by being there for each other. So as I’ve been feeling better I decided to slowly look over my husbands stuff to see if there’s anything to throw out and put everything in boxes until I can manage to go through it all without crying.

That’s when I decided to access his computer to look for any important mails or such. So I checked his mail and also logged onto his Facebook account and except for over 100 goodbye messages on his wall, there was three private messages, and one was from this woman whose name I’ve heard him mention a long time ago as a childhoodfriend.

I was so disgusted by their conversation filled with clear evidence that he had been cheating on me. It had places they agreed to meet, trips they’ve made when I thought he was on buisnesstrip/trip with his friends, sexual flirts, hugs and kisses, and even declarations of love. When checking his phone there were no messages, but the last phonecall was from her.

Having to confirm I called his closest friend and asked about the trips. He just paused and then apologized before telling everything. Apparently he had a crush on her in middle school and awoke old feelings when she flirted with him at a reunion two years ago. It seems a lot of our friends, even his secretary knew about it and tried to convince him to stop..

I don’t even know how to function anymore. One part of me wants to mourn for my husband, I miss him so much. I want him next to me when I go to bed, I want back our fun drives to work in the morning and I miss his warm smile. But the other part of me feels so deceived and I want nothing else but to go kick and spit on his grave until I’m satisfied.

A few days have passed, I haven’t been able to answer any phone calls or messages from his family. I know they probably don’t know and they sincerely worry for me, but I just can’t face them with the hate I have in me right now. I’m so frustrated and confused, I want him here to explain everything to me!

So I created a reddit account just to get this out of my system. I have no idea who to talk to about this, since most of our friends knew about it for some time but never told me anything. I’ve never felt this alone and betrayed. Please give me some wise words to handle this. I feel strange and confused for mourning and missing him when I at the same time hate his guts.

How do I face his family? should I tell them? We just had a private funeral and in one month we’re having an open ‘reception’ for everyone to come to pay their respect. Now I’m worried she might come. I know it’s open for the public, but I really don’t want to meet her. Should I try and prevent it, or just skip the reception myself?

tl;dr: My husband died two months ago, and I found out he's been cheating on me for two years. I don't know what to do with my feelings, I can't face his family and I'm worried she'll come to the open 'reception' we're holding in a month.

EDIT Oh gosh, thank you everyone from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to give me advice in a difficult situation, it helps me so much just to know that you all spent some time of your life comforting me and giving me advice. I will spend my afternoon reading through everything and maybe in one or two weeks I'll post an update if I've decided what to do with the situation.

A lot of people pointed out that I need counselling, and I've already booked two appointments this coming week, so I'm on it and I feel very positive towards it. Once again, thank you!

EDIT2 Someone worried for children in the picture. He and I didn't want children so no, gladly there's no children in this situation.

What do you think she should do? This is what top commenters had to say:

said:

Death is not an excuse for the life someone lived, and dying does not martyrize them into someone who cannot be criticized.

[deleted] said:

I think you should be honest with his family. Not completely honest about all the details, but something like "I was going through his email and found something I wish I didn't. I still love him and am still grieving, but it's added some other feelings to my grief and I will need to process it alone for a while.

I hope you understand." They need to know that you haven't abandoned them randomly, and that you will come back to them when you can. They've lost a son and daughter already, they shouldn't have to lose their daughter-in-law as well.

Don't stay in touch with any of your friends who knew. One day, you may forgive them. Today is not that day. When you are at the service, be civil to them but don't have any conversations or discussions. If they try talking to you, just walk away. You're the grieving widow, there's a lot you can do to break the usual rules of politeness.

Get one of the friends to tell her not to dare show up. If she does, get the funeral director to kick her out. She has no role there, but you do. Don't skip it because of this, you will regret it.

And definitely look for grief counseling. You have way more to handle right now than any one person can, and at the same time you can't turn to a lot of your usual support system. You need outside help, please get it.

Do not contact her yourself. Do not contact her husband, if she has one. She's just not worth it. This is about you coming to terms with two losses at the same time. It's about your husband. She has no role to play here.

said:

If your husband's best friends knew about the affair, he might be able to get in contact with the woman for you and make it crystal clear she is not welcome at the reception. Frankly it's the least he can do for you. I am so, so, sorry for your losses.

And said:

Honestly, if I found out my husband was having an on going affair- even after he passed away I would be lividly pissed. Just because he has passed away doesn't excuse or make it all right that he cheated on you. I wouldn't tell his family, it's none of their business that he had an affair, it's yours.

I would question your "friends" as well for not telling you. I would cut anyone out of my life that knew, but chose not to tell me that my husband cheated on me. They took away the opportunity from you to decide whether you wanted to forgive him or not for cheating.

Later, OP shared this update on the situation:

I still have very confused feelings regarding my husband and right now I feel there is no way to forgive him. I try to think of the great times we had together, but I always find myself caught in the “He knew what he was doing yet he smiled at me like that.” thinking.

I’m working on it though, I’ve already been to three counseling sessions and I go along great with my counselor. She’s helped me a lot already and I’m so glad I took your advice to get professional help.

After speaking with my counselor, we both agreed that to ease the burden I had about not being able to face his family, I should get away from them for a few days. I sent my in-laws a mail apologizing for not answering them in the past few days and that everything has been too much for me so I need to get away.

So using that as an excuse I went on a spontaneous trip to Madeira, a destination I’ve dreamt about for a long time. It was amazing, as I’d imagined and after coming home I realized it was something I needed very much.

I was ready to face my problems at once. After a lot of consideration I decided to tell my brother in law and his wife just so someone in his family know of my situation. Something I didn’t mention in the original post is that my husband's family is very important to me. I only have my big brother after dropping contact with our parents so his family has always been more like a real family to me than a ‘in law’s family’.

So that makes me even more worried to tell them, because I’m afraid it would put some distance between us. But at the same time I don’t have the energy to fake myself through the funeral reception for my husband as if I have the same feelings of love for him as I’ve always had. Because I don’t.

This way my brother in law can take me away or at least have some explanation if I were to lose it at future meetings with the family. They both took it quite well and were immediately on my side without me having to ask for it. I apologized to them both for having revealed this about such a close family member and it was not my intention to badmouth him, but just the fact that I needed the support I could get.

He said there’s nothing to apologize for, the blame is on his brother and it’s nothing I should apologize for. My brother in law is like a big bear and probably the nicest person I know, but I was still nervous telling him so I’m glad he reacted the way he did. We both agreed on waiting to tell his parents and little sister until the time is right.

I go along really well with his wife. The couple lived abroad until six months ago so I never had a good chance to meet and talk to her, but I really enjoy her company. Yesterday we went for a shopping trip and dinner and it’s been a long time since I forgot about time and just enjoyed myself.

So about the other woman. I don’t have the strength to face or even talk to her, so I decided to entrust her to his closest friend (The one who told me about her, let’s call him Alex.). Though it was a little awkward, I told him he owed me this for having kept quiet about it for so long even though I considered him a friend. He agreed and apologized sincerely.

I know he’s always been a good guy, and he told me he made a big mistake but he didn’t tell because he always held onto the trust that my husband would end it with her as he said he would when Alex asked him to stop it. I’m still very angry, but he’s the only one I can trust to make sure she’s not there.

And my worries were right, because she didn’t take the phone call from Alex well. I sat along with him for the phone call and we had her on the speaker and during the whole time I was furious. He didn’t tell her I knew at first and she seriously had planned to be there at the reception right in front of me.

When she wouldn’t budge even though he asked nicely that she can go to his grave but she won’t be welcomed at the reception, he told her that I knew everything. She went quiet. Alex told her that she’s hurt me and that she should understand it’s not acceptable for her to be in my presence during the reception.

What she said next was a mix of sorry, that she loved him, the rest was incoherent, and then she hung up. Alex has been trying to reach her two times since, but no answer. I think she got it that she’s not welcome, but I have already arranged for Alex and two other friends to be at the entrance to welcome people and stop her if she were to come.

And apparently she has a boyfriend since about nine months back. I’m not sure what to do about that yet, I’ll deal with my own problems first.

So that was my update. I have dinner with my in-laws tonight which I’m looking forward to. Overall, I’m okay. As mentioned above, I’m still confused about my husband, but I guess time will show how I will deal with the situation. It feels good that some people around me know about my situation now so they can be there to support me and understand if I behave strange.

Thank you everyone who posted on my original post, I think I maybe read through all of your advice over four times. It was a great help in making my decision and helping me through my sadness. As many of you see, I’ve used your advices. So thank you once again.

tl;dr: I told my brother in law and his wife about my husband's cheating. As I feared the other woman had planned to come to the reception. My husband's friend told her off. I've arranged 'security' at the reception in case.


Sources: Reddit
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