He Wants To End His Marriage After He Found Out His Wife Had An Affair, But She Got Diagnosed With Cancer, And Now He Feels Guilty
This 32-year-old man and his wife, 30, have been married for the last six years, and they have been in a relationship for 9 years.
They’ve known each other since high school and had crushes on each other.
Years later, when they were in their early to mid-20s, they got back in touch.
Even though neither of them was interested in starting a committed relationship, they ended up falling for one other and began dating exclusively.
He was an optimistic, relaxed person, while his wife was smart and ambitious and sometimes utilized a pessimistic mindset to predict possible negative outcomes of situations.
From his perspective, their strengths and weaknesses were the perfect balance. His wife’s strengths helped him to plan his future and take steps toward making things happen, while his positivity influenced his wife to relish in the beauty of life.
After only two dates, he knew that this woman was the love of his life and that he wanted to marry her.
For the first couple of years into their relationship, they were so happy.
Several years later, they dealt with a lot of life-changing events and some difficult times as well.
T.Den_Team – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
Sadly, a family member that they were very close to passed away.
They also purchased a home, got married, had a baby girl, and he was offered a huge promotion, which he’d been working hard to achieve for many years.
When he got his promotion, it was at a time when their family needed it the most.
He and his wife were relying on his income because his wife wasn’t working, and they also had more expenses due to their new home and the birth of their daughter.
Throughout the years, he worked as much as possible so that they never had to stress about being able to afford the basic necessities, and they were also able to go on vacations and buy gifts during the holiday season without worry.
Unfortunately, the promotion wasn’t what he’d been hoping for. The work environment was incredibly toxic, and it began to negatively affect his mental health.
Around this time, which was also when their daughter was still a newborn, his marriage with his wife started to take a turn.
Despite everything that they should have been grateful for, it felt like his wife was never satisfied with how much he did around the house or how he executed the housework. From day to day, his wife’s expectations changed.
Understandably, due to all of these simultaneous big life transitions, he was struggling to juggle all of the daily tasks.
Once in a while, he would put a dish in the sink instead of in the dishwasher because he was in a rush and multitasking.
He was the one who changed their daughter’s diapers about 95% of the time, and he made sure to do as much as he possibly could to help his wife.
When his wife gave birth, he was aware of how difficult things would be for her, so he wanted to support her and be a great partner and father.
But in hindsight, he thinks he was doing way too much, and it was bound to catch up with him.
Once he started doing almost all of the housework and childcare, this was how their dynamic was from then on. It didn’t feel like there was a fair balance.
He realized that every time his wife would get angry with the way he did certain tasks, he responded by going above and beyond to do even better to make her happy.
While he thinks he’s better at handling these types of situations now, back then, confrontation made him uncomfortable. He always internalized everything and felt like it was his responsibility to fix all of the problems and make others around him feel better. Talking things through and sharing things that could hurt someone’s feelings made him uneasy, so he avoided confronting people if they upset him.
Now, he acknowledges that all those years ago, he should have spoken up about his frustration and how exhausted and burnt out he was due to taking on way too much. He wishes he would have asked his wife if she could help him more so that neither of them felt like they were doing more than they were reasonably capable of.
Later on, their family settled into a routine. There were some expected hiccups along the way, and while things weren’t awful, he didn’t think things were amazing, either.
He noticed that his wife was becoming more distant, but he brushed it aside, assuming that it was because they were both focused on raising their daughter, so their marriage was taking a backseat for the time being.
When their daughter was about 2-years-old, his marriage started to suffer again.
His wife constantly started arguments with him out of nowhere, and it was too much for him.
He’d already known that she had problems controlling her anger, and she could be resentful and hold grudges for a long time.
It always felt like he could never measure up to his wife’s expectations, no matter how hard he tried to do so.
Whenever he brought up the option of going to couples therapy, his wife was revolted by the idea. He couldn’t think of any other ways to resolve their issues.
Then, they went on a short vacation, and during the trip, there was a drastic change with his wife.
“It was amazing, like she flipped a switch, and the old her was back. The her I fell in love with. I found my bliss once again. I chalked it up to the amazing trip and getting to spend some time together again, helping us reconnect. Sadly, this illusion was about to come to a crash,” he said.
Not long after they returned home from their vacation, his wife let him know that she needed to discuss something with him.
This is the first time she’s ever formally sat him down to have a talk. Normally, his wife would have angry outbursts when she was upset with him.
When his wife asked to talk to him, she seemed cool, calm, and collected, as if she had been preparing for this conversation they were about to have.
Then, she gave him the shocking news that she had been flirting with a man online. She told him that it was someone she’d known before he started dating her, and it was someone she used to have romantic feelings for.
Before this, he and his wife always had a strong foundation of trust. They used one another’s phones all the time, and the thought never seemed to cross either of their minds that one of them would be flirting with someone else.
“It was casual texting online over about seven months, she said (from time to time, not the whole time), and it never got to anything more than talk. I told her she was brave to tell me. I told her I understood we were rocky and that we didn’t have that attention between us two,” he explained.
He was happy that this time, his wife finally agreed to go to couples counseling with him.
Counseling was beneficial for him, and he felt like he made improvements in his communication skills and how he copes with things that upset him.
However, he didn’t think that his wife was getting much out of it.
Because his wife saw that he was taking steps to improve his behavior, this, in turn, made her happy, but he didn’t think she was putting in the same effort to change her behavior and work on herself.
She continuously expressed that it would take time for her to change, but he didn’t think she was really working at it.
Throughout the next year, they did their best to work on improving their marriage.
Over the course of several months, their relationship was a roller coaster. The highs were wonderful, but the lows were intense and painful, and things would go back and forth quickly and dramatically.
But then, when his wife went to the doctor to inquire about a minor symptom, they eventually received horrific news that would change their lives.
His wife was diagnosed with cancer.
She had surgery, but the cancer worsened.
Doctors discovered what type of cancer she had, and they told her she had to start chemotherapy immediately.
“During this time, we had some shared moments of positivity, but overall, it felt like I was the emotional punching bag. I was happy to be that. I knew the level of stress she was under with her health, and I took it. But, around this time, I finally did it. I snooped. Sure enough, there was more texting. Texting back and forth from time to time. Including some FaceTimes and calls. It appeared they never met. Neither could go all the way with it because of the morality of it all,” he shared.
From his perspective, it seemed like sometimes either his wife or the man she was talking to was displaying moments of weakness where they would have been willing to meet up and escalate the affair, but the two of them never seemed to have these feelings at the same time, so they never ended up doing more than talking.
He was most upset about the fact that the last time his wife texted the man was when she was diagnosed with cancer.
Around that time, the man ended their affair because he felt like she was playing with his emotions, and he couldn’t deal with the back and forth anymore. The man wanted a real relationship with her.
When he discovered that his wife had still been talking to this man, he was stunned, heartbroken, and beyond devastated.
Now, he doesn’t know what to do. He is debating divorcing his wife, but the timing is obviously awful.
He feels like it would be awful to do this to her and cause her more stress while she’s going through chemo. It would be the worst timing of all for her.
So far, he hasn’t told his wife any of what he found out when he looked through her phone. He’s kept it all bottled up inside.
They have continued to go to therapy together and have still been getting into arguments.
As he continues thinking about his wife’s emotional affair, he feels more and more hurt. When they argue, and she says terrible things to him, it crushes him more than it ever did before.
He knows that he can’t keep going on like this and that their marriage can’t continue like this.
However, he’s obviously scared for his wife’s health and well-being.
But he can’t shake the thought of going through with divorcing her.
He knows that he wouldn’t do so while she’s actively going through with chemotherapy, and he feels like a bad person for even contemplating divorce in the first place.
During their fights, his wife tells him that he’s “‘selfish,'” so now that he is contemplating divorce, he has internalized his wife’s insults and wonders if she’s right.
It hurts that his wife always makes him feel like the bad guy, and he has continued allowing her to say these horrible things without standing up for himself.
Because he can’t forget about his wife’s affair, the dynamic with his wife is getting more difficult to cope with.
He wants his wife to survive cancer and for her health to improve.
What advice would you give him?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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