Double lives are so fascinating to me because it’s hard enough to keep up a solid relationship with one person, let alone juggle multiple partners at once.
What would you do if your spouse snuck out of the house, flew to another country while you were at work, and disappeared, only for you to later find out that they left you for their affair partner?
This woman sadly found out a year ago that her husband was living a double life, and there had been signs while they were dating that he wasn’t into being committed to just one woman.
“My husband of 15 years had flown to London while I was at work, and then disappeared for almost two days. I was eventually able to figure out that he was alive thanks to finding a stash of cards and calling 1-800 numbers,” she explained.
“It turned out that, as everyone expected, he had left me for another woman, although it took 2 weeks for him to admit to it. I also found out that he had cheated on me the entirety of our marriage, both online and physically.”
“When he left, he had long-term online relationships with 3 women. He ghosted 2 of them for the third. I ended up emailing the other two women to let them know.”
Back when she was dating her husband, she caught him having an online steamy relationship with the girl who broke up his first marriage.
He promised to stop and got himself a therapist, so she believed that he could settle down with her and behave. But then 16 years later, the London incident happened, and she came to see that her husband had spent all of those years living a lie.
Speaking of London, that girl her husband left her for was someone he had secretly been seeing for three years in a row, and a week after flying there, he emailed her asking for a divorce.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
That process took 14 months, and it was torturous to her, as her husband simply hired a lawyer yet refused to actively participate in the divorce.
Her husband would ignore the offers she and her lawyer sent, which meant they had to escalate repeatedly. She ultimately spent $15,000 to get the divorce, and now that’s all behind her.
“Since he refused to settle, I ended up having to go through all of the finances. He never did turn over everything. I was able to figure out that he spent 35k in the past three years on various women, including travel, hotel, and gifts,” she added.
“He spent an additional 45k on cigars and dining out. He also weirdly would take out thousands of dollars in cash every time we were in Germany. I was working while we were there, so God only knows what he got up to.”
In the end, her husband was responsible for the $80,000 in credit card debt he had accumulated in his name, and she was responsible for her own debt.
She got to keep their house and had to give her husband $130,000 from her 401(k) to essentially buy out his half. Her husband was able to hang on to his retirement, his HSA, and some stock from his company.
She did have to hand over $70,000 from her own 401(k) to make their retirements equal, which really made her mad. She only had more in her retirement because he didn’t put anything in his own account, as he was busy blowing all of his money on his affair partners and dining out.
She now has 12 months to get her husband off the mortgage, and he has the next year to move all of his belongings out of her house.
They do keep their own personal bank accounts, and her husband has their joint bank account, which is fine by her, as she took her money out of there prior to their divorce.
“So, it could have been worse. I have a very good job. I can easily afford the household expenses on my salary (which is why the massive credit card debt was insane to me),” she continued.
“I have a lot of work to do to fix a bunch of things around the house that were neglected because he insisted we ‘didn’t have any money.'”
Well, it sounds like she won here. She didn’t get financially ruined in the divorce, and she got rid of her lying, cheating husband.
What do you think of that?
You can read the original post below.
By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
