Can you ever really know someone? As scary as the thought sounds, it’s entirely possible to be around someone for decades and not really know who they are. But in the age of social media, liars, cheats and fraudsters have less and less room to hide.

A woman was browsing TikTok one day when she saw her husband of over twenty years in another woman’s house. After some digging, she found that he had been raising a second family in secret for years. Readers got to experience a rollercoaster of emotions, as OP shared her next steps and then provided an update days later.

Discovering that your long-term partner has a huge secret can be very stressful

Image credits: drazenphoto (not the actual photo)

A woman saw her husband in another woman’s TikToks and decided to dig deeper

Image credits: westend61 (not the actual photo)

Image source: Throwra-brokenwife

Cheating is not a victimless crime

Image credits: RDNE Stock project (not the actual photo)

Being cheated on just a few months into a relationship can be heartbreaking, but discovering years of infidelity and lies after more than twenty years together seems unimaginable. The victims of cheating and victim is the correct noun here, often end up with long-term trust issues, self-hatred, and depression. These negative effects tend to spill over into the person’s next attempts at dating and marriage, creating a cascading effect of broken relationships.

The silver lining, if there is any in such a situation, is that the negative “symptoms” can be lessened if the victim is proactive. Studies suggest that partners who initiate a breakup or a divorce following infidelity “recover” faster than those who try to live with it or are “abandoned” by the cheater. In the case of marriage, most legal systems support the victim of cheating, so OP is wise to take the commenter’s advice and seek out a divorce lawyer.

While some, like OP’s soon-to-be-ex-husband (see the update below), do try to justify their actions or beg for forgiveness, research indicates that in most cases, the relationship will be doomed to fail anyway. This really shouldn’t surprise anyone, as even the “best-case scenario” for cheating still involves one partner being unhappy.

Cheaters often try a variety of tricks to avoid responsibility

Image credits: Alena Darmel (not the actual photo)

OP also spends a lot of time wondering why this man would cheat. Psychologists believe that for a person to actually go through with infidelity, there has to be a combination of two elements. Firstly, they might be dissatisfied with some part of their existing relationship. A lack of communication, understanding, or sexual satisfaction are the most common cases reported by male cheaters. It’s important to note that social desirability bias could be limiting the truthfulness of these answers.

The second “component” is opportunity and availability. A person might be unhappy in their relationship, but unable to actually cheat due to circumstances. Given OP’s husband’s frequent work trips, this does not seem to be the case. While cheaters often report reasons why they do it, it’s very rarely the victim’s fault. Instead of trying to fix the issue or breaking up, cheaters attempt to have the “best of both worlds” and harm their initial partner as a result.

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It’s telling that, when accused, the husband immediately attempts to deny, then deflects, and then blames OP for his actions. Besides knowing the legal implications of being a cheater in a marriage, he is no doubt aware that the vast majority of society looks down on this kind of behavior. His trustworthiness is forever ruined and the moment he does something out of the ordinary with his side family, their first conclusion will be that he is cheating, assuming they even know that they are the side family.

Readers did their best to give OP some advice

Later, OP shared an update to how she planned to handle the situation

Image credits: titovailona (not the actual photo)

Image source: Throwra-brokenwife

Commenters wished her luck

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