Reddit Stories - Betrayal and Broken Dreams_ UNCOVERING the Truth About My Spouse's Secret Affair Amid FERTILITY STRUGGLES_

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #betrayal #brokendreams #secretaffair #fertilitystruggles #uncoveringthetruth  Summary: A gripping tale unfolds as a person uncovers their spouse's secret affair amidst struggles with fertility, leading to shattered dreams and feelings of betrayal.  Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, betrayal, brokendreams, secretaffair, fertilitystruggles, uncoveringthetruthBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Realized my spouse had a romantic encounter with a former partner after facing challenges conceiving a child. Discovered that he was the one with reproductive health problems, so I served him with separation documents and departed. For context, my husband, 30M, and I, 27F, have been married for two years and have been trying to have a baby for the past 10 months. Unfortunately, we haven't had any success and that's been putting a lot of strain on our relationship for the last few months. I really want a baby and I know so does he because he's always talked about starting a family, even while we were dating.

This is something we had in common, our desire to have a child, and that's also why we didn't waste much time after getting married and began to try to conceive. I'd been disappointed by the negative results, but I always tried to hold it together. He didn't do the same and would get upset every single time then wouldn't speak to me for the next few days because he needed his space. His behavior would make me feel really guilty as if it was entirely my fault that we weren't getting pregnant. About six months ago, I suggested that we get tested because even then, he was acting out every month when we'd realize we weren't pregnant yet again. He's the one who turned that idea down

saying that we didn't need to waste our money on tests, we just had to keep trying so that's what we continued to do. Three weeks ago, after another negative pregnancy test, we argued because I'd suggested that we get tested. He snapped at me in a very cruel way and told me that he already knew who had issues, but he was trying not to hurt my feelings. There was no real reason for him to believe that I was the one with fertility issues when we haven't even been tested yet, and that's what led to the argument. What he said got to me and I also brought up his behavior after our unsuccessful tries to get pregnant, blaming me for the failures constantly when it could have also been him. He said that he knew for a fact that it wasn't him and then actually gave me an

ultimatum saying that I could either do something about this or we'd have to go our separate ways. Because he wanted a baby and if I wasn't able to give that to him, then he didn't see the point of us being together. That broke me because I wouldn't mind staying married to him even without having a baby because I loved him but those feelings were not reciprocated. He only cared about having a baby and saw me as a baby producing machine more than his wife by then. I was disheartened even thinking that this was what my husband thought of me and decided not to speak to him until he apologized to me. The apology never came because after three days, he had to leave for a business trip and he didn't even bother to speak to me before he left.

I was already very upset in him leaving without saying goodbye to me hurt even more. After he'd left, I'd pacified myself by believing that it was some consolation that he'd at least still added the details of his visit on our shared I-Cloud calendar, which was our ritual every time he'd have to travel for work. I'd tried to get along with my life for the next couple of days because I knew that this would be a longer trip than usual and he'd be away for at least 10 days this time. On the third day of his trip, I was scrolling through Instagram and then out of the blue, I came across my husband's ex-girlfriend's post. She was sitting by the pool and a bikini and the place seemed really familiar so on a hunch, I decided to search the hotel

that my husband was staying in, and sure enough the setting matched what I'd seen on Google Maps just a couple of days back. I'd tried to make out whether it was the exact same place or not and even made a call to the hotel front desk to confirm if she was staying there or not. I asked them to connect me to her room, and they did so and within seconds I heard her voice on the other end repeatedly asking who this was. Of course, I didn't say anything and hung up without a word. I tried to force myself not to think of what might be happening but there was no denying it anymore and I knew then that my husband was definitely cheating on me with his ex-girlfriend. It was lucky that I followed her online and that they were still on good terms because otherwise I never

would have found out. It was only then that I began to think that he'd probably even added the details of his trip on the calendar out of habit, not on purpose because he wouldn't want me to find out about this. My doubts were confirmed when, after I'd seen that post, the details on the calendar were suddenly gone. It was too late, though, because I'd already seen it and even taken a screenshot of it like I always did. He and his ex-girlfriend had been together for two years in college, but had broken up a couple of months before graduation. They'd stayed in touch after that and were really good friends because she'd even attended our wedding. I did find it a little weird but my husband reassured me that there was nothing brewing between them and it was all in the past, so I had

nothing to worry about. Besides, they would only meet each other in group settings with all their other friends and otherwise, she'd always be traveling so I didn't think much of their friendship. She'd been nice to me so I'd been following her Instagram account for a few years now but I'd never that it would actually come to my rescue someday. Hi, I'm Darren Marler. Host of the Weird Darkness podcast. I want to talk about the most important tool in my podcast belt. Spreaker is the all-in-one platform that makes it easy to record, host, and distribute your show

everywhere from Apple Podcasts to Spotify. But the real game changer for me was Spreaker's monetization. Spreaker offers dynamic ad insertion. That means you can automatically insert ads into your episodes. No editing required. And with Spreker's programmatic ads, they'll bring the ads to you. and you get paid for every download. This turned my podcasting hobby into a full-time career.

Spreaker also has a premium subscription model where your most dedicated listeners can pay for bonus content or early access, adding another revenue stream to what you're already doing. And the best part, Spreaker grows with you. Whether you're just starting out or running a full-blown podcast network, Spreaker's powerful tools scale effortlessly as your show grows. So if you're ready to podcast like a pro and get paid while doing it, check out Spreaker.com.

That's S-P-R-E-A-K-E-R.com. After I'd processed the fact that the two of them were definitely together, I knew that I had to end this marriage right away. So I called a friend of mine and asked him to put me in touch with a divorce attorney ASAP, and he was able to arrange that for me overnight since he'd been divorced himself before. I explained the situation to the lawyer and asked them to draw up divorce papers. I also decided to get a fertility test done because I had a nagging feeling that there was nothing wrong with me and that my husband was just making excuses for his failure.

So within the next week, I'd filed a petition for divorce on grounds of infidelity and also got my test results back, which said that I had absolutely no problems relating to fertility and there's no reason that I should be struggling to conceive. Everything I'd suspected to be true and I literally couldn't wait for my husband to come back home so I could throw these papers in his face and then dump him. I'd kept myself busy during those days so I didn't even have the time to cry or feel bad about what was happening to me. My only motive was to teach my husband a lesson of a lifetime. Then, on the 11th day, he finally returned and tried to act casually around me. He even spoke to me and apologized for the fight we'd had before he left and said that he'd been

looking into IVF recently and wanted us to try that. I didn't reply to anything and came straight to the point. I asked him where exactly had he been staying these past 10 days for his work trip. He tried beat about the bush and said that he didn't even remember the name of the hotel, but I could see him struggling. I even prompted him with the name of the place and he tried to shrug it off, but then, I brought up that I'd seen a post on his ex-girlfriend's Instagram at the same place which seemed like a really weird coincidence. He tried to ignore that, but I kept talking and then finally, I asked him if he'd met his ex on his trip. He denied it vehemently at first, but I just kept staring at him for like seven to eight minutes, completely silently and that's what finally

made him tell me the truth. Not even the full truth. He just admitted that he had met his ex, but hadn't wanted to tell me about it because that would make me feel insecure and he didn't want that. I told him that I wanted to know what exactly had happened and he tried to change the topic, but I refused to let him and he gave in after a while. He told me that he had indeed met his ex-girlfriend and also slept with her, but it was just out of frustration. He confessed to me that he'd asked her to meet him at the hotel one day before he left and she'd agreed. Initially, he just intended to confirm if he was the one with fertility issues or not because he remembered very clearly back in college they'd broken up because his ex had accidentally

gotten pregnant while they were together and he believed that it had been because of him. Unfortunately, when he discussed this with her, she confessed that she'd been cheating on him with another guy at the time and the baby might not have been my husbands. He was disappointed and wanted to fly back home but his ex convinced him to stay and they ended up sleeping together because he claimed that he'd just fallen weak now that the last hope that he had was also gone. He was just frustrated and couldn't take it anymore, so he slept with his ex-girlfriend and he explained everything to me really calmly as well as if it was a very reasonable thing to do. He then told me that the reason he'd gone to his ex to confirm if he was

the one with fertility issues or not instead of just getting tested was that the latter was much more terrifying and definitive. Jumping through hoops to arrange a secret holiday with his ex only to ask about an accidental pregnancy that had happened ages ago, however, was a lot more convenient. Sleeping with her after that was even more convenient. He told me that after he learned that the pregnancy that his ex had terminated in college might not have been caused by him, he decided to get tested at a hospital there and it turned out that he was actually the one with fertility issues and not me. He'd also realized that his ex had used him because she'd only stayed at the hotel for the first five days out of ten days and after the fifth day, she'd taken off

but promised to keep in touch because, of course, they'd spent the night together. But instead, she blocked him everywhere the very next day and he realized that this had been nothing but a one-off thing for her and not the emotional reconciliation that he'd hoped for. He told me that he was sorry about everything and that he'd only done these things because he was frustrated and really wanted a baby and a family of his own. And then he said to me that he'd realized that he'd screwed up, but he was still willing to give our marriage one last chance. He was willing to give our marriage one last chance because it was apparently his call to make

in his head. That's when I burst out laughing and didn't stop laughing until I handed over the divorce papers to him along with the results of the fertility test. After going through those papers, he began to tell me that this was all really unnecessary and that we could still make things work but I just didn't say anything. I already had my bags packed and I'd been recording our entire conversation on my phone all along, so I was good to go after he told me the entire story of what had happened on his trip. I didn't need to waste more of my time arguing with him, so I decided to walk out that

very instant. He got to his knees and started begging me to forgive him once he saw... Hi, I'm Darren Marler, host of the Weird Darkness podcast. I want to talk about the most important tool in my podcast belt. Spreaker is the all-in-one platform that makes it easy to record, host, and distribute your show everywhere from Apple Podcasts to Spotify. But the real game changer for me with Spreeker's monetization. Spreaker offers dynamic ad insertion. That means you can automatically insert ads into your episodes. No editing required.

And with Spreker's programmatic ads, they'll bring the ads to you, and you get paid for every download. This turned my podcasting hobby into a full-time career. Spreaker also has a premium subscription model where your most dedicated listeners can pay for bonus content or early access, adding another revenue stream to what you're already doing.

And the best part, Spreaker grows with you. Whether you're just starting out or running a full-blown podcast network, Spreeker's powerful tools scale effortlessly as your show grows. So if you're ready to podcast like a pro and get paid while doing it,

check out spreeker.com. That's S-P-R-E-A-K-E-R.com. I'd already packed my bags, but there was no changing what he'd done, so I ignored him and dragged my stuff to my car, got into it, and drove off, leaving him crying in the front yard. I drove to a friend's house

since I'd already asked her if I could live with her until the divorce had been sorted out and she'd very kindly agreed to that. This was a friend of mine from college and my husband doesn't know where she lives so I know he won't be able to find me either. It's been almost three days since I left and he's been texting me every day but I haven't opened even a single text of his. I thought that he would give up eventually but then today, I received a call from my in-laws instead. My mother-in-law was totally out of control and was demanding that I return her son's calls or respond to his texts right that

instant. I was panicking and asked her what exactly had happened and she told me that my husband had apparently called her up and told her what had happened and was sobbing uncontrollably when he called her. He had even said multiple times that now that I was gone, he didn't see the point of going on with life anymore and that he didn't even know what to do with himself since he now knew that no matter how hard he tried, he'd never be able to have the life and family that he'd always wanted and that had shattered him. He had been so hysterical that my mother-in-law was afraid that he'd do something to himself and wanted me to call him back right that second. Now I think it was a little cruel,

but when I heard all of that, I got really upset because that just sounded like he was trying to make me feel guilty for looking out for myself. I'd just done what any other self-respecting woman in my place would have done and it felt like he was using that against me and making himself seem like the victim

just because he was infertile. So instead of calling him, I told his mother that he could do whatever he wanted to because now I wasn't his wife anymore because he'd cheated on me. She was shocked and said, that I was being cruel, but I didn't really care and told her that her son deserved it because that's how upset I was. Then I hung up before she could waste more of my time and tried not to

think about these things. Then, about an hour ago, my husband texted me again and this time I finally opened the text. It said that he was finally feeling better and I didn't need to respond if I didn't feel like it, but he told me that the way I'd reacted to news of his breakdown had been nothing short of heartless and now he felt like I'd never even loved him at all. He said he wanted me to understand that he was also suffering right now and it wasn't just me who was going through a tough time because he was literally infertile and would never be able to have kids of his own, so I should have been kinder to him. So I'd offer refusing to talk to my husband when his mother called me and told me that he was having a mental breakdown after he cheated on me.

Update 1, three days since the original post and before I begin, I just want to thank everyone who responded. It was nice of everyone here to be so supportive and kind to me. I get now that I should have dumped him as soon as he started blaming me for failing to get pregnant, but I'm not the kind of person to give up on relationships easily unless they show me for sure that they're not worth it, which he did by cheating on me. I didn't get back to my husband because there was no point. The reason he and his mother had tried to call me was because they wanted to guilt trip and emotionally manipulate me into coming back to him, but I wasn't going to let them do that to me.

I was also suffering just as much as he was and even more so because I was the one who had been cheated on and had lost my marriage in less than a day. So for him to even insinuate that he was the victim of a situation like this was just ridiculous. He wasn't the victim. He was just pretending to be one so that it'd be easier for him to manipulate me and make me seem like the bad guy for not caring about him after he literally slept with a woman he told me he has nothing going on with not just once but multiple times. So pardon me if I'm not so quick to forget that and forgive him as if nothing had even happened. He has been texting me continuously again,

but I've just muted him and haven't opened his chat since the last time he texted to tell me that I was being cruel to him. He has a couple of weeks to respond to the petition, but I'm sure he's going to try and get the divorce canceled somehow and is going to go out of his way to persuade me not to go through with it, but he doesn't know that I've already given up on him in this marriage, so it's just a waste of time for him to try and convince me otherwise.

I could have forgiven him for the infertility because it wasn't his fault and I could have forgiven him for behavior, badly, but I just cannot forgive him for cheating. Update 2. So I had to go back home today because I'd realized that I'd unfortunately left a really expensive bracelet back there which my dad had gifted me. It had been a big mistake on my part to forget about something as important as that while packing but I was just feeling really out of it at the time as well. I wanted to go back home at a time when my husband wouldn't be there but I knew that would be weird and I didn't want to sneak into a place I used to call home like some burglar, so I steeled myself and went there

after work today without caring about whether my husband would be there or not. He seemed very happy to see me at the door and even tried to hug me because I guess he hadn't noticed that I wasn't even smiling and neither was I looking at him. I pushed him away when he tried to hug me and told him that I was just there to collect some of my jewelry and then I'd be on my way. He seemed disappointed and told me that I was being heartless right now. Then, he said that it was just one incident and I could just forgive him and move on instead of making such a big deal out of it. He even tried to tell me that he'd come to me himself and confess, so I should it... Hi, I'm Darren Marler. Host of the Weird Darkness podcast. I want to talk about the most

important tool in my podcast belt. Spreaker is the all-in-one platform that makes it easy to record, host, and distribute your show everywhere, from Apple Podcasts to Spotify. But the real game changer for me was Spreaker's monetization. Spreaker offers dynamic ad insertion. That means you can automatically insert ads into your episodes, no editing required. And with Spreker's programmatic ads, they'll bring the ads to you, and you get paid for every download. This turned my podcasting hobby into a full-time career. Sprinker also has a premium subscription model where your most dedicated listeners can pay for bonus content or early access, adding another revenue stream to what you're already doing.

And the best part, Sprinker grows with you. Whether you're just starting out or running a full-blown podcast network, Sprinker's powerful tools scale effortlessly as your show grows. So if you're ready to podcast like a pro and get paid while doing, it, check out spreeker.com. That's S-P-R-E-A-K-E-R.com. At least take that into consideration and forgive him because at least he didn't lie to me. I had to try very, very hard to control the urge to slap him so hard that he'd land up in outer space and tried to ignore his meaningless blabbering. He continued to talk about how he had

no contact with his ex now as if that was his choice and not hers. She's the one who had blocked him and not the other way around. He'd have been more than happy to continue speaking to her even now had I not found out about them. Once I'd grabbed the box my bracelet was in, I was ready to leave, but he stopped me and blocked my way out of the bedroom by standing there in the doorway. He's considerably taller than me and I was kind of scared at that moment, but he just stood there and told me that I had to at least give him a chance to explain. I had no other choice but to stand there and let him continue speaking and repeat the same things he'd told me several times before already, like how he'd only slept with his ex out of

frustration and not because he'd actually wanted to and that he didn't even like her because she'd used him. He told me that his ex had helped him realize how much he loved me and that he wasn't willing to give up on us so easily. He just needed one more chance and he'd prove that he was a good husband but I had to give him that one shot. I didn't intend on giving him that chance at all but just so I could leave, I told him that I'd think about it and that seemed to cheer him up and he let me go. He tried to hug me once more while I was leaving but once again, I pushed him away and got into the car. I drove away as fast as I could because I just wanted to put as much distance as I could between me and him. I came back home half an hour ago and I'm still feeling annoyed

that he even believes that he deserves a second chance after what he did. I'm sure he's going to contest the divorce, but it doesn't really matter since I know he cheated and I have the evidence to back it up as well. It's just frustrating to know that he still doesn't see what he did was truly horrible. Nobody deserves a second chance after that. He blamed me and made me feel like absolute crap for not being able to conceive when it was actually him who was the problem all along. This divorce couldn't have happened sooner. Update 3. My husband just has a week now to respond to the petition but I guess he's still

holding out hope that I'll somehow change my mind, even though I haven't responded to any of his calls or texts in ages. Today, I texted him back and said that he can't change my mind so he'd better start looking for a lawyer because he really shouldn't waste any more of his own time as well as mine. He called me and asked me if I was actually serious and I had to tell him that yes, I was and that there was no chance in hell that I'd take him back after what he'd done to me. He tried his best to talk me out of this, but I was just so exhausted that I hung up. I didn't have anything to say to him, and if he didn't want to take this seriously, then that was on him. I'd warned him

and now the ball was in his court. My lawyer and I are already discussing the settlement and how to go about all of that so he can fall behind, by all means. I don't care. Update 4, he's not contesting the divorce. We're going straight to negotiations about the settlement. I'm hoping for a decent sum and a fair division of all our assets and I know it'll be a cakewalk because of the proof that I have against him. He hasn't contacted me since our last phone call, but his mother sure has.

In fact, she didn't even call me. She called my parents and tried to tell them off for raising a daughter like me who had no sense of beauty towards her husband. Apparently, she expected me to forgive one tiny mistake and give him a second chance, but she didn't know that my parents weren't the kind of people who supported that sort of attitude, especially when it came to infidelity. So instead of her telling them off, it was she who got a talking to and was told that her son was the one who had messed up here so if anything, she should be targeting him and not me

because I was just doing the right thing for myself. I'm glad my parents are on my side and soon, our friends will get to know me as well because this is not something that I'm going to hide from them. Everybody should know what he did to me, barring the infertility because that's not my business anymore. I hadn't cried or let any of my feelings out for a while, but now, I feel like I can finally allow myself to relax a bit and let my hair down because things are finally heading in the right direction. Soon enough, I'll be divorced and he'll be gone.