Reddit Stories - BETRAYAL in the Shadows_ UNVEILING the Secret Bond with Our MYSTERIOUS Guests_

Episode Date: June 15, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #betrayal #mystery #secrets #relationships #guestsSummary: In "BETRAYAL in the Shadows: UNVEILING the Secret Bond with Our MYSTERIOUS Guests," secrets unravel and relationships are tested as hidden betrayals come to light. The mysterious guests hold the key to unlocking the truth, leading to unexpected revelations and emotional turmoil.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, betrayal, mystery, secrets, relationships, guests, truth, revelations, emotional, turmoil, hidden, unravel, tested, light, key, unexpectedBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

Companions resided with us for a month and developed a close connection with my partner secretly, searched through our device and I stumbled upon communications of their rendezvous. I've been living with my GF for over two years now, and we've dated for about six years since we met in college. We've both been out of college for a while now, and I was pretty happy with my life overall. Or at least I was until this shit happened and turned everything upside down. Some background, we met at a party in our junior year. year. Dated off right away, started dating, and just kind of never stopped. Things were good for the most part. Sure, we had our ups and downs like any couple, but nothing major. After graduation,

we both found decent jobs in the same city, so we decided to move in together. That was about two years ago, and honestly things were going well. We talked about marriage a few times, but never seriously. We had a nice routine going, shared a dog, and I even bought a house about ten months back that we've been fixing up together. So one of my friends who moved out of the country a few years back announced he was coming back for a visit. I offered for him to stay with us since he didn't have anywhere else to go and hotels here are expensive. My GF has never met Larry, not his real name obviously, but she kind of knew him through me because Larry and I would Skype sometimes

and she was often around during those calls. They'd sometimes say hi to each other, nothing major. Larry and I go way back. We met in freshman year of college, had a lot of the same classes, studied together, partied together. We were pretty close until he moved away for work about three years ago. We kept in touch but not as much as before. Just the occasional Skype call every couple months,

checking in on social media, that sort of thing. Anyway, we were all excited for him to visit. I hadn't seen the guy in forever and thought it would be fun to catch up. I cleared it with my GF first, of course. She seemed totally fine with it and said she was looking forward to meeting him finally. She even cleaned up the guest room specially and bought new sheets for it. I remember thinking how lucky I was to have such a considerate girlfriend. Fast forward, Larry arrives, and everything seems cool at first.

He's grateful for the place to stay, we're having a good time showing him around, it's all good. I took a few days off work to hang out with him at first, show him around the city, introduce him to some of our mutual friends who still live nearby. My GF joined us when she could, but she had to work most days. But about two to three weeks into his stay, he was planning to stay for about a month, I started feeling uncomfortable with the way Larry and my G.F. would act together. Nothing specific I could point to exactly, just vibes. They'd laugh at inside jokes I wasn't part of. They'd text each other while we were all in the same room.

She seemed to light up when he came into the room. There was this one time when we were all watching a movie and they sat on the couch together while I was in the armchair, and I swear they were sitting closer than necessary. Another time I came home from work early and they were in the kitchen cooking together and listening to music, looking way too comfortable. I tried to ignore it at first, told myself I was being paranoid or whatever. Maybe I was just jealous that they were getting along so well. I should be happy that my GF and my friend like each other, right? But it kept bugging me, so I finally decided to talk to my GF about it.

She assured me nothing was going on and that I was imagining things. Said she was just trying to make my friend feel welcome since he was staying with us for so long. I wanted to believe her, so I didn't say anything to Larry. But the weirdness continued. I started noticing more small things. They seemed to have all these little routines together that developed while I was at work. They'd have coffee together in the mornings after I left. They had started watching some TV show together that I wasn't interested in.

Once I overheard them talking about me and they got quiet when I walked in the room. Just lots of little stuff that by itself wouldn't mean anything. But altogether was making me increasingly uncomfortable in my own house. Eventually Larry's little annoying habit started to really get to me too, leaving dishes in the sink, being loud when I was trying to sleep, using my stuff without asking, small stuff that wouldn't normally bother me but now felt like a huge deal. We'd have these little arguments over nothing. Like I asked him to clean up after himself in the bathroom and he acted like I was being unreasonable. Or he'd finish the beer in the fridge and not replace it. The tension in the house

was getting uncomfortable, so I finally asked Larry to move out and find somewhere else to stay. Told him we needed our space back and that having a house guest for this long was straining things between me and my GF. He seemed surprised but agreed, though things were pretty awkward after that. He started looking for an Airbnb or something. My GF was weirdly upset about this and said I was being a bad friend. We had a fight about it where she called me selfish and said I was treating Larry badly for no reason. That really hurt because I felt like she should be on my side. About a week later, Larry left. He's gone back to wherever the head. He's gone back to wherever the hell he lives now, some European country, I forget which one. I thought that would be the end of it

and things would go back to normal between my GF and me. But a few days back I noticed my GF's Facebook had some messages from Larry. We have a shared PC in the living room, and she left it open when she went to take a shower. I wasn't snooping or anything, it was just there on the screen. When I asked my GF about it after her shower, she quickly closed the window and told me it's nothing, just Larry trying to understand why I was bitter at him. This made me suspicious, but I tried to let it go. We went about our lives for the next few days, but things felt off between us. My G.F. would scold me and call me a miserable person for how I treated Larry. We even had a fight about it when I told my GF I didn't want Larry to stay over the night before

his flight. He wanted to come back to our place for his last night in the country. She eventually apologized, but I was still disappointed that she didn't have my back or understand my feelings. I was just shutting down our PCs after my GF had gone to bed and my curiosity got the of me, I know, this is bad and I'm not proud of it, and opened up her FB. She was already logged in and I noticed a message from Larry that was unread. I opened it and went through their conversation history and this is where I wanted to throw up. They met up at least once behind my back when I was on a business trip to Chicago a couple weeks ago. They were also planning to coordinate another visit, but my GF said she didn't feel it would work out logistically.

Then Larry replies back that he needs to hold her again and misses her very much, calling her things like sweetie and babe and beautiful. He even said something about how he wished they had more time alone together during his visit. I was livid. Words cannot describe how I felt reading that out. The combination of anger, despair, sadness, betrayal, and pure rage was too much for me to take. It gets worse. My G.F. had also sent him a photo of a campfire from this weekend. When we were together on a camping trip that I planned as a way to reconnect, that she took and sent to Larry saying I miss you and wish you were here instead.

God damn it. I felt so stupid. Here I was thinking I was being paranoid, and all along they were actually sneaking around behind my back. In my own fucking house. I kept reading, I know, I should have stopped, but I couldn't, and found out they had been texting pretty much non-stop since he left. Little updates about their days, flirty comments, inside jokes, all that shit.

There wasn't any explicit mention of physical stuff happening between them, but the whole tone of the conversation was definitely not appropriate for someone in a relationship. And there were a few references to moments alone together that made me think the worst. I confronted my GF right away. Had to wake her up at 1 a.m. and ask her about it. At first she was sleepy and denied it all, but when I told her I'd read her conversation history things became clear in her mind that I had seen everything. You had no right to read my messages, she said at first, trying to turn it around on me. I wasn't having it. I explained how hurt I was.

I housed this guy and showed him a good time for a month and even after all of this, she told me I was the crazy one. Now my worst suspicions turned out to be true. My friend Larry is obviously cut from my life. Can't have toxic people like that around. She started crying and said she never meant to hurt me. Said that nothing physical happened between them, which I don't believe for a second, and that they just connected and enjoyed talking to each other.

She tried to make it seem like it was innocent, but there's nothing innocent about sneaking around behind my back and sending flirty messages to another guy, especially one of my friends. I asked her directly if she had feelings for him. She hesitated, then said, I don't know. Maybe. It's confusing.

That was all I needed to hear. I told her to get out, go sleep on the couch, because I couldn't even look at her right then. But my GF is another problem. I'm seriously head over heels in love with her and don't want to lose her. On the other hand my heart is torn and I have too much self-respect to continue dating her. She completely destroyed my trust and what's worse is humiliated me by going after one of my friends that I let's stay with us. I feel like I fucked myself in a lot of ways and that I should have seen this coming but I was naive.

We both had to work the next day, but I couldn't sleep at all. I just laid there staring at the ceiling. I remember one night when I had to work late and came home to find them drinking wine and laughing together. Another time when I wanted to go out with just me and my G.F. and she suggested we invite Larry along. All these little moments that seemed innocent at the time but now feel sinister. G.F. and I barely spoke the next morning. She tried to talk to me but I just couldn't deal with it before work. I went in early and stayed late, avoiding coming home.

When I finally did get home, she wanted to talk. What she told me was that she didn't think I loved her anymore, that every time she tried to talk to me about something serious I'd make jokes and laugh it off. That I never paid attention to her needs or feelings. That Larry actually listened to her and made her feel appreciated. I know this isn't easy to hear, and I admit to being immature sometimes, but damn, I thought we were stronger than this. I never realized she was feeling this way. But that's still no excuse for what she did.

I'm not perfect. I work a lot, sometimes I forget important dates, sometimes I'm not the best at expressing my feelings. But I've always loved her and tried to show it in my own way. I thought she knew that. I thought what we had was strong enough to weather any storm. I guess I was wrong. I feel like us breaking up is inevitable, but it makes things so complicated considering I just bought this house about 10 months ago, and we share a dog. She's even driving a car that I gave her when I upgraded to a new one last year.

Splitting things up won't be easy. To be honest, I don't want her to go, but my brain is telling me this is what we need to do even though my heart feels otherwise. We've been sleeping in separate rooms for the past couple days. The atmosphere in the house is awful. We barely speak except when necessary, mostly about practical things like who's feeding the dog or what groceries we need. I haven't told many people what happened yet. Just a couple of close friends who don't know Larry. They all say I should kick her out immediately, but it's not that simple.

Should I try to work things out with her? Did she actually cheat or am I overreacting? I don't know what to do. Update. A lot of you assume things that weren't true, but most of you are right about me needing to end things. It's been almost 20 days since this all went down. I've had a lot of time to myself, and my job keeps me on the road so I've had a few business trips in the meantime to keep me distracted.

I had to go to meetings in Boston and Atlanta, which was actually a blessing because it gave me some space away from the house and all the memories there. After that first night, we had several more conversations over the next few days. They all went pretty much the same way. She would cry and apologize and say she never meant to hurt me. I would ask for more details about what happened between them, and she would either get defensive or give vague answers that didn't really tell me anything. She swore they never slept together, but admitted they did kiss once.

I don't know if I believe that's all that happened, honestly. I think the worst part was when she tried to blame me for it. Said I was emotionally unavailable and I didn't give her the attention she needed. Said she felt lonely even when I was right there. Maybe there's some truth to that, I don't know. But it doesn't excuse what she did. After about a week of this back and forth, I finally told her it was over for good and she needed to move out. She cried a lot, but eventually agreed it was for the best.

She's staying with her sister for now until she finds a new place. I let her take the dog for now since I'm traveling so much for work, but we agreed he's ultimately mine and she'll bring him back once she gets settled somewhere. I also let her keep the car since it was a gift and I don't need it back. I'm not petty enough to take back a gift, even after what she did. So far I'm enjoying my new lifestyle that I'm trying to. to build for myself. There's a lot of free time I have now, and I'm enjoying having full control over my schedules and tasks that I do day to day. Being able to plan for just myself is

alleviating, and I'm starting to look back and see all the flaws that were present in my past relationship that I now really see as red flags. For example, this wasn't the first time she had questionable behavior with other guys. There was this co-worker of hers a couple years back who she was always texting and hanging out with. I expressed concerned then too, but she made me feel like I was being controlling and jealous. So I backed off. Nothing ever came of it as far as I know, but now I wonder if something did happen and I just never found out. Another red flag was how she would always go through my phone but got super defensive if I ever picked up hers. She knew my passcode but wouldn't tell me hers on principle. I see now how hypocritical that was.

Overall, I was pretty unhappy when I was with my ex. I'm recognizing that now. I put up with the unhappiness and kept going because I felt that this is what normal guys do in long-term relationships, the sunken cost theory and all that. Also, I thought she was loyal. So I didn't see any point in breaking things up, which I recognize now is one of my personal faults that I to fix to consider myself healthy again. There's a lot I'm learning about myself through this process. Like how I tend to ignore problems until they're too big to deal with. Or how I use humor to deflect from serious conversations, just like she said. I'm trying to work on these things, though it's hard to change habits that are so ingrained. I met someone when I was on one of my trips to Atlanta

and we had sex in my hotel room. It was one of the worst sexual experiences I was. I was one of the worst sexual experiences I've ever had. It was way too early after the breakup, and in my mind I was just thinking I'd be horny and fuck someone else and give myself a break. The second we started to have sex, I felt myself get hit with a tidal wave of emotion. I immediately thought of my ex, since she was the only person I'd had sex with for years. The actions, thrusting, etc., were so connected in my head with being with her, looking down and realizing I wasn't with her made me sick and very upset. I couldn't finish, I ended up rolling over and trying to hold back my tears. Thankfully this woman was understanding when I told her I just got out of a relationship,

and she decided to leave without any commotion. She was even nice enough to tell me she knows how it feels and that it will get better with time. Definitely not going to call her again, I regret even putting myself in that scenario, but I guess I learned something about myself afterwards. Mainly that I'm not ready to be with anyone else yet, not even for casual sex. My ex didn't really have any of her own friends, this should have been another red flag. She was constantly around my friends, and being honest I didn't really mind. But now that I see how broken that is for a person to lack any best friend or a group of people they saw before we got together. My friends have always been there for me, even the ones I knew before my ex.

She's now on her own, I have no idea who she's talking to about this whole scenario aside from her immediate family and I don't really care. Speaking of friends, I've had the talk with a few mutual friends me and Larry had. Everyone is pretty much shocked but they also told me that they had a feeling something was going on but Larry would lie to them when they'd ask. A couple of them noticed how my ex would act around Larry during group hangouts and thought it was suspicious, but didn't want to say anything without proof. I wish they had, but I understand why they didn't. Larry has since tried to reach out to some of them to try to rectify the situation, but they've already heard the story for me first, so most of them have cut Larry out of their lives. But to be honest, I'm not very close with these people and don't plan on growing to be more close to them in the future.

Larry was the only connection in our relationship, so if they do continue and associate with him, I would definitely not be happy and wouldn't mind cutting off contact with them as well. This actually became an issue with one of our mutual friends, we'll call him John. John's a good guy, we have similar interests and he was around a lot of the time Larry was. John was over at my house this past weekend since he just picked up his new car near a dealership near my place. He lives like 1.5 hours away. So John and I are shooting this shit and it's kind of inevitable for us to talk about what happened with me. He did bring up how he talked to Larry and how Larry is still lying to him.

This kind of irked me, I told John the first didn't care about Larry and that if he's going to continue to associate with Larry then I can't see us continuing to be friends. John was obviously a little upset by this, saying he just can't process what happened and wants to give Larry a chance to explain himself. I told him that's fine, but again, it's like he's condoning these actions and if he wants to get burned in the future that's his own decision. I just don't want Larry around me in any shape or form, and if just don't want Larry around me in any shape or form, and if just John wants to be around me he needs to understand that. It's not like Larry broke my car and refuses to pay, the guy stabbed me in the back and I can't ever forget that, even if in time I find it in myself to forgive Larry, which right now, I can't.

Larry is dead to me. We talked only briefly after I kicked my ex out, and it was mostly us cursing at one another. Very childish, like I said I knew I wouldn't get any closure out of talking to the guy and hearing him try to explain himself. He tried to say that he never intended for things to go that way, that it just happened. What bullshit? Things like that don't just happen. You make choices. He made the choice to betray me, and now he has to live with the consequences. Larry and my ex are both very broken people. They blame others for their own unhappiness and feel it's justified when their behaviors cause others to become upset.

I can see why they were attracted to each other in a way. They both have this victim mentality where nothing is ever their fault. It's always someone else to blame. In this case, that someone else was me. I don't know if they're still in contact. Part of me thinks they probably are, but I'm trying not to obsess over it. What they do now is their business. I just want to move on with my life.

Now, as for me, well my head is a fucking tornado about 12 hours of every day. I've been smoking pot to keep my cool and enjoy video games, but there is a lot of time when I avoid it altogether because I know I feel depressed and smoking pot will only drive me to be more sad since I'll dwell on my feelings in the past. Moving on is one of the hardest things I've had to do in my whole life. Some days are better than others. I'll have a good day at work or a fun night playing games with friends on. online, and I'll think I'm doing okay. Then something will remind me of her and it all comes crashing back. I've heard stories from others saying how they are happy to hear that this happened to me. Why? Well, they've had the same thing happen except after 30 years of marriage

and three kids. So they felt like they were not only robbed of some of the best years of their life, but now they also have a financial obligation towards the person who manipulated and hurt them the worst. I don't feel better. her hearing about how worse it could have been, but I'm happy we never had any kids or decided to marry. I definitely would have been dealing with another side show of a scenario. Here's another kicker, my ex's sister, only two years older than her, did the exact same thing at the start of this year to her own husband literally a couple days after we got back from their destination wedding. She met another guy at their wedding and decided this was the guy for her, fucked him,

still went through with the wedding and afterwards when everyone got back she broke it off with her husband. I didn't know the full story, and at the time we just moved into our new home so I invited her to stay with us until she got back on her feet. When she started seeing this new guy, I was really uneasy about it. This was also complicated because she was living here and didn't seem to have any plans to move out. I had to coach her sister on how to get a loan for a down payment, how to talk to landlords, A very immature family. This should have been another huge red flag but I ignored it and had to deal with the consequences of it. My parents have been great too. They were never crazy about my ex, turns out parents

sometimes do no best, but they've been careful not to say I told you so. My dad helped me move some of her bigger stuff to her sister's place, and my mom has been sending me home cooked meals that I can freeze and reheat. Not sure if I'll update again. Still trying to figure out where to go from here.