Reddit Stories - Close friend INFORMED me that my spouse was UNFAITHFUL and SUPPORTED me during

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #relationships #betrayal #friendship #support #loyaltySummary: A close friend informed me that my spouse was unfaithful and supported me during the difficult situation, showing true loyalty and friendship.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, relationships, betrayal, friendship, support, loyalty, infidelity, marriage, trust, honesty, communication, emotional, advice, community, personal, experienceBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Close friend informed me that my spouse was unfaithful and supported me during my separation, but later became betrothed to him after three months with the identical ring he previously gave me. Bought for me. So here's the backstory that'll make this whole mess make sense. I've been best friends with Nora since we were 15. We're talking 12 years of friendship here, sleepovers, college roommates, etc. She's been there through my dad's cancer scare when I was 19, helped me through my quarter-life

crisis when I dropped out of law school to become a pastry chef, and was literally the person who introduced me to my now ex-husband Sam at a house party back when we were 22. Sam and I got married three years ago, and honestly, I thought we were solid. Not perfect, nobody is, but solid. He's had a good job at a mid-sized firm, I run a small bakery that specializes in wedding cakes, and we had this comfortable little life in our starter home with our neurotic rescue cat, biscuit. Nora, meanwhile, has always been the serial dater type. Never could seem to find the one, always had some drama with whatever guy she was seeing.

She'd come over at least twice a month to vent about her latest dating disaster while I made her my signature stress-baking chocolate chip cookies. Here's where it gets interesting, and by interesting I mean absolutely insane. About six months ago, Nora started acting weird. Not dramatically weird, Nora's always been a bit dramatic, but subtly off. She'd make these little comments about Sam that I initially brushed off as her just being protective. Things like asking if I was sure he was working late when he said he was, or mentioning how she'd seen him somewhere when he told me he was going straight home from work. Little seeds of doubt that I stupidly thought were just her being a concerned

friend. The thing is, Nora works as pretty hectic, and her schedule is all over the place. She's always been the type to be out and about at weird hours, networking events, client dinners, whatever. So when she'd mentioned seeing Sam around town, I just figured it was coincidence. Our town isn't huge, about 50,000 people, so running into each other isn't exactly shocking. Then came the conversation that blew up my entire life. About four months ago, Norfolk, Nora asked me to meet her for coffee, which wasn't unusual except for how serious she sounded when she called. Nora sat me down and told me she had something difficult to share.

She'd discovered that Sam was having an affair. She said she'd been struggling with whether to tell me for weeks, that it was tearing her apart, but that she couldn't stand by and watch me live a lie. She claimed she'd hired a private investigator, which seemed extreme but Nora's always been dramatic, and had proof of the affair, but she wouldn't show me the evidence because and I quote, seeing the details would destroy you, and I care about you too much to put you through that. She absolutely refused to tell me who the other woman was. Said it was someone I knew, someone close to both of us, and that revealing her identity would break me in ways I couldn't

recover from. She kept insisting that what mattered was that Sam was cheating, not who he was cheating with. She painted herself as this noble friend who was sacrificing her own peace of mind to save me from a dishonest marriage. I was devastated, obviously. But here's the thing that's been eating at me since. Nora was so prepared for that conversation. She had answers for everything, explanations for why she couldn't provide details, reasons why immediate action was necessary. Looking back, it felt almost rehearsed, but at the time I was too shocked and hurt to notice. I confronted Sam that evening, and he denied everything. Not just a casual deny He was genuinely confused and hurt that I would even suggest such a thing.

He begged me to tell him where this was coming from, what evidence I had, but I couldn't show him anything because Nora wouldn't give me the supposed proof. It became this awful cycle where I was demanding he confessed to something he claimed he hadn't done, while he was begging me to explain why I suddenly didn't trust him. Nora kept pushing me to leave him. Daily phone calls, surprise visits, constant reminders that I deserved better than a cheating husband. She offered to let me stay at her apartment, helped me find a divorce lawyer, even offered to loan me money for the legal fees. At the time, I thought she was being incredibly supportive.

Now I realized she was orchestrating the entire destruction of my marriage. The divorce took about two months to finalize since we didn't have kids and could agree on most things. Sam was so defeated by the whole situation that he basically just signed whatever papers were put in front of him. During this time, Nora was my constant companion. She helped me pack up the house, held me while I cried, brought me takeout when I was too depressed to cook. She kept reassuring me that I was doing the right thing, that I was brave for leaving, that I deserved someone who would be faithful. Three months after my divorce was finalized, I was scrolling through Instagram and saw a post

from Nora. She was at some fancy restaurant, and there was a ring on her finger. Not just any ring, a ring I recognized because I'd helped pick it out. It was the engagement ring Sam had originally bought for me, the one he'd returned to the jewelry store during our divorce proceedings. The caption was all about how love finds you when you least expect it, how sometimes the person who's meant for you has been right in front of you all along. The comments were full of congratulations, and Sam was tagged in several of them. Mark

My ex-husband Sam, who Nora claimed was a cheating scumbag who didn't deserve me. I called her immediately, obviously, turns out, she and Sam had been having an affair for over a year. Not only that, but she'd manipulated the entire situation to break us up so she could have him. There was no private investigator, no evidence of Sam cheating with anyone else, just Nora projecting her own guilt onto some fictional other woman. She tried to justify it by saying she was said, me free from a marriage that wasn't meant to be. That she could see Sam wasn't truly happy with me, that they had a deeper connection, that I would thank her someday for helping me dodge a bullet. She actually said she did it out of love for both of us, that she was saving

me from a loveless marriage and giving Sam the courage to be with who he really wanted to be with. I hung up on her and haven't spoken to her since. That was about three months ago, and the whole situation has completely upended my life. I've lost not just my husband, but my best friend of 12 years. Friends are mostly staying out of it, but a few have reached out to say their happy Sam found someone who makes him happy without seeming to grasp that the someone is the person who destroyed my marriage to get him. The really messed up part is that I can't even be properly angry about Sam cheating because

technically, he did cheat. And I can't be angry about him moving on quickly because we've been divorced for months now. Nora has somehow managed to position herself as both the hero who saved me from a bad marriage and the woman who got her happy ending with my ex-husband. So Reddit, I don't know what to feel and wonder if I should be grateful that she helped me get out of a marriage where my husband was having an affair, even if her motives were selfish. But mostly I feel like I'd been played by the person I trusted most in the world, and I can't get past the manipulation it took to pull this off.

Edit, Yes, I Got Biscuit, The Cat, With Me Smile Update 1, Well, you certainly didn't hold back in your responses to my original post. The overwhelming consensus was that Nora is a manipulative piece of work who orchestrated my divorce to steal my husband, and honestly, reading your comments helped me realize just how deep this rabbit hole goes. A few people asked for more details about the timeline, so let me fill in some gaps that might explain how this all played out. After reading your comments, I started really thinking about when Nora's behavior changed, and I realized it wasn't six months ago when she started making weird comments about Sam. It was actually closer to a year and a half ago, right after she

broke up with her last serious boyfriend, Eric. Eric was this really great guy she'd been dating for about eight months. I actually liked him, which was rare for Nora's boyfriends. He was stable, had a good job in construction, and seemed genuinely crazy about her. They broke up out of nowhere, at least from my perspective, and Nora claimed it was because he wasn't intellectually stimulating enough for her. Looking back now, I'm wondering if that breakup coincided with when she and Sam started whatever they started. Following your advice, I decided to do some digging. Several of you suggested checking phone records, credit card statements, anything that might show a pattern of contact between Nora and Sam. I can't access Sam stuff obviously, but I went through my old

phone bills and found something interesting. Starting about 14 months ago, there were a bunch of calls and texts between Nora and Sam that happened when I wasn't around. Not suspicious on their own, they were friends through me, but the frequency was weird. Like, why was my best friend texting my husband at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday when she knew I was at work? I also went back through my social media posts from the past year and a half, which was depressing but illuminating. There are several photos from group hangouts where Nora and Sam are standing closer together than I remembered, or where she's looking at him while he's not paying attention. In one photo from my birthday party last year, everyone's looking at the camera except Nora,

who's staring directly at Sam while he's laughing at something someone said. At the time, I probably thought she was just enjoying seeing him happy. Now it looks completely different. But here's the kicker that really validated what you all were saying. I remembered that about 10 months ago, Nora had this period where she was constantly running into Sam at places. When I confronted Sam about the affair during our divorce proceedings, he kept saying he never meant for it to happen, that it just developed naturally over time.

He made it sound like this gradual thing where they realized they had feelings for each other. But based on what you all pointed out about Nora's behavior patterns, I'm starting to think she was actively pursuing him for months before anything physical happened. I also took the advice of the person who suggested I reach out people like XBF or friends. So I reached out to Eric, Nora's ex-boyfriend, just to see if his timeline of their breakup aligned with when I think Sam and Nora started their thing. It took some Facebook stalking to find his contact info, but I sent him a message. He responded pretty quickly and agreed.

Eric confirmed what I suspected. He said Nora started pulling away from him emotionally around the same time she started making all those comments about Sam to me. She became distant, started picking fights over little things. and kept talking about how she felt like she was settling for someone who wasn't her intellectual equal. But here's the interesting part. He said she kept bringing up Sam as an example of the kind of man she respected, always talking about how smart Sam was, how he had his life together, how he was the kind of guy who could challenge her intellectually. Eric said it got to the

point where he felt like Nora was comparing him to Sam constantly, and he started to wonder if she had feelings for him. When he brought it up, Nora accused him of being paranoid and insecure. She made him feel crazy for even suggesting it, which sounds familiar based on how she made me feel crazy for questioning her motives about telling me about the affair. The most damning thing Eric told me was that Nora had asked him to stay away from group hangouts that included Sam and me, it wasn't uncommon for him to hang out with us. She said it would be awkward since they were broken up. Essentially, she removed Eric from the equation so she could have more access to Sam without having to deal with her boyfriend being around.

So yeah, Reddit, your collective detective work was spot on. This wasn't a case of two people falling in love and handling it badly. This was Nora removing obstacles to get what she wanted, including manipulating me into divorcing my own husband. The question now is what to do with this information. A few people suggested I tell Sam what I've figured out, but honestly, what's the point? He's engaged to her now. he was a willing participant in deceiving me, in which case he's just as guilty as she is,

or he was manipulated too, but he's clearly chosen to stay with her regardless. I've decided to focus on moving forward rather than trying to get revenge or expose what happened. My bakery is doing well and I'm starting to build a social life that doesn't revolve around couple's activities with Sam and Nora. Though I have to admit, there's a petty part of me that's curious to see how this all plays out for them. A relationship built on lies and manipulation doesn't exactly seem like a solid foundation for marriage, but maybe they deserve each other. Thanks for helping me see the situation clearly, Reddit. Sometimes you need a bunch of strangers on the internet to point

out what's right in front of your face. Update 2, hey Reddit, your responses to my last update were incredibly supportive, and several of you asked me to keep you posted on how things develop, so here we are. Since my last post, I've been trying to follow. the advice about focusing on moving forward and not getting caught up in revenge fantasies. I've been throwing myself into my bakery business, started taking a pottery class, because apparently I'm becoming that divorced woman who tries new hobbies, and even went on a couple of dates that friends set up for me. Nothing serious, but it felt good to remember that there are other humans out there who aren't involved in this whole mess. But of course, because this is my life

we're talking about, things couldn't just stay quiet and let me heal in peace. About three weeks ago, I was at the farmer's market where I have a booth selling my pastries when I ran into Sam's mom, Carol. I've always had a good relationship with Carol, she's this sweet woman who worked as a school librarian for 30 years and makes incredible quilts. She was obviously uncomfortable seeing me, but she came over to my booth anyway. What she told me was both incredibly sad. Apparently, Sam has been struggling a lot more than I realized. Carol said he's been dealing with what sounds like a pretty severe depression, and that while

he's going through the motions of being engaged to Nora, he's not the same person she raised. She described him as withdrawn and anxious, constantly second-guessing himself, and having trouble sleeping. The really interesting part was when Carol mentioned that Sam had been asking her a lot of questions about manipulation and emotional abuse lately, nothing direct, but things like whether she thought it was normal for a partner to isolate you from your friends, or if she'd ever felt like someone was rewriting history to make her question her own memories. Carol said she got the impression he was trying to figure out if something that happened to him was normal or problematic, but he wouldn't give her details.

I didn't tell Carol what I suspected, because that's not my place, but it sounds like Sam is starting to piece together what actually happened during our marriage and divorce. I mostly just feel sad for him. If he's realizing that he was manipulated into destroying his marriage, that has to be devastating. carol also mentioned that Nora has been pushing hard for a quick wedding like unnaturally fast they got engaged three months after my divorce was finalized and apparently Nora wants to be married within the next few months carol said Nora keeps talking about how they've already wasted so much time being apart and that life is too short to have a long engagement

now I'm not a psychologist but several of you pointed out in your comments that manipulative people often push for quick commitment to lock their victims in before they can fully process what's happening. Nora rushing Sam to the altar while he's clearly struggling emotionally seems to fit that pattern perfectly. But here's where things get interesting in a way that's specific to my particular corner of hell. Remember how I mentioned that I run a wedding cake business? Well, guess who reached out to me about making her wedding cake? That's right, Nora called my business line a few days after I saw Carol at the farmer's market. She didn't identify herself and she sounded sick or muffled so thought I wouldn't know it was her, just said she was planning a

wedding for later this year and had heard great things about my work. She gave me all the basic details. Guest count, flavor preferences, budget range. It wasn't until she mentioned the venue that I realized who I was talking to. The venue is this gorgeous mansion about an hour outside of town that I've worked at several times before. It's expensive. It's expensive. It's expensive. and books up months in advance, so there aren't that many weddings there each year. When she mentioned the date and location, I put it together immediately. I didn't let on that I knew who she was. Instead, I told her I'd need to check my calendar and get back to her.

Then I spent the next two days trying to figure out what the hell Nora was thinking. My best guess is that she's trying to normalize the situation by hiring me for her wedding cake. Like, if I'm willing to make her cake, then obviously I'm. I'm not that upset about how everything went down, right? It's this weird power play where she gets to have the woman she betrayed provide a service for her wedding to the man she stole. Either that, or she's so confident in her manipulation of the entire situation that she genuinely doesn't think I'd have a problem with it.

Maybe she's convinced herself that she really did do me a favor by freeing me from Sam, and now we can all just be friends again. I called her back and politely declined the job, citing scheduling conflicts. She pushed back pretty hard, offering to pay double my usual rate and asking if there was any way I could make it work. When I held firm, she asked if I could recommend another baker, which I did, gave her the names of three excellent professionals in the area who could definitely handle what she's looking for. But then she said something that really stuck with me. She mentioned that she'd specifically wanted to work with me because my cakes are so beautiful

and meaningful, and that having me involved would make the day feel more complete somehow. I don't know if she was being sincere or if this was another manipulation tactic, but it left me feeling unsettled for days. Several people in the comments on my last post warned me that Nora would probably try to reestablish contact at some point, and you were absolutely right. I'm glad I was prepared for it because of your advice, but it's still emotionally exhausting to deal with. The other thing that's been weighing on me is this question of whether I should tell Sam what I've figured out about Nora's manipulation tactics. On one hand, if he's starting to question the situation on his own, maybe hearing my perspective

would help him understand what really happened. On the other hand, he made his choice when he decided to stay with her after our divorce was finalized. What do you think, Reddit? Should I reach out to Sam and share what I've learned about the timeline and Nora's behavior patterns? Or should I stick to my plan of staying out of their relationship and focusing on my own healing. I'm honestly not sure what the right answer is and I could use some outside perspective

on whether intervention would be helpful or just make everything more complicated. Update 3, all right Reddit, I'm back with what I'm hoping will be the final update to this saga, though knowing my luck, there's probably more drama brewing that I can't see yet. Your advice on my last post was split pretty evenly between Tell Sam what you know and stay out of it for your own sanity, which honestly didn't make my decision any easier. But life, as it tends to do, made the decision for me in a way I never could have predicted. First, let me address something several of you brought up in your comments. A lot of people were wondering why Sam would go along with Nora's manipulation if he's as good a guy as I originally

thought he was. That's been bothering me too, because the Sam I married wasn't particularly susceptible to manipulation, he was actually pretty skeptical and independent-minded. Well, I think I have some answers now, and they're more complicated than I expected. About Five weeks ago, I was catering a corporate event for a local firm, nothing fancy, just breakfast pastries and coffee for their monthly partner meeting. I've done events for this firm before, they're good clients who pay on time and don't make ridiculous demands. I was setting up in their conference room when I overheard two of the partners talking about

a client who was going through a messy situation involving workplace harassment and gaslighting. I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but they were talking pretty openly while I arranged the pastry display. One of them mentioned how difficult these cases are because the victims often don't realize they're being manipulated until long after the damage is done. The other partner said something about how isolation from friends and family is usually the first step, followed by making the victim question their own perceptions and memories. It hit me like a truck, read it. They were describing exactly what Nora had done to Sam, and probably what she'd done to me too.

I started thinking about how, over the past year and a half of our marriage, Sam had gradually stopped hanging out with his college friends, had become more dependent on Nora and me for social interaction, and had started second-guessing himself about things he used to be confident about. I remembered how Nora would sometimes correct Sam's memories of events, or how she'd make subtle comments about his friends being immature or his hobbies being childish. At the time, I thought she was just being her usual opinionated self. Now I realize she was isolating him from his support network.

So when I got home from that catering event, I made a decision. I wasn't going to tell Sam what I suspected about Nora's manipulation. That felt too much like me trying to control the situation. But I was going to give him information that might help him make his own decisions. I wrote him a letter. I included the information I'd gathered about Nora's behavior patterns, the timeline of when her comments about him started, and what Eric had told me about their breakup.

I also included some of the things Carol had mentioned about his current state of mind, just so he'd know that people who care about him are worried. I ended the letter by saying that I wasn't trying to get back together with him or break up his engagement. I just wanted him to have all the information so he could make decisions based on reality instead of whatever version of events he'd been given. I told him that if he was happy with Nora and confident in their relationship, he should ignore everything I'd written and move on with his life. I mailed the letter to his office, figuring that was the best way to ensure Nora wouldn't

intercept it. Sam called me three days later. He asked if we could meet somewhere private to talk, and honestly, I almost said no. I'd done what I felt was right by giving him the information, and I didn't want to get sucked back into the drama. But he sounded so tired and confused that I agreed to meet him in the next town over, somewhere we wouldn't run into anyone we knew. What he told me was both heartbreaking and infuriating. Basically, Nora had been playing a much longer game than either of us realized. She'd been working on Sam for almost two years, slowly making him doubt his happiness in our marriage, his friendships, and eventually his own judgment. She'd convinced him that I was too focused on my business to really care about him, that his friends were holding

him back from growing as a person, and that he was settling for a mediocre life because he was afraid to take risks. The affair started about eight months before Nora told me about it, but Sam said it felt like he'd been emotionally manipulated for much longer than that. Nora had positioned herself as the only person who really understood him, who saw his potential, who cared enough to help him become his best self. When Nora finally told me about the affair, Sam was already so isolated and confused that he went along with her narrative about how they were meant to be together and how staying with me would be unfair to everyone involved. He said he felt like he was in a fog, just going through the motions of what Nora

said needed to happen. The most devastating part was when he told me that he'd started having doubts about Nora almost immediately after our divorce was finalized, but by then he felt like it was too late to change course. She'd pushed so hard for them to move and together, get engaged, start planning a wedding, that backing out felt impossible. He said he felt trapped in a relationship that he'd been manipulated into, but he didn't know how to get out without admitting that he destroyed his marriage for nothing. I won't lie, read it, earing all of this was incredibly sad. Sam isn't just the villain in this story who chose Nora over me. He's another victim of Nora's manipulation, just like I was. That doesn't excuse his choices or minimize the hurt he caused me,

but it does make the whole situation more complicated than I originally thought. We talked for about two hours, and by the end of it, Sam was crying. He kept apologizing for everything that had happened, for not seeing what Nora was doing, for not fighting harder to save our marriage. He asked if there was any chance we could work things out, and honestly, part of me wanted to say yes. But here's the thing, even if Sam was manipulated, he still made choices. He still chose to have an affair, still chose to go along with Nora's plan to break up our marriage, still chose to get engaged to her instead of taking time to figure out what he actually wanted. Being a victim of manipulation doesn't erase the consequences of your actions, and I'm not interested in being

someone's consolation prize after they realized their dream girl is actually a nightmare. I told Sam that I appreciated his honesty and that I was glad he was starting to see the situation clearly, but that too much had happened for us to go back to being married. I suggested he talked to a therapist who specializes in emotional abuse and manipulation, and I recommended that he take some serious time to figure out who he is when he's not being influenced by someone else. As for Nora and their engagement, I told him that was between them, but that he should think carefully about whether he wanted to build a life with someone who was capable of orchestrating the destruction of someone else's marriage to get what she wanted. Sam ended things with

Nora a few days after our conversation. I don't know the details of how that went down, and honestly, I don't want to know. I heard through Carol that he's moved back in with his parents temporarily and is starting therapy. Nora, predictably, has been telling anyone who will listen that Sam had a nervous breakdown and that I manipulated him into leaving her. The irony is not lost on me, Reddit. I'm not getting back together with Sam, and I'm not interested in being friends with him, at least not anytime soon.

Too much has happened, and I need more time to process everything. But I am glad I gave him the information he needed to make his own choices, even if those choices ended up creating more drama in the short term. As for Nora, she's been trying to contact me constantly since Sam broke up with her. Phone calls, texts, emails, even showing up at my bakery once before I asked her to leave. She seems to think that if she can just explain her side of the story, I'll understand that everything she did was out of love. The level of delusion is honestly impressive, read it.

She's managed to convince herself that orchestrating my divorce was an act of friendship. and that Sam breaking up with her is just temporary confusion that will pass once he realizes how much he needs her. I've blocked her on all social media and changed my phone number. My lawyer has advised against getting a restraining order unless her behavior escalates, but we're documenting everything just in case. So that's where things stand now, Reddit. Sam is single and in therapy. Thanks for all your support and advice throughout this mess.

Having a community of strangers validate my experiences and help me see the situation clearly was incredibly valuable, and I don't think I would have handled this as well without your perspectives.