Reddit Stories - DECEPTIVE former spouse shared images of his COMMITMENT CELEBRATION to incite envy in

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #deception #commitmentcelebration #envy #exspouse #relationshipdramaSummary: A former spouse shared images of their commitment celebration, intending to provoke feelings of envy. This act of deception raises questions about the motivations behind such behavior and its impact on relationships. The situation highlights the complexities of emotional manipulation and the consequences of past connections.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, deception, commitmentcelebration, envy, exspouse, relationshipdrama, emotionalmanipulation, socialmedia, jealousy, pastrelationships, personalstories, lifeadvice, community, support, discussions, opinionsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6816713/support.This episode includes AI-generated content.

I hope you enjoy this story. Deceptive former spouse shared images of his commitment celebration to incite envy in me, but upon noticing a figure in the distance, I inadvertently disrupted his existence. Approximately a year ago, my ex-husband Sam, 32M, decided to leave me, 30F, for his younger co-worker who he had been having an affair with for almost eight months. At the time, we had been together for four years and married for two. We were just a week away from celebrating our second marriage anniversary when he told me that he couldn't do this anymore and that he had been cheating on me co-worker for the past eight months.

A few weeks before that, the two of them had confessed that they loved each other and wanted to spend their future with one another. So he couldn't continue pretending to be happy with me and said that he was going to leave. I was completely blindsided by that because even though he had been acting a little strange in the months leading up to that, I just thought that he was stressed out because of work. Never in my life would I have imagined that he was cheating on me with a 23-year-old who had just started working with him. But after that, everything started making sense, why he had been acting a little off for the past few months and why he had been spending so much time at work. He had not actually been stressed from work. He had been stressed

because of me and the efforts that it took to hide his affair from me. He had indeed been spending a lot of time at work too, but not because he was working over time but because of Nikki. After he told me the truth, I immediately asked him to get out of the house and he left, presumably because he had already had a discussion with Nikki since. After that, he started living with her. The divorce was rough because I was really angry and I wanted to really mess him up. I don't think anyone can blame me for that because we had been together for four years at the time and he knew that I had been cheated on earlier as well, so I had a lot of trust issues, but he had broken down my walls and got me to trust him, only to break it once again. That had really really

shattered me and I had been going through a rough patch at the time. Now I'm doing better, though, thankfully. The divorce came through a few months ago and I'd been pretty happy about it because it was finalized on my terms. I got the house, got to keep the car and I also walked away with a substantial amount of settlement. I wouldn't say that it helped in healing me or anything of the sort, but it brought me some peace, knowing that at least I got something out of the divorce. and the fact that he was very upset about giving up the house was also something that brought me great joy. Anyway, for the past couple of months, I have only been trying to move on since I don't have to see him anymore and neither do I have to interact with him.

I had blocked him everywhere after I found out about his affair and I also told my friends that I didn't want to hear about him. The only thing that I had known so far was that right after I had kicked him out, he had started living with Nikki and they had probably been living together ever since, but that did not matter to me anymore. This week, we would have celebrated our third marriage anniversary together if we had stayed together and I had been feeling quite low on the day of our anniversary. He decided to make it worse by reaching out to me through email and sending me a bunch of photos of his engagement party since he and Nikki had apparently

gotten engaged recently. There was also a message along with it, I'll just paste it here. He said, it's almost been a year since we broke up and initially, I was really sorry that I ended up cheating on you but now, I don't feel that way anymore. I think it was destiny that brought Nikki into my life and you were just a placeholder. I know you could not have ever been my soulmate, even if you tried, because you are vindictive, mean, and heartless. I know that you were the one who turned all our friends against me by telling them that it was gross that I was dating a 23-year-old, as if that's illegal. We are in love and I wish you could realize how

wonderful of a feeling it is, and how age doesn't matter when you're in love. You're closer to my age and yet what Nikki and I share, you will never have that with anyone. Do you know why? It's because you're not worthy of it. You were the one who tried to make it look ugly when Nikki and I got together, and I will admit, it was wrong of me to cheat, but the nasty ways that you chose to retaliate just makes me grateful that I decided to go along with Nikki because she's the perfect woman and you'll never be her. I thank God every day that we'll be. I thank God every day that we got a divorce and I didn't have to end up with you. So you might have won the divorce and gotten away with your demands, but I want it life. I'm sharing a couple of photos from our

engagement party. Hopefully, you'll see this and realize what true love looks like and find it in yourself to be able to move on. Happy anniversary. This is what he sent to me along with the photos of the engagement party and it really boiled my blood when I read that message because he kept harping on about one thing, that I had turned our friends against him by making it seem gross that he was dating 23-year-old while being literally almost a decade older than her. Let me just make it clear, I was not the one who turned our friends against him. So Sam and I had known each other since we were in college and we did have a common circle, but I kind of drifted apart from most of my friends after college since I had to move out of state for work. Six years ago, I finally came back and

started working here and that's how I ended up reconnecting with my old friends. And that included Sam and we ended up spending more time together when I returned. He and I had a very tight-knit group of friends and they were all very supportive of our relationship. We were all very close until he cheated and I told our friends about it because obviously, why would I hide it? And I never said that it was gross of him to date Nikki when she was so much younger than him, even though I do believe that it was gross. But I didn't have to say anything to our friends to make them cut him off. They made that choice for themselves. Yet he has always believed that I was the one who forced them to pick and I manipulated them into picking me, and he still holds a grudge against me for that.

However, even more than that, he didn't like the fact that I got the divorce to be finalized on my terms. So all these reasons combined, I guess he just wanted to rub it in my face that he was getting engaged to the woman that he had cheated on me with just so that I would feel bad, and well, he had succeeded because I felt terrible. Especially because of what he had said, about how he had won at life and the fact that he even wished me a happy anniversary, showing off that he remembered that it was our anniversary and he was doing this on purpose, that was simply diabolical. I was actually about to delete the email because it was so upsetting, but before I did that, something in the photos caught my eye. In the background of some of the

photos, I could see a very familiar person, and when I zoomed in, I realized that it happened to be one of my very distant relatives. This person, let's call him Jonathan, isn't exactly, related to me by blood, but there's still some relation there, so I could use that to my advantage. To be more precise, he is married to my mother's third cousin and we have occasionally seen and met each other at some family get-togethers, but since they're not very closely related, my mother isn't exactly friends with them and neither are we. I've only seen him a couple of times, but I recognized him in the background of those pictures and I instantly sent those pictures to my mother and asked her to confirm if it was actually him. I explained the entire situation to her

and she decided to call her cousin and ask her what was going on. After the phone call, my mother and I were able to find out that Jonathan was attending that engagement party because he was about to invest in the business that Sam was starting. Sam had used his father's connections to get Jonathan on board, since apparently, my ex-father in-law had been quite close to Jonathan's brother. Yeah, it's pretty complicated, but anyway, that's how they knew each other and they had been in the talks for a couple of months and Sam had invited Jonathan to the party so they could get to know each other better before he invested in his business. I requested my mother to pass on

her cousin's contact information to me because I had a lot to talk to her about. I had mentioned earlier as well that my mother isn't exactly close to these people, so they had no idea about my life and they definitely didn't know about my divorce from Sam and the other side of him. I hadn't actually been hoping to achieve anything, because I didn't think that Jonathan would give up on a business opportunity just because a distant relative had been cheated by the guy that he was about to invest in. So I hadn't actually been hoping for anything when I reached out to my aunt and asked her to put me in touch with her husband because I had to talk to him about Sam. However, when I spoke to them, I realized that they were really warm and quite willing to hear me

out. So I explained everything about my divorce to them and then, I even forwarded the email that Sam had sent to me, telling them that I felt like it was my duty to warn them about the kind of guy that they were dealing with because he was not a good person. And just as I had expected, both Jonathan and his wife were quite surprised because apparently Sam had been very sweet to them the entire time that they had been talking about investing in his business, and he had been quite charming and kind. That was not surprising for me because Sam actually was quite the charmer when he wanted to be, that's how he got me and he's very good at pretending, which is how he was able to hide his affair for so long. Anyway, after I told them the truth about him, they told me that they were really

thankful that I had reached out to them and they were going to think about what they wanted to do after this. Even then, I hadn't actually been expecting anything to happen, I just thought that I had the satisfaction of knowing that at least I had done something real and not just sat back and let things happen. Surprisingly, though, today I received another email from my dear ex-husband, and the tone of this one was quite different from his last. Apparently, after speaking to me, Jonathan had decided to rescind his offer of investing in the business since that one conversation with me had completely changed his opinion of Sam. Jonathan had started to ghost him personally and had his secretary informed Sam that he was

no longer interested in the business anymore and wished him the best but he couldn't go further on with him owing to special circumstances after his talk with me. And his secretary made sure to mention me, so Sam would know exactly what's going on. Sam couldn't contact me in any other way, so he had to send me an email again and tell me that he was quite desperate because he had already quit his job and had started recruiting people for his business. without Jonathan's investment, he would have to shut down and go back to working and he just wasn't ready for that. He was practically begging me to make things right and even tried to bribe me by

telling me that he was ready to make me a partner in his company, only if I got Jonathan to come back on board and he knew that I could do it. I was actually quite happy reading that email because it made me realize that he had really screwed things up for himself by sending me that horrible message and trying to rub it in my face. His plan had totally backfired and now, he was the one who was in a terrible position and needed me to bail him out. I was feeling like I was on top of the world and was relishing the experience until, out of nowhere, I started feeling guilty about what was happening. I don't even know why, but a couple of hours ago, I started feeling like I was a terrible person for doing this and that I'm no different from Sam if I'm actually

relishing it. I've spoken to my parents about it, I've spoken to my friends as well, and all of them have told me that the only reason I'm feeling guilty is because I'm a decent human being, but that doesn't mean that what I did was wrong. But that's not helped me because I know that they are on my side and they are going to be biased because they love me. I guess what I'm saying is that I need some unbiased people to validate my decision because I've just realized that I am literally ruining somebody's career right now and I've been enjoying it so far, but that realization has made it a little less fun. It's complicated, but I really need somebody to put things into perspective for me right now and I need it to be completely free of any bias. So I'd have for getting

an investor to back out of my cheating ex-husband's business and ruining his career? Edit, I guess there has been some confusion about my statement regarding how it was gross for my ex-husband to be dating a 23-year-old. Yes, it's legal and I am aware of that, but that doesn't make it all fine all of a sudden. Just to put things into perspective, she has just graduated two years ago and has very little real-world experience and when she started working with him, it was only her second job. Meanwhile, Sam has been working for the past 10 years, and even at this job, he was supposed to be her senior so it's quite obvious that he has had a lot more experience than her and the power dynamics between the two of them are obviously not going to be the same

had it been a woman of his own age. And I'm sure that a lot of other people agree with what I'm saying because if everyone had thought that it was completely fine for them to be dating, they wouldn't have had to quit their jobs and start working elsewhere after the news of my divorce and their affair started spreading. So I know for a fact that Nikki is an adult and can make her own decisions and I'm not judging her, not for that at least, but I think I'm allowed to judge my ex-husband, who cheated on me with somebody so much younger than him. Anyway, it's my personal opinion that it was gross of him, and I'm going to stand by that.

I think that he was taking advantage of her immaturity and I think it's weird. and unethical, but that's just me. People don't have to agree with me or anything, I'm fine with it. But there's no reason to be so hateful to me just because I called it a gross relationship. The man cheated on me, I think I've earned the right to criticize him. As for saying it to my friends, I had already mentioned in my original post that I did not say it to them. They were the ones who had been saying it and I just agreed but didn't harp on about it. Neither did I tell my friends to cut them out of their lives because of this. That was their own choice as well. What I'm trying to say is that I have tried my best to deal with all of this as maturely as

I possibly can because I don't want to indulge in any sort of drama. I just wanted to get out of that marriage as quickly as possible and get the divorce finalized. So I would really appreciate it if people did not hate on me in the comments because it's really not necessary and I don't think it's fair either. Thank you to the ones who were kind enough to me and everyone else who was polite and civil. The rest of you guys, I don't know what's wrong with you people, but it's not okay to hate on other people like this. Update 1, I finally responded to the email that Sam had sent me and I told him that I really appreciated his offer of wanting to make me a partner in this company, but I was just not interested. After all, he had cheated on me once, I didn't want to be cheated

on once again. And I also told him that I had spoken to Jonathan, but I hadn't told him that he had to opt out of investing in the business. That had been completely Jonathan's personal choice. I had only warned him about Sam, and well, it's not like he can blame me for that because he was the one who sent me those photos and that's how I found out about the connection. Anyway, I made it very clear to him that I hadn't told Jonathan not to invest in his business. And since I couldn't have influenced that decision, I don't think I can go up to him and tell him to invest in Sam since that's not my place either. Plus, even if I could, I'm not not sure I would want to do that to anyone because I know him as a person and I know how petty

and vindictive he is, so I don't think it's a good idea for anyone to be investing in his business right now. Had he been a changed person and not sent me that email at all, maybe none of this would have happened, but he is still a horrible human being, so he totally deserves this. I also told him that he needs to move on, not me because I'm not the one still whining about the fact that our friends are not speaking to me anymore. That was also his own fault. He cheated on me and that ruined his friendship with a lot of people because it was a horrible thing to do. But now what's done is done.

He could have just chosen to move on, but for some reason, he just keeps trying to find ways to blame me for all of this. In the email that I wrote back to him, I told him that the real villain in his life is him and not me. He is the one who keeps screwing up everything for himself, and then when he has nobody else to blame, he turns to me.

I entered the email by telling him that he has a very sad existence and that I really hope things get better for him because right now, I don't think he's winning at life at all. People who win at life don't feel the need to announce it to the people they don't like anymore. And then I blocked that email address so that he wouldn't be able to contact me again because that's the last thing that I need. Of course, he can always just make a new one and try to reach out to me but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. But for now, I'm just grateful that my family, no matter how distant they are from me, decided to take my side. So yesterday, I called

Jonathan up, and I thanked him for not investing in Sam. And he went on to me and told me that I was the one who had saved him from investing in somebody who was obviously not reliable or trustworthy. If he could cheat on me and then treat me like crap, then he's obviously not a good person and he wouldn't want to invest in somebody like that. He also told me that at the end of the day, we are family, even though we haven't interacted much and blood is always thicker than water. So I was very grateful for that and I even invited them over for dinner this weekend because this is a pretty big deal for me. I've also invited my parents so we can all bond and I think an experience like this is going to bring us together, even though we haven't been close before.

And regarding everything that has happened with Sam, I've spoken to my friends about it, and they have told me that I really don't need to feel guilty about ruining his career. I had mentioned this in my original post as well, towards the end, but I want to bring it up again because apparently there were certain things that I didn't know since my friends had wanted to protect my feelings and so they hadn't spoken to me about it earlier. But apparently, while we were getting divorced, he had tried to do everything in his power to turn them against me and make me look like the villain so they would testify against me that would sway the divorce terms.

He was pretty desperate, so he had tried to make it seem like I had been the one who had driven him to cheat because I used to act like a psychic. and apparently I was very insecure and petty. He had even tried to tell our friends that apparently I had severe anger issues and I would go out of my way to make life difficult for him. But nobody had bought any of that and everyone has stayed by my side, which is probably why he is so upset. They hadn't told me about any of this in the past because they wanted to spare my feelings since I had been finding it very difficult to move on and to be fair, even though I had told them that I didn't want to hear anything about him. However, after they told me about it, I saw

started feeling a lot less guilty about screwing things up for him because I think he deserves it. Actually, let me just say it, I know he deserves it and I refuse to feel sorry for him anymore. Update 2, hi, so it's been two weeks since I blocked Sam and since then, I haven't had any contact with him. The dinner with Jonathan and my aunt was a success and since my parents had come over for dinner as well, even my mother got to bond with her cousin. So it was pretty fun and Jonathan told me that after finding out what had happened, even his brother had covered. ties with my ex-father-in-law because I remember my in-laws had supported their son, which was obvious, but it was a good thing to do. I had been feeling quite content with my decision and after what

happened this evening, I am pretty sure that I did the right thing. Because Nikki showed up at my house, I don't know how she found me, but anyway that doesn't matter anymore. She showed up pretty late, just as I was about to heat up my dinner, and when I saw that it was her outside, I told her to go away because I didn't want anything to do with her. I think anyone in my place would have reacted the same way, but she didn't leave. Instead, she started throwing a tantrum on my doorstep and accused me of being a jealous loser. She told me that I just couldn't stand the fact that my ex-husband was happier with her instead of me and that's why I'd taken it upon myself to try and ruin their lives.

She called me crazy and told me that there was no reason for me to keep tabs on his life just to try and ruin him and realize that she probably had no idea I had even found out about Jonathan. Because if she had known about it, she would have known that I found out about Jonathan just because of what Sam had sent to me. So I told her about the email and I told her exactly what he had said to me. But she refused to believe me so I told her that I would gladly send her the email if she wanted me to and that's what she made me do. She stood outside the door and made me forward the email to her and only then did she realize what was going on. After she got that, I'm pretty sure she started feeling like a fool and just walked away without saying anything else.

Then, I went back to my dinner and a few minutes ago, right before I started typing out this update. She sent me an email saying that I was still a horrible human being for going out of my way to ruin my ex-husband's life and career. She called me miserable and petty and just reinforced my belief that I had done the right thing by exposing Sam. Anyway, I told her that she and her husband needed to leave me alone and stop acting like they were obsessed with me because right now, I was just one more incident away from posting all of this on social media, and then, everyone would know what kind of people they were. So that was that and I'm finally going to start with my dinner now and I really just hope that

they have learned the lesson and they're going to leave me alone now. Update 3. Hey, everyone. I have some pretty fantastic news to share with you guys. So it has been almost a month since my last update and three days ago. I heard from a couple of my friends that Sam and Nikki had posted that they were breaking up their engagement and going their separate ways due to irreconcilable differences. I don't know why they used such corporate language just to announce their breakup, because it's not like they were getting divorced.

But anyway, they also mentioned that they would continue to remain cordial and hope that people would give them privacy they needed at this time. I don't know why they were talking about privacy at all because from what I've heard, Sam himself has been bad-mouthing Nikki to all his friends and has been talking crap about her relentlessly. My friend and I managed to read between the lines from all the gossip that we have heard about it and we think that she decided to leave him a couple of weeks ago, probably after I told her about the email and stuff and she decided that she couldn't be with somebody who was still reaching out to his ex on purpose, even if it was just

to make me feel bad. I guess it was also bad that he had lied to her and didn't mention the email to her while talking about why the deal with Jonathan had fallen through. Sam's ego couldn't handle this, so he started bad-mouthing Nikki and told a bunch of his friends that she was only with him for the money and the stability because ever since he had moved in with her, he had been covering all their expenses, and she barely had to spend a dollar on anything. It was gross how he had switched up his attitude toward Nikki so quickly, just because she was not willing to put up with him and his lies anymore. Anyway, I think it's fantastic news because right now, neither does.

does he have a job and his fiancé also left him so he's pretty much at rock bottom. I don't feel bad for him at all because he deserves all of this. He brought it all onto himself. I'm doing a lot better and I don't even care about him or what he's going through anymore. My work is great. I have my friends and family by my side and that's pretty much all I need. So far, I had even been holding back on getting a cat because he's allergic, but I think it's about time that I got a cat as well. But even right now, I feel pretty full. fulfilled.