Reddit Stories - EMOTIONAL BREAKTHROUGH Ending A Century Long Bond With Regret Heart WRENCHING

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #emotions #regret #heartwrenching #bond #breakthroughSummary: In a heart-wrenching tale, a century-long bond with regret is finally severed through an emotional breakthrough. The protagonist's journey is filled with pain, reflection, and ultimately, liberation from the shackles of the past.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, emotionalbreakthrough, centurylongbond, regret, heartwrenching, pain, reflection, liberation, past, story, tale, protagonist, journey, severance, shackles, freedomBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. I eventually found the resolution I was seeking following a decade-long relationship, yet I feel some regret. I encountered a young woman during my university years while employed at a particular stationary shop. Chain back in 2011. It started as an innocent crush between the two of us then eventually evolved into a bit of fooling around both on and off work premises. I knew I liked her and that she liked me and the chemistry was through the roof between us. I also had my reservations because she was known as the easiest fuck in the whole job and

had sexual encounters with three of my co-workers. She came on to me strong and I knew she was easy and just wanted a chance with her. But then it developed into more. I had been fairly inexperienced sexually at the time and she was opening up a whole new world to me and was honestly the first girl to ever be that sexually interested in me. I felt like a king because for the first time in life I had a girl who didn't just have feelings for me. She wanted to jump my bones all the time and would often stroke my ego about how amazing I was in bed and the best lover she's ever had. On top of that we were best friends, had everything in common and had a bond that neither of us had ever experienced before. It was an incredible start. This went on for a while

until I finally made things official with her. We continued to fool around inside and outside of work and things were great until the newness started to slow down. At about the six-month mark of our relationship I noticed her sexual energy was kind of off. The dirty talk stopped, the enthusiasm subsided, and while her feelings for me were clearly getting stronger, we were saying I love you by then. The sexual chemistry died down a bit. I chalked it up to the fact that couples grow out of the honeymoon phase and start to settle into a sustainable routine. I was in decent shape at the time, treating her well and doing what would be considered necessary as the foundation of good sex and chemistry. We still had sex when we could, but it just wasn't as magical as it had once been due to her

declining interest. At the time we weren't living together and she would often promise me that if we lived together things would be different. This is where I began to start chasing the dragon, so to speak. I eventually brought up the issue again to her when I noticed things still weren't improving and told her it was important to me and something I felt I needed to not only feel connected with her on a deeper level, but also as a man it feels good to know you are wanted and needed by your partner both physically and emotionally. She said it was nothing and essentially she hadn't noticed change. She told me things were fine and that she was just growing up. She considered her previous sexual energy as immature and that she isn't the type anymore

to be all over a dude like that. We still continued to have sex once per week sometimes more, but it was never quite the same. Occasionally she would revive some of that old enthusiasm on vacations or times where she was particularly horny. In addition to our declining sex life I started to notice little red flags, which were ultimately ignored in the long run, like her not being super generous, not being thoughtful as a partner. She had a habit of taking but not giving and had no interest in doing anything to strengthen our relationship. She became complacent, lazy, combative, disrespectful, secretive and generally took me for granted. Our first big blowout was over something I saw in her

phone under the Whisper app. The Whisper app is essentially a place where you can make anonymous statements out into the ether with no consequences since there is no identifying information. One thing she posted was I want to fuck my professor so badly. Someone replied to her message in D.S. and said, just do it, she responded with him trying L.O.L. I confronted her about this and almost broke up with her over it, but stupidly decided to forgive her. This started a long trend of finding incriminating evidence in her phone. I should note that she had a rough childhood and had been diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I always took this into consideration, but couldn't excuse bad decision-making and overall being a bad girlfriend just because of the diagnosis.

especially since I went above and beyond to give her all the love support and literally anything else she needs, in hopes of her maybe feeling inspired to reciprocate in her own way, I tried everything, spending more money, more dates, massages, foot rubs, home-cooked meals every night, words of affirmation, vacations, sex toys, VDSM. Something she mentioned wanting to try, and to no avail, she just wasn't digging any of it. Despite all of this, my career was progressing well, my salary was getting bigger and I started to get serious about the future, marriage, kids, etc., and decided at around five years together to move in.

It started out okay and for a moment felt like we were getting into a groove and that our sex lives were improving, she was more helpful around the house. She eventually stopped complimenting me, only had sex with me if I asked, usually once a week, or when she noticed I was being kind of irritable. We became very stagnant and I was internally miserable knowing that she essentially brought nothing to the table. Financially, I was breadwinner and paying for mostly everything, didn't work to improve our home life and could care less if I was being satisfied, despite having all her needs met and having an incredible support system. I kept trying to do my best and one-upping myself, when on self-improvement journeys, tried to communicate more and kept giving. She would say she's trying but it was always in a way that was the least amount of effort and bare minimum and would complain.

that nothing was ever good enough for me, forgetting to do anything for my birthday. No sex on Valentine's Day despite giving her the works, coming home to her being off of work all week in a dirty house, while the first thing she asks me is what's for dinner, I was becoming exhausted with her and felt like a parent not a partner. I ignored everything as usual and kept chugging along thinking my life is this way because I'm not good enough, I need to improve in every way so she can finally see that I'm deserving of love and affection and that I'm worth putting effort into. My self-esteem was nothing at this point and I eventually decided that the only way to fix this and finally get the girl I fell in love with back was to marry her, insert face palm here,

I was still holding on to the sporadic moments of affection. The hope of better days and the fact that if she was everything I needed before that improving myself and her life can bring her back. In 2019 we finally tied the knot and had a beautiful destination where, wedding in Jamaica where I told everyone who ever knew us, that she's the one and we will be together forever, this is where our relationship started to take a turn for even worse. Because our relationship spanned over 10 years, it's hard to put it all here, I will follow up with a part two and explain how the cheating started and how everything eventually led to nasty divorce,

sorry for the wall of text. Finally got the closure I needed after a 10.5 year relationship, but I wish I didn't, part two. So after our massive big, destination wedding and tens of thousands of dollars spent on an elaborate display of love, things didn't immediately decline, they actually improved a little. We spent the next few months in what felt like a mini-honeymoon phase as we enjoyed the new title and presenting ourselves to our friends and loves ones as the couple that made it. It felt like we had a fresh start and while things weren't perfect, I saw her starting to try a little more, she was slightly more affectionate.

A little more enthusiastic during sex, helping around the house and with bills a lot more, She eventually decided she wanted to go back to school, so that she can make more money and contribute more and I agreed to take care of the bills while she used the money from her part-time job to pay for her school. It was at this point that the micro-cheating started to pick back up. The micro-cheating 2014, before marriage, she posted a comment on an anonymous app explaining how badly she wanted to fuck her professor and confessed on said app that she was actively trying to do so, I forgave her. 2015, before marriage, a video was sent to a female XGF of hers via email of her masturbating. She claimed to have not sent it and that it was six-year-old video despite having being sent

the month prior. 2016, before marriage, I joked around with her one day and said via text, I know what you did, don't try and lie about it either. I knew she watched one of our Netflix shows without me, she then confessed and said she didn't mean anything by it and nothing happened between them. I was obviously shocked and didn't expect any of that to come out. She was hanging out with and flirting with an old friend from high school who clearly had feelings for her. We'll call him Jacob. She claimed nothing happened. I forgave her. Two thousand seventeen, before marriage, I saw a message between her and her group

chat friends at work saying how her favorite sexual position is writing. In our personal life she would tell me she hated writing and we rarely ever did it in the 10 years we spent together. In 2018 I started noticing that she was a lot more sexually active behind closed doors than she was with me, except for on the occasional vacation, and even vacations were hit or miss, she started buying sex toys, noticed she was regularly watching porn and masturbating more often the moment I would leave the house. I have no issue with this. However, as you can imagine I was hoping that somehow that would translate to something in our bedroom and it never did, despite my best efforts to create a safe space for us to enjoy sex together, for her. Sex with me was a chore, a labor of love,

something to pacify me and keep me manipulated. If she wanted her needs met she would rather handle it herself even when I offered to be a student, learn her body more and learn how to please her in the way she needed. She continued to decline my offers and stood her ground saying what you do already is fine, I'm good, I don't need all of that. 2019, four months before the wedding, I noticed her starting to become friendly with co-workers at her new job. This wasn't a problem, but they were a group of immature party girls that were dealing with a lot of situationships according to her stories of them. I would often drop her off and pick her up from work to make things easier for her so I eventually

got to learn a lot about her co-workers. However, there was a particular gentleman at her job that seemed to have a lot of attention from the ladies at work. We will call him Jason. Jason, Jason was a good-looking guy, on the shorter side, but very fit. Muscles and all and many ladies at the job were willing to be a side chick to him since he had a girlfriend. One day I came across a message to her friend at work explaining to her how hot she though he was, how she's obsessed with his abs and she thinks that Jason is going to get her in trouble with her fiancé one day.

I confronted her and took the blunt of the blame for invading her privacy, however the one time every few months that I would snoop through her phone, there was always something incriminating there, I never enjoyed looking through her phone because I knew I would always find something. We moved past that incident and still got married. In 2020 things started to decline as her mental health started to take hit from the stressors she had in life, school, work, me and my constant requests for improvement and for us to work together to make our lives better. The first thing that got me considering the idea of leaving was our first wedding anniversary. She didn't bother getting me a gift despite me getting a homemade gift for her and treating

her to a day full of activities and a nice dinner. That night she apparently decided that my gift was going to be sex and she laid on the bed and with the most begrudging voice ever said, come on let's hurry up and get it over with, I declined. The next day when I confronted her about the lack of gift and her negative approach towards initiating sex she got defensive and said I forgot, I just didn't think about it and in regards to the sex nothing is ever good enough for you, everything I do is wrong somehow. She began being a little more complacent and while she was

like a best friend to me she lacked a lot of the characteristics that would make us feel like more than roommates, friends with occasional benefits at best, we always got along when it came to things unrelated to our relationship. But I always felt like I was getting bare minimum from her and constantly starving for love, affection and sex. She used this to her advantage often and would attempt to use sex as an apology or get out jail-free card whenever I brought up an issue to her. Things chugged along and we continued going through the motions. We went on vacations, activities, adventures, dinners, you name it, and it was still always just a watered-down version of the person I truly knew her to be. She was my best friend, but I started having

trouble seeing a happy future with her. 2021, after marriage, I broke down one day after coming home randomly with my brother catching her masturbating to a picture of Jason after we hadn't had sex in almost a month, I told her it made me feel unwanted and it hurt to feel like I'm being deprived because you're focusing your sexual energy on him by yourself. She denied it said it's not like that and that she still needs me and what I have to offer and attempted to be the best version of herself for me for me for me for about a week in order to bring me back in, I fell for it. Not too long after this, her mental health took a turn for the worst and she admitted herself into the psych ward. I came and

visited her every day after work for 3.5 weeks straight, sat with her in the mandatory therapy sessions and even brought her favorite foods and snacks when she didn't like the lunch offered that day. I believed if she can overcome her depression and get the correct treatment and therapy that she would be a better person for me and our relationship would improve as a result, it did not. 2022, after marriage, this is when everything officially went to shit. Notice that she is spending a lot more time out with friends, partying and having fun, There was also a trend of being really casually dressed when we went out, but being dressed to impress when she went out with her coworkers. She also developed a new habit of posting overly sexual memes and text posts that were vague.

But still clearly had nothing to do with me based on our current sex life. I would question her about it when she would reference things she loves in the bedroom in these story posts and I would ask, is that something you enjoy? I can do that for you if you like and she would just kind of dismiss it, feeling as if I was trying to control what she does on her social media. Not too long after this, I'm cleaning under our bed and I find a massive dildo, and I mean massive, I told her it made uncomfortable that you were using it based on our lack of sex life and she claimed that she has never used it before.

I moved on, but as you can imagine, it left me with a very weird, insecure feeling that just never sat right with me. At this point in my life my career was going well, I had side hustles and passive income streams set up and had started to become a little more consumed with work. However, always set aside entire days and weekends for us to spend together doing something she loved and I would always spoil her and try to take care of her emotional needs the best I can, I got really into. NFTs at the time and during a week-long NFT convention I spent a lot of time out that week

networking and meeting people from the space. I'm not usually that guy, I'm usually home doing something nerdy and really only went out with my wife and my boys occasionally. However that week I was out late almost every day and let her know ahead of time that this was going to be the case and it would only be temporary, even going as far as the invite her to all the events I was able to get her into. One morning, I was out late for the bored apiott party and was communicating with her the entire time giving her my timeline and when I planned to arrive home, I found it odd that

she was up until 2 a.m. still texting back when she usually went to sleep early, when home that night, found her still up and didn't think much about it. We both eventually fell asleep. The next morning I noticed she isn't in bed. She sometimes gets up before me, and I get woken up by sounds of her Apple Watch buzzing frantically with text messages. I look over and see it's from a group message with her co-worker and a number saved as Tim Bumble. I opened up the text from her and discovered they were speaking with a gentleman named Tim from the dating app Bumble who looked like a supermodel and sent them multiple pictures proving just how well in doubt he was. Both my wife and her co-worker were clearly interested in him as I was hit

with a long string of messages between the three of them planning a threesome for the following weekend, in addition to that. Nudes were contributed to the group text by each party member and there was even a side conversation between my wife and him outside of the group chat, where she expressed her personal interest in his member and the things she wanted to do to him. I officially lost my shit and things didn't just go downhill from here, they went off a fucking cliff. Forward slash forward slash edit, part three since it was removed. So, after finding a mountain of incriminating evidence against her, I gathered my thoughts and proceeded to confront her with who the fuck is Tim.

She told me that it was her co-worker's friend and that she was putting on an act with them in order to help her co-worker out. Apparently, her co-worker really liked the guy, met him on Bumble and one of my wife's help at seducing him into a threesome. The plan was to set up the threesome, my wife would bail at the last minute and Tim and the co-worker would be together alone to complete the deed. This was the most idiotic thing I had ever heard, obviously, I was frustrated by the betrayal of her being completely inappropriate behind my back, but it was also the fact that she displayed a type of energy towards the stranger in those messages that I had been trying to receive from

her for years. She claimed she was incapable, claimed her sex drive wasn't what it used to be, and that dirty talk made her feel uncomfortable, but here she was contradicting herself in every single way possible. We cooled off for a bit and I went to a friend's house for two days to clear my head and figure out the next steps. We were a week away from going on a seven-day cruise we had planned prior and I was trying to figure out what to do about it. She obviously apologized profusely and admitted it was dumb to ruin her marriage over helping a friend fuck a stranger. She started the process of trying to temporarily be the world's best wife for the next week, sending me lunch through Uber Eats with love messages, helping out around the house, trying to be sweet and affectionate

and offering me sexual favors. One particular night we had really great, mind-blowingly emotional sex that reminded me of our earlier sex life, and it made me feel like this was the push she needed to get back into that head space with me again. If this is what she will be like moving forward, then I could possibly move past things and start rebuilding trust again. So I forgave her and tried to move forward even deciding to take her. On the cruise with me, the cruise went all right for the first few days as I tried to keep my mind off things and enjoy the new effort she was putting in and the person she was trying to be for me, but it kept eating me up inside.

Eventually, about four days in I cracked and looked through her phone again to see if there was any evidence I was missing out on. To be honest, I didn't really find me. much other than a conversation with said co-worker vaguely commenting on the issues of our relationship based on conversation they must have had prior. Apparently, she felt that there were issues and problems in the relationship leading to this that she felt comfortable telling her friends and co-workers, but never to me even when we set time aside for weekly communication sessions. We argued about it, and she broke down crying and stayed in the cabin for the rest

of the day frustrated that I will never get over this and nothing she does will ever be enough to fix it. The rest of the crews was quiet and awkward as we tried to make the best of the situation, but the vibe just wasn't quite the same. When we got back, we started to discuss couples' therapy and ways for us to build back up the trust and spark in our relationship. She agreed and I started looking up therapists and asking for her to do the same. She dragged her feet and never got around to the tasks despite spending hours scrolling on Instagram daily.

Eventually we found therapy we could afford and start to do that. started doing sessions, but it was pointless since she put zero thought or effort into any of it and treated it all like a chore. Eventually, I snapped one day during our sessions frustrated that she wasn't taking it seriously, frustrated that she didn't even help source the therapy for the problem she created and even decided to post a funny meme that day about being in a threesome and not knowing what to do. Great meme, really funny, just a little too close to home. At this point she was all out of effort and completely complacent and devoid of all. all giving a fuck. She began doubling down on the partying and hanging out, began hanging out and

talking to Jason Moore, spending a lot more time portraying herself as a promiscuous woman on social media and denying a lot of my sexual advances. I stopped planning trips with her or anything for the future because of how weird and uncertain things were. We spent a few months in a weird twilight space where we just went with the flow as roommates, not working on the issues at hand and trying to ignore the dying relationship. It was at this point I started noticing her and Jason getting closer. She had always mentioned that he was a cool dude and they had similar interests, smoking weed, gaming, anime, etc. I understood why they were cool, and she would say things like he's short. He has a girlfriend were just friends nothing more and I would

accept it since I didn't have proof otherwise. I continued to snoop through her phone and didn't find anything incriminating other than them walking to the train together after work and smoking weed on their lunch breaks. I told her based on recent events that alone time with him makes me uncomfortable and I prefer if you not hang out with him alone outside of work. She agreed and assured me it would stop. A month later I ask if she is still hanging out with him despite a picture being sent from him to her of her walking down the street. Ike the reference behind this picture and she claimed not to know why he sent it either. She assured me nothing was going on and sent me a screenshot of her text messages with him which

were few and far between over the course of a few months, essentially saying that they barely communicate. One Sunday morning, she had plans for brunch with her friends and she was dressed stunning. Of course I had already felt like she put more effort into her appearance when going out with friends than with me, but I saw she was happy and excited for the day and I tried to just internalize it. She noticed I, was a little off and asked me what's going on with you, you seem upset about something. I told her how I felt, and she proceeded to cry saying

I always have to find a way to ruin her fun and put her down. It's like you see me being happy and about to go have fun and try to take it away from me before I go. That was never the case for me, and I explained that to her, but it fell on deaf ears, and she left upset. She ignored my texts and calls the rest of the day as I tried to gauge when she was coming back home. My cousin was admitted to the hospital the day before and I wanted to use the car to see her. She never responded. I end up falling asleep waiting for her to come home around midnight and only wake up when she drunkenly stumbles into bed and passes out with all her clothes on from the night before. She refuses to answer any of my questions and falls asleep.

Me being upset and unable to sleep, I went into the living room to sleep. I noticed something fall out of her jacket pocket and saw it was a deep throat spray she had apparently purchased that night. It was still in the packaging, and she keeps all her receipts. I never brought it up to her as I didn't know how to. In the morning, I asked her what happened that night and she said she got really drunk and was upset with me and wanted her space. She also told me that she decided to do coke that night for the first time. Neither of us had ever tried it, because her friend really wanted some and she tried to bump off a random dealer in the middle of the park to test it before purchasing. I freaked out and told her it was idiotic and irresponsible, and she could have died, but she brushed

it off and told me I'm always mad about something. Two days later, on Yom Kipper, I went to work to see most people had decided to work from home that day. I wasn't aware that the holiday was that day and thought back to earlier in the morning. My wife was getting ready for school as I was getting ready for work and was prepared to head into class. After realizing that she went to a public college and shouldn't have class that day, I called her to find out where she was. She never answered and instead texted me telling me she found out there was no class when she got there and was headed back home. It was around 12 p.m. I told her to call me ASAP. She took two hours to do so saying she was on the train. I didn't feel comfortable about it and later at home asked her to

promise me she was telling the truth. I noticed that night in her phone that her co-worker had texted her how did it go, to which she called her and spoke with her for 20 minutes. The following morning, I noticed her drawer was open and I saw something familiar, the deep throat spray and what I thought was the associated receipt, however this time, the deep throat spray was not in its original packaging and had clearly been used. The receipt next to it was actually for a McDonald's drive-thru order nowhere near our apartment or her school around the time she said she was on the train. I confronted her and she assured me it wasn't her receipt and that she just tested out the spray. She also tried to convince me that she bought it for me

and her to use. Despite never telling me this and purchasing it on a night where claimed to be mad at me, I asked her about what her coworker meant about how did it go? How did what go and what did you guys talk about if there was no school that day? She dismissed it as her and her coworker just catching up. A month later I found myself going through the phone records online trying to locate a number I had called in the past for tax help and realized that I was able to see who texts me and who I have texted going back months prior. I couldn't see the content of the texts, but I was able to see who sent what to who and when. Instantly I decided to look under her phone record since I was the primary account holder. I noticed that she had been texting a certain

number back and forth for months. I go to her phone to try to local. the contact and lo and behold, it's Jason, thousands of messages between them over the course of three months, none of which were reflected in the empty screenshot of her messages with him, meaning she must have been deleting everything as she goes. I was furious and confronted her. Prior to this, she told me she had no one to talk to about her problems and her world was falling apart because she had no support system like I did with my friends despite how close she had seemed to get to her co-workers. When I confronted her about Jason, she finally admitted that they had become close, and he was like one of her closest friends,

and that they confided in each other about their individual relationships and that it was platonic otherwise. She eventually also admitted that she had saw him that day on Yum Kipper when she went to school and that they still hang out outside of work. I was furious. This was the final straw and I told her if you really like him that much you should be with him. She yelled back frustrated saying that she doesn't even like him like that and nothing she said would get me to believe her, claimed I was being jealous for no reason and that their friendship doesn't threaten us in any way. I couldn't trust her anymore and didn't believe anything she said obviously, so I reached out to Jason. I asked Jason if he was fucking my wife to which he claimed no he wasn't,

they just talk and hang out sometimes, he doesn't keep any records of their messages because he has a girlfriend and doesn't want any drama by saving texts with female co-workers. claimed he doesn't mess with girls at work as a personal rule and apologized to me telling me that as a man, I'm sorry you're going through this, I didn't know what to believe, I thanked him for the honesty and proceeded to tell my wife to leave the apartment for a few days while I packed my stuff. I packed, I cried, I said goodbye to my cats and goodbye to her and proceeded to go to my father's house after the most traumatic final goodbye I had ever experienced.

We were both devastated to see where we currently were after all we had been. been through and how far we had come. All I wanted was to go back to better days, but I couldn't stop thinking about the lying, the mistrust, the laziness, and the complete void left in me by being in such a toxic, unsatisfying relationship for so long, I became a shell of myself. I'm going to try and wrap it up with the post-breakup events leading up to where I am today, which is sadly where things get ugly.