Reddit Stories - SACRIFICED CAREERS, SHATTERED Bonds_ Ex-Spouse Demands More Support After My Success_

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #sacrificedcareers #shatteredbonds #exspousedemands #supportaftermysuccess #relationshipsSummary:A Reddit user faces the dilemma of their ex-spouse demanding more financial support after the user achieved success, despite the sacrifices made during the marriage. The situation raises questions about fairness and entitlement in relationships.Tags:redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, relationships, marriage, success, financialsupport, entitlement, fairness, sacrifice, exspouse, demands, support, personalgrowth, dilemma, challenges, communication, boundariesBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Former spouse requested increased spousal support following my job advancement, alleging she gave up her profession for our union. I found out she was unfaithful throughout our marriage, even had a concealed child. Hence, prior to I begin, let me just tell you guys a little about my marriage with my ex-wife, Julia, 30F. I, 30M, met her when I was in college and it was pretty much love at first sight for me. But it took her a while to agree to go out with me.

Once she did, we never broke up and we ended up getting married. We'd been together for almost seven years until she decided that she wanted to divorce and could no longer stay married to me. I didn't want to give up on us and I promised her that whatever it was that was bothering her, we could work on it together. I even suggested couples counseling to her, even though I didn't think there was anything wrong with our marriage. But she didn't agree to it and said that she was just done.

and she wanted out. She told me that she was bored, the spark was gone, and that she just didn't feel anything for me anymore, which was a punch in the gut for me. Because I still had feelings for her when she decided to get divorced, but I wanted her to be happy, so I didn't contest the divorce. She wasn't working at the time and I was, so she got alimony as well. But she demanded a ridiculously high amount and since I was still hoping that maybe she would come back to me, I let her get away with it as well. I do regret that decision now, but back then, I was in over my head and so I agreed to whatever terms that she and her lawyer set forth, just so she would be happy. I was pretty much a simp for her. That was almost two years ago and things have changed considerably

since then. I started hitting the bottles in the aftermath of my divorce because I was just straight up depressed and I couldn't imagine a life without Julia. It took me a lot of therapy and strength to bring myself out of depression and resume normal life. She didn't even check up on me after she left, which was eye-opening for me because I always felt like she loved me too, even though she was really out of my league when we first got together. But after the divorce, I realized that I had always loved her more and that's probably one of the major reasons why our marriage had come undone.

But I started losing feelings for her slowly after the divorce and after a point, I stopped feeling anything for her at all. That was a major turning point for me romantically since it allowed me to stand up for myself. I tried to contact her and discuss the alimony arrangement with her in person so that we could modify it and go a little lower than the amount that she had decided upon. But she wouldn't agree to it and told me that she had never worked after graduation because she was too busy being a stay-at-home wife for me. She said that she deserved this and I couldn't argue with that because she always had been a

great housewife, so I didn't push much harder. I wasn't happy with the arrangement but I had to deal with it and after that, we didn't keep in touch. It was only the monthly alimony payments and when that was done, we didn't speak for the rest of the month. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, she somehow found out that I had received a huge promotion and a raise at work. I guess some idiot from our friend's circle had blabbed and that's how the news got to her. After she learned that, she decided that she was going to demand a higher amount and filed a particular to increase the amount without even consulting with me first. I was taken by surprise, so I decided to reach out to her informally

before the legal proceedings began and asked her if the amount that she had been receiving for so long was not enough and now she had to come after me for even more and rob me blind. To that, she told me that she wasn't willing to speak to me without a lawyer and that was the end of our conversation. It was just infuriating to think that I worked so hard day and night but for some reason, she felt that she was entitled to so much of my money only because she'd been a good wife to me for a couple of years. And towards the end, she didn't even do that because she just left me without a proper explanation or even a real goodbye and I never received any closure for our breakup. So I was really

annoyed that she was coming after me with her lawyer since I felt like I was going to lose to her this time as well. At least the first time around, it was my choice to go easy on her but after the first mediation session itself, I could tell that her shark of a lawyer was not going to leave any stone unturned to back me into a corner and eventually I would just have to give in to their demands. I was getting frustrated but then something crazy happened and it felt like the universe really had my back this time. I met with a couple of my old school friends recently for dinner and drinks and I couldn't help but talk about how Julia was totally screwing me over and how frustrated I felt about all of it. The restaurant that we were hanging out it was pretty fancy and it was

quite a distance away from where I lived, so I didn't expect to run into anybody that I knew there so I was name-dropping Julia left and right without being concerned about anybody over-hearing my conversation. And I guess after a while I got kind of drunk, and when I get drunk, get really loud too. So I started cursing her out along with my friends and we were all having a great laugh about it, which in hindsight, is pretty embarrassing. But it wasn't at that moment. Anyway, while we were laughing, a guy who I didn't know approached our table and he looked pretty upset. He then asked me if I was talking about Julia and then he used her real, full name. I was intoxicated so I didn't think it through and I told him that I actually was talking about that very person and that if he knew her then I was really sorry for him.

And then I referred to her as a gold digger who didn't even have the decency to tell me when she lost feelings for me and just left without an explanation after seven years of being together as if I meant nothing to her. It's all very embarrassing to put it out here, but for the sake of the backstory, I have to mention these things. Anyhow, apparently, that's how Julia's current boyfriend found out that she'd been divorced before because the guy who I met at the restaurant the other day happened to be her boyfriend's brother. This explains why he was so upset and walked away abruptly after I showed him a photo of us in my wallet to prove that I still hadn't moved on entirely, even though she had been nothing but horrible to me. She called me a day after that and yelled at me for about half an hour. She told me now that because of my stupid behavior,

while I was drunk, her boyfriend was not speaking to her anymore. I didn't think that it was my fault, but she insisted that I needed to do something and fix this since I shouldn't have been yelling in a restaurant about how cruel she was as a person in the first place. And then she cursed me out for a couple of minutes and disconnected the call. I was really mad because I felt that it was ridiculously unfair of her to put the blame on me when she was the one who had been lying to her boyfriend. She had been really mad at me during that conversation and while shouting at me, she had referred to her boyfriend by name a couple of times. I'll call him Jeremy. So now that I knew Jeremy's name, I couldn't help myself and I went online to stalk and find out more about this Jeremy guy.

Unfortunately, since she and I didn't have each other added to our socials, I had to ask, a common friend of ours to let me use her account so I could do my digging. It was difficult to convince her, but I told her that this could probably save me from going bankrupt from the alimony, which it eventually did. And I had to really lay it on thick while manipulating her, and then she finally agreed to let me use her account. While going through his account, I realized that this guy was school friends with a cousin of Julius and I figured that these two probably met at her cousin's wedding. I hadn't attended that wedding with Julia because I'd been down with the flu, but she insisted on going because apparently she and her cousin were really

close. I remember that incident distinctly because I was very disappointed that she left me while I was sick so she could attend some cousin's wedding. Jeremy had a couple of photos on his feed from the wedding and Julia was featured in almost every single one of those photos. Jeremy had no ties to Julia's life back here because he lived in a completely different place and he didn't know any of the people that Julia knew. So she wasn't going to get caught unless her own family decided to rat her out, which they definitely wouldn't. And nobody here knew about Jeremy. It also didn't matter if they followed each other on social media because she followed a ton of

people and her being featured in a couple of photos on some guy's feed who attended the same wedding as her wasn't exactly incriminating evidence of her cheating. But I knew the truth now and I knew that I had to somehow get to the bottom of this and prove that she had been cheating on me while we were married, before she filed for the divorce and maybe then I could have a real shot at getting the alimony canceled together. I called my lawyer up immediately when I found out that she had known this guy even when we were married and now she was with him, so there was definitely something suspicious going on. He told me that he would look into it and he came through.

He traced Jeremy down and then, he spoke to a couple of people who lived in his neighborhood and confirmed that Julia had been living with Jeremy ever since she filed for divorce. The people on his street told him that Julia had moved into Jeremy's house about a couple of years ago, and it aligned perfectly with the time around when she told me that she wanted a divorce and moved out, so this is obviously where she went. But that wasn't even our winning hand. Apparently, she even had a two-year-old son now and when my lawyer told me about that I knew for a fact that we'd finally won. There was no way that she was getting out of this one, and I was thrilled that I could finally prove that she was a cheater and get out of paying her.

because she really didn't deserve it. The last time we met, her lawyer finally had to concede that she didn't deserve the alimony since her client had been cheating. I guess she didn't want to involve the kid because she knew for a fact that the kid was Jeremy's and not mine, so there'd be no point in a paternity test. Had the kid been mine, she definitely would have come after me earlier to demand child support. She had been engaging in infidelity and that disqualified her from receiving alimony, that was it. I guess I should have left it at that after I got rid of her, but I was feeling

particularly vengeful and I guess that's where I crossed the line because what I did afterwards wasn't great. After the last session, I really wanted to get back at Julia because I still hadn't felt that satisfaction kick in. So I decided to text Jeremy and rant to him about Julia. In my defense, I was kind of wine drunk after celebrating my big win against her and I wasn't thinking straight. It's not a great difference, but at least it explains why I did what I did. I texted Jeremy that even though I had loved Julia more than anybody else in this universe ever could, I still didn't envy him for having her now and stealing her away from me. Because he didn't steal my wife, he just stole a gold digger and I suggested that maybe the only reason she even left

me and moved in with him was because of the child. And had it not been for her pregnancy, she probably would have stayed with me and that would have ended as a short fling. But she knew that she'd get caught if the kid was born and it ended up looking nothing like me, so she opted for the safer way out and latched onto him instead. I wished him luck and said that he and Julia should separate for the sake of the kid because nobody should ever have a mom like that. And now, that's exactly what's happening and I couldn't regret what I said more. Julia is obviously blaming me for all of this and she really should because it is

technically kind of my fault. Because I'm the one who texted Jeremy, which was just straight up out of line. And she also put up a post about how I was sabotaging her life just to get revenge, which all our friends agree with and I think that's kind of weird. In a way, isn't me trying to get revenge on her okay? Because if you really think about it, she is the one who cheated on me first and yet nobody is talking about that. People are just lashing out at me for what I did, but nobody is discussing what she did, even though she was the one who started screwing everything up for me and what I did really pales in comparison. I don't really understand what to do about this now and I would appreciate some advice on the situation. I'd offer suggesting that my ex-wife's current boyfriend leave her as she left me.

Update 1. Hey, guys. First of all, thank you so much for all the advice and I appreciate every single one of you who replied or commented on my post. And yes, most of you are correct about the assumption that I have a drinking problem. I don't really know what to say about that apart from I guess I should get professional help for it. I never really considered how this was affecting my life before I made this post and so many of you pointed that out in the comments. If I had not been drinking, I wouldn't have messed up that many times and would have nothing to regret. I guess that's true and I definitely will try and work on it. It's not like I cannot function without drinking but when I do,

get drunk, I kind of go off the rails and that's not okay. I can see the way it's been negatively impacting my life and I really want to get better before it turns into alcoholism. That being said, I have decided that I'm not going to apologize to Julia. For very valid reasons, she hasn't apologized to me for anything yet. She didn't even apologize to me after it was revealed that I knew about her affair with Jeremy. She was just disappointed that she was going to lose out on the alimony, but she didn't seem to regret anything else.

After she left me, I was a complete mess and it took me a really long time to get back up on my feet and try to live life normally. She never even bothered to look back and see how I was doing. And that's what hurt more than anything else because she and I had been together for so long and yet she didn't think that I was worth looking back at. I mean, we've been friends before this

so she probably should have valued that at the very least. But she didn't, and just left without the same. thinking about me or the time that we had spent together. She didn't even have the guts to tell me the truth about why she was leaving and left me wondering for ages about what I could have done better and what I did wrong. So no, I don't really regret what I did to her. She completely deserves it and now she is going to feel just as hurt as she had made me feel. It's just the circle of life. Update 2. So, something happened a couple of hours ago and I don't know how to feel about it. It's been almost a month since I first posted here in Julia and I haven't really spoken after she was served.

I assumed that she got busy with her life afterward because now she also had to worry about what would happen with her son and if she could retain custody of him or not. So it was pretty surprising for me when she called me a couple of hours ago but luckily, I decided to record the call in case she said something weird at least then I would have proof of what she said. As soon as I picked up the call, she started shouting at me and told me that I had ruined her life and that I deserved nothing but the worst. She told me that she was glad that she had left me because she couldn't imagine spending the rest of her life with a loser like me. And the only thing that she liked about me was my money but even that wasn't worth staying for, after I turned into the clingy and annoying husband once we got married. She told me that she had cheated on me, not just with Jeremy but with several other men before, and that I had been too stupid to find out. But this time, she had to leave as she got pregnant and she actually felt relieved when she saw the positive pregnancy test.

Because now she finally had an excuse to dump me and go to somebody that she actually liked. I hadn't even started to process everything that she was saying when she moved on to talking about how I'd taken the two things that she valued the most, her partner and her son. And now she was caught in a custody battle which was all my fault because I had put that idea into Jeremy's head. I didn't exactly understand how this was completely my fault. She could have just been honest right from the get-go and not lied to him about her marital status when she met him. Or at least have come clean after they got together. If you are raising a kid with somebody, I think you should at least be honest with them. That's pretty basic, I would say. And if she didn't know any better, then that's on her and not on me.

So it's pretty unfair to blame me for her own stupid decisions. She is an idiot and an even bigger one for calling me up after so many days. Just to rub in the fact that she's a serial cheater. I felt bad for a while after the call ended because she told me that she truly wished that she had never even met me because I was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. And that really hit hard. So I tried really hard not to end up crying on my couch again over her which I had done several times already over the course of these past two years. But I was trying to bring about a good change in my life and I didn't want to go back to my old ways. However, I have been thinking about sending the voice recording from the call to Jeremy so that he knows what he's up against and maybe that would help him with the custody battle.

I'm not the best judge of whether Julia is fit to be a mother or not. but after everything that has happened, I think it's okay for me to go ahead and try to get back at her for everything that she did. I'll just think of it as social service and help Jeremy out. Update three so, I told Jeremy. He hadn't replied to the text that I had sent him a couple of weeks ago when I was drunk after celebrating my win against Julia. But he hadn't blocked me either, which was strange. But it helped me get through to him. I apologize to him for saying so many things the last time that I texted him and then I sent him the recording and told him that he was free to use it if he wanted to for the custody case.

And left it at that. I don't know if he will use it or not, but that's not something that I need to worry about. The bottom line is that he is all the information now, and Julia is really done with it. Update 4. Okay, I just heard from a couple of people that Julia lost custody of her son and only has supervised. visiting rights. Jeremy discovered that she had been cheating on him as well after some guy from his workplace confessed to him because he couldn't bear to keep this a secret anymore and he also had my recording to use against her.

Julia clearly isn't the best person to be a mother right now, for a couple of other reasons as well, I presume. And that's why she lost the custody battle. I would feel bad for her, but she pretty much brought this onto herself by being so immoral. It just sucks that the person I wasted so many years of my life after turned out to be the literal worst. At least karma is catching up with her now and she's getting everything that she deserves. I don't speak to our common friends anymore, so I received this news a lot later and from somebody that wasn't even part of our friends circle back when we were in college.

So it's safe to assume that people have been gossiping a lot behind her back, including our friends. clearly, they are not really her friends if they feel comfortable talking about her behind her back like this. But to be fair, I don't think that the people who happen to be our common friends can be anybody's friends. They proved that when they didn't keep the same energy for me and her, even though she was the one who was cheating and I just made a stupid mistake while I was drunk. So their priorities have always been kind of skewed. But anyway, the bottom line is that she is screwed now and I really couldn't be happier about. it.