Reddit Stories - Spouse left me at a TERMINAL during our yearly CELEBRATION JOURNEY to see

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #relationships #marriage #travel #betrayal #heartbreakSummary: My spouse left me at a terminal during our yearly celebration journey to see. I felt devastated and betrayed, wondering what went wrong in our marriage.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, spouse, terminal, celebration, journey, betrayal, heartbreak, marriage, relationships, travel, devastated, betrayed, wrong, yearly, see, leftBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse left me at a terminal during our yearly celebration journey to see his lover, then when she cut ties with him he began following me and warned of taking action. Himself. My name is Olivia. I'm 33 years old. This whole mess started a few months ago, just before my 33rd birthday. My husband, Daniel, is 35.

We were married for seven years, and we'd been together for a total of nine. years. We don't have any kids, which I am very grateful for now. It was always just the two of us. Two or three years ago, Daniel started to get more distant. He'd come home from work later and later. At first, he'd say it was a big project, lots of deadlines. I understood that. My job can get busy too. But it became his usual answer. When he was home, he wasn't really there. He'd be on his phone a lot, scrolling or typing, and if I asked who he was talking to, he'd just say work stuff and get annoyed. Our conversations got shorter. We used to talk about our day, about little things. That stopped. It felt like I was talking to a wall sometimes. I'd try to bring it up.

I'd say things like, hey, we don't seem to talk much anymore, or is everything okay with you? You seem stressed. He'd usually say work. was just really hard, or he was tired, or sometimes he'd turn it around on me and say I was being needy or imagining problems. He started to have these moods. Some days he'd be very quiet, almost sulky, and wouldn't say much at all. Other days, he'd be easily irritated. I mean, really easily. If I asked him to help with something around the house, he might snap that he was too busy. If dinner wasn't ready right when he expected it, he'd get annoyed. He had a way of making me feel like I was the problem. If I got upset because he was being sharp with me, he'd say I was

too sensitive. If I tried to plan something for us to do on the weekend, he'd often have an excuse why he couldn't, or he'd agree but then seem completely uninterested when we were doing it. Then there was Isabel. She was a consultant his company sometimes hired for big projects. He started mentioning her name. At first, it was just work talk. Isabel suggested this approach, or Isabel really knows her stuff. But then it felt like he talked about her more than other colleagues. He'd mentioned how smart she was, how she was going places in her career, how she wasn't

afraid to speak her mind. I met her once, very briefly, at a company Christmas party a couple of years ago. She was very outgoing. spent a lot of time talking to her that night. I didn't say anything then, I didn't want to seem like a jealous wife. There were a few times he canceled plans we had. Once, we were supposed to go to my parents for dinner, and he called me an hour before, saying a major issue came up at work and he had to go in. He sounded genuinely stressed, so I made excuses for him to my parents. Another time, we had tickets to a concert he'd said he wanted to see. That afternoon, he said,

he was feeling unwell and couldn't go. I went with a friend instead. It was only later that I saw a photo on a work acquaintances' social media. It was from a team-building dinner that Daniel had claimed was a small, boring, mandatory meeting earlier that week. Isabel was in the picture, standing very close to Daniel, both of them laughing at something. When I asked him about it, he got very defensive. He said it was a work dinner, that Isabel was just a colleague, and I was being paranoid and trying to control him. He got so angry during that argument. He didn't shout, but his voice was cold and hard. He told me I needed to trust him more and stop making up stories in my head. He slammed his office door and

stayed in there for hours. He came out later and acted like nothing had happened, didn't apologize for his anger, just for the misunderstanding. His criticisms of me started to increase around this time. Little things at first. My cooking, which he used to say he loved, was suddenly not as good as it used to be. He'd say the house was messy, even when I'd spent hours cleaning. He started making comments about how I dressed, suggesting I should try more effort. After we'd be out with friends, he might compare me to one of the other wives, saying she was so funny or so engaging, implying I wasn't. It was hurtful, and when I told him so, he'd say, say he was just being honest or trying to help me. His temper got worse too. It wasn't physical

towards me, but he'd break things. One evening, we were discussing finances. He'd made some large purchases without talking to me first. When I questioned it, saying we should have discussed it, he accused me of nagging him. He got up, grabbed his dinner plate, and threw it into the sink so hard it shattered. He just stared at it for a moment, then walked out of it. of the kitchen. Another time, we had an argument about whether to spend a holiday with his family or mine. It got quite heated, and he ended up going into the garage and punching a hole in the drywall. He came back inside later, looking sheepish, and said he was sorry, that he just had a lot of pressure on him. He'd fixed the wall, he said. He did, eventually, but the memory of that anger

despite all this, when our seventh anniversary was coming up, Daniel suddenly became much more cheerful. He announced he was planning a huge surprise trip for us. A whole month before, he sat me down and showed me a glossy travel brochure for Bali. He said he knew things had been a bit rough, that he'd been stressed and distant. But he wanted to make it up to me. He wanted us to reconnect, to find that spark again. For those few weeks leading up to the trip, he was like the old Daniel. He was attentive, he helped around the house more.

he initiated conversations. He bought me a new suitcase and some new clothes for the trip. I let myself believe things might actually get better. I wanted to believe it. We flew to Bali. The first part of the trip was exactly like the brochure promised. We had a stunning villa with its own little pool, surrounded by tropical flowers. Daniel was incredibly charming. He held my hand, he complimented me, he arranged for romantic, dinners on the beach. He took lots of photos of us, of me. He posted them on his social media pages with captions like seven years and still my beautiful bride, and making memories in paradise with my one and only. I saw the posts and felt a wave of relief. Maybe this was real. Maybe he did want to

fix things. The plan was to spend three full days at this first resort, then fly to a smaller, more remote island for another four days. On the morning of our fourth day, we packed up. We had breakfast by the pool. Daniel seemed a little quieter than the previous days, but I put it down to travel tiredness. The taxi came to take us to Denpazar Airport for our flight to the next island. In the taxi, Daniel was on his phone the whole time, typing quickly. I asked him if everything was all right. He just nodded, didn't look up from his phone. I thought maybe it was a work emergency he was trying to handle before we went to the more remote place. At the airport, it was busy. We got our larger suitcases out of the taxi. As we were walking towards the check-in

area, he said, I just need to use the men's room quickly. I'll meet you at the check-in counter, okay? He had his carry-on bag with him, his backpack. I said fine. I found the right check-in line for our small inner island flight and waited. The line moved forward pretty quickly. I got closer to the counter, glancing around for Daniel. He wasn't there. I got to the front of the line. The check-in agent asked for our passports and tickets.

I said my husband would be right there, he just went to the restroom. I stepped aside to let others go ahead, trying to call Daniel's phone. straight to voicemail. I sent him a text, where are you? I'm at the counter. No reply. I waited another five minutes. Then ten. I was starting to feel a bit anxious. I called again. Voice mail. Texted again, Daniel, the flight is boarding soon. What's going on? Nothing. I was standing there with our two big suitcases and my own carry-on bag. People were looking at me. I felt like an idiot. I walked around the immediate area, peering into the crowds, thinking maybe he got lost or was looking for me in the wrong place. No sign of him. My phone buzzed in my hand. I looked down, expecting it to be

him calling. It was a text message from Daniel. My heart sank even before I read it. The message was long. So I am just going to paste it here. Olivia, I can't do this anymore. I'm not in love with you. I haven't been for a very long time, years probably. I was trying to make it work, trying to want this, but I'm just tired of pretending. Isabel is here in Bali. She's the person I've always truly wanted to be with. She told me she wants to give us a real chance, a proper relationship. She flew in this morning. I'm with her now. I know this is a terrible way to tell you, and I am sorry for doing this to you here, but I couldn't

bring myself to say it to your face. You are always my second choice, Olivia, if I'm being honest with myself and now with you. My lawyer will be in touch with you about the divorce. The flight tickets are non-refundable for you, I checked. But I left some cash for you in your top dresser drawer at our house. Don't try to contact me. Daniel. I read the text message once. Then again. And a third time. The words felt like punches. He had planned this. The whole anniversary trip, the romantic act, it was all a setup for this moment.

He brought me to a foreign country, to a place he presented as a chance for us to reconnect, only to abandon me for another woman he had arranged to meet there. The cruelty of it was staggering. I must have sat on that airport bench for at least an hour. I didn't cry. I couldn't. I just felt this huge, empty numbness. I was stuck. He'd even mention the cash in the dresser drawer,

like some kind of payment for my inconvenience. My first clear thought was that I had to get out of Bali. I couldn't bear the thought of staying there, knowing he was somewhere on the same island, starting his new life with her. I found the ticket counter for the international airline we'd flown and on. I explained that my travel partner had a sudden family emergency and had to leave Bali immediately, and that I also needed to return home as soon as possible.

The airline agent was surprisingly kind. She found me a flight leaving that evening. It wasn't direct, I'd have a layover in Singapore, but it would get me back to our home city by the next afternoon. The cost of changing the ticket was high. I used the emergency credit card I always kept for travel. It took most of the available credit. I still had about six hours before the flight. I couldn't just sit in the main airport terminal.

I got a small day room at an airport hotel. I sat on the bed and called my younger sister, Megan. It was the middle of the night for her back home. She picked up on the third ring, sounding sleepy and worried. I told her what happened. I just stated the facts, Daniel left, he's with Isabel, I'm at the airport, I'm coming home. I didn't have the energy to be dramatic. Megan, on the other hand, was instantly furious.

She started cursing Daniel, saying she always had a bad feeling about him. She offered to book a flight and come to Bali right away. I told her no, there was no point. I just needed her to be there when I landed. I couldn't talk for long, I felt like, I was about to shatter. The flight home was awful. Hours and hours of just sitting there, the text message replaying in my mind. I didn't sleep. I couldn't eat the airline food, it smelled sickening. When the plane finally landed in our home city, I felt exhausted down to my

bones. Megan was there, waiting right past customs. She just hugged me, and that's when I cried a little. Not for long, just a few hard sobs. Megan drove me to her apartment. I couldn't even think about going back to the house Daniel and I had shared. The house where he was probably expecting me to show up, defeated, and find his pity money. The thought of that envelope of cash made me feel ill. I stayed with Megan for three days. She was amazing.

She let me talk when I wanted to, let me be silent when I didn't. She made me eat. She screened my calls because Daniel, 's family started calling, probably wondering where he was or what was going on, as I imagine he hadn't told them the full story. On the second day, I called a lawyer. Megan had a friend who had gone through a nasty divorce, and she recommended her lawyer. I made an appointment for the next day. My lawyer listened to my whole story. I showed her the text message from Daniel. She read it carefully. Then she told me, very directly, what my rights were and what the process would be.

She said the text message was very clear evidence of abandonment and adultery. Daniel mentioning his lawyer would be in touch meant he was already prepared for a divorce. She advised me not to wait for his move. The next morning, Megan came with me to the house. We went at a time we knew Daniel was usually at work, assuming he had even bothered to return from Bali on his originally scheduled flight. We found out later he and Isabel had extended their vacation. His car wasn't in the driveway. The house felt strange, like it wasn't my home anymore. It was cold and silent. I went straight to our bedroom, to my dresser. The envelope of cash was there, just as he'd said. It felt like a slap in the face. I took it. My lawyer had said to gather any

financial information. I took the cash and later gave it to her to be logged as part of the marital assets. I packed everything. I took anything that was clearly mined before the marriage or gifts given directly to me. Megan helped me carry boxes and suitcases to her car. We filled it up. I took pictures on my phone of every room in the house, the furniture, the general condition of things, just as my lawyer had advised. I went to the bank and opened a new account in my name only. I then withdrew exactly half of the money from our joint savings and checking accounts and deposited it into my new account. My lawyer had told me this was permissible and advisable. I left the bank statements showing the withdrawals on the kitchen counter where he would see them

if he ever came back. It's now been three months since that day at Denpazar Airport. I never went back to live in that house. With Megan's help, and some financial assistance from my parents to cover the deposit and first month's rent, I found a small, two-bedroom apartment in a different part of the city. The day after I moved my essential belongings out of the marital home, my lawyer officially served Daniel with divorce papers. We filed on grounds of adultery and desertion. The text message was exhibited Daniel didn't contact me directly after he was served. Not at first. His social media, which I looked at once or twice out of a morbid need to see, showed him and Isabel looking very happy. Lots of pictures of them in Bali, then back in our city, at nice

restaurants, on weekend trips. He had captions like finally found my true happiness and living my best life with my amazing woman. He was served the divorce papers at his office. His lawyer contacted mine. There was some initial bluster from their side. His lawyer tried to claim that I had deserted him by moving out of the marital home and clearing out half the joint accounts. My lawyer quickly shut that down, pointing to the date of his text message, his admission of being with another woman, and his explicit instruction for me to leave. His claim of desertion was ridiculous. The text message made my case very strong. Everything changed about two weeks ago. The tone from Daniel's lawyer suddenly became much softer. He started asking my lawyer if there was

any chance of mediation, or if I might be open to discussing a reconciliation. He said Daniel was deeply regretting his actions and was distraught. This was a complete turnaround, and it didn't make sense, given Daniel's earlier behavior and his public displays with Isabel. Then, last week, Daniel started trying to contact me directly. It began with phone calls, many of them. From his usual number, then from blocked numbers when I started ignoring his. I didn't answer. He left voicemails. Long ones, sometimes several in a row. He sounded frantic. Then came the emails, also long and rambling. He even showed up at Megan's apartment building one evening, buzzing her intercom, asking for me. Megan told him I wasn't there and that he needed

to leave, or she'd call building security. He argued for a bid, then left. Megan was shaken but angry. She called the police, and they paid him a visit at his new rental place. He'd moved out of the marital home after being served, though he initially wanted to stay there, and gave him an official warning about harassment. The messages from Daniel were all along the same lines. Isabel had dumped him.

Apparently, their blissful new life hadn't lasted long. According to his tearful voicemails and emotional emails, Isabel had told him she wasn't serious about a long-term relationship with him. He said she led him on, enjoyed the free Bali trip and the expensive gifts he'd bought her, and then, after about two months, she went back to an old boyfriend of hers. He said Isabel told him he was being too intense, too needy, and that he was suffocating her. He even said she called him pathetic before she left. Now, Daniel is saying he made the worst mistake of his entire life.

He says he loves me, only me, and he always did. He claims he was confused and vulnerable, and that Isabel manipulated him and took advantage of his midlife crisis. His words. He's begging me to stop the divorce. He says he'll do anything I ask, go to therapy, go to couples counseling, quit his job if I want, sell his golf clubs, anything to get me back. He sounds completely desperate.

His messages swing between pathetic pleading and then flashes of anger when I don't respond. He's accused me of being cold and heartless. In one particularly disturbing voicemail, he said he couldn't live without me and that if I didn't agree to at least talk to him, he didn't know what he would do to himself, that his life had no meaning anymore. This was new. He'd had angry outbursts before, broken things, but never this kind of talk about self-harm. My lawyer is very clear.

Continue with the divorce, do not engage with him, and if his harassment continues, we'll get a restraining order. Megan says he's a loser who got dumped and now wants his comfortable safety net back. She says he doesn't love me, he just hates being alone and facing the mess he made. I have absolutely no intention of reconciling with him. The divorce is moving forward. That is not why I'm posting. I'm not asking if I should even think about taking him back. That door is closed, locked, and barricaded.

My question is about how to deal with his current behavior. He's clearly not stable. He has started showing up in the parking lot of my office building. He just sits in his car. He hasn't tried to approach me there, but I see him when I leave for the day. It's making me very uneasy. My lawyer says restraining order is the best straining order is the best strapped. legally. But he seems to be spiraling. I don't want him to actually hurt himself, as awful as

he has been, and I also don't want his actions to create more problems for me or drag this out even further. What's the best way to get him to stop these behaviors without talking to him directly, and without accidentally giving him any false idea that I might change my mind, or making him even more unstable? Update 1 first, I want to say thank you to everyone who took the time to read my story and offer advice in the comments. I went through all of them, and it was good to know I wasn't alone in thinking his behavior was way out of line. Many of you shared similar experiences, which was sad to read but also made me feel less isolated. Your straightforward advice was very helpful. I want to clear up a few things that people asked about. One, the restraining

order idea. A lot of you said I should get a restraining order immediately. My lawyer and and I were already talking about this before I posted. Seeing him in my work parking lot was the last straw. We filed the paperwork right after I made my original post, and it was granted by a judge last week. So, yes, that's done. It means he legally has to stay away from me, my apartment, and my workplace. He's not supposed to contact me at all, not even through other people, unless it's his lawyer talking to mine. Two, his previous behavior patterns. Some people asked if he had ever acted this unstable before. Like I said in my first post, he always had a bit of a temper.

When he didn't get what he wanted, he could get very moody or have angry outbursts, like breaking the plate or punching the wall in the garage. He could also be quite manipulative with his emotions, trying to make me feel guilty if I didn't go along with what he wanted. The Bali abandonment, though, that was a whole new level of cruelty. The recent talk about not being able to live without me and hinting its self-harm only started after Isabel dumped him. He never acted like that when he was the one in control or when he was the one ending things with me. This new behavior seems to be his reaction to losing control of the situation

and actually having to face consequences for what he did. Three, about Isabel, I honestly don't know much more about Isabel, and I don't really care too. Daniel said in his messages that she used him and went back to her ex. That's his version. Whether it's true or not doesn't change anything for me. In a strange way, she did me a favor. Her actions made Daniel show his true colors very clearly. For, the cash and the dresser, I mentioned he left cash. I gave all of it to my lawyer. She formally recorded it as part of the financial stuff we have to sort out in the divorce. I didn't want to touch it, it felt like dirty money. After reading all the comments and talking things through again with my lawyer and my sister Megan,

it became very clear that talking to Daniel or responding to him in any way would be a bad idea. So many of you said that any attention, even negative attention, would just encourage him. He would probably twist anything I said to mean that there was still a chance for him, or he'd use it as an excuse to keep contacting me. His current behavior is all about him and his problems. He's not truly sorry for what he did to me, he's sorry that his plan with Isabel blew up in his face and now he's alone. The things he said about self-harm felt like a way to try and force me to react, to make me

responsible for his feelings again. I'm not falling for that. The fact that this desperate behavior only started after Isabel left him made it obvious it wasn't about me or us. So, based on all that, I stuck to the plan of complete silence and letting the lawyers handle everything. 1.0 contact. I haven't answered any of his calls, texts or emails. I've blocked every new number he's tried to use and every new email address. It's like playing whack a mole, but I'm getting good at it. This was before the restraining order, too. Restraining order served,

as I said, the restraining order was approved. A professional process server delivered the legal papers to Daniel at his apartment. He officially knows he has to. He officially knows he has to has to stay away from me and stop all contact. 3. Keeping records, before the restraining order was in place, I kept a careful record of every single time he tried to contact me. I saved all the voicemails, horrible as they were to listen to, took screenshots of his calls and texts. I also took pictures from my office window when he was sitting in his car in the parking lot, noting the dates and times. My lawyer has copies of all of this. It was this evidence that helped get the restraining order approved so quickly.

Daniel did not react well to being served with the restraining order. He couldn't contact me directly anymore, because that would be breaking the law. But he certainly tried. The evening he got the papers, he apparently tried to call my phone over 20 times. My call blocker app showed all the attempts. They all went straight to digital silence on his end. Then, he sent a very long, abusive email to my lawyer, which, by the way, is also a breach of the restraining order's no indirect contact rule, and she's taking legal steps about that. In the email, he called me all sorts of names, cruel, heartless, vindictive. He said I was trying to ruin his life.

He claimed he was completely falling apart and that the restraining order was the final nail in his coffin. He wrote about how he couldn't believe I would do this to him after everything we had shared, conveniently forgetting he was the one who threw it all away. He also, very strangely, accused me of being the manipulative one by using his moment of weakness and desperation, his words for his self-harm threats, against him to get the order. The day after he was served, he wasn't in my work parking lot. That was a definite relief. However, my lawyer got a call from his lawyer later that day. His lawyer sounded completely fed up. He told my lawyer that Daniel, had a total meltdown in his office when he realized the seriousness of the restraining order.

Daniel's lawyer said Daniel became extremely agitated, started shouting about how his life was over, made some vague threats about ending it all because he had nothing and no one left, and then stormed out of the lawyer's office. A few hours after that, Daniel's sister called his lawyer in a panic. Then she called my lawyer, also hysterical. Apparently, Daniel had called his sister, told her he'd taken a bottle of pills and that he couldn't take it anymore, and then hung up the phone. This, of course, caused a huge panic. His sister called 911. Paramedics and police went to Daniel's apartment. It turned out to be another drama. He had not taken a bottle of pills. The paramedics found an empty aspirin bottle overturned on his coffee table, and Daniel himself was, according to their

official report, which his lawyer eventually shared with mine, probably to try and make Daniel seem both dangerously unstable and somehow worthy of pity in the divorce, heavily intoxicated by alcohol and highly emotional. But medically stable and in no immediate physical danger. Because of the statements he'd made about the pills, he was taken to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation as a standard procedure. He was kept overnight and then released the next morning. My lawyer told me all of this in a very factual, calm way. She reminded me that Daniel's actions are his own responsibility. She said that while the situation was dramatic and concerning,

it was also possibly another attempt to manipulate me, to make me feel guilty, or to disrupt the divorce process. She is actually using this incident, and the official reports from it, to further support our case that he is unstable and that the restraining order is absolutely necessary. So, that's the latest. He hasn't tried to contact me directly since he was served and since his big pill scare drama. The divorce is still moving forward. His behavior has definitely added a lot of stress to an already awful situation, but it hasn't

changed my mind about anything. I'm still done. Update 2. It's now been about nine months since Daniel abandoned me in Bali. It's been six months since I wrote my last update here. The divorce was finalized three months ago. It's official. I'm no longer married to Daniel.

The restraining order is still active, and for the most part, Daniel has actually been following it, at least when it comes to not contacting me directly or coming near me. The indirect contact, like him emailing my lawyer, stopped pretty quickly after my lawyer sent his lawyer a very stern letter warning him about the legal trouble Daniel would be in if he breached the order again. getting the divorce finalized wasn't easy, though. Daniel, acting through his lawyer, fought about every little thing. He tried to argue that he should get more than half of the money from the sale of our house. He claimed that because he was the primary breadwinner for a few years early in our marriage,

which wasn't even true, our incomes were pretty similar for most of the time, and I actually earned more in the last two years. He deserved a bigger share. He even tried to get spousal support from me at one point. His lawyer filed a claim saying Daniel was suffering from severe emotional distress and was unable to concentrate on his work because of the divorce and because Isabel had rejected him, so I should pay him. The judge dismissed the claim almost immediately, especially after my lawyer presented the evidence

of his abandonment in Bali, the text message where he called me a second choice, and all the documentation about his harassment that led to the restraining order. In the end, all our marital property and assets were divided according to the laws in our state, which meant a fairly equal split. The house was sold, which was a huge relief for me. I wanted no more ties to that place or the memories in it. I got my share of the proceeds, which helped me feel a bit more secure financially. From what I hear sometimes through people we used to know, some mutual acquaintances who either forget I don't want updates or maybe they think I secretly do, Daniel's life hasn't gotten any better. After Isabel left him, he apparently tried

dating other women, but nothing lasted more than a couple of dates. People say he complains constantly to anyone who will listen. He tells them I was unfair in the divorce, that Isabel used him and broke his heart, and that he's just a victim of bad luck and bad women. There were also rumors that he was drinking a lot after his aspirin incident and the forced psychiatric evaluation, but I don't have any direct proof of that, nor do I seek it. I want to thank everyone on this sub-writed again. Being able to write out my story and share it, and to get feedback, really did help me organize my thoughts and feelings during a very chaotic and painful time. It felt like I wasn't screaming into a void. I don't think there will be any more updates from me on this particular saga.

The legal ties are cut, the restraining order is in place, and I have no plans to ever willingly interact with Daniel again. Forward slash forward slash.