Wife Urged to Ruin Woman's Marriage After Affair With Her Husband: 'Fair'

Online commenters have urged a woman to "get a divorce attorney" and leave her husband after she posted that he slept with their mutual friend while she was out of town. She then found out about it because of a "suspicious text" he sent her by mistake.

In a post shared on Reddit last Tuesday, the heartbroken woman, under the username u/RubResponsible2789, said that for the past three years she's been taking an online college course to get a better job. The last six months of the course have involved an internship where she had to relocate to another city, which is a five-hour train ride from where she lives with her husband and their 2-year-old son.

The day before the post, she received a text from her husband saying, "No sleepover, early day tomorrow." After logging on to his iCloud account, she discovered he had been sleeping with the mutual friend, who is also married.

About 20 percent of men and 13 percent of women in the United States cheat on their partners, and cheaters are more often males, according to the Institute for Family Studies. Among adults ages 18 to 29, women are slightly more likely than men to be guilty of infidelity, but this quickly reverses among those ages 30 to 34.

The poster said that she understood her husband has needs and that she could deal with an open marriage, but he would divorce her if she was unfaithful and "ruin" their marriage. She is now considering sending the screenshots of the chat she found to her friend and the woman's "douche" husband as well.

Karri Francisco, Director of Family Programming at APN, a mind-body health company, told Newsweek that the husband and wife in this situation seem to be avoiding difficult conversations, as well as trust and intimacy.

She said, "I hypothesize they fear being vulnerable with one another stemming from insecure attachment styles."

Francisco said the poster should discuss her discovery with her husband and have an open, honest conversation about their needs, especially in regard to intimacy and trust.

The post, which originally appeared on the r/TrueOffMyChest subreddit, has gone viral, receiving over 12,700 upvotes and 1,500 comments.

One user, Babibiiii, advised the poster: "Send the screenshots, I think it's fair to both you and the [affair partner's] husband, to know the truth. He's an a****** for thinking it's ok to sleep with her as long as he doesn't have feelings for her. You deserve better than his cheating a**."

And moderately_neato suggested: "Tell him that you forgive him and it's all okay, as long as he stops sleeping with her (he probably won't). GET TESTED FOR STIs. Don't sleep with him again. (Tell him you 'need time to get over it.') Finish your internship, get a great job, get the kid established into daycare somewhere, get a good lawyer, and then dump his a** and find a more loyal man. I know it sucks, I know it hurts. I'm sorry. But you're strong and you can do it."

In an update, the poster said she confronted her husband, who said he was "sorry," he "loved [her]," the other woman "never meant anything" and he would never speak to her again. That's when the poster proposed opening their marriage and he threatened divorce. She also revealed that she did not send the screenshots to either woman or her husband, out of fear for her safety.

Newsweek reached out to u/RubResponsible2789 for comment and could not verify the details of the case.