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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Done something really stupid and I’m so ashamed

761 replies

BeenSuchaStupidCow · 01/04/2021 23:23

NC for this because I’m so ashamed of myself, I’ve been so stupid. For the last few months I’ve been chatting to a guy I met through OLD. Because of COVID we’d never met yet. I found out a couple of weeks ago he’s married and I’m gutted, I really really liked him. Tonight I’ve done something I shouldn’t and I wish I hadn’t but it’s too late and I’m disgusted with myself. I found his wife on FB and I sent her a message telling her her man’s a cheat. And I sent her some photos he’d sent me in our chats. Now I feel so guilty that I’ve ruined this poor woman’s life and I wish I’d never said anything. It was a stupid impulse after I’d had a couple of drinks and I wish I could take them back. I can see she’s read it but she’s not replied. I keep thinking of what I’ve done and going hot with shame. Why was I so stupid and destructive?

OP posts:
Original poster
BeenSuchaStupidCow · 02/04/2021 09:40

Butwasitherdriveway it was 8 months, not a few weeks.

CantBeAssed I engaged with him long enough to get some answers, so a couple of days max, and then once I had heard enough of the truth, I told him it was over.

OP posts:
HTH1 · 02/04/2021 09:40

You shouldn’t feel embarrassed at all. You had absolutely no idea he was married so are not to blame for the messages and I (as a wife) would absolutely want to know if I were living a lie - the fact that you sent screenshots will make it much more difficult for him to wriggle out of.

I agree with the PPs who said block both him and his wife and keep away from them now. But you can hold your head high, knowing you did the right thing.

mylovelydd · 02/04/2021 09:42

Oh do fuck off all the people saying "appalling" Hmm

How is it? She did the absolutely right thing! I wish more women would do this when they realise the person they thought they were dating turns out to be married. It might stop some of the sexually incontinent wankers from trawling the net looking for victims

PegasusReturns · 02/04/2021 09:43

He betrayed his wife and he absolutely deserves your rage.

Sorry he reared you so badly. I hope this allows you to move on.

UntamedWisteria · 02/04/2021 09:43

I think you were right to tell the wife OP.

But I am shocked that anyone lets a relationship proceed to the point where you share intimate chat and sexual images of each other before you have even met up in person.

But then I'm probably a prude by modern standards.

mylovelydd · 02/04/2021 09:44

And his wife 100% deserves to know. I highly doubt it's the first time it's happened and it might be all the wife needs to stop turning herself inside out and LTB

Brunt0n · 02/04/2021 09:46

I once met a guy OLD who it turned out had a fiancée. I found out when she found messages from me on his phone and called me. I was GUTTED and very apologetic. I really had no idea 😩 He had told me he worked nights so he stopped messaging at about 7pm until the next morning - turns out that was when he was at home with her. It was different because we had physically met, and had sex 😔 I told her everything, partly because I was in shock and partly because I felt the very least I owed her was my honesty. I was so upset, and felt so guilty despite the fact I had no idea. They ended up trying to make it work, but he then added me on LinkedIn(!) years later when I was married and messaged me to say their relationship hadn’t worked out 🙄

Be kind to yourself OP. You didn’t know. You’ve given her the truth, it’s up to her what she does with it. Now you need to walk away and heal on your own Flowers

Bluntness100 · 02/04/2021 09:49

I also suspect it’s not the first time ans it’s highly likely there were other women as well, deliberately targeting those who lived far enough away so he could get away with not meeting them. I can’t quite understand what drives people to catfish others. Something is clearly very wrong with them,

Ladylimpet · 02/04/2021 09:49

Jesus Christ. Can't believe some of the posts. You absolutely did the right thing. I love my boyfriend a lot, and if he was messing about like this friggin worm was, I'd be massively grateful to learn about it! And it doesn't really matter the reasons it was sent does it??
If I was in op's shoes, I'd be thinking 'oh no, no fucking way does this guy get to just carry on with his life after fucking me about'. And you know, yes, I'd be including his wife in that too? Those who think it is wrong, must have such a low opinion of themselves?! I don't know, I just don't get why you'd not want to know about it. It's attitudes like this, that excuse all the behaviour and probably why a lot of them carry on like they do. It's like going back a few hundred years...men had mistresses, but be the good little wifey and don't rock the boat.
Fuck that!!! Well done op. Let's hope he's out on his arse soon. Bravo (and you do have morals btw, for calling out this bs behaviour).

Iamthewombat · 02/04/2021 09:50

there is no need for assumption of "dimness" on the part of the wife - how very fucking rude! How many times do we see on the relationships board that the discovery of an affair has come out of the blue - are you, iamthewombat, actually suggesting that all those women are "too dim" to have worked out that something was wrong?

Calm down, dear. I said that the wife wasn’t dim. See? This is what I wrote:

“The assumption behind the ‘you did the right thing’ viewpoint appears to be that this man’s wife is too dim to realise that his attention is engaged elsewhere. I bet that she isn’t.”

In answer to other questions:

  • No, I am not ‘the wronged wife’. The wronged wives are the posters telling the OP that she absolutely did the right thing and behaved with honour (!! messaging the wife when drunk whilst thinking “let’s see you wriggle out of this”) because they wish that somebody had told them about their cheating husband. I have no skin in this game.
  • No, if my husband cheated I wouldn’t ‘bury my head in the sand’. There are options in between choosing blissful ignorance and welcoming unsolicited message from vengeful people he met online.
  • No, I’m not attacking the OP but I stand by my opinion that this man was killing time messaging her and never intended to meet. She has no relationship with him: it was all nonsense and she should have realised. She has never met him so she has no business getting involved in his life now.
  • No, I’m not defending the man. He is clearly an arse, that has been obvious from the first post. The OP didn’t actually say in her first few messages that he was sending intimate photos: she just said ‘photos’. That he sent the former makes him even more of an idiot, but you don’t go storming into strangers’ lives righting wrongs, with a side order of revenge, because you think that’s what justice should look like.
OReli · 02/04/2021 09:50

Oh wow, he had a fake Facebook account??! Didn’t think people even used Facebook anymore never mind having two accounts!

This dude is slimy, save this poor wife of his, make sure she sees that message. Sometimes messages go into ‘message requests’ and you won’t see them unless you go looking. I would hate to think if she doesn’t come across your message that she’s with this slimeball forever. So you didn’t sleep with him yet did you? If you did, get yourself tested,you’re not the first girl and you certainly won’t be last.

I’m sorry this happened to you, you are obviously a good person for dumping him instead of carrying on the affair and you did the right thing by trying to tell her. Take it as a learning experience, you did nothing wrong by trusting him, it’s not your fault.

Original poster
BeenSuchaStupidCow · 02/04/2021 09:51

Brunt0n I’m so sorry you were taken in by one of these cheating rats too Flowers

OP posts:
WishICouldThinkOfAGoodName · 02/04/2021 09:55

You’ve done nothing wrong. Please don’t feel bad.

Lessthanaballpark · 02/04/2021 09:56

She has no relationship with him: it was all nonsense and she should have realised. She has never met him so she has no business getting involved in his life now.

Oh come on! This last year has not been a normal year.
OP you’ve done the right thing.

Twoobles · 02/04/2021 09:56

Yeah, you’ve done nothing wrong. Who knows how many other girls he’s been flirting with. She might be upset but you’ve done her a favour in the long run.

Crockof · 02/04/2021 09:57

Op I actually feel very sorry for you and the time he has made you waste. The only person who is to blame for anything is him.

ClarkeGriffin · 02/04/2021 10:03

So all those who think op was wrong, I assume you're happy for your partners or future partners to cheat on you, potentially give you an std etc and for you to never find out? You can't really have it both ways, if you want to know, you have to realise that either your partner or the affair partner are likely to be the ones who will tell you. Seeing as your partner is lying to you already, it's hardly gonna be him is it? It's a shit thing to learn, but would you prefer to be in the dark? I think you have low self esteem if you would prefer that.

Iamthewombat · 02/04/2021 10:03

OP, I think that you must be a decent person because you felt bad enough about contacting his wife - with what you admit were bad motives - to post on here for reassurance.

Don’t get sucked into being some kind of online vigilante, egged on by people on here. You have a real life and so does this man’s wife. We don’t get to mete out our own version of justice.

I’m going to say pick yourself up and travel in hope that the next man you meet will be decent. Don’t message people for months because as PPs have noted, there’s something wrong if they don’t want to meet you ASAP. Good luck.

HeraInTheHereAndNow · 02/04/2021 10:05

I kind of wish someone had told me that the man I was marrying loved me but... just couldn’t help himself sleeping with other women.

I was the last to know.

Don’t beat yourself up. He put himself out there for you. He lied. To you (and had it gone further) to his wife. It’s not for social media to judge him but in our modern age, there’s very little chance of “getting away with” anything. It was a risk he took.

Iamthewombat · 02/04/2021 10:06

So all those who think op was wrong, I assume you're happy for your partners or future partners to cheat on you, potentially give you an std etc

It’s not binary, you know. It is possible to simultaneously think that the OP was wrong to act as she did AND not tolerate being cheated on in your own relationship.

HeraInTheHereAndNow · 02/04/2021 10:07

Oh, and @BeenSuchaStupidCow. Block him. Do not speak to/contact him again, ever.

You too, have had a lucky escape.

Butwasitherdriveway · 02/04/2021 10:13

@Iamthewombat I agree. People seem to struggle understanding that it's not all about them and what they would want or think

MintyMabel · 02/04/2021 10:17

All these lofty claims of “she deserved to know” and “I’d want to know if it were me”

Who is anyone to decide what a complete stranger deserves in this situation? Or whether anyone else wants to know? Maybe she is the kind of woman who doesn’t want to know. Maybe she’s made her peace with the kind of guy she is, but as long as she isn’t directly confronted with it, she’s happy to be kept in the dark.

If my husband was cheating I’d want to know. What I definitely wouldn’t want, is a message out of the blue, in the middle of a really stressful lockdown, from a complete stranger claiming they were exchanging messages with my husband.

If OP wanted revenge, she got it. If she was genuinely concerned about the wife, perhaps having a look on her FB to see if she could link to a good friend or relative of the wife and letting her choose whether to give the news. Not that I’m suggesting she should have done that, still a shitty thing to do, but it would have shown she was concerned about the wife.

What you want/need/deserve is not what someone else wants/needs/deserves.

And to suggest doing nothing is some sort of sop to men to let them do what they want is ridiculous. It is respecting women enough not to automatically assume they are weak and stupid and need someone else to save them.

ShontayYouStay · 02/04/2021 10:18

@Sakurami that's a completely different situation and you would have been in the wrong

Butwasitherdriveway · 02/04/2021 10:19

@MintyMabel

All these lofty claims of “she deserved to know” and “I’d want to know if it were me”

Who is anyone to decide what a complete stranger deserves in this situation? Or whether anyone else wants to know? Maybe she is the kind of woman who doesn’t want to know. Maybe she’s made her peace with the kind of guy she is, but as long as she isn’t directly confronted with it, she’s happy to be kept in the dark.

If my husband was cheating I’d want to know. What I definitely wouldn’t want, is a message out of the blue, in the middle of a really stressful lockdown, from a complete stranger claiming they were exchanging messages with my husband.

If OP wanted revenge, she got it. If she was genuinely concerned about the wife, perhaps having a look on her FB to see if she could link to a good friend or relative of the wife and letting her choose whether to give the news. Not that I’m suggesting she should have done that, still a shitty thing to do, but it would have shown she was concerned about the wife.

What you want/need/deserve is not what someone else wants/needs/deserves.

And to suggest doing nothing is some sort of sop to men to let them do what they want is ridiculous. It is respecting women enough not to automatically assume they are weak and stupid and need someone else to save them.

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