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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:
goldielockdown2 · 02/04/2021 13:01

You are by no means special in any way

What are you on about?

Chocolatefreak · 02/04/2021 13:03

I'd rather be told. I know people who were cheated on for several years and were devastated by the fact it had been going on so long without their knowledge.

Friends have also been tactful in the past about my bad choices in men, I wish they'd been more vocal about their opinions, I would have reconsidered some of my decisions!

NotATomato · 02/04/2021 13:04

@goldielockdown2 i expect it’s someone having a laugh. 🙄

If the OP is truly ‘one of many’ then I would question why on earth someone would stay with such a prize... Hmm

MintyMabel · 02/04/2021 13:06

Lockdown has nothing to do with it. It's ending anyway and you don't know if she found it stressful.

OP didn’t know that she didn’t. That’s my point. You don’t know what’s going on in her life. Maybe her dog just died, maybe she is going through a depression, maybe.... That’s why you don’t just unilaterally decide to give this kind of information to a stranger, especially not if you are genuinely concerned about them.

Lockdown does have a lot to do with it. It is a lot harder to just leave a relationship right now. You can’t just go and book yourself into a hotel for a few nights or find friends/family to stay with, or access the help you need. And that’s without people being under additional stress this type of living causes.

ClarkeGriffin · 02/04/2021 13:06

[quote NotATomato]@goldielockdown2 i expect it’s someone having a laugh. 🙄

If the OP is truly ‘one of many’ then I would question why on earth someone would stay with such a prize... Hmm[/quote]
In fairness if it is actually the wife, she has just found out about it and he may have admitted to more women, or she found his online accounts chatting to multiple women (let's face it, it won't just be one).

HappyWinter · 02/04/2021 13:06

I'd want to know. He's on OLD and messaging other women, I wouldn't be surprised if he has cheated before.

Sorry he is such a shit and that he wasted your time.

HeavenlyEyes · 02/04/2021 13:07

I wouldn't be surprised if he was talking to several women while talking to you.

I would have done exactly the same as you - the wife deserves to know. He prob cheated before, and if she stays with him, am sure he will cheat again.

ThatOtherPoster · 02/04/2021 13:08

I’d love it if someone told me! I’d be thanking you later and buying you a drink out of my massive divorce settlement.

Empra123 · 02/04/2021 13:09

I wish one of the multitude of women my ex was messaging had told me. And for those who say it's only messaging, they didn't meet and have sex it's not cheating - ok it's not physical cheating but it's taking time away from your family that should be theirs. Ex would never come to anything the children did because he "didn't have time". And he was no emotional support to me when my father died because he was too busy telling his women about it. So he might as well have been banging them

Butwasitherdriveway · 02/04/2021 13:12

@ThatOtherPoster

I’d love it if someone told me! I’d be thanking you later and buying you a drink out of my massive divorce settlement.
Good for you but this doesn't represent everyone.
HarrietOh · 02/04/2021 13:12

It’s mortifying to find out you’ve been cheated on and other people must have known but didn’t say anything. I always would! Indeed have done when I came across my sister’s friends DP on dating site, I let her know through my sister straight away.

Butwasitherdriveway · 02/04/2021 13:12

Too many people have been watching films where all the women come together and laugh. Not real life.

Shadowingshadows · 02/04/2021 13:17

I suspect that a lot of posters saying this is an awful thing to do have been on the opposite end and believed their husband’s lies. I know of at least two friends whose husbands have been caught ‘talking’ to women online and they’re both still with them after believing their rubbish about doing it because of ‘mental health issues’.....

Desperate to keep your heads in the sand. You’re better than that.

HeartsAndClubs · 02/04/2021 13:18

“You have no idea what’s going on in her life” is such a cop-out. It’s up there with when the man says “I can’t tell my wife about us because of her mental health and what it might do to her.”

Basically, if someone doesn’t want to/feels they shouldn’t tell the wife then fair enough, to each their own. But don’t try to justify it with that kind of crap. Just admit you don’t want to get involved.

As for the troll up-thread trying to be funny, you’re not.

MarshmallowAra · 02/04/2021 13:18

What absolute bollocks that the number of women who don't know they're being cheated on is "vanishingly small".

'Civvies" like op sourced by cheating men via dating sites aside, look at some UK punting reviews; a good portion of them are attached men (and those are just the ones who identify themselves as attached).

ThatOtherPoster · 02/04/2021 13:19

Good for you but this doesn't represent everyone.

Well, of course. That’s why I used the words “I” and “my”.

Sandra15 · 02/04/2021 13:22

I told 'another woman' that her husband was playing away. It wasn't with me, it was with a horrendous narcissistic woman at work that caused havoc at work for everyone. The wife didn't act on it straight away, but she turned up at the other woman's house in her husband's car, the OW ran down the path shouting 'Hey babe' thinking it was the guy, and was confronted with a very angry wife. The wife was pregnant and her previous child had died about 18 months previously. The OW had the audacity to accuse the wife of 'wrecking her Christmas'. She threw the man out, who eventually moved in with the OW but it fizzled. The wife now has a fab new husband and the OW is up to her narcissistic tricks again.

Cherryup · 02/04/2021 13:28

My ex husband was cheating on me, I suspected but couldn't find any evidence, it was torture for months. I actually thought I was going mad.

Then the OW rang to tell me. Of course I was devastated and my life crumbled, I hated her and I hated him. BUT thank god she told me and set me free.

Iamthewombat · 02/04/2021 13:37

What absolute bollocks that the number of women who don't know they're being cheated on is "vanishingly small

Are you wilfully misreading posts to suit your agenda? I said that the number of women who find out that their husband is being unfaithful from the other woman, having had absolutely no inkling before then is vanishingly small.

BlueSkyBlinking · 02/04/2021 13:38

I wish more women would do what you did, OP. I know it was done more out of spite against him than solidarity with her, but it was still better than colluding in his shitty secrets.

2bazookas · 02/04/2021 13:40

You were a bitch, but too late to hide it.

Maybe you did her a favour.

Move on.

londonscalling · 02/04/2021 13:43

I think the OP has done the right thing:

  1. She met a man on an online dating site (so you'd presume he is single)
  1. She's been chatting to this man for a long time.
  1. She hasn't met up with him due to Covid restrictions.
  1. Over a period of time the conversations have got more and more intimate.
  1. She's discovered he's married.
  1. Rather than cheat behind the wife's back, she's ended things.
  1. She's made the wife aware that her husband is a cheater.
Lovemusic33 · 02/04/2021 13:50

I think you did the right thing. And I can assure people that it isn’t rare for a married man to be on dating apps, I have met quite a few who have lied, many who then say “oh, we haven’t shared a bed for years” or “we are just living together for the kids” when clearly their wives have no clue what they are up too.

I know I would want to know if my partner/husband was cheating.

BlueSkyBlinking · 02/04/2021 13:50

100% agree @londonscalling.

Bluntness100 · 02/04/2021 13:51

I agree, move on, it’s done now

But protect yourself in future, do not even start to trust someone till you’ve met them several times, do not introduce sexting and sexually explicit images with a stranger, and always remember a stranger is someone you’ve never met in real life. Only start to trust them when a relationship develops. When you know where they live, work etc. Don’t trust what a stranger tells you on line. There are so many bad people out there who will catfish you, protect youtself from them. And be particularly aware when a man is fishing for dates in a pool that’s several hours drive away from where you live and making excuses not to ever meet you.

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