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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:
Thesheerrelief · 02/04/2021 08:11

In her shoes I'd want to know. I think you're feeling bad because you sent it after a few drinks so not in a clear headed way but an emotional and angry (at him) way. Ultimately I think you've done her a favour.

2021Sunshine · 02/04/2021 08:12

Don’t regret telling her. You’ve done her a favour.

alloverthecarpetagain · 02/04/2021 08:12

Do not feel bad about what you've done, op. You can move on from this with your head high, I think. If his wife does get in touch, though, try not to get embroiled in their drama. This is on him.

FedNlanders · 02/04/2021 08:12

While it's not best to see in a fb message, I'd rather know. What's done is done. Is is in the wrong too. Its not your fault and dont feel bad .x

CheekyWeeShite · 02/04/2021 08:14

He had an entire fake Facebook page OP. He signed up to online dating. He led you on, and send you photos of his genitals. He’s a practiced cheat and liar, and his wife deserves far better than to be treated like this. I can’t believe some of the rationalisations here for supporting not telling her.

If she is having medical issues as someone hypothesised, all the more reason to know. I wish someone had told my mum that her shit of a husband had someone else lined up while she was having cancer treatment - maybe she could have cut him out of his will so he wasn’t set up for life, living in her property with a new woman and driving around in a sports car. She’d be crushed if she knew.

MrsTulipTattsyrup · 02/04/2021 08:15

In his wife’s situation, I’d want to know. The whole thing with the fake profile is so calculating that he can’t claim this was a friendship which got out of hand, etc - he has set out to have one or multiple affairs, and to deliberately cheat on his wife. If it was an open relationship or something, there’d be no need for this sort of subterfuge. She will be at risk of STIs, and the humiliation of potentially other people knowing. Neither of them will thank you, but to my mind you’ve done the right thing.

I’m sorry you were taken in by such a lying arsehole. Now block them both and move on.

FedNlanders · 02/04/2021 08:15

I also had a friend who was suffering with cancer and no one told her that her husband was cheating on her (I didnt know her then) she still states even at her worst point she would have rather have known.

Lorw · 02/04/2021 08:15

You’ve done her a favour, I would want to be told too Angry

Original poster
BeenSuchaStupidCow · 02/04/2021 08:16

Thatsnottheteahunty she has read it. She accepted the message request last night and I can see she’s read it because the thumbnail of her profile pic shows underneath the last photo I sent.

OP posts:
SleepingStandingUp · 02/04/2021 08:17

He was sending dick pics to other women with the likely long term intention of having sex with them. He deliberately set up a FB account to aid the deception. That's not on you. I understand you feeling like you should have know, but you shouldn't. Those flags aren't flags without the knowledge you now have.

As for the wife, I'll never understand the posters who claim they'd rather not know their partners are messaging random wen, sexting random women, sensing socks pics to random women and having an affair. It isn't better he's fucking about behind her back. It's better that she knows so she can make an informed choice.

Meruem · 02/04/2021 08:19

I’m another one who thinks you did the right thing, regardless of your motives. This man lied to you for months, and has been lying to his wife too. Why should he just get away with it? As someone said upthread, if you play with fire you get burnt.

She is now in a position where she can choose what she does with the information. You have given the power back to her, instead of her being played for a fool. How can that be wrong?

I’m sorry you’ve had this happen to you. I’ve done OLD in the past and I know what it’s like to build a connection with someone and have hopes for the future, even if you haven’t physically met yet. You are going to feel hurt and disappointed. Your trust has been broken too and I think some pp’s aren’t taking that into account. Like you can just shrug it off and walk away. You’re hurting too I’m sure. So be kind to yourself. What’s done is done and think about yourself now.

Bluntness100 · 02/04/2021 08:20

Well he sounds like he was just messing with you for the thrill of it, if you’ve never even met. You could easily have met, many many times. Did that not ring alarm bells for you? Nearly a year of messaging and you’d not even went for a socially distanced walk?

You don’t know what was going on in their marriage or why he started this but never physically carried it out, and kept it to some online texting bit of fun, and his wife’s deserves to know, but doing anything out of spite and vindictiveness is never a positive

DianaT1969 · 02/04/2021 08:22

I'm wondering why you thought it was normal to exchange messages with a man since last summer! Presumably sexting - so free wank fodder for him. There were lots of opportunities to meet up for a walk despite Covid.
If anyone else is doing this, stop!! Have a real relationship or don't bother. It's an ideal scenario for married people and cheats.

NotImpossible · 02/04/2021 08:22

Bloody hell, of course you did the right thing. For the wrong reasons perhaps, in the moment, but keeping secrets for these scummy men is what enables them to do this. I can't believe people are blaming you for this! Would people really rather be 'happily' living a lie than know the truth? I hope you feel better this morning - time for a fresh start without him in your head.

SleepingStandingUp · 02/04/2021 08:25

@Roonerspismed

Dear god why? What is “OLD”

I honestly would message her again with the truth

Op hasn't lied to her??
Original poster
BeenSuchaStupidCow · 02/04/2021 08:26

Meruem the last paragraph of your post has made me well up. That’s exactly it. He really did come across as such a nice guy, he made me feel special and he seemed really excited about our provisional future plans. And then I find out he’s just another lying spineless married cheat and I feel stupid for being taken in by him, but also so sad that what looked like a possible lovely future doesn’t exist. And day to day I miss him, or I miss the man I thought he was, the funny little messages and shared jokes that had started to make up part of the rhythm of my day for the past few months.

OP posts:
thinkingaboutLangCleg · 02/04/2021 08:29

He made her suffer, not you. You did the right thing. I would want to know.

I agree.

PurrBox · 02/04/2021 08:30

You did the right thing. I wish my husband had been writing to you rather than to the person he was writing to. In our case, he would have got a wakeup call in time to avoid terrible damage.

I just hope you sent her enough information to give her a true and undeniable record of what he was saying and doing. She can do what she wants with the information, and I would have equal empathy for a woman who decided to dump, bury her head, or try to work things out.

Knowledge is power, and she can't make decisions about her own life if she doesn't know what is going on in it. You gave her back the possibility to make decisions about her own life- you did a good thing, whatever your motives.

HeartsAndClubs · 02/04/2021 08:31

I have a friend who did the fake fb profile thing and I inadvertently got dragged into the middle of it.

He lives abroad, and it happened we were on a message board which relates to the same kind of interests. Turned out he was engaging in online talk with someone on there, had developed a lot of friendships within the community and had a fb profile to communicate with all of them. So he added me to said fb profile and I had no reason to suspect otherwise because he told me he and his wife had separated (he lives abroad and I’ve never met her so there was no way of me finding out otherwise, or so he thought.)

Except what he seemed to have forgotten was that we have mutual friends in the same country, and one day I had an alert to his “real” fb profile as it came up through “people you may know” because of a mutual friend. I confronted him and he became very defensive, accused me of interfering in his life etc. I pointed out that it wasn’t my fault that he had two fb profiles and that it so happened that we had mutual rl friends on one of them.

As it was inappropriate chat and the other girl was in another country so meeting was never going to be on the cards, his wife decided to stay with him, and they did go into therapy and are still together some 10 years on.

I didn’t tell his wife, but he did. But if she’d been someone I’d known or if it had been me he was engaging with, then I would have.

Original poster
BeenSuchaStupidCow · 02/04/2021 08:31

We hadn’t met up because we don’t live close to each other, we both had other bubbles last year (I was bubbled with relatives, he told me his bubble was his CEV brother) but had agreed that we would once he’d had his vaccine.

OP posts:
WeAllHaveWings · 02/04/2021 08:32

You feel bad because you did it rashly for reasons that were not altruistic, but whatever the reason you probably did her a favour.

It is obviously not news she will have wanted to hear, but it was something she needed to know and that is more important.

trevthecat · 02/04/2021 08:33

I would of done the same thing. Without having had a drink. He did this, not you. The wife knows now, there may be more women he's talking to. She can now decide where to go from here. You did her a favour

Bluntness100 · 02/04/2021 08:35

@DianaT1969

I'm wondering why you thought it was normal to exchange messages with a man since last summer! Presumably sexting - so free wank fodder for him. There were lots of opportunities to meet up for a walk despite Covid. If anyone else is doing this, stop!! Have a real relationship or don't bother. It's an ideal scenario for married people and cheats.
I’m wondering that. I don’t think this is a simple as “he’s a cheat”. He’s a weirdo that’s for sure, he never actually met the op. Never even so much as looked at her never mind kissed her. And it’s really not a given he even intended to ever meet her, but was highly likely to have been just stringing her along. He’s a catfish for all intents and purposes. It’s highly likely he never intended to meet the op and would have disappeared at some point.

I can’t understand though op why you were chatting to this man for so so long and took it to the level of sexual when you’d never even met and he was a total stranger? We have not been on lock down since last august, and there has been every opportunity to meet. Even if you were cev you’d not have been shielding that long snd could have met for a socially distanced walk.

I think if you’re not meeting within a couple of weeks then you need to take it a s a red flag that someone’s having you on. And if it’s nearly a year later and you’ve still not met, then as the months go on you need to recognise there is a significant problem there and you’re likely being catfished.

thinkingaboutLangCleg · 02/04/2021 08:37

day to day I miss him, or I miss the man I thought he was, the funny little messages and shared jokes that had started to make up part of the rhythm of my day for the past few months.

This makes me want to kick him. Be kind to yourself, OP, and I hope you have good friends supporting you. Up to you whether you tell anyone you told his wife or not.

He is totally to blame. What a lowlife, taking advantage of this miserable time when people are lonely and vulnerable. I’m so sorry this has happened to you. Flowers

Bluntness100 · 02/04/2021 08:37

@BeenSuchaStupidCow

We hadn’t met up because we don’t live close to each other, we both had other bubbles last year (I was bubbled with relatives, he told me his bubble was his CEV brother) but had agreed that we would once he’d had his vaccine.
But you could still meet for a walk etc. Did you not get any alarm bells? Waiting till he got the vaccine was just a way of delaying it