I (39F) met him (41M) two years ago on a dating site.
I live in Poland, he is from UK.
He told me he was working with Polish collegues and was planning to move to Poland. He assured me he had serious plans to relocate: he wanted to spend half a year in Poland and eventually move completely.
He told me he never married, dont have and never wanted kids.
We started seeing each other regularly.
He started staying at my apartment when he visited.
From the beginning, I told him I was looking for something serious, and he said he was too. He was very present — calls, messages, photos, videos, selfies. He spent half of the year if not more with me.
He met all my friends, and we did everything couples do - vacations, holidays, everyday life. He spent New Year's with me. I didn't mind that he spent Christmas with his friends and family (grandma, cousins, etc.) in UK - it seemed normal at the time.
As time passed, I started to fell guilty all the time. For not saying things the right way. For not understanding his jokes. For choosing the wrong words.
(And mind you - English isn’t even my first language). He made me feel like I was the problem. Like I was too much or not enough - sometimes both at once.
The longer it went on, the more I noticed I was the one always apologizing.
I stopped dressing how I got used, stopped seeing my friends. Not because he told me to, but because every time I did something for myself, he’d act like I was choosing them over him.
And I started to feel uncomfortable about our intimacy. It began to feel one-sided, like something expected, not mutual. Every time I tried to talk about it, he brushed it off.
It felt like I was there to serve a role, not to be loved or desired.
Looking back, I wonder if he was never really interested in real intimacy - the kind that involves connection, not just control.
Maybe he was used to getting sex on demand, with no emotional effort, and expected the same from me.
And there was one thing I didn’t pay attention to at first: I didn’t know his address. At the beginning, it didn’t seem like a big deal. I couldn’t visit the UK anyway, so there was no need to go there.
But finally I started asking him for address. He kept refusing, always with a different excuse.
I understood something was off. I pushed harder, told him I needed this, and wasn’t going to stop asking.
He got defensive, saying I didn’t trust him, making me feel like I was the problem. But eventually, he gave me an address.
I checked it. It was real, but the house didn’t belong to him.
The next time he visited me, I did something I’m not proud of. I took his phone. I know that breaks trust, and normally, I would never do that. But after he gave me a fake address, the trust was already broken.
He had a passcode, but I’d seen him type it in enough times to get it right.
I opened his browser. Amazon. Delivery address. It was almost identical to the one he’d given me, except he’d swaped digits in the house number. My heart sank.
I opened his Photos. You know how Apple groups photos by faces?
There was a folder with my face - three pictures. In two years.
Then there was a folder with his face. And two boys.
He had two sons. And a wife. Not an ex. A current wife.
All those "summer holidays with friends"? That was time with his kids. Christmas "with extended family"? His real family.
I found pictures he had sent his wife from their home. The same home he sent me pictures from. But mine were carefully staged. He’d clean the bathroom, kitchen, room before snapping a photo for me, so I wouldn’t notice a woman’s presence. He knew exactly what he was doing. This wasn’t the first time.
I checked WhatsApp. There were hidden, locked group chats. But the call logs were there. Regular calls to me and to his wife.
And then I saw one more Polish number — called just a few hours after he left my place to "go to the office." The profile picture? A naked female butt. At first, I was confused. Who was this? He only knew me and his Polish colleagues here.
Then I opened his blocked WhatsApp contacts.
Dozens. Maybe a hundred. Escorts. Prostitutes. Massages. Sex for money, call it what you want.
In Poland.
In the UK.
In countries he visited before me.
In countries we visited together.
Even on holidays with his kids.
Some of the numbers were saved in his contacts before being blocked. So he had regulars.
I kicked him out. Threw away every last thing he left at my place.
I told him I knew about the wife. About the kids. But I couldn’t bring myself to say the rest. I couldn’t say the word “prostitutes” out loud. I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t digest it.
This man - this man who would go on and on about how "disgusting" people like that were, how low and dirty, how he could never stoop to such a thing - this same man was doing it regularly.
It broke my brain. The hypocrisy made me physically sick.
I stopped eating. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t focus on work. My head was full of one question: how the hell didn’t I see it?
I started seeing a therapist. And repeating the story again and again finally helped me see what I hadn’t wanted to admit: the man I loved - the man I was planning a future with - was a narcissist. Cold, manipulative, controlling. He never cared about me. He cared about owning, using and conrtolling me.
And then, of course, he came back. Because of course he did.
He messaged me saying the marriage was dead many years ago. That he and his wife were "just friends" now, and they were only still together "for the kids" (who, mind you, are both teenagers).
He even sent screenshots of their messages - her saying they hadn’t been intimate in years, her saying she wasn’t against the idea of them splitting up if it meant he’d be happy. She even wished him well.
I couldn't believe it. Either she’s still in love with him and trying to set him free out of kindness… or she’s just so relieved to finally be rid of him.
Maybe she’s known for years. Maybe she’s known everything - the affairs, the lies, the other lives he leads. I am sure there were a lot of other women that belived it is real realtionship. Maybe there still are.
I’m not going back. Not meeting up. But I’m stuck with this burning question:
Do I tell her? Do I tell his wife everything I know?
Part of me thinks - what’s the point? She might already know. Telling her might just feel like revenge. Like I’m trying to burn her life down too.
What if after I tell everything she looks back on 20 years long marraige and sees only lies? What if I take away even the good memories?
And the kids. Imagine knowing your dad was out there sleeping with God knows who, then coming home like everything’s normal. What if he brings home not just emotional damage but diseases too.
But then again…
Isn’t she entitled to the truth?
I’m stuck. I don’t want to be the woman who tears another woman’s world apart.
But I also don’t want to be the woman who stayed silent when someone should have spoken.
What would you do?