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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 on 2024-07-06 04:01:01+00:00.
I am not The OOP, OOP is u/cowtogirl
I (25f) discovered my bf (28m) of 3 years is cheating. Tonight is the biggest night of his life. Help me.
Original Post June 8, 2015
I won't go into all the gory details of our relationship. We were in love, and well, I still love him. But I found out, clearly he does not.
I discovered proof that he has been cheating on me for a while, in the form of small home movies of them. I don't know the girl, and from the looks of their conversations (yep, went ahead and post-discovery snooped), she has no idea I exist.
Tonight is the biggest night of my BF's life. He's receiving a state award at a big dinner with a few hundred people attending, from his Mom & Dad to councilmen and all of that. In fact, the only reason I discovered this transgression is because I have been putting together a little video for him to enjoy of some of the key moments of his life. You know, typical sappy shit.
I'm burdened with a lot of power right now, and I don't know if I have it in me to do the right thing. Or if I even know the right thing. I'm blinded with tears of rage and sadness and betrayal -- but at the same time, I love him, have loved him, and do I really want to do this?
The relationship is over, no doubt about it. I am not a woman who will take her man cheating on her, certainly not. That's not the issue.
The issue is... there are cutesy selfies of the two of them. A lot of them, only shared between the two of them. Nothing lewd (there's plenty of that on camera, though).
Do I sneak one in the snap reel as a way of letting him know that I know?
Or do I simply confront him after his moment in the sun passes?
I'm not going to pick up everything and leave without cutting contact. That's not my style and it wouldn't make me feel good, just very sad.
Do I do the bitchy thing for once in my life? To anyone looking at the snap reel, it would just look like a picture of him and a friend. But to him, and to me, it would be a private message, an outing.
Help me, Reddit. I don't know what to do this time.
tl;dr: Found out BF was cheating on me, and have the power to let him know via slipping a photo of the two of them into the snap reel showing tonight. Should I do it, or gracefully exit his life?
RELEVANT COMMENTS
bibabeep
nah, you know what? if there's really nothing that anyone would pick up on other than the two of you, you slip that photo into the slideshow. make eye contact with him when the photo appears on screen. then, when it's over, you stand up and walk out.
it ain't the high road, but nobody needs to walk the high road all the time.
OOP
I chuckled. I think the only reason I would do this is to make eye contact with him so that he knows I know. But I'm not sure I have the guts to do that. I'm not exactly Olivia Pope.
Update July 22, 2015 (6 weeks later)
Original Post:
Original TLDR: Found out BF was cheating on me, and have the power to let him know via slipping a photo of the two of them into the snap reel showing tonight. Should I do it, or gracefully exit his life?
Well, it's been a month and a half since this all went down. I have gotten so many requests for an update and I never intended to actually give one, honestly, because I was afraid of the fallout depending on what I ended up doing.
So what did I do? I did the immature, vengeful thing. And I don't regret it. I took a few photos of the two of them -- tasteful photos that gave off no indication other than she might be a childhood friend. I slipped them into the snap reel. And I spoke kindly of him at the podium, then after my turn was finished, I walked out.
I drove home feeling calm and in control. Twenty minutes later, the texts started. Where did I go? What did I know? Where did I find the photos? Was there more in store for him?
I texted him, "I know you've been fucking her. But there are no more photos." There weren't any, and of course I left it at that.
He didn't come home that night.
Or the next.
The next day, he called me to ask me if we could meet and talk at a public location. I agreed to meet him at Starbucks. I arrived early, waited for him. He showed up a few minutes late and took the seat across from me.
He started right off with the excuses, how it "just happened" and he regrets it fully, she doesn't mean anything to him, and that she looked like a girl he had a crush on in high school and he was powerless against his teenaged self.
I didn't interrupt him, just let him have his time. When he was done and looking at me for a sign of what might happen next, all I could say was, "So where did you stay the past few nights?"
"Her house."
"And what did you do?"
He wouldn't answer. There hadn't been any doubt in my mind. Really. I knew I was leaving him. He talked over himself, apologizing, begging for forgiveness, saying he'd change.
I told him that I didn't want him to have to change himself. That if who he was, naturally, was someone who cheated on his girlfriend, then that's not someone I wanted to be with.
He said that he was thinking of proposing to me, and all I could say after that was "Good thing I found out before."
Fast forward to a few weeks later. He's moved out, and I am doing well. We have cut off contact. People ask me about him all the time, and I just let them know, "He left me for a girl who looked like his high school crush."
So that's the end. We are broken up. We are never, ever, ever getting back together. I don't feel any regret for how I handled it. Like one commenter said, there's no need to take the high road all the time.
tl;dr: I added the photos to the snap reel. He saw them. We broke up, and are never getting back together. I don't regret my choice, only that I wasted three years with an overgrown child.
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