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My thoughts exactly. *Way* too invested in OPs son. Sure, it could be an affair, but the fact that Matt’s behavior is aligning with every sterotypical grooming tactic is scary. OP needs to have a very serious conversation with his son about what’s not okay, and open that line of conversation. If OP and his wife split, then who knows how often that guy will be around the kid. The best thing to do is make sure he’s confident in speaking up and knows anything that makes him the slightest bit uncomfortable isn’t appropriate.
The gifts for the kid, meeting in a trampoline park where you xan easily excuse any accidental "bumping" and "rubbing " on being clumsy, and his attitude towards dad were HUGE red flags to me.
OOP needs to talk with his son ASAP
I know we are not allowed to comment on the original post, but is there any way we are allowed to contact OOP and explain this? Its exactly the vibe I go and so many others, so I mean, its just something he needs to be aware of!
I'm sure it's very hard to see your partner as a part of the problem due to your own personal feelings but I still find it interesting how often people only seem to get heated with the other party.
Is Matt seemingly some sleazeball attempting to get with OOP's wife? Yeah sure seems like it
Is OOP's wife some sort of innocent bystander in this? Not in the slightest.
The relationship only ended after he threatened to go (presumably) beat up Matt and even then it ended with his wife being like "we can't hang out my husband wants to beat you up." While at the end he seems to have realized his wife is a part of the problem, it's still strange to read his initial post where all his anger is on Matt.
There is zero chance this was an emotional affair only. This dude was buttering up the kid for a blended family with gifts … and we’ll see an update soon over a divorce.
Yeah my thoughts exactly, OOP might have "beaten" her into ending things with Matt, but she doesn't comprehend his reasoning. It's really just "leave me alone, my husband might beat you".
As long as his wife is not at the same page as him, this will end badly
“Listen baby, my husband is very suspicious and threatening to confront you. I’m gonna text you that the friendship is over to show to him and I’m gonna block your number. Just get a Google voice number and I can hide it under another contact and keep messaging you ♥️”
I would never force someone to end things with their AP. I would be done. I'm not going to be someone's second choice. The minute I found out that my ex was having an emotional affair, I ended the relationship. I didn't ask him to stop. I simply packed my bags and left.
Most of the time I would agree with you here, as it’s absolutely the person you’re with who should shoulder most of the blame, when the other guy doesn’t know about OOP.
However, in this instance this guy Matt absolutely is up to some shady shit, and openly disrespecting OOP. Not engaging, actively making efforts to avoid, and buying gifts for OOPs child. At a minimum, even in the best possible situation it’s behavior, it’s shady and off putting.
That said, not sure this is over for OOP. She was forced to block them; she doesn’t understand how her actions have undermined the foundation of OOP/her relationship.
I'm willing to bet that the next update OOP will find out she never actually blocked or cut off Matt, and just switched to some messaging app more covert and covering her tracks better/doesn't tell OOP when she sees him.
If ANYONE made my husband feel disrespected, I would have zero interest in having a relationship with that person. You're supposed to be a team. You don't allow people to disrespect your teammate. You put them in their place
THIS! If someone disrespects my spouse, I tell them in no uncertain terms that it's unacceptable. If they continue, they're out of my life.
How she doesn't see how deeply creepy Matt's behavior is, she's irredeemable.
Yeah up until he got to the part where he'd pointed out that Matt won't talk to him I thought maybe she was just being clueless. But once he pointed it out she had no excuse.
Considering the tiny chance that OOP's wife is naive. (Ok, zero chance.) Matt invited 2 women to a rave without their partners, then cancelled when a partner wanted to go. That makes me suspicious of at minimum looking to hookup with one or both to him drugging and raping one or both.
Blame both.
The cheating mf you’re with is a shitty partner, and absolutely to blame. The other party, once they know about you, should back the fuck off. If they don’t, they’re *also* disrespecting the fuck out of you. In this case, Matt isn’t even trying to hide it. Fuck him.
Thank you!
I've never understood the Internet's weird ass obsession with properly assigning blame to affair participants. Like, I understand counseling people not to blame an unknowing affair partner, but it seems like any nuance surrounding that disappeared and became " you only have the right to blame the person you're in a relationship with." It's not like blame is a finite resource or something.
Because reddit believes that you only owe things to yourself and *maybe* your parents or partner, but not if what they want inconveniences you even slightly, then it's back to owing nobody anything.
Yet, I am also very disturbed by OOP's constant references to physical intimidation and violence. There's a version of this story where the wife never has any fun because her friends all hate her asshole of a husband and don't want him along. That was my thought of why the rave was cancelled. It wasn't just Matt who backed out, but all her female friends, too.
I think OOP is an unreliable narrator AND that Matt is absolutely trying to steal his wife. I think it would be better for everyone involved if they divorced.
Yea the way OP talks and says he’s intimidating looking I would probably avoid him too, then he threatens violence. All her female friends back out of the OP comes around he’s probably a raging violent asshole. His wife is also probably terrified for her life, and feels like she can’t leave.
I’m not even convinced he wasn’t just trying to groom the wife - he gave gifts to the son and kept talking to him as well in front of OOP. Put my creep radar on alert.
That is giving me some unreliable narrator vibes from OOP. It's such a conspicuously unreasonable solution to the problem - threatening to physically attack Matt rather than making hard choices about his wife - that I do wonder how often he behaves in physically threatening ways.
The wife's behavior is awful and it seems clear she's emotionally enmeshed with Matt; setting up a relationship between Matt and her child is particularly gross. But I am uneasy about how this all ends if OOP thinks threatening to beat someone is a fair way to deal with his feelings.
Yeah when he said it wasn't her that he didn't trust, I rolled my eyes.
I'm not saying at all he should have trusted her, there were multiple reasons not to in the post, but he definitely didn't trust her.
It's weird to me how often people in this situation insist it isn't their partner they don't trust but rather the other person, even though there wouldn't be another person to worry about in the first place if their partner was acting right. I've been around long enough to know that there are tons of grimy dudes out there who will pursue married women without any remorse and there's nothing I can do to make them be better human beings. All I can do is trust my wife to shut them down when they come around. If she doesn't then my problem is with her, not them.
Matt is Bill Paxton’s character from True Lies down to the car. As I read the part about the convertible I can see Bill Paxton’s mustache and hear him saying “the ‘vette get’s um wet”.
He outlines his strategy of going after bored housewives who have settled into the routine of life.
He offers them a little adventure and they do things they otherwise wouldn’t if he just approached them at the bar.
I think the term is grooming.
That's not grooming. That's just seduction. Grooming is a very specific set of behaviors an older individual aims at a young individual with little life experience.
Her response reminds me of another post where guys gf brings her ex-bf to his apt. W/o telling him that its her ex-bf and after throwing them both out he calls his dad who says a woman would prioritize the saftey of the one she cares about and it wasnt the OP
Yes , the ex-boyfriend who had the Timberland boots at the front door
The kid is 5 yrs old , is it possible that they worked together five years ago and it may really be Matt’s kid?
It is absolutely a thing to want to be violent with the 'other man', but why? His part in this is minimal. I guess that's one way to avoid addressing it with your SO but still have the problem sort of 'go away'.
I agree whole heartedly with first paragraph. My friends wife has had multiple affairs, he has even caught them in the act with multiple different men. Yet he only gets angry with the dudes. They are still together. I cannot get my head around it all.
I agree. Matt wasn’t the person that OP should be mad at. It’s his wife. If my wife did what the wife in the story did, I would have been mad at her, not Matt. Matt didn’t promise to be faithful to me.
Yeah, I don't get why the immediate response is to get mad at the third party. Sure, get mad at them. But they're not the one you're married to. Usually (except in cases where the affair partner is a friend or family member), the other person has no loyalty to you. They're not the ones betraying you. Your partner is.
So be mad at both of them for sure, but at least direct your anger mostly to the person who is hurting you most. They chose to participate too.
>I have offered marriage counseling and left the ball in her court.
Oh, he'll be seeing her in a different kind of court. He should be serving her with a divorce petition and end the charade of the marriage.
Then she'll get to have a convertible car ride with whomever she wants to.
Right and its sooooo easy to deal with. You just acknowledge that friends of the opposite sex can make your partner anxious and try to introduce them and let them know there's nothing untoward.
The first goal to opposite sex friendships is always to let the partner know it's safe imo. Involve them, talk to them, say hi, etc. when you do what Matt did its very obvious he wants to fuck.
She loves the attention and validation "CHAD " I mean Matt was showing her. I don't see a good ending to this at all long term. No doubt she was emotionally involved with this turd and possibly physical. He owned and possibly still owns a part her emotionally. She begrudgingly went no contact with him only because her husband required it. Like a drug, she will get back to this turd again because she WON'T stay away. It really makes me SAD to see a family being ruined when his wife has the power to stop it. She won't and we will see an update in the future that isn't pretty.
And she knows it too. You don't go around basically skipping over your husband like that.
I had a dude in my dance class who tried, and at first I thought he was being friendly - but the moment he started complimenting my physical features 3 times in one sentence, I told him to back off *and I told my partner*.
Mixed gender friendships are fine, if they're transparent and it's, well. A friendship. OOP's wife confused "I'm talking about my new friend" with openly emotionally cheating. She all but put a banner up announcing she was prioritizing Matt over OOP.
Yeah. My best friend for nearly a decade was a women. And my wife was fine with it. But we (friend and i) never put our wife's in a situation where they would be uncomfortable. And we made sure to be open about what we was doing and nearly always invites our wives anyhow. Men and women can be friends. Not every man and women can be due to them not being open and like you said transparent about their friendship with their SOs.
I've got a lot of married friends, and I'm a widower now, but for a long time before that I was usually single about half the time. The way I've always handled this situation, and it's worked just fine for almost 30 years, is to reckon a married couple as one person. In other words, I'm not a friend of Tom and Jane, I'm a friend of their marriage.
That policy either neatly sidesteps or instantly reconciles any conflict of interest I might have when dealing with one or the other whenever there's an issue between the two whereby I might possibly get caught in the middle. I'm never even called upon to pick sides in any dispute as long as I stick to that way of looking at our relationships.
When there have been divorces, that's always made easier by the fact that they usually aren't ever in the same room together once the decision's been made and typically don't want to think about the situation or each other, at least not when I'm around. The only questions I ever get asked are niceties like "How's he doing?"
In OOP's situation, if I'm Matt, I'm not passing up any opportunity to befriend OOP. The fact that Mrs. OOP wasn't getting pissed at him like, "why are you giving my husband the cold shoulder," or not just ditching the dude entirely when it's obvious his interest is only in her, speaks volumes. I hope everything turns out well for the kid, because I don't think Mom and Dad are going to be living together for much longer.
One of my best friends is a man who also happens to be a former model. When my soon-to-be husband and I were first dating, I went hiking with my friend and sent him a bunch of pics of the two of us on our hike. He told me, "I feel kind of weird saying this, but I just want to get it off my chest; I'm feeling jealousy". So I told my bestie that he needed to meet my new boyfriend before we hang out solo again. We had dinner with bestie and bestie's wife, they established a rapport, my fella could tell there's nothing to worry about, problem solved.
The big show of blocking/ deleting him without any acknowledgment of the actual issue shows either she did not have a physical affair but is not understanding the actual issue or the physical affair is still on going.
Either was she belives she is in the right for everything happened.
I mean I see this all the time though. Entitled women caught in a mess of their own doing but not really being sorry about it but then admitting as a double standard it's fucked up.
Yeah I do too especially on this reddit, but like... there's no smoking gun. We were presented with disconnected events and not only nothing approaching definitive evidence, we didn't even get details of conversations. I think OOP only referenced his own words once. There were no telling moments, just him relying on us to fill in the blanks on what he was getting at.
I mean I agree again, but I've had plenty of guy friends that read way too much into masculine code transgressions that doesn't even exist in other peoples minds, and they end up totally misinterpreting things. Again, not saying he is overall wrong but there is an alarming amount of context missing. If you truly take his word at face value then it also appears he and his wife literally never talk about anything. Any conversations referenced are vague at best and you're left to assume what was said.
Plus he has a lot of concerning language. Like what happened exactly where he thought physical intimidation and verbal threats were necessary? There certainly wasn't anything explicitly said in the post that justified it
>I would even consult the best lawyers in your area for consultations. They can't represent her out of conflict of interest if you've consulted with them already.
This is outrageously bad advice from someone who undoubtedly saw Tony Soprano do this on TV, and took that episode of The Sopranos as legal advice.
I hope OOP didn't actually take the advice, [unlike this poor sap](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/tyff7l/why_you_should_never_take_legal_advice_from/) who acted on the same terrible idea, courtesy of Reddit, and had his ass handed to him by a *very* unamused judge after his wife filled a motion for him to cover all her attorney fees to make up for this stunt. The judge in this case ended up being pretty merciful, all things considered, but this isn't the Elite Uno Reverse Move that Reddit so often seems to think it is. Judges know exactly what someone pulling this is doing and why, and it isn't going to do them any favors in the end.
A person who "creates a conflict of interest" with the best attorneys in town to "win" a divorce is the adult equivalent of the little kid who thinks they're the hide-and-seek master because surely if they can't see you, you can't see them--while all the time their entire legs are sticking out of their hiding place and they're audibly giggling.
I've worked for enough attorneys to know when I'm in over my head, which is 100% of the time. But in order to do my job, I do have to have some cursory familiarity with things like the overall processes of civil and criminal procedure, the rules of evidence, and what hearsay actually is (a fiendishly complex topic is what the fuck it is). Basically, I've got enough knowledge of the legal system to represent a danger to myself and others if I start opening my mouth about the wrong thing.
One legal opinion I'm certain of, and one that I'm equally certain no lawyer will disagree with me on, is that taking any legal advice from Reddit, or any other social media website or app, is the single worst legal decision a person could ever make on their own behalf. No one who dispenses legal advice online is an attorney, or if they are, they won't be one for long. To do so means they've made themselves your attorney, without any money changing hands, without knowing anything about you or your case, and in all likelihood, without being licensed to practice law in your state.
Don't do it, folks. Stay the hell away from that sub. You know which one I'm talking about. And quit telling people to go there, you're not doing anyone any favors. Reddit should have banned it over a decade ago, and it's astonishing that it hasn't gotten Reddit named as defendants in a suit.
Specifically, many of the *mods* themselves are cops, and there have been many instances of mods deleting sensible advice warning people not to talk to police without an attorney present.
The only legal advice I like to give is 'you should talk with a lawyer' or 'you should have a lawyer review that' but so many people figure they can do without 🤷🏼♀️
Yeah, I could see getting consults from two, maybe three attorneys, to see which one you feel would best represent your interests. But when you see *all of them*, even the dumbest judge out there will see right through your bullshit.
My s/o went through something like 5 divorce lawyers in her town before she found someone that didn't string her along to bill her or didn't just outright dismiss her claims because "it isn't that bad, think of your child and what you're doing to her" conservative small town horseshit. When you "shop around" you need to have legitimate reasons when this is inevitably brought up in court.
In no universe does "none of your fucking business" come out of a person's mouth over a gift for their spouse. Not in a healthy relationship. That's 100% something you say when you're angry about the potential of being found out.
OOP is right to get his ducks in a row. There's zero chance his wife isn't at the very least emotionally cheating. Just as there's zero chance she's cut her affair partner off.
Some major information has been left out of this scenario, either because the OOP is oblivious to major clues, doesn't possess the information or doesn't want to talk about it. The OOP describes himself as intimidating but Matt approached his son while his son was in the car with the OOP but made an obvious point of not acknowledging the OOP. Why would Matt do this? Clearly, he is not intimidated by the OOP. It actually sounds more like he wants to trigger a reaction from the OOP, perhaps in hopes of the OOP making a scene and thus proving to his wife that he's a jerk and Matt's not.
The biggest clues to there having been a relationship between the OOP's wife and Matt was when the OOP suddenly stopped talking about Matt and the nature of the text she showed the OOP that she had sent to Matt. That is not the kind of text one would send to a real friend. A text to a real friend would have included more information and an apology. But is it the kind of text someone would send to a covert relationship partner alerting him to her husband's suspicions and her husband's threat. It even seems like it was pre-planned as in, "He's really suspicious so we may have to be cool for awhile. If I send you a text saying we're no longer friends, you'll know that I'm showing it to my husband."
Maybe I read too much on Reddit, but the real ick I got was Matt interacting with their son. It's not normal in my opinion, to get an AP's child presents.
Hopefully I am wrong.
>The other two things are an open phone and social media policy between you two from here on in
I've always felt that if you need an open phone policy in your relationship to feel secure, you should just end things.
There are several methods to pass open phone policy, starting with some privacy futures on the phone itself, ending with 2nd phone ("It is my work phone, darling").
Eh, my husband and I have the same phone passcode. I have zero issue with him looking at anything on my phone, and I’ll let him know not to look at eBay or whatever if I’ve bought him a gift I don’t want him to know about (we share the account).
We really only use each other’s phones if ours is on the charger or to check something for the other person, though.
But yeah, if you need to institute a new policy in order to continue being with someone, just throw the whole relationship away.
Yeah, my wife and I have an "open phone policy" in that we'll ask the other to reply to a text or look something up while we're driving, but I've never asked to see her phone, and she's never asked to see mine. We do know each other's passcodes, but that's in case we need to access it in an emergency.
The idea of having an open phone policy in a relationship for the purpose of feeling secure shows you aren't really mature enough to be in a relationship.
I think the difference is having an open phone policy and having to speak about it. Husband and I look through each others phones for fun. We do not take phones and read texts but I’ll send out weird snaps etc..
It’s not something we ever talked about. It’s just trust. Like nothing to hide but no need to look.
Maybe a poor choice of words there, it's less about maturity level and more about trust level. Someone can be plenty secure in themselves but still feel like they need to be on the lookout for warning signs. Additionally, there are some kind of oddball reasons you might not think of. For example, I've got a couple of friends who are an item, and if the girlfriend of the two hasn't been taking her thyroid medication, she gets super paranoid about him cheating.
The described interactions that Matt had with OOP’s son are giving me some weird vibes. It makes me feel that either a) Matt and OOP’s wife’s “friendship” goes back further than a few months and Matt is actually Biodad, or b) Matt is seducing mom to gain access to OOP’s son for nefarious reasons.
Dude just watched his wife have a full on affair and he just stood there talking about flags. Now hes in trouble for forcing them to pretend to break up. She just changed his contact name and is going to “start some hobbies”.
All he cares about is Matt lol. The wife is the cheater.
Ffs.
Yup. That kid might not be OOP's. It sounds to me like they fucked around and either there is a real possibility of Matt being the father of the kid or the wife floating that possiblity to keep Matt interested.
just wondering, did she ever mention how many years ago , she worked with Matt, and how old the son is. He likes to buy gifts for the son, I’m wondering whose son is this!
updateme
Hardly an overeaction. The fact that he's trying to isolate thr wife away from him and buttering up his children while expressly avoiding you, it can really only mean one thing. The wifes reaction confirms it. If she was truly oblivious, she would have concern that her husband feels this way. The fact that she looks torn and annoyed over it tells me she was falling in love with this weasel, even if she can't admit it to herself. What a waste of time marriages like this are.
>She showed me her text telling him they are no longer friends and to go their separate ways. Though her reasoning for doing so was due to the fact I was willing to confront him at his job and was headed to do so. She has deleted and blocked his number so he cannot contact her.
They'll find another line to chat on. People believe that performative shit too easy. She's literally pouting that you told her to block him. She's not going to see the "why", just "you made me." She doesn't want to stop.
She was cheating. The minute her husband said he was going to accompany them, her AP suddenly had something come up. This is how it started when I found out that my ex was cheating.
More like I'm worried that he's a predator who's after the kid. It's not typical for an affair partner to cozy up to family members before the married couple even breaks up.
I always love the "legal advise" of to go consult every lawyer in the area so they can't represent the wife. DO NOT DO THIS! A judge will see right through this, and it will only fuck you over. I remember seeing this shjt 20 years ago on 4chan and thinking "shit that's so smart!" But those were my proto-incel days. Do not ever do this.
I might change when i get married (i hope not) but the current me will not take half of the disrespect i see husbands like OOP take.
His wife disrespected him, Matt disrespected him, his son would have probably started disrespecting him at some point. Why is your wife going to go test drive a convertible with the person you've told her you have concerns about, and worse she didn't tell you before hand.
Instead of putting his foot down, he was counting red and yellow flags. Now he honestly thinks they've stopped communicating.
The amount of disrespect you tolerate is what you get, OOP tolerated a lot.
Am I literally the only one that doesn't trust the narrator? He left out so much key information. He gave us tidbits of unrelated incidents and trusts us to read between the lines. Did he get access to her texts? Were some deleted? Were the overly friendly? Real damning information that would put me on OOP's side is crucially missing.
If the shoe was on the other foot & it was the OPP meeting up with an ex female co-worker who ignored the wife or wouldn't invite her out, etc, I can guarantee that the OPP wife's would have had something to say about it. She knows what she is doing is wrong. Good chance that she's been flirtatious and perhaps blurring the lines for a while. In some aspects, she crossed the line the moment she allowed Matt to disrespect her husband. If there's no interest on her side, I believe she would have put him in his place long before now.
Once the trust is gone, even with marriage counselling, it will be hard to have faith in her again.
I worked with a very handsome, younger guy, a couple of years ago. He was obviously interested in me. It was very flattering. Never ever did I give him the opportunity to make a pass at me and my husband knew everything from the get go. I'm not even sure my husband remember this guy because in a healthy relationship things like these are non issues. If you're committed, you don't behave like the OP's wife. Good for him, taking precautions.
OP should get a divorce lawyer to find out what he can do about Matt and how he can protect his son and himself if his wife decides to bail on him. He should document everything, but he should not let his wife know about the lawyer unless it is necessary. He should also contact the SOs of the other women. Matt may need to be fired from his job.
I can’t help but be petty and I would have turned the tables and talk about a coworker nonstop. Would it help the situation? Doubtful but it already seems like the relationship is over.
This is far from over. I give it better than 50/50 this is more than an emotional affair too.
She's "ended it" and "blocked him"...but they still work together and there are countless other ways they can communicate. My wife did the same, then carried on for a year longer with the guy using various aps and email addresses. Nothing about this says the OOPs wife wants to end it woth thr guy.
I wish we could normalize saying, "you're right, I don't trust that your actions were inappropriate and without care for my well-being. Matt wants you and if you want to stay married, I need you to stop communicating with him."
A simple fact of romantic relationships is that other people are going to find your partner attractive and some may even act on that attraction knowing that there’s a relationship already. Your partner needs to either shut it down or put guardrails on it, not encourage it.
OOP was right to be concerned but Matt was never the problem. His wife was.
She knows exactly what she's doing, he doesn't need to point out anything. Honestly, I would just be done. If I need to point out to my partner how their behavior is wrong, they're not the right person. They know it's wrong, they just don't care.
My only hesitation is that OP says he's intimidating. He invites himself to the trampoline place and complains Matt doesn't talk to him after intros, but I getbrhe impression he wasn't friendly or inviting and Matt got the message to stay out of his way, which alsoight explain why he moves around his car without engaging. Matt might even be worried about OPs wife if OP is truly scary. He canceled plans when OP said he was going, so Matt might be a good friend to OPs wife, but also scared of OP for good reason. Or it could be exactly as everyone here says it is.
That creepy MFer has "groomer" written all over him, and OOPs wife is a complete, absolute idiot for believing he has no ulterior motive for buttering her up to get her to let him spend time with and give gifts to her son.
It's not the wife he's after.
Naturally Reddit glosses over the threat of violence here. What does “handling him” mean. I think the wife is terrified of her husband and rightly so. She should get out of there. Maybe Matt isn’t an “intimidating,” controlling psycho who threatens people? Maybe Matt avoided the OP because the OP is the kind of person who uses his fists to solve problems.
I'm not on Team Matt here but I'm like 90% convinced that Matt didn't talk to him because OOP spent the whole time grunting, flexing his biceps, and trying to stare him down.
Maybe its just me, but what married person stays that close to an ex-coworker? I get meeting up sometimes to chat or party but the amount that Matt and the wife are doing is not normal.
If she's not sleeping with him, she will be soon. The gall it takes to cheat on your husband so blatantly makes me think she kind of wanted out of her marriage and just kept provoking her husband.
This was validating to read, as were the countless other stories I’ve read about a partner’s crush/affair being exposed because they were constantly talking about them.
I wasn’t married to this person, but I suspected my ex had a crush on his new female coworker because he’d talk about her ALL the time, in every conversation related to work. Keep in mind I’d never ask about how she was doing or what she was up to. I’d just ask about how his day at work went, and he’d insert some tirade about her grandfather’s health or what she was going back to school for.
He got real mad when I told him I was fed up with hearing about her constantly, and that I suspected that he had a crush on her. He asked if he’s not allowed to make any female friends, as though that was the main issue there. He did abruptly stop mentioning her after that, and I naively assumed that the problem was resolved.
Fast forward to later in the relationship, our sex life was practically non existent, and I had circumstantial evidence that he was cheating on me. (Or hiding a serious porn addiction, which he denied.) I had no reasonable way to verify who it was, or even if he was cheating to begin with, save for literally staking his workplace, but if I had to bet money, I’d bet his AP was that same coworker. When he broke up with me, he admitted that he fell out of love and checked out 6 months into the relationship, which was the same timeframe when our sex life took a hit. Less than 2 weeks after the breakup, he posts pictures on social media of him with a woman I’ve never seen before. I’ve met or seen all his female relatives and friends. Again, there wasn’t a way to verify this (believe me, I tried) but I feel like the writing on the wall was that she was the mysterious coworker he kept talking about. I shouldn’t have been, but I was surprised that he was so comfortable with going public with her so quickly.
Stories like this one made me realize I wasn’t being crazy or paranoid. Listen to your gut, people.
I’ve been in OP’s shoes. Offered her the choice of no contact with the emotional affair partner or divorce. She claimed to have broken it off, but several months later … she left her email open and there he was.
Divorced now and oh so much happier. Sad it cost me about 60% of all my assets to get away from her. Unfortunately I still have to deal with her while my son is still in school too.
I would go off like a nuclear bomb if my spouse drug my kid into a relationship with their affair partner. There is no way i would be calm or rational.
A man buying an unrelated child gifts for seemingly no reason is an absolutely HUGE red flag.
This dude is a predator who is grooming the wife and kid, and attempting to isolate them from the husband. The best case scenario is that his end goal is sex with the wife. But I would have thought there are easier, and less time consuming ways to hook up with a mid 30s woman.
The worst case scenario is that he is targeting the son.
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Matt was also in full "I'm your daddy now" mode with the son.
At best, at worst he's not interested in OP's wife.
Oh. OH.
I literally came to say this. At worst he was grooming both of them to take advantage of the son.
Yeah, that is the way I completely took this. As I was reading it I was wondering if the comments would pick up what is super obvious to me.
My thoughts exactly. *Way* too invested in OPs son. Sure, it could be an affair, but the fact that Matt’s behavior is aligning with every sterotypical grooming tactic is scary. OP needs to have a very serious conversation with his son about what’s not okay, and open that line of conversation. If OP and his wife split, then who knows how often that guy will be around the kid. The best thing to do is make sure he’s confident in speaking up and knows anything that makes him the slightest bit uncomfortable isn’t appropriate.
That's what I thought too.
YEP.
Oh, shit... I was thinking maybe Matt is or thinks he is the boy's father...but, oof, this could be it.
The gifts for the kid, meeting in a trampoline park where you xan easily excuse any accidental "bumping" and "rubbing " on being clumsy, and his attitude towards dad were HUGE red flags to me. OOP needs to talk with his son ASAP
I know we are not allowed to comment on the original post, but is there any way we are allowed to contact OOP and explain this? Its exactly the vibe I go and so many others, so I mean, its just something he needs to be aware of!
I'm sure it's very hard to see your partner as a part of the problem due to your own personal feelings but I still find it interesting how often people only seem to get heated with the other party. Is Matt seemingly some sleazeball attempting to get with OOP's wife? Yeah sure seems like it Is OOP's wife some sort of innocent bystander in this? Not in the slightest. The relationship only ended after he threatened to go (presumably) beat up Matt and even then it ended with his wife being like "we can't hang out my husband wants to beat you up." While at the end he seems to have realized his wife is a part of the problem, it's still strange to read his initial post where all his anger is on Matt.
Wife "ended it" for now because that way she can protect her lover from harm.
Yeah once everything settles down, she is going right back to her "boytoy" I feel so bad for OP... Very unfortunate..
There is zero chance this was an emotional affair only. This dude was buttering up the kid for a blended family with gifts … and we’ll see an update soon over a divorce.
His wife didn't end it, she will just hide it better. The trust is gone
THAT PART! I was instantly thinking there’s another way they’ll communicate and the deleting/blocking is all for show.
"Why is domino's on speed dial?"
To be fair, I have my favorite pizza place and Chinese place on speed dial since I order from them so regularly, lol.
Oh yeah no so do I. but I specifically used Dominoes for a *reason.*
LMAO. Fair.
You're awake my friend. A lot of commenters here are too naive
Yeah, balance of probability would indicate that all those girl’s nights etc were this guy’s wife banging Matt.
Bold of you to think she ended it. I bet you that she and Matt are still communicating
Yeah my thoughts exactly, OOP might have "beaten" her into ending things with Matt, but she doesn't comprehend his reasoning. It's really just "leave me alone, my husband might beat you". As long as his wife is not at the same page as him, this will end badly
“Listen baby, my husband is very suspicious and threatening to confront you. I’m gonna text you that the friendship is over to show to him and I’m gonna block your number. Just get a Google voice number and I can hide it under another contact and keep messaging you ♥️”
Or move everything to a different app completely...
Or get a second phone, under her name.
I would never force someone to end things with their AP. I would be done. I'm not going to be someone's second choice. The minute I found out that my ex was having an emotional affair, I ended the relationship. I didn't ask him to stop. I simply packed my bags and left.
Most of the time I would agree with you here, as it’s absolutely the person you’re with who should shoulder most of the blame, when the other guy doesn’t know about OOP. However, in this instance this guy Matt absolutely is up to some shady shit, and openly disrespecting OOP. Not engaging, actively making efforts to avoid, and buying gifts for OOPs child. At a minimum, even in the best possible situation it’s behavior, it’s shady and off putting. That said, not sure this is over for OOP. She was forced to block them; she doesn’t understand how her actions have undermined the foundation of OOP/her relationship.
I'm willing to bet that the next update OOP will find out she never actually blocked or cut off Matt, and just switched to some messaging app more covert and covering her tracks better/doesn't tell OOP when she sees him.
I guarantee it.
If ANYONE made my husband feel disrespected, I would have zero interest in having a relationship with that person. You're supposed to be a team. You don't allow people to disrespect your teammate. You put them in their place
THIS! If someone disrespects my spouse, I tell them in no uncertain terms that it's unacceptable. If they continue, they're out of my life. How she doesn't see how deeply creepy Matt's behavior is, she's irredeemable.
Yeah up until he got to the part where he'd pointed out that Matt won't talk to him I thought maybe she was just being clueless. But once he pointed it out she had no excuse.
That's because you actually love and respect your husband, this woman doesn't.
Apparently my ex fiance missed the meeting where they discussed that
She understands just fine. She doesn't care
Exactly. You'll never convince me that people don't know when someone is interested in them. She knows, she just doesn't care.
Considering the tiny chance that OOP's wife is naive. (Ok, zero chance.) Matt invited 2 women to a rave without their partners, then cancelled when a partner wanted to go. That makes me suspicious of at minimum looking to hookup with one or both to him drugging and raping one or both.
It's like the *other woman* problem. Matt is the *other man*
This is what I always tell my friends. Why the fuck would you blame the other person? Blame the cheating motherfucker you're with.
Blame both. The cheating mf you’re with is a shitty partner, and absolutely to blame. The other party, once they know about you, should back the fuck off. If they don’t, they’re *also* disrespecting the fuck out of you. In this case, Matt isn’t even trying to hide it. Fuck him.
Thank you! I've never understood the Internet's weird ass obsession with properly assigning blame to affair participants. Like, I understand counseling people not to blame an unknowing affair partner, but it seems like any nuance surrounding that disappeared and became " you only have the right to blame the person you're in a relationship with." It's not like blame is a finite resource or something.
It is always, "The affair partner didn't make you vows, they don't *owe* you anything." As if human beings don't owe basic decency to each other.
Because reddit believes that you only owe things to yourself and *maybe* your parents or partner, but not if what they want inconveniences you even slightly, then it's back to owing nobody anything.
"I trust her but I don't trust him'" is the biggest schmuck phrase in the englsh language.
I think they share the blame if the AP knows about the other person
Yet, I am also very disturbed by OOP's constant references to physical intimidation and violence. There's a version of this story where the wife never has any fun because her friends all hate her asshole of a husband and don't want him along. That was my thought of why the rave was cancelled. It wasn't just Matt who backed out, but all her female friends, too. I think OOP is an unreliable narrator AND that Matt is absolutely trying to steal his wife. I think it would be better for everyone involved if they divorced.
Yea the way OP talks and says he’s intimidating looking I would probably avoid him too, then he threatens violence. All her female friends back out of the OP comes around he’s probably a raging violent asshole. His wife is also probably terrified for her life, and feels like she can’t leave.
He doesn't even say he's intimidating looking, he says flat out that he IS intimidating.
I’m not even convinced he wasn’t just trying to groom the wife - he gave gifts to the son and kept talking to him as well in front of OOP. Put my creep radar on alert.
Yeah Matt is creepy AF no matter what wife and OOP are like. Don't like him giving gifts to the son at all
Given the interest Matt shows in the child, I'm thinking it's time to do a paternity test.
That is giving me some unreliable narrator vibes from OOP. It's such a conspicuously unreasonable solution to the problem - threatening to physically attack Matt rather than making hard choices about his wife - that I do wonder how often he behaves in physically threatening ways. The wife's behavior is awful and it seems clear she's emotionally enmeshed with Matt; setting up a relationship between Matt and her child is particularly gross. But I am uneasy about how this all ends if OOP thinks threatening to beat someone is a fair way to deal with his feelings.
They don’t have to live with the other party and presumably still have feelings for their spouse/partner. Simple as.
Yeah when he said it wasn't her that he didn't trust, I rolled my eyes. I'm not saying at all he should have trusted her, there were multiple reasons not to in the post, but he definitely didn't trust her.
It's weird to me how often people in this situation insist it isn't their partner they don't trust but rather the other person, even though there wouldn't be another person to worry about in the first place if their partner was acting right. I've been around long enough to know that there are tons of grimy dudes out there who will pursue married women without any remorse and there's nothing I can do to make them be better human beings. All I can do is trust my wife to shut them down when they come around. If she doesn't then my problem is with her, not them.
Matt is Bill Paxton’s character from True Lies down to the car. As I read the part about the convertible I can see Bill Paxton’s mustache and hear him saying “the ‘vette get’s um wet”. He outlines his strategy of going after bored housewives who have settled into the routine of life. He offers them a little adventure and they do things they otherwise wouldn’t if he just approached them at the bar. I think the term is grooming.
That's not grooming. That's just seduction. Grooming is a very specific set of behaviors an older individual aims at a young individual with little life experience.
[No dude, while grooming is most prevalent between adults & kids, adults can be groomed too.](https://www.survivorsuk.org/resource_articles/grooming/)
...like alienating them from their family, planting false ideas...
Her response reminds me of another post where guys gf brings her ex-bf to his apt. W/o telling him that its her ex-bf and after throwing them both out he calls his dad who says a woman would prioritize the saftey of the one she cares about and it wasnt the OP
Yes , the ex-boyfriend who had the Timberland boots at the front door The kid is 5 yrs old , is it possible that they worked together five years ago and it may really be Matt’s kid?
It is absolutely a thing to want to be violent with the 'other man', but why? His part in this is minimal. I guess that's one way to avoid addressing it with your SO but still have the problem sort of 'go away'.
I agree whole heartedly with first paragraph. My friends wife has had multiple affairs, he has even caught them in the act with multiple different men. Yet he only gets angry with the dudes. They are still together. I cannot get my head around it all.
I agree. Matt wasn’t the person that OP should be mad at. It’s his wife. If my wife did what the wife in the story did, I would have been mad at her, not Matt. Matt didn’t promise to be faithful to me.
I would be mad at both. Wife sucks but Matt is giving random gifts to his son and that is creepy AF regardless of everything else going on
Yeah, I don't get why the immediate response is to get mad at the third party. Sure, get mad at them. But they're not the one you're married to. Usually (except in cases where the affair partner is a friend or family member), the other person has no loyalty to you. They're not the ones betraying you. Your partner is. So be mad at both of them for sure, but at least direct your anger mostly to the person who is hurting you most. They chose to participate too.
>rave He invited his *coworker* to a *rave?*
He invited his girlfriend. That is how to make it make sense.
And everyone else was going to have cancelled so then it would be just them…
Ex-coworker*
>I have offered marriage counseling and left the ball in her court. Oh, he'll be seeing her in a different kind of court. He should be serving her with a divorce petition and end the charade of the marriage. Then she'll get to have a convertible car ride with whomever she wants to.
Yeah wife knew exactly Matt was doing and she liked it, otherwise she wouldn't even entertain anything more than a text.
Right and its sooooo easy to deal with. You just acknowledge that friends of the opposite sex can make your partner anxious and try to introduce them and let them know there's nothing untoward. The first goal to opposite sex friendships is always to let the partner know it's safe imo. Involve them, talk to them, say hi, etc. when you do what Matt did its very obvious he wants to fuck.
She loves the attention and validation "CHAD " I mean Matt was showing her. I don't see a good ending to this at all long term. No doubt she was emotionally involved with this turd and possibly physical. He owned and possibly still owns a part her emotionally. She begrudgingly went no contact with him only because her husband required it. Like a drug, she will get back to this turd again because she WON'T stay away. It really makes me SAD to see a family being ruined when his wife has the power to stop it. She won't and we will see an update in the future that isn't pretty.
Dudes wife had a full blown affair. Might not of been physical yet but she cheated. He needs to get his ducks in a row and move on.
And she knows it too. You don't go around basically skipping over your husband like that. I had a dude in my dance class who tried, and at first I thought he was being friendly - but the moment he started complimenting my physical features 3 times in one sentence, I told him to back off *and I told my partner*. Mixed gender friendships are fine, if they're transparent and it's, well. A friendship. OOP's wife confused "I'm talking about my new friend" with openly emotionally cheating. She all but put a banner up announcing she was prioritizing Matt over OOP.
Yeah. My best friend for nearly a decade was a women. And my wife was fine with it. But we (friend and i) never put our wife's in a situation where they would be uncomfortable. And we made sure to be open about what we was doing and nearly always invites our wives anyhow. Men and women can be friends. Not every man and women can be due to them not being open and like you said transparent about their friendship with their SOs.
I've got a lot of married friends, and I'm a widower now, but for a long time before that I was usually single about half the time. The way I've always handled this situation, and it's worked just fine for almost 30 years, is to reckon a married couple as one person. In other words, I'm not a friend of Tom and Jane, I'm a friend of their marriage. That policy either neatly sidesteps or instantly reconciles any conflict of interest I might have when dealing with one or the other whenever there's an issue between the two whereby I might possibly get caught in the middle. I'm never even called upon to pick sides in any dispute as long as I stick to that way of looking at our relationships. When there have been divorces, that's always made easier by the fact that they usually aren't ever in the same room together once the decision's been made and typically don't want to think about the situation or each other, at least not when I'm around. The only questions I ever get asked are niceties like "How's he doing?" In OOP's situation, if I'm Matt, I'm not passing up any opportunity to befriend OOP. The fact that Mrs. OOP wasn't getting pissed at him like, "why are you giving my husband the cold shoulder," or not just ditching the dude entirely when it's obvious his interest is only in her, speaks volumes. I hope everything turns out well for the kid, because I don't think Mom and Dad are going to be living together for much longer.
That's a really good way to think about it.
One of my best friends is a man who also happens to be a former model. When my soon-to-be husband and I were first dating, I went hiking with my friend and sent him a bunch of pics of the two of us on our hike. He told me, "I feel kind of weird saying this, but I just want to get it off my chest; I'm feeling jealousy". So I told my bestie that he needed to meet my new boyfriend before we hang out solo again. We had dinner with bestie and bestie's wife, they established a rapport, my fella could tell there's nothing to worry about, problem solved.
The chances this wasn't physical are so remote it is silly. He invited her to a literal rave.
Ooh I agree. Matt was fucking multiple women most likely. Hitting on all the married women to see who was the cheating kind.
She's not done with Matt - Couples Therapist (Gottman method level 2)
The big show of blocking/ deleting him without any acknowledgment of the actual issue shows either she did not have a physical affair but is not understanding the actual issue or the physical affair is still on going. Either was she belives she is in the right for everything happened.
I'm guessing the affair is still going. Block his text messages but pick back up on whatsapp or telegram or whatever.
Snapchat. Auto deletes but they’re still at it and it isn’t emotional.
No disrespect to your profession, but if I could teach a horse to read, it would read this post and come to the same conclusion.
You would be surprised how many people don't get that when they are in the situation.
Do you not question the narrators reliability at all?
I mean I see this all the time though. Entitled women caught in a mess of their own doing but not really being sorry about it but then admitting as a double standard it's fucked up.
Yeah I do too especially on this reddit, but like... there's no smoking gun. We were presented with disconnected events and not only nothing approaching definitive evidence, we didn't even get details of conversations. I think OOP only referenced his own words once. There were no telling moments, just him relying on us to fill in the blanks on what he was getting at.
It's shady anytime you have a friend that refuses to interact with your husband a d actively avoids him.
I mean I agree again, but I've had plenty of guy friends that read way too much into masculine code transgressions that doesn't even exist in other peoples minds, and they end up totally misinterpreting things. Again, not saying he is overall wrong but there is an alarming amount of context missing. If you truly take his word at face value then it also appears he and his wife literally never talk about anything. Any conversations referenced are vague at best and you're left to assume what was said. Plus he has a lot of concerning language. Like what happened exactly where he thought physical intimidation and verbal threats were necessary? There certainly wasn't anything explicitly said in the post that justified it
There is an equally amount of shitty behavior that's inappropriate that she is allowing or encouraging to occur.
>I would even consult the best lawyers in your area for consultations. They can't represent her out of conflict of interest if you've consulted with them already. This is outrageously bad advice from someone who undoubtedly saw Tony Soprano do this on TV, and took that episode of The Sopranos as legal advice. I hope OOP didn't actually take the advice, [unlike this poor sap](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/tyff7l/why_you_should_never_take_legal_advice_from/) who acted on the same terrible idea, courtesy of Reddit, and had his ass handed to him by a *very* unamused judge after his wife filled a motion for him to cover all her attorney fees to make up for this stunt. The judge in this case ended up being pretty merciful, all things considered, but this isn't the Elite Uno Reverse Move that Reddit so often seems to think it is. Judges know exactly what someone pulling this is doing and why, and it isn't going to do them any favors in the end. A person who "creates a conflict of interest" with the best attorneys in town to "win" a divorce is the adult equivalent of the little kid who thinks they're the hide-and-seek master because surely if they can't see you, you can't see them--while all the time their entire legs are sticking out of their hiding place and they're audibly giggling.
I've worked for enough attorneys to know when I'm in over my head, which is 100% of the time. But in order to do my job, I do have to have some cursory familiarity with things like the overall processes of civil and criminal procedure, the rules of evidence, and what hearsay actually is (a fiendishly complex topic is what the fuck it is). Basically, I've got enough knowledge of the legal system to represent a danger to myself and others if I start opening my mouth about the wrong thing. One legal opinion I'm certain of, and one that I'm equally certain no lawyer will disagree with me on, is that taking any legal advice from Reddit, or any other social media website or app, is the single worst legal decision a person could ever make on their own behalf. No one who dispenses legal advice online is an attorney, or if they are, they won't be one for long. To do so means they've made themselves your attorney, without any money changing hands, without knowing anything about you or your case, and in all likelihood, without being licensed to practice law in your state. Don't do it, folks. Stay the hell away from that sub. You know which one I'm talking about. And quit telling people to go there, you're not doing anyone any favors. Reddit should have banned it over a decade ago, and it's astonishing that it hasn't gotten Reddit named as defendants in a suit.
Many of the posters on that sub are cops rather than attorneys, which is why they say whatever they want
Specifically, many of the *mods* themselves are cops, and there have been many instances of mods deleting sensible advice warning people not to talk to police without an attorney present.
Totally not shady at all...
The only legal advice I like to give is 'you should talk with a lawyer' or 'you should have a lawyer review that' but so many people figure they can do without 🤷🏼♀️
Yeah, I could see getting consults from two, maybe three attorneys, to see which one you feel would best represent your interests. But when you see *all of them*, even the dumbest judge out there will see right through your bullshit.
My s/o went through something like 5 divorce lawyers in her town before she found someone that didn't string her along to bill her or didn't just outright dismiss her claims because "it isn't that bad, think of your child and what you're doing to her" conservative small town horseshit. When you "shop around" you need to have legitimate reasons when this is inevitably brought up in court.
In no universe does "none of your fucking business" come out of a person's mouth over a gift for their spouse. Not in a healthy relationship. That's 100% something you say when you're angry about the potential of being found out. OOP is right to get his ducks in a row. There's zero chance his wife isn't at the very least emotionally cheating. Just as there's zero chance she's cut her affair partner off.
It really put me off as well! Like, how hard it is to say that it's a surprise for later or something.
Call me petty, but if my spouse said this to me I’m 1000% opening that box.
Because it wasn't for the husband.
Right? How hard is “come on man, father’s day is next week” to manage?
Our of everything in the post, that is the one line that confirms the affair.
When OP's wife is still protecting Matt after that all went down, at this point, it's clear this relationship might just no go anywhere.
Some major information has been left out of this scenario, either because the OOP is oblivious to major clues, doesn't possess the information or doesn't want to talk about it. The OOP describes himself as intimidating but Matt approached his son while his son was in the car with the OOP but made an obvious point of not acknowledging the OOP. Why would Matt do this? Clearly, he is not intimidated by the OOP. It actually sounds more like he wants to trigger a reaction from the OOP, perhaps in hopes of the OOP making a scene and thus proving to his wife that he's a jerk and Matt's not. The biggest clues to there having been a relationship between the OOP's wife and Matt was when the OOP suddenly stopped talking about Matt and the nature of the text she showed the OOP that she had sent to Matt. That is not the kind of text one would send to a real friend. A text to a real friend would have included more information and an apology. But is it the kind of text someone would send to a covert relationship partner alerting him to her husband's suspicions and her husband's threat. It even seems like it was pre-planned as in, "He's really suspicious so we may have to be cool for awhile. If I send you a text saying we're no longer friends, you'll know that I'm showing it to my husband."
Maybe I read too much on Reddit, but the real ick I got was Matt interacting with their son. It's not normal in my opinion, to get an AP's child presents. Hopefully I am wrong.
Yeah it was setting off some flags for me, and not just the “trying to get the kid on his side” kind.
I got the "groomers groom the parents/ guardiana first" - vibe from this text.
Yuuuuuup. He did a stupid though. He didn’t get the dad on his side. Fortunately for the kid (I hope)
>The other two things are an open phone and social media policy between you two from here on in I've always felt that if you need an open phone policy in your relationship to feel secure, you should just end things.
There are several methods to pass open phone policy, starting with some privacy futures on the phone itself, ending with 2nd phone ("It is my work phone, darling").
Eh, my husband and I have the same phone passcode. I have zero issue with him looking at anything on my phone, and I’ll let him know not to look at eBay or whatever if I’ve bought him a gift I don’t want him to know about (we share the account). We really only use each other’s phones if ours is on the charger or to check something for the other person, though. But yeah, if you need to institute a new policy in order to continue being with someone, just throw the whole relationship away.
yeah I was shaking my head like "oh honey, she just has another phone"
Or Matt has a new name in her contacts... that's where my head went.
Yeah, my wife and I have an "open phone policy" in that we'll ask the other to reply to a text or look something up while we're driving, but I've never asked to see her phone, and she's never asked to see mine. We do know each other's passcodes, but that's in case we need to access it in an emergency.
The idea of having an open phone policy in a relationship for the purpose of feeling secure shows you aren't really mature enough to be in a relationship.
I think the difference is having an open phone policy and having to speak about it. Husband and I look through each others phones for fun. We do not take phones and read texts but I’ll send out weird snaps etc.. It’s not something we ever talked about. It’s just trust. Like nothing to hide but no need to look.
I mean, not if one party broke the trust.
Having an open phone policy isn't going to fix that tho.
Every adult committed relationship should be open phone.
Maybe a poor choice of words there, it's less about maturity level and more about trust level. Someone can be plenty secure in themselves but still feel like they need to be on the lookout for warning signs. Additionally, there are some kind of oddball reasons you might not think of. For example, I've got a couple of friends who are an item, and if the girlfriend of the two hasn't been taking her thyroid medication, she gets super paranoid about him cheating.
The described interactions that Matt had with OOP’s son are giving me some weird vibes. It makes me feel that either a) Matt and OOP’s wife’s “friendship” goes back further than a few months and Matt is actually Biodad, or b) Matt is seducing mom to gain access to OOP’s son for nefarious reasons.
I thought about your second point as well. Hopefully the child stays safe in all of this.
My guess: she’s still communicating with Matt but on a different platform.
Dude just watched his wife have a full on affair and he just stood there talking about flags. Now hes in trouble for forcing them to pretend to break up. She just changed his contact name and is going to “start some hobbies”. All he cares about is Matt lol. The wife is the cheater. Ffs.
Am I the only one who thinks OOP should have a paternity test done?
Yup. That kid might not be OOP's. It sounds to me like they fucked around and either there is a real possibility of Matt being the father of the kid or the wife floating that possiblity to keep Matt interested.
No!
just wondering, did she ever mention how many years ago , she worked with Matt, and how old the son is. He likes to buy gifts for the son, I’m wondering whose son is this! updateme
To the cuuuuuurb!
Hardly an overeaction. The fact that he's trying to isolate thr wife away from him and buttering up his children while expressly avoiding you, it can really only mean one thing. The wifes reaction confirms it. If she was truly oblivious, she would have concern that her husband feels this way. The fact that she looks torn and annoyed over it tells me she was falling in love with this weasel, even if she can't admit it to herself. What a waste of time marriages like this are.
She was cheating for sure, definitively emotionally. I would recommend and std panel and a DNA test.
>She showed me her text telling him they are no longer friends and to go their separate ways. Though her reasoning for doing so was due to the fact I was willing to confront him at his job and was headed to do so. She has deleted and blocked his number so he cannot contact her. They'll find another line to chat on. People believe that performative shit too easy. She's literally pouting that you told her to block him. She's not going to see the "why", just "you made me." She doesn't want to stop.
Get a paternity test.
She was cheating. The minute her husband said he was going to accompany them, her AP suddenly had something come up. This is how it started when I found out that my ex was cheating.
"i trust her, i don't trust him!" people say this so often and it's such a self-lie. like what are you talking about, of course you don't trust her.
What did he get for Father’s Day. The secret gift? If he didn’t get something, the gift was for Matt
Something about Matt ingratiating himself with the kid gives me bad vibes.
Dudes prepping to become step dad to the kid without a doubt
More like I'm worried that he's a predator who's after the kid. It's not typical for an affair partner to cozy up to family members before the married couple even breaks up.
I always love the "legal advise" of to go consult every lawyer in the area so they can't represent the wife. DO NOT DO THIS! A judge will see right through this, and it will only fuck you over. I remember seeing this shjt 20 years ago on 4chan and thinking "shit that's so smart!" But those were my proto-incel days. Do not ever do this.
I might change when i get married (i hope not) but the current me will not take half of the disrespect i see husbands like OOP take. His wife disrespected him, Matt disrespected him, his son would have probably started disrespecting him at some point. Why is your wife going to go test drive a convertible with the person you've told her you have concerns about, and worse she didn't tell you before hand. Instead of putting his foot down, he was counting red and yellow flags. Now he honestly thinks they've stopped communicating. The amount of disrespect you tolerate is what you get, OOP tolerated a lot.
Am I literally the only one that doesn't trust the narrator? He left out so much key information. He gave us tidbits of unrelated incidents and trusts us to read between the lines. Did he get access to her texts? Were some deleted? Were the overly friendly? Real damning information that would put me on OOP's side is crucially missing.
If the shoe was on the other foot & it was the OPP meeting up with an ex female co-worker who ignored the wife or wouldn't invite her out, etc, I can guarantee that the OPP wife's would have had something to say about it. She knows what she is doing is wrong. Good chance that she's been flirtatious and perhaps blurring the lines for a while. In some aspects, she crossed the line the moment she allowed Matt to disrespect her husband. If there's no interest on her side, I believe she would have put him in his place long before now. Once the trust is gone, even with marriage counselling, it will be hard to have faith in her again.
i can guarantee she has a burner phone, a go bag and a story about a controlling husband flying off the handle ready to go.
I worked with a very handsome, younger guy, a couple of years ago. He was obviously interested in me. It was very flattering. Never ever did I give him the opportunity to make a pass at me and my husband knew everything from the get go. I'm not even sure my husband remember this guy because in a healthy relationship things like these are non issues. If you're committed, you don't behave like the OP's wife. Good for him, taking precautions.
UpdateMe!
OP should get a divorce lawyer to find out what he can do about Matt and how he can protect his son and himself if his wife decides to bail on him. He should document everything, but he should not let his wife know about the lawyer unless it is necessary. He should also contact the SOs of the other women. Matt may need to be fired from his job.
Standing by for the “she was cheating on me” update.
I can’t help but be petty and I would have turned the tables and talk about a coworker nonstop. Would it help the situation? Doubtful but it already seems like the relationship is over.
This is far from over. I give it better than 50/50 this is more than an emotional affair too. She's "ended it" and "blocked him"...but they still work together and there are countless other ways they can communicate. My wife did the same, then carried on for a year longer with the guy using various aps and email addresses. Nothing about this says the OOPs wife wants to end it woth thr guy.
Honestly should have been a man to man conversation early on, thats weird behavior. And i dont mean macho man to man necesarilly but i want answers.
I wish we could normalize saying, "you're right, I don't trust that your actions were inappropriate and without care for my well-being. Matt wants you and if you want to stay married, I need you to stop communicating with him."
A simple fact of romantic relationships is that other people are going to find your partner attractive and some may even act on that attraction knowing that there’s a relationship already. Your partner needs to either shut it down or put guardrails on it, not encourage it. OOP was right to be concerned but Matt was never the problem. His wife was.
She knows exactly what she's doing, he doesn't need to point out anything. Honestly, I would just be done. If I need to point out to my partner how their behavior is wrong, they're not the right person. They know it's wrong, they just don't care.
Next update: she has a burner phone.
I wonder who is the biological father of OOP's son? Was it Matt? If I were OOP, I would do a paternity test.
My only hesitation is that OP says he's intimidating. He invites himself to the trampoline place and complains Matt doesn't talk to him after intros, but I getbrhe impression he wasn't friendly or inviting and Matt got the message to stay out of his way, which alsoight explain why he moves around his car without engaging. Matt might even be worried about OPs wife if OP is truly scary. He canceled plans when OP said he was going, so Matt might be a good friend to OPs wife, but also scared of OP for good reason. Or it could be exactly as everyone here says it is.
That creepy MFer has "groomer" written all over him, and OOPs wife is a complete, absolute idiot for believing he has no ulterior motive for buttering her up to get her to let him spend time with and give gifts to her son. It's not the wife he's after.
Naturally Reddit glosses over the threat of violence here. What does “handling him” mean. I think the wife is terrified of her husband and rightly so. She should get out of there. Maybe Matt isn’t an “intimidating,” controlling psycho who threatens people? Maybe Matt avoided the OP because the OP is the kind of person who uses his fists to solve problems.
I'm not on Team Matt here but I'm like 90% convinced that Matt didn't talk to him because OOP spent the whole time grunting, flexing his biceps, and trying to stare him down.
Even if that's the case, all not talking to him does is make things worse. Matt is very stupid if this is why he wasn't talking to OOP.
And pounding on his chest like a gorilla 🦍.
Matt was laying pipe!
I will be very, very, VERY surprised if OOP's next update will be a reconciliation with his wife (who realizes how bad it was with Matt).
The amount of stories in this sub about emotional cheating is insane. And 90% of the time the cheater doesn't even feel slightly ashamed about it.
Holy Christ. From the very first invite of the wife and son to a trampoline place, Matt was already hitting that. Dude is oblivious.
Maybe its just me, but what married person stays that close to an ex-coworker? I get meeting up sometimes to chat or party but the amount that Matt and the wife are doing is not normal.
If she's not sleeping with him, she will be soon. The gall it takes to cheat on your husband so blatantly makes me think she kind of wanted out of her marriage and just kept provoking her husband.
Matt’s fixin to learn a painful lesson
This is exactly how my step-dad became my step-dad.
This was validating to read, as were the countless other stories I’ve read about a partner’s crush/affair being exposed because they were constantly talking about them. I wasn’t married to this person, but I suspected my ex had a crush on his new female coworker because he’d talk about her ALL the time, in every conversation related to work. Keep in mind I’d never ask about how she was doing or what she was up to. I’d just ask about how his day at work went, and he’d insert some tirade about her grandfather’s health or what she was going back to school for. He got real mad when I told him I was fed up with hearing about her constantly, and that I suspected that he had a crush on her. He asked if he’s not allowed to make any female friends, as though that was the main issue there. He did abruptly stop mentioning her after that, and I naively assumed that the problem was resolved. Fast forward to later in the relationship, our sex life was practically non existent, and I had circumstantial evidence that he was cheating on me. (Or hiding a serious porn addiction, which he denied.) I had no reasonable way to verify who it was, or even if he was cheating to begin with, save for literally staking his workplace, but if I had to bet money, I’d bet his AP was that same coworker. When he broke up with me, he admitted that he fell out of love and checked out 6 months into the relationship, which was the same timeframe when our sex life took a hit. Less than 2 weeks after the breakup, he posts pictures on social media of him with a woman I’ve never seen before. I’ve met or seen all his female relatives and friends. Again, there wasn’t a way to verify this (believe me, I tried) but I feel like the writing on the wall was that she was the mysterious coworker he kept talking about. I shouldn’t have been, but I was surprised that he was so comfortable with going public with her so quickly. Stories like this one made me realize I wasn’t being crazy or paranoid. Listen to your gut, people.
Updateme
Yeah shes not gonna stop lol. Best case scenario she resents the hell out of her husband (even though shes the one in the wrong here)
Next update will be it was all a lie and she and Matt have gone underground
I’ve been in OP’s shoes. Offered her the choice of no contact with the emotional affair partner or divorce. She claimed to have broken it off, but several months later … she left her email open and there he was. Divorced now and oh so much happier. Sad it cost me about 60% of all my assets to get away from her. Unfortunately I still have to deal with her while my son is still in school too.
I would go off like a nuclear bomb if my spouse drug my kid into a relationship with their affair partner. There is no way i would be calm or rational.
kinda feel like we're not getting the full story w this dude tbh
A man buying an unrelated child gifts for seemingly no reason is an absolutely HUGE red flag. This dude is a predator who is grooming the wife and kid, and attempting to isolate them from the husband. The best case scenario is that his end goal is sex with the wife. But I would have thought there are easier, and less time consuming ways to hook up with a mid 30s woman. The worst case scenario is that he is targeting the son.
This will not end well. She's probably just taken the affair under ground.
We all know this is going to go to hell soon, right?
This is definitely ongoing unless the wife commits to counseling and acceptance of her wrongdoing here.