I accused my ex-husband of cheating on me when he wasn’t. Now he’s engaged to the woman I accused him of cheating with.
I’m 39f. My recently ex- husband is 38m. We were married for ten years before divorcing last year. I accused him of cheating on me, I didn’t believe when he told me he was working longer shifts at work since we still always seemed tight on cash, I thought he was cheating on me with a woman who lived down the street, Jen, 30f, since I saw she was on his recent calls quite a few times, both phone calls/video calls, and I saw her name pop up multiple times sending him texts throughout the week, but my husband doesn’t keep texts from anyone so I didn’t know what they were.
I confronted him about it and although I didn’t outright accuse him of cheating I was definitely angry about feeling like he was hiding something from me, and made that clear.
As it turned out, he was working extra hours and putting the money into a separate account to surprise me with a groundbreaking for an extension on our house on the ten year anniversary of us buying it. The conversations with the Jen were him coordinating with her watching the kids while both of us were working while the daycare was closed (when he picked up extra weekend shifts) and the phone calls/video calls were him checking on the kids. He was able to verify all of this with bank account records, emails to and from the builder, and screenshots of the messages between her and him from her end of the conversation. I apologized to him for not believing him, but at this point he said he couldn’t believe that I would ever think he was cheating on me. He said he felt incredibly hurt and said that he would never think something like that about me, and that he never would’ve assumed the worst about me. He asked for space so we first went to living in separate bedrooms, then after a bit he moved into the basement, the entire time he was acting strange and distant and like a stranger to me, only acting normal around the kids.
After a few weeks of that he officially asked for a divorce. I asked if we could do couples therapy first, and he said that there was no point since I didn’t trust him, but eventually he agreed, we went to one session and he admitted that him realizing I had no faith in him after he was working so hard for our family really hurt his self confidence and he didn’t think it was something he could repair while he was still with me, and he again asked for a divorce.
He bought me out of my half of the house, which I put towards a small house close by and our kids split their time between us.
I heard that he began dating Jen from my friend, who lives down the street from him. At first my ex insisted that she was still just helping with the kids, but after four months he admitted they were dating, once the extension was done she moved in and yesterday he asked her to marry him.
I’m happy for him but there’s still a part of me that feels shocked and somewhat resentful this all happened. I feel as though it was a happy surprise if he had told me about his plans for the extension none of this would have happened.
ETA someone asked if I knew she was watching my kids- no, I didn’t. I assumed they were at home with my husband while I was working.