My Wife Faked an Affair to “Test” Me—So I Filed for Divorce Before She Could Tell Me It Was All a Game

 

 

My Wife Faked an Affair to “Test” Me—So I Filed for Divorce Before She Could Tell Me It Was All a Game

For eight years, I thought I understood my marriage.

Not in the fairytale sense, not in the “we never argue and everything is perfect” kind of way, but in the grounded, realistic way people talk about when they say relationships take work.

Sarah and I had built something steady.

We both worked full-time, came home tired, ate dinner on the couch more often than we should have, and saved the effort for the occasional date night when we had the energy to pretend we weren’t exhausted adults just trying to keep up with life.

It wasn’t flashy, but it was ours.

And I genuinely believed we were okay.

Not drifting, not falling apart, just… settled.

Comfortable.

That word meant something good to me.

To Sarah, apparently, it meant something was missing.

I didn’t know any of that at the time, though.

All I knew was that about six weeks ago, something shifted in a way I couldn’t explain.

It started small, almost easy to dismiss.

She began staying late at work more often, texting me quick updates like “running behind” or “big project deadline,” things that sounded normal enough if you didn’t look too closely.

But when she came home, there was something off.

Not just tired, but… different.

Like she was carrying energy that didn’t belong in our house.

She’d walk in, drop her bag, and avoid eye contact just long enough for it to register before she forced a smile and asked how my day was.

The conversations felt rehearsed.

Short.

Disconnected.

At first, I told myself it was stress.

People go through phases.

Work gets intense.

Life piles up.

But then the little things started stacking on top of each other, and suddenly it wasn’t just a phase anymore.

It was a pattern.

She started dressing differently for work.

Not in a dramatic way, but enough that I noticed.

Outfits that took more effort, makeup that looked more intentional, perfume that lingered in the air long after she left the room.

The perfume was what got me.

Eight years together, and she’d never cared about wearing it to the office before.

Now it was every day.

Every single day.

Mornings stretched longer as she got ready, standing in front of the mirror like she was preparing for something bigger than a regular Tuesday.

And when I’d make a comment, something light like “you look nice today,” she’d smile, but it didn’t feel like it was for me.

It felt like I was just… there.

Then came the phone.

That’s when the doubt really started to take shape.

It would buzz late at night, and she’d grab it too quickly, like reflex had replaced thought.

Screen flipped down.

Notifications cleared before I could even glance in that direction.

If I asked who it was, the answer came too fast.

“Work.”

“My sister.”

“Just group chat stuff.”

And every time, there was that flicker in her expression.

That brief second where something didn’t line up.

Where her face said one thing and her words said another.

I tried not to jump to conclusions.

I didn’t want to be that guy.

The paranoid husband looking for problems that weren’t there.

But then there was the night she came home just before midnight.

She walked in quietly, like she thought I might already be asleep, but I was sitting in the living room with the TV on low, waiting without admitting to myself that I was waiting.

She froze for a split second when she saw me.

Just long enough for it to feel wrong.

“I told you,” she said quickly, slipping off her shoes. “I was out with friends.”

And maybe I would have believed that.

Maybe I would have let it go.

If it wasn’t for the smell.

It hit me the second she got close enough.

Not her perfume.

Not anything familiar.

Men’s cologne.

Strong.

Distinct.

The kind that lingers on skin after you’ve been close to someone.

Too close.

I didn’t say anything at first.

I just looked at her.

Really looked at her.

Her lipstick was smudged, not gone, just… off.

Like it had been there earlier and something had disrupted it.

Something more than just talking and laughing with friends.

“What’s that smell?” I asked finally, keeping my voice as even as I could.

She hesitated.

Barely.

But I saw it.

“I hugged someone goodbye,” she said, too quickly. “You know how it is.”

But she didn’t look at me when she said it.

Not once.

And that’s when something inside me started to crack.

Because I knew.

Not in the way you can prove something.

Not in a way you can point to and say, “there it is.”

But in that gut-level, undeniable way where your brain tries to catch up to what your instincts already understand.

After that night, I couldn’t stop noticing things.

Calls taken in other rooms.

Doors closing just a little too quickly.

Laundry being done more often, but always without me around.

Like certain things needed to be washed before I could see them.

She’d come home and go straight to the shower without saying a word, like she needed to rinse something off before stepping back into our life.

And then there was the name.

Matthew.

It slipped into conversations casually at first.

“Matthew said this.”

“Matthew helped with that.”

Just enough to seem normal.

But the more she mentioned him, the more details followed.

He had a motorcycle.

He was recently divorced.

He liked rock climbing.

It was too much.

Too personal.

Too familiar.

That’s not how you talk about just a coworker.

That’s how you talk about someone you’ve been paying attention to.

Someone you’ve been learning about.

Someone who matters.

I tried to talk to her.

Not accusatory, not angry, just… honest.

“I feel like something’s off,” I told her one night.

“You’ve been distant.”

She didn’t even pause.

“You’re being paranoid,” she said, dismissing it like it was nothing.

“I’m just stressed. Work’s been a lot. I need space.”

Space.

That word landed heavier than it should have.

Because it didn’t feel like she needed space from life.

It felt like she needed space from me.

And the more I thought about it, the more everything started lining up in ways I didn’t want to see.

Late nights.

Secretive texts.

A new man’s name woven into conversations.

The smell of someone else lingering on her skin.

I started replaying everything in my head, every moment, every interaction, trying to figure out when exactly things had changed.

When we had gone from “comfortable” to whatever this was.

And the worst part wasn’t just the suspicion.

It was the way it made me feel.

Like I was standing in my own house, in my own marriage, and somehow I was the one on the outside looking in.

Like something was happening right in front of me, and I was the only one who hadn’t been let in on it.

I didn’t have proof.

Not yet.

But I had enough to know that something wasn’t right.

And the more I paid attention, the clearer it became that whatever was going on…

It wasn’t going to stay hidden for much longer.

Continue in C0mment 👇👇

But the more space I gave her, the worse things got, and the more obvious it was that something was going on. And I’m not the kind of person to bury my head in the sand and pretend everything’s okay when it clearly isn’t. The breaking point was two weeks ago when she said she was having dinner with her sister. But then I saw her sister at the grocery store.

And when I mentioned that Sarah was supposed to be with her, her sister gave me a confused look and said they hadn’t made any plans. And that’s when I knew for sure that she was lying to me and that she was probably seeing this Matthew guy. I confronted her when she got home that night and asked her directly if she was having an affair. And she got all upset.

She started crying and saying how could I even think that about her, that she loved me and would never cheat. But she still couldn’t explain where she’d really been or why she’d lied about being with her sister. And when someone can’t give you a straight answer about something so simple, you know they’re hiding something big.

I didn’t sleep at all that night. And I kept going over all the signs, all the lies, and how she’d been treating me like an idiot for weeks. And I realized that I couldn’t keep living like this, wondering every day if my wife was being faithful to me or not. I decided that I needed to find out the truth or end things because the limbo was killing me.

So, I started making plans to hire a private investigator because I needed proof before I did anything drastic. I didn’t end up hiring one, but I was looking at divorce lawyers online just to know my options and honestly preparing myself for the worst case scenario, having to start my life over because my wife cheated on me with a motorcycle riding rock climber from her office.

But then last Tuesday, everything changed and I found out the truth, but in the worst way possible. Sarah’s friend Lisa called me completely drunk and between slurs told me how proud she was of Sarah for finally taking her advice and making me jealous and how well it was working because finally I was paying attention to Sarah again and I had no idea what she was talking about.

I asked her to explain and that’s when it all came out. Apparently, Sarah and her divorced friends, Lisa, Monica, and Jennifer, had been planning this whole fake affair charade for months as a way to make me more attentive and romantic. They convinced Sarah that the best way to get a man to appreciate what he has is to make him think he might lose it, which is the most twisted logic I’ve ever heard.

Lisa told me that they had even helped Sarah invent all the details about Matthew, who apparently is a real co-orker, but with whom Sarah has never had more than basic work conversations. And they’ve been coaching her on how to act suspicious and secretive so that I would think she was cheating on me. And they thought it was hilarious that the plan was working so well and that I was finally acting like a jealous husband fighting for his wife.

I hung up on Lisa and just sat there for like an hour trying to process what I just heard. And I went through every emotion you can imagine. First, I felt relief because she wasn’t actually cheating. Then I felt confusion because why would anyone do this to their partner and then I got angry, angrier than I’ve ever been in my life? Because I realized that my wife had been purposefully torturing me for weeks.

When Sarah got home that night, I told her that Lisa had called and told me everything. and I watched the color drain from her face. Then she started crying and apologizing, saying it was just a silly joke and she never meant for it to go this far and that she was going to tell me the truth soon anyway. But I was so angry I could barely speak.

And I told her that faking infidelity isn’t a joke, it’s emotional abuse. She kept trying to explain that her friends had convinced her that our marriage was getting stale, that I was taking her for granted, and that she just wanted me to pay more attention to her and appreciate her.

And she told me that the plan had worked because in the past few weeks, I had been more loving and attentive, which made me even angrier because she was right. I had been trying harder because I thought I was losing her. I told her that what she had done was sick and manipulative and that instead of just talking to me about how she was feeling unappreciated, she chose to make me believe she was cheating on me and let me suffer for weeks.

I told her that I’d lost sleep, I’d lost weight, and I had been miserable every single day, thinking my marriage was falling apart. And she just kept saying she was sorry, that she’d made a mistake. But here’s the thing, and this is what no one seems to understand when I try to explain it to them.

It wasn’t just a mistake or a bad joke. It was a calculated campaign to manipulate my mind and my emotions. And it worked exactly as they planned, which means that Sarah sat there every day watching me be suspicious, worried, and jealous. And she knew exactly why I was feeling that way because she was causing it on purpose. The more I thought about that, the angrier I got because I realized that every time I tried to talk to her about how distant she was acting, she made me feel like I was the one being paranoid and insecure.

And every time I asked her about working late or the mysterious text messages, she acted like I was being controlling and jealous when the whole time she knew that her behavior was designed precisely to make me feel that way. And the worst part is that her friends thought this was funny.

They were entertained by watching me suffer, doubting myself and my marriage. And they were undoubtedly talking about me behind my back, laughing at how gullible I was and how well their stupid plan was working. And Sarah was in on it. She actively participated in making me the butt of their joke. I told Sarah I needed time to think, but really, I knew I couldn’t spend another second in that house.

I spent the next hour blindly throwing my clothes and other personal belongings into bags and boxes. Unsure how long I’d be gone, I left most of it at a nearby storage facility and took only the essentials to my brother’s place. While I was there, I kept thinking about what this meant for our marriage and if I could ever trust her again.

Because if she could lie to my face for weeks, watch me suffer, and think it was justified because her friends told her to, what else was she capable of? My brother, my parents, even some of my friends think I’m overreacting and that I should forgive her because she didn’t actually cheat, that she was just trying to get my attention.

But they don’t understand what it feels like to live through those weeks thinking your wife is betraying you and that your marriage is a lie. And they don’t understand that the emotional damage of thinking someone you love is cheating on you is the same, whether they’re actually doing it or just pretending to.

I couldn’t stop picturing her with this Matthew guy, wondering what I did wrong. How long it had been going on and if she ever really loved me or if she just settled for me until someone better came along. I was already planning how we divide our things, where I was going to live, and how I was going to tell people my marriage had failed.

And all that mental and emotional torture was completely unnecessary and caused by someone who claims to love me. Thankfully, the only easy part of the logistics was housing, as we were only renting the apartment, and the lease had always been in her name, meaning that I was definitely the one who had to leave.

After 4 days at my brother’s, I made a decision. I went to see a divorce lawyer, and when I told him the whole story, he said he’d never heard anything like it, but that emotional abuse and manipulation were absolutely valid grounds for divorce. and that what Sarah had done showed a fundamental lack of respect for me and for our marriage.

I went home and told Sarah that I had filed for divorce and she completely fell apart. She started screaming, crying, and begging me not to leave her, saying she’d do anything to make it up to me, that she’d never listen to her friends again, and that she’d learned her lesson. But I told her that the lesson she should have learned was not to emotionally torture your partner for fun, and that’s a lesson a grown adult shouldn’t have to learn.

She called her parents and mine and started this whole campaign to have everyone try to convince me to change my mind. They kept saying that divorce was too extreme a reaction and that we should go to therapy and work on it. But I don’t want to work on this because I don’t want to be married to someone who thinks it’s acceptable to manipulate me emotionally and then act like I’m the one being unreasonable for not thanking her for it.

her friends, Lisa and Monica, even had the nerve to call me and tell me that I was being too sensitive, that it was just a harmless joke, and that Sarah had learned her lesson and would never do anything like that again. And I told them that if they thought what they’d done was harmless, then they were even more messed up than I thought, and that they had probably destroyed my marriage for their own amusement because they couldn’t stand seeing someone else happy when their own relationships had failed.

Lisa got all defensive and said that Sarah had been complaining that I wasn’t romantic enough or paying enough attention to her and that they were just trying to help her get what she needed from her marriage. And I told her that if Sarah had problems with our marriage, then she should have talked to me instead of conspiring with her bitter friends to mess with my mind.

What really gets me is that Sarah still doesn’t seem to understand why what she did was so wrong. She keeps focusing on the fact that she didn’t actually cheat and that it was all fake. as if that makes it somehow better. But she doesn’t seem to grasp that the emotional impact on me was exactly the same as if she had been unfaithful.

And the fact that she did it on purpose actually makes it somewhat worse, not better. I’ve been staying at my brother’s for 2 weeks now, and Sarah has been texting me constantly, begging me to come home and talk. She sent me this long email saying that she realizes she made a mistake and that she wants to go to coup’s therapy and rebuild our trust.

But I don’t think trust is something that can be rebuilt after something like this. Because how will I know that she won’t decide to test me again the next time her friends give her some bad advice? Everyone keeps asking me if I really want to throw away 8 years of marriage over this incident. But it’s not just an incident.

It’s weeks of calculated deceit and manipulation. And it’s the realization that my wife thinks so little of me that she was willing to put me through emotional hell just to see if she could get me to try harder to pay attention to her. Yesterday, the divorce papers were served and Sarah called me crying, begging me to reconsider.

She said she’d cut off all contact with Lisa, Monica, and Jennifer, and that she’d do whatever it took to earn back my trust. But I told her that the problem isn’t her friends. The problem is that she thought what they suggested was a good idea in the first place. I know some people think I’m being too harsh and that I should give her another chance, but I keep thinking about those weeks where I couldn’t eat or sleep properly because I was so worried about losing her.

And I keep thinking about how she watched me go through that, knew exactly why it was happening, and still let it continue. And I just can’t get past that. Maybe if she had confessed everything after a few days and told me it was fake, I could have forgiven her. But she let it go on for weeks and she was willing to let it go on even longer.

If Lisa hadn’t gotten drunk and spilled the beans, Sarah would have never told me. And that tells me everything I need to know about the kind of person she really is. So that’s where things stand now. I’m getting divorced and everyone thinks I’m crazy for leaving my wife over a harmless joke. But I know what she did wasn’t harmless and it wasn’t a joke.

It was a betrayal of everything marriage is supposed to stand for. And I’m not going to spend the rest of my life wondering what other tests she might decide to put me through. Am I the jerk for divorcing my wife over this? Because everyone keeps making me feel like I’m the one being unreasonable. Update one. Holy crap. I did not expect this to blow up the way it did.

I’ve been reading all the comments and messages, and I have to say, it’s been both comforting and overwhelming to see so many people who understand why this was such a big deal to me. A lot of people have been asking for more details about exactly what Sarah did during those weeks and how her friends were involved. So, I’m going to try to fill in some of the blanks because honestly, writing all of this out for the first time was kind of therapeutic and helped me process everything that happened.

Sarah’s friend group is composed of Lisa, who got divorced two years ago after her husband cheated on her with his secretary. Monica, who has been divorced twice and is currently dating a guy she met on a dating app whom she complains about constantly, and Jennifer, who separated from her husband last year, and whose divorce was just finalized a few months ago.

They get together every Thursday night for what they call wine night, but which is really just a session where they sit around complaining about men and relationships. I used to think it was harmless and even encouraged Sarah to go because she seemed to enjoy it. And I figured we all need friends and hobbies. But now I realize that these women have been poisoning her against me for months, telling her that I was too comfortable in our marriage, that I didn’t appreciate her, and that she had to shake things up to remind me of what I could lose. The specific things Sarah

did during those 6 weeks were even worse than I mentioned in my original post. She started working out more and buying new clothes. And when I complimented her, she acted all mysterious and said she just wanted to feel better about herself, which made me think she wanted to look good for someone else.

She also started being really critical of me in ways she’d never been before, like making comments about how I dressed for work, suggesting I needed a better haircut, or asking me why I didn’t plan surprise dates anymore. At the time, I thought she was going through some kind of midlife crisis, but now I know she was following a script her friends had given her to make me feel insecure and inadequate.

The calls and text messages were fake, too. Lisa and Monica would text her at all hours and call her at night so she could act all secretive and guilty. They even researched this Matthew guy, her coworker, so they could give her realistic details she could drop into conversations. They looked him up on social media and discovered he had a motorcycle and certain hobbies.

So Sarah had info that sounded authentic to share. But here’s the part that really blew my mind. Sarah told me they had a whole timeline for this plan. They planned for it to last 2 to 3 months and had different phases mapped out for Sarah to gradually increase the suspicious behavior, making me increasingly jealous and desperate to win her back.

Phase one was just being distant and acting secretive. Phase two involved the fake texts and calls and saying she had to work late. Phase three was going to have her going out and coming back late with obvious signs that she’d been with someone else. And phase 4 involved disappearing entire nights and letting me believe she was having a full-blown affair.

Thank god Lisa got drunk and blew up their plan before they reached phases three and four because I honestly don’t know how I would have handled thinking Sarah was spending nights with another man. I barely managed everything she did in phases one and two. Sarah also admitted that they had been taking pictures and videos of her throughout this whole process, documenting how worried and distressed I was getting and how their plan was working.

And they thought it was hilarious that I’d started bringing her flowers and planning romantic dates because I was trying so hard to save our marriage. That’s maybe the most twisted part of all this, that they were literally documenting my suffering and treating it like entertainment. And Sarah not only allowed it, she actively participated, telling them how I reacted to every new lie she told me.

A lot of people in the comments asked if Sarah seemed to be enjoying what she was doing or if she seemed to be having any internal conflict about it. And honestly, looking back, I think she liked the aspect of power and control it gave her. During those weeks, she seemed more energetic and excited than I’d seen her in years.

And I thought it was because she was falling for someone else. But now I think it was because she was enjoying the manipulation. She’d come home from work with this secret smile and watch me as I tried to figure out what was going on. And when I asked her questions, she’d give me just enough information to keep me guessing, but not enough to ease my worries.

And there were times when I’d catch her looking at me with an almost amused expression at how anxious and confused I was. I also found out that her friends were giving her advice on how to gaslight me. Like when I confronted her about lying about being with her sister, they coached her on how to turn it around and make me feel guilty for not trusting her, for being paranoid and controlling.

And that’s exactly what she did. And when I tried to talk to her about how distant she was being, they told her to make me feel like I was needy and clingy and that I needed to give her space. Again, that’s exactly what she told me. So, this whole thing was like a coordinated psychological attack designed to make me doubt my own perceptions and make me feel like I was the problem.

The more details I discover about what they actually did, the more furious I get and the more sure I am that I made the right decision by filing for divorce. Because this wasn’t an innocent joke that got out of hand. It was a deliberate campaign to emotionally abuse me for their entertainment. Sarah has been leaving me voicemails every day begging me to reconsider and promising that she’ll never talk to those friends again and will do whatever it takes to fix things.

But the damage is done and I don’t think there’s any coming back from something like this. I’ve also been getting calls from her parents and even her sister asking me to give Sarah another chance saying that she’s learned her lesson and everyone makes mistakes. But this wasn’t a mistake. It was a decision she made every single day for 6 weeks.

And she had multiple opportunities to stop it and tell me the truth, but chose to keep going. Her sister even told me that I was being cruel for refusing to even talk to Sarah about fixing things. And I told her that the truly cruel thing is to watch your partner suffer, worry, and doubt themselves while you know exactly why they’re suffering, and you’re causing it on purpose.

The divorce is moving forward. And honestly, I feel more at peace with my decision every day. Especially learning how planned and calculated this whole thing was because now I realize that the woman I thought I married doesn’t actually exist. And the real Sarah is someone who thinks it’s acceptable to torture the person she claims to love for fun.

Some people have asked if I miss Sarah or if I’m having second thoughts about the divorce. And honestly, I miss the person I thought she was. But I don’t miss the person she actually turned out to be. And I actually feel relieved that I found out what she was capable of before we had kids, bought a house, or made any other major commitments.

I keep thinking about what would have happened if Lisa hadn’t gotten drunk and revealed the secret. And how much longer Sarah would have been willing to let me suffer thinking she was cheating on me. And I realized that the woman I thought I’d married would never have been able to watch me go through that kind of pain without telling me the truth.

But the real Sarah watched me lose weight, lose sleep, and walk around in a constant state of anxiety and worry. And she not only didn’t feel bad about it, she was actively enjoying it and telling her friends how well their plan was working. That’s not a person I want to be married to. And that’s not someone I can ever trust again.

and I’m done feeling guilty for protecting myself from someone who clearly doesn’t have my best interests at heart. Update two. Things have gotten even crazier since my last update, and I honestly don’t know whether to laugh or scream at this point, but I wanted to give you guys an update because there have been some developments that make this situation even more ridiculous than it already was.

So, it turns out that Sarah, seeing that pleading and crying wasn’t working, decided to try a different approach. And now she’s saying that the whole fake affair thing was actually my fault because I wasn’t paying enough attention to her. And she was feeling neglected and unappreciated in our marriage. She sent me this long text yesterday explaining how she’d been dropping hints for months about wanting more romance and attention and that I’d been ignoring all her signals.

So, according to her, she was left with no other choice but to do something drastic to get my attention. And she actually used this phrase. You forced me to fake an affair, which is possibly the most absurd thing I have ever heard in my life. According to her new version of events, this wasn’t a joke at all.

It was a legitimate attempt to communicate her needs after I failed to notice her more subtle signals. And she seems to genuinely believe that what she did is justified because I wasn’t meeting her emotional needs. I showed this message to my lawyer and he just shook his head and said he’d never seen anyone dig themselves into a deeper hole so effectively because now instead of just admitting she made a mistake and apologizing, she’s trying to justify what she did and shift the blame to me for having driven her to do it. But

wait, there’s more. It turns out that Sarah has been talking to other friends and co-workers about our situation. and she’s been telling everyone that I’m divorcing her because she tried to spice things up in our marriage and that I’m being overly jealous and controlling for not appreciating her efforts to make our relationship more exciting.

I found this out because my friend David works at the same company as Sarah and he pulled me aside yesterday to ask what the hell was going on because the word around Sarah’s office is that I’m filing for divorce over some harmless flirting and jealousy games and that I’m completely overreacting.

David knows me well enough to know that didn’t sound right. So, he asked me to tell him the real story. When I told him what actually happened, he was completely shocked and said that Sarah had described it as simply a kind of game to make me more attentive, not as a campaign of psychological manipulation. So, now I have to deal with the fact that Sarah is actively rewriting history and making me out to be the villain to anyone who will listen.

And I’m sure her divorced friends are backing up her version of events because they’re the ones who came up with this stupid plan in the first place. I decided I needed to protect myself from this narrative she was creating. So, I saved all the voicemail she left me right after I found out the truth where she was crying, apologizing, and admitting that it had all been fake and that she’d made a terrible mistake.

Because I have a feeling I’m going to need proof of what really happened when she tries to paint me as the bad guy. Speaking of her friends, apparently Lisa sobered up and realized that she’d blown up the whole plan. So, she called me to try to do some damage control and convinced me that what they did wasn’t that big of a deal and that I should give Sarah another chance.

But instead of helping, she only made things worse by revealing even more details about how planned and deliberate this whole thing was. She told me that they had actually been planning this for 3 months before they started executing it and that they’d researched different ways to make men jealous and possessive and had settled on the fake affair approach because they thought it would be the most effective way to get me to step up my game as a husband.

She also mentioned that they had been documenting everything in a group chat, sharing updates on how I was reacting and celebrating every time their plan worked to make me more anxious or attentive. and she said they called it operation wakeup call, which makes my stomach churn just thinking about it. But here’s the part that really made my blood boil.

Lisa said that they were actually disappointed that it had taken me so long to confront Sarah about the supposed affair because they thought I would get jealous and possessive much sooner. And they were starting to think that maybe I didn’t care enough to fight for her. So, not only did they torture me for 6 weeks, but they were also evaluating my performance as a worried husband and wondering if I’d react strongly enough to make their experiment worthwhile, like I was some kind of lab rat that wasn’t meeting their

expectations. Lisa also told me that Monica had suggested taking things even further and having Sarah go on a fake date with some guy just to see how far they could push me before I snapped. But thankfully, they decided that was too risky because they were afraid I might hire a private investigator or do something that would reveal their plan.

The fact that they even considered taking it that far shows me that these women have absolutely no boundaries or sense of decency, and that they would have kept pushing until they completely destroyed my mental health if they hadn’t been stopped by their own stupidity. I also found out that Sarah’s parents knew that something was going on because she’d asked them for advice on how to make me more romantic and attentive, but she told them she was just planning some surprises and wanted to get out of a rut. So, they had no

idea that she was actually planning on faking an affair. When her parents found out the truth after I filed for divorce, they were apparently horrified and told Sarah that what she had done was completely unacceptable. But they’re still trying to convince me to give her another chance because they don’t want to see their daughter’s marriage end over this.

Her dad actually called me yesterday and told me that he understood why I was angry, but that Sarah had learned her lesson and that divorce seemed like an extreme reaction. And I told him that what his daughter did was extreme and that my reaction was proportionate to the damage she caused. I also told him that if someone other than Sarah had done this to me, like if some stranger had spent 6 weeks making me think my wife was cheating on me just for fun, he would probably want me to press charges.

And the fact that it was his daughter who did it didn’t make it any less harmful or twisted. He didn’t know what to say to that. And I think he’s starting to understand that this isn’t just a marital spat that can be fixed with therapy and apologies. The divorce process is moving forward and my lawyer says we’ll probably be able to finalize it pretty quickly since we don’t have kids and our finances aren’t very complicated.

And honestly, I just want this to be over so I can start rebuilding my life without having to deal with Sarah’s attempts to manipulate the narrative. I’m also planning to move to a different part of town once the divorce is finalized because I don’t want to run into Sarah or her friends at the grocery store, the gym, or anywhere else.

And I think a fresh start in a different neighborhood will help me put this whole nightmare behind me. Some people have asked if I miss Sarah or if I’m having second thoughts about the divorce. And honestly, I miss the person I thought she was. But I don’t miss the person she actually turned out to be. And I actually feel relieved that I found out what she was capable of before we had kids, bought a house, or made any other major commitments.

I keep thinking about what would have happened if Lisa hadn’t gotten drunk and revealed the secret and how much longer Sarah would have been willing to let me suffer thinking she was cheating on me. And I realized that the woman I thought I married would never have been able to watch me go through that kind of pain without telling me the truth.

But the real Sarah watched me lose weight, lose sleep, and walk around in a constant state of anxiety and worry. And she not only didn’t feel bad about it, she was actively enjoying it and telling her friends how well their plan was working. That’s not a person I want to be married to.

And that’s not someone I can ever trust again. And I’m done feeling guilty for protecting myself from someone who clearly doesn’t have my best interests at heart. Update three. I thought I was done updating on this situation, but something so unbelievable happened yesterday that I had to share it because I literally could not make this up if I tried.

And it’s like Sarah and her friends are determined to prove they’re even worse people than I originally thought. The divorce process has been moving along normally and it’s supposed to be finalized next week. I figured the drama was mostly over except for Sarah’s occasional attempts to contact me and beg me to reconsider, but apparently her friends decided they needed to make one last ditch effort to fix the situation that they created.

Monica called me yesterday afternoon and said she wanted to meet up to talk about Sarah and how we could fix things. And against my better judgment, I agreed to meet her for coffee because I was curious to know what she could possibly say that would change anything. So, we met at a coffee shop and Monica started by apologizing for her role in the whole fake affair thing, saying she realized now that it had been a mistake and that they’d gone too far.

And I thought maybe she was actually going to take some responsibility for what they’d done. But then she said she had a confession to make and that she needed to tell me something that might change how I felt about the divorce. And she got all serious and dramatic, like she was about to reveal some huge secret that would make everything make sense.

What she told me next was so ridiculous that I started laughing because Monica claimed that the real reason they came up with the fake affair plan was because Sarah had confessed to them that she suspected I was being unfaithful to her. and they thought that making me jealous would serve to prove whether I was being faithful, or if I was having an affair.

According to this new version from Monica, Sarah had been worried for months that I was cheating on her because I sometimes worked late, had changed my phone password, and was going to the gym more often, and that she’d asked her friends for advice on how to find out if her suspicions were true. Monica said they suggested the fake affair plan as a way to test my loyalty.

If I was cheating on her, I wouldn’t care that it looked like she was cheating on me, too. But if I was faithful, I’d get jealous and fight for our marriage, which would prove that I still loved her and wasn’t being unfaithful. I stared at her for a minute, because it was such obvious BS that I couldn’t believe she expected me to buy it.

And then I asked her why Sarin never mentioned that she suspected me in any of our conversations about the divorce, not even when she was apologizing and begging me to forgive her. Monica got flustered and said that Sarah felt ashamed for having suspected me and that she didn’t want to accuse me without proof.

So, she’d kept her doubts to herself and only asked her friends for advice on how to handle the situation. But here’s the thing. I know that’s a complete lie because Sarah had no reason to suspect me. I’ve never cheated on anyone in my life and I haven’t even been tempted to. And the things Monica mentioned as red flags are just normal things that anyone married would recognize as totally innocent.

I sometimes work late because I have deadlines and projects that require extra hours. I changed my phone password because I got a new device and needed a more secure password for work apps. And I started going to the gym more because my doctor told me I needed to get more exercise after my last checkup.

None of these things would make a normal person suspect infidelity. And Sarah never acted like she was worried about any of that. She never asked me about working late or my phone or made any comments about the gym. So, I know that Monica is just making all this up to try and justify what they did. I told Monica that her story didn’t make any sense and that it sounded like she was trying to rewrite history to make Sarah look like the victim instead of the perpetrator.

And she got defensive, saying that I was being unreasonable and that Sarah really was worried about our marriage. Then she said that even if Sarah’s suspicions were wrong, the fake affair plan actually worked because it had made me more attentive and romantic and that our marriage could have been stronger than ever if I hadn’t overreacted and filed for divorce.

I told her that our marriage would have been stronger if Sarah had simply talked to me about any concerns she had instead of conspiring with her bitter friends to psychologically torture me and that the fact that she thought lying and manipulating were better options than honest communication told me everything I needed to know about her and her friends.

I got up to leave and told Monica to delete my number and to tell her friends and my ex-wife to do the same. I said the only person I wanted to hear from was my lawyer and that their attempts to keep manipulating me were only reinforcing my decision. I walked out of the coffee shop, leaving her sitting there with her jaw practically on the floor.

I got in my car and just drove around for a while trying to process the sheer audacity of their latest lie. They’d gone from it was a harmless joke to you made her do it and now to we were actually testing your loyalty. It was like witnessing a masterclass in blameshifting and gaslighting. And honestly, it was almost impressive in its level of depravity.

They were so committed to their narrative that they were inventing entire new realities just so they wouldn’t have to take an ounce of responsibility. I’m so done being the butt of their joke. The punchline is, I’m finally free. Update 4. So, it’s done. After 8 months of the most ridiculous, drawn out nonsense you can imagine, the divorce is final.

eight months. And I swear every single day of that process, Sarah or one of her brilliant friends found a new way to make me question my sanity. But I’m on the other side now. And honestly, I’m numb. Last time I updated, Monica had tried to sell me that absolute garbage about it all being to test my loyalty. And I thought that was the peak of their crazy, but I was wrong. So wrong.