Woman says her husband’s affair with a married coworker blew up their 16-year relationship during their son’s cancer treatment — and the update makes clear she did not lose everything after all

A woman on Reddit said her husband blindsided her on her birthday by saying he had fallen out of love with her, wanted a divorce, and had dreaded being around her for a long time. She wrote that the shift was so abrupt and cold that relatives began wondering if he was cheating. When she checked his phone, she said she found explicit photos, hotel videos, and messages showing he had been having an affair with a married coworker for more than a year. She also said some of those messages were sent while their son was in cancer treatment, including one selfie he took waiting in the child’s chemo room.

According to the post, the betrayal hit on every front at once. She wrote that her husband wanted to stay in the house while they sorted out the divorce, talked about selling the family home, and even asked if the affair partner could eventually be around the children. At the same time, she said she was barely eating, had dropped 10 pounds in a week, and was trying to hold it together for three kids while one of them was still dealing with cancer and an autism assessment.

A month later, she posted an open letter to the mistress after reading messages in which the other woman mocked her and said she should have “got a clue.” In that letter, the wife described the affair as something that destroyed an entire family, writing that their children were confused by their father’s absence and that her oldest son’s chemo and sensitivity to change only made the whole collapse harder to bear. She also said the affair had forced her into STD testing and warned the coworker to tell her own husband before she did.

The long update, posted 15 months later, is where the story shifts. She said her son finished treatment at the end of 2024 and is now cancer free. She also wrote that she hired a strong divorce attorney, filed in August 2024, and finalized the divorce in November 2024. Most importantly, she said her ex voluntarily agreed to walk away from the house and give up hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity if she paid off about $30,000 in debts and a car payment, allowing her to keep the children in their home and preserve the low interest rate on the mortgage.

She said the custody outcome also changed more in her favor than she expected. According to the update, her ex backed away from 50-50 custody and she now has the children about 70% of the time, with him taking them every other weekend and one weeknight overnight. She wrote that he pays a large amount of child support, that the affair partner’s husband is now aware of the affair and is divorcing too, and that her ex is still with the coworker and has told the kids he has a girlfriend.

By the end of the update, the woman said she had rebuilt her life in ways she could not imagine when she first posted. She wrote that she redecorated the house into a sanctuary, goes to therapy and church, exercises regularly, and is dating someone new. She also said she spent time with a psychiatrist after becoming suicidal in the aftermath, and that medication helped lift what she described as a period of deep darkness. The overall tone of the update is not that the damage disappeared. It is that the life she thought had been erased ended up taking a very different shape than the one she feared in the first week.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1p3kqox/husband_having_an_affair_with_married_coworker/