I never thought I would be posting here.
We were together for 20 years. We moved eight times. Three children (5, 7, 10). A house we built. A life that, from the outside, looked stable and successful. We are both accomplished runners. Our kids are amazing, nice, friendly, confident.
I was always highly invested in my family. Demanding, yes — but mostly toward myself. When our first two children were born, my wife stayed home and we lived abroad in Germany for three years. I made a point of coming home early every day. Even though she was on parental leave, I told her I should still carry more of the household load. I did bedtime, parks, baths, meals. In Bavaria, fathers being deeply involved is normal. We were a team.
We came back to France in 2018. In 2020, during COVID, our third child was born while we were building a house in a small village near the Vosges mountains.
That’s when things became very hard.
Our youngest had severe allergies, eczema, wouldn’t eat, didn’t gain weight, had intense night terrors. We were exhausted beyond what I had ever known. Truly exhausted. I kept telling myself: this is a phase. We just need to survive it.
If my wife said she couldn’t do evening chores anymore, I did everything. Cooking, cleaning, night wakings, mornings. I thought if I carried more, she would recover.
Meanwhile, the couple slowly disappeared.
I still desired her. I told her she was beautiful. I initiated intimacy. But emotionally, something was fading.
When Silence Starts
She went back to work part-time as a teacher. I took on even more at home.
The emotional distance didn’t explode. It installed itself quietly. That’s what makes you crazy. Nothing dramatic happens. But you feel something is wrong. You feel invisible. When you try to repair it, you’re told "everything is fine."
I started becoming irritable. Not abusive. Not violent. Just tense. I would comment when something she did would cost me more time or organization. I felt alone in responsibility.
Then she got transferred to the elementary school in our own village.
She became very close with her colleagues. I encouraged it. I hoped it would help her breathe and rediscover herself — and that it would benefit our home life.
That’s when he entered the picture.
The Principal
One colleague in particular. The school principal. Also the teacher of my children.
They started running together. Spending long days at school. Messaging constantly. He was married at first.
Then he became single.
That’s when my body knew.
But my mind refused.
The phone was always hidden. The social circle closed to me. I wasn’t welcome at gatherings. The answers were always "you’re imagining things" or "you’re controlling." If I suggested we spend more time as a couple, it became an accusation against me.
I couldn’t conceive of adultery. It simply did not exist in my internal map of reality. My wife? The mother of my three children? No.
So I stayed in denial.
The Separation
After 18 chaotic months — during which I was basically functioning as a single parent while she was emotionally absent — she told me she wanted to live alone.
I collapsed internally.
I thought: if she prefers being alone over being with me, I must be a terrible person.
And yet I respected her decision.
I even organized a symbolic separation day. After 20 years together, we cycled 70 km, had dinner at a restaurant, and agreed that when we came home, we would be separated. She said she needed to think.
I still believed I could show her we could be happy again. That it was my role to fix things.
What I didn’t know: she was already living a parallel life.
The Anonymous Letter
Then I received this in my mailbox:
2026 bring more light and justice. Open your eyes. Your wife is openly cheating on you.
The mother of three children — shameful.
The principal and the teacher.
Months now. Many people here know.
It’s up to you what you do.
That’s how I found out.
Not from her.
From an anonymous letter.
And suddenly, every piece aligned.
The running. The secrecy. The emotional coldness. The "you’re controlling." The distancing. The nights she was "working late."
She had been in a year-long affair with the principal of my children’s school. In our village. In front of colleagues. In front of parents. Many people knew.
Everyone except me.
The Humiliation
I still have to take my children to that school.
I still have to walk past him.
I see teachers who knew. Parents who look at me with pity. A friend from my sports club casually told me his wife (a teacher in another school) said "everyone knows about that story."
Everyone knew.
Except me.
The humiliation is heavy.
But the hardest part is not my pride.
It’s the children.
They didn’t deserve this environment. They didn’t deserve whispers. They didn’t deserve their mother entangling herself with the principal of their school.
Every night I tell them I love them. I protect their self-esteem. I try to create stability.
The Confrontation
For three months after the letter, I said nothing. I wanted the divorce process to move forward without obstruction.
Eventually, I confronted her.
She lied first. Called it rumors. Then admitted they were "seeing each other" but only after the separation. Then admitted it had started long before.
No tears. No apology. No visible remorse.
In her version, she "wasn’t free," "needed to live something else," and somehow I was responsible for the emotional climate that led her there.
The narrative was already written.
The Aftermath
For 18 months I carried everything believing I was helping her breathe.
Then I believed I was a bad husband.
Then I believed she just wanted to be alone.
Then I believed maybe we could reconcile.
All while she was sleeping at his place.
My loyalty became a prison. My empathy became self-erasure. My fear of being a "bad man" chained me into silence.
The dream of a united family collapsed.
It’s the first real failure of my life.
And I’ve had to revisit 20 years of history and ask myself whether I projected my own values onto someone who did not share them.
Today
I truly loved her. Even during the hardest moments, leaving her was never an option in my mind. I wanted my children to grow up in a family, with both of their parents present. When all of this happened, I thought that if it was happening to me, I must somehow deserve it — that I must be a bad person.
I go to therapy regularly.
I talk openly with friends and family.
I have waves. But I am functioning. I am rebuilding.
The divorce signature is approaching.
For the first time in two years, I am beginning to believe that I am not the villain of this story.
And writing that still makes me cry.
[This message edited by MountainsAndTears at 9:25 AM, Saturday, February 28th]
