Couple months ago I met a woman who works at a dispensary I visit about once a week. We hit it off really well. Despite trying to just keep it casual sex, and that only, I ended up developing some feelings for her. She confessed the same to me. I even introduced her to my teenaged daughter, for fucks sake.
I ran into her this evening at a gas station, with another guy, who turns out to be her husband. They’ve been married five years, and have two children together, ages 4 and 2. Finding out they have kids just made me feel disgusting.
So, I told him. He didnt believe me until I described a tattoo in a somewhat intimate place on her body. I had no fucking clue she was married. I think I ruined someone’s marriage. Or at least took part in ruining one.
I feel guilty. I am sorry for what I participated in. Am I a bad person?
In my family's fucked up marriages, cheating is almost always the violation that sends the whole thing spinning - no abuse needed. My parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle, in-law grandparents were all destroyed by one side choosing to cheat.
Neither of my parents cheated, as far as I know (and if they had, good chances are I'd have known). They just tortured each other (and the kids) for a decade, while spiraling deeper into certain Catholic mindsets/circles and quiverfull-adjacent nonsense. And then they tortured each other for the better part of yet another decade (taking several years to properly divorce despite being separated, having a long, drawn-out divorce which only further ruined their already long-since ruined lives).
Not invalidating your own experiences here, but it's a big world out there, and there's probably just as many out there with experiences like mine as with yours. As a kid my parents' separation (nasty and destructive as it was) was still a relief, and when it was finalized with a divorce it was all the better. Some things (or many) are simply cursed from the onset.