I Was Certain My Boyfriend Was Keeping A Secret From Me. What I Discovered Online Was Shocking.

This past weekend, I welcomed Casey and Mary to my beforehand porch. We hugged and scanned each different with our accustomed chorus of, “Dang, girl. You look good.”

Still, our hearts were each a small battered. We had each said goodbye to Bernie successful the spring. Physically, we were besides compromised. Mary had conscionable undergone a large surgery. Casey was consulting with her ain surgeon connected bosom reconstruction aft her treble mastectomy. I was struggling with prolonged insomnia; I had mislaid sleep, value and hairsbreadth aft besides losing Bernie. 

Nevertheless, we enactment connected our mascara and boarded an Uber to a barroom downtown. There, the bartender provided generous pours. A cranberry vodka for Mary. A pineapple vodka for Casey. A soiled martini for me. Three vessels arsenic antithetic arsenic the women who held them. 

We raised a corporate cheers: “To freedom.”

Only six months prior, we had discovered each different successful a mode Bernie ne'er expected. Our suspicions had been rumbling for months, however.

The aboriginal days of dating Bernie had been euphoric. He made adjacent the astir mean moments — sitting connected my couch, passing done the drive-thru, catching up aft enactment — peculiar and lighthearted. He astir divided maine successful fractional a fewer times with however hard helium would marque maine laugh.

However, adjacent astatine the opening of our relationship, I observed Bernie’s attraction was divided. He would instrumentality hours — sometimes a afloat time — to respond to a text. He often had to bent up rapidly from a FaceTime call. I chalked it up to his frenetic docket that came with moving a full-time occupation and moving respective side hustles.

On Thanksgiving, I spent each nighttime massaging Bernie’s aching back. He had wellness issues owed to a superior wounded helium had suffered years before, and often thanked maine for sharing “my acquisition of the healing arts” with him. After that night, helium thanked maine by ghosting maine for 3 days.

“That’s not cool,” I had told him. My friends encouraged maine to disengage. Somehow Bernie flipped the publication connected me. He explained I wasn’t the unfortunate of his neglect. It was he who deserved each of my compassion and care. He was, aft all, the 1 with wellness issues who was moving aggregate jobs. He reeled maine backmost with an entreaty to my bully quality each time.

Not agelong after, erstwhile I had noticed funny comments from a pistillate connected his societal media — she of the generous array of bosom emojis to each of his posts — my antennae spiked. Naturally, I ferreted retired accusation astir this pistillate with the prowess of a backstage investigator. When I discovered her LinkedIn leafage indicated a communal enactment inheritance with Bernie, I formed her arsenic a erstwhile co-worker (surely an innocuous connection!). However, erstwhile I saw her walk done the receiving enactment astatine a aftermath for 1 of his household members and observed her drape herself successful a hug astir my man, I could not assistance but wonderment if I was being bamboozled. 

When I asked Bernie, point-blank, if helium was entertaining different women, helium replied rhetorically, “With what time?!”

It did look intolerable that I could beryllium portion of a rotation, fixed his nocturnal enactment hours and the household that perpetually surrounded him. I had met his parent and brother, and was contiguous respective times portion his nephew FaceTimed us. If I wasn’t the lonely only, wouldn’t helium beryllium paranoid that his household would telephone his bluff?

And past determination was the precise abject world of his carnal limitations. When helium explained however the demands connected his assemblage compounded his forgetfulness and busyness, I tried to beryllium much understanding. 

Until I could nary longer understand. Eventually, I was receiving specified a tiny sliver of Bernie’s clip and energy, I leaned in. I made much offers to help, call, visit. The hostility betwixt america crescendoed.

One day, aft helium had worked a treble shift, I decided to driblet disconnected immoderate bakery items astatine his home. I did not denote myself, arsenic I believed helium would beryllium sleeping, and softly near the container connected his backmost porch. I hoped it would beryllium a bully astonishment erstwhile helium woke up and headed to work.

Instead, I received a curt substance instructing maine ne'er to bash that again. Bernie past iced maine retired for respective weeks earlier yet declaring helium was done. He said my guiltless DoorDash drop-off had been wholly “out of pocket” and that helium was nary longer funny successful dating me.

During the months aft Bernie kicked maine to the curb, I languished connected my therapist’s couch. I pawed astatine imaginable explanations, trying to analyse each facet of our failed relationship. In offices successful different parts of town, Mary and Casey were having the aforesaid conversations with their ain therapists. 

As summertime rolled in, Bernie began to drift backmost into my life. First, with his trademark “How you doin’?” texts, and aboriginal with calls and links to videos he’d hoped would marque maine laugh. One morning, helium called maine from a adjacent store, asking if helium could driblet by my apartment. I told him I wasn’t successful town. In truth, I wasn’t acceptable to spot the antheral who had truthful precocious and swiftly dispensed with me.  

When I past recovered myself connected an online forum designed to exposure cheaters, it was not arsenic a casual lurker. I was a pistillate connected a mission. I was acquainted with this page, with dedicated groups successful each large U.S. cities, wherever women warned different women to debar definite men. The women mostly posted anonymously, and included a man’s picture, his initials and age. Posts typically queried, “Anyone cognize if he’s married? Dating anyone?”

A speedy hunt of the forum surfaced a post, published wrong the past month, that made maine judge I had been dating a liar, if not a serial sociopath. Mary and Casey had contributed to the station with Bernie’s unmistakable picture, but respective different women weighed successful with akin stories of his deception.

The commonalities were staggering. We were each azygous mothers and worked successful akin fields. Our hairsbreadth color, oculus colour and assemblage types were each alarmingly similar. We had each been introduced to his family. We had each been told that we were the lone pistillate successful his life. The antheral who had flooded truthful galore barriers had treated each of america arsenic conscionable different conquest.

I took a time to process what I had read, and past I reached retired to Bernie via text. I did not intimate however I learned of the different women. I simply told him however shameful helium should consciousness astir what he’d done.

“How situation you justice me,” helium replied. “I volition not person this convo. I privation you each the best.” He past blocked my number.

Mary, Casey and I exchanged messages and calls, and the afloat spectrum of Bernie’s actions was shown successful technicolor. The man’s quality to wend his mode into each of our lives was unbelievable. He had curried favour with Mary’s lad by buying him costly presents and attending his shot games. He had ferried Casey to her doc appointments erstwhile she was warring bosom cancer, ensuring his loyalty and caretaking were connected show to her full family. I became profoundly alert that I had not been playing 2nd fiddle to my man’s engaged enactment schedule; I had been unwittingly riding 3rd instrumentality to his different girlfriends’ afloat lives. 

The revelations came accelerated and sometimes knocked maine breathless. For example, I realized the lone crushed I had been capable to whisk him distant for his day play was due to the fact that Mary had been overseas for enactment and Casey had been recovering from her latest surgery.

How could I person cared truthful wholly for idiosyncratic who was truthful wicked? I stewed successful choler and shame for weeks arsenic I processed everything with Casey and Mary, my caller comrades. 

I person a screenshot of 1 substance that Casey sent maine saved to my favorites medium successful my phone. “I person sought meaning retired of this concern for galore months,” she wrote. “Maybe I needed him done the cancer. Maybe I needed to larn this acquisition astir listening to my gut. ... But the much I region from him and speech to you both, I person to judge it was to bring you some into my life. We were disposable to him — which feels similar a stab successful the heart, but it doesn’t erstwhile you recognize it’s not personal. It’s him. How helium treats others is simply a reflection of his feelings astir himself. Not astir us.”

Casey’s sentiments encapsulate everything fantastic and existent astir the heartbreak that has netted maine 2 of the truest friends successful my big life. Because of our shared trauma, our healing has besides been a communal assistance nine of three.

Since I discovered the information astir my relationship, I person been successful interaction with Mary and Casey each day. We permission dependable notes astir archetypal day fumbles and parenting victories. We stock photos and memes and wisdom. We person met each other’s children and notation to our “sister wives” to friends and household who cognize the story. It’s a communicative that erstwhile brought america symptom and angst, but arsenic Casey enactment it, that communicative was ne'er astir us, it was ever astir Bernie and however helium treated us.

Together we are penning a caller story. We are casting ourselves arsenic the main characters — the azygous parent she-roes of our ain destinies. The villain of this latest communicative is not a handsome prince, but simply anyone who would situation to harm our bid oregon spoil our fun.

Kendra Stanton Lee is simply a teacher and writer successful Boston. Her enactment has appeared successful The Washington Post “On Parenting,” The Boston Globe, Slate and others. You tin find much of her penning astatine www.kendrastantonlee.com.

This nonfiction primitively appeared connected HuffPost successful September 2025.