I Still Love My Husband but I’m Thinking About Divorce and It’s Tearing Me Apart
I don’t know which is more gutting: the moment your partner admits they’ve ruined your financial safety net, or the slow, sickening drip of discoveries that prove it wasn’t a single mistake at all. That’s the raw scene a 32-year-old woman described in a highly upvoted Reddit AITAH post: eleven years married, survivors of a cult together, best friends turned co-parents, and now standing on the edge of divorce even though she still loves him. The post lays out a story of debt, betrayal, and the particular cruelty of finding out your partner is actively undoing everything you’ve worked so hard to protect.
How it began: escaping a cult, a newborn, and a $100K confession
According to the poster, she and her husband were born into and escaped a cult together, an important detail that tightens the emotional context. A week after their second child was born, he knelt down and begged her forgiveness: he had run up $100,000 on credit cards trading crypto and stocks. She describes being “sitting there a week postpartum in shock.” Rather than ending in flames, they committed to fixing it. They sold her van, asked family for small loans, took out a HELOC on the house, and paid down that debt to about $50,000 within a month.
From there the story shifts into slow exhaustion. She became a stay-at-home mom who says she cooks 95% of meals, keeps the house going with two small kids and a hobby farm, sells eggs to help make ends meet, and “never denied [her] husband anything.” She also points to a medical issue that made weight loss hard and a life constrained by tight budgets. The underlying theme: she did the labor to hold the family together while they worked out how to be solvent again.
The betrayals that followed: secrecy, gambling, crypto and OnlyFans
But promises unraveled. The women reports that part of their agreement was mutual financial transparency and his commitment to therapy. When she asked to see finances, he stalled. Christmas passed on a strict budget and she began asking weekly. Every time she pushed, “something else” would come up and she’d be stalled again, until she finally blew up and got access to their accounts in late February. What she found stunned her: not only did they still owe $50,000, he’d resumed trading crypto and had started sports gambling. He had about $5,000 in a crypto wallet. On top of that discovery, when she looked through his phone she found subscriptions to multiple OnlyFans accounts.
She paints the emotional fallout in visceral terms: she feels “betrayed,” “ugly,” and “like a fool.” She mentions borrowing $75 from her mother so their account wouldn’t bounce. She’s terrified for her children, ages 5 and 2, and for what life would look like if she left. She doesn’t have a degree that would allow an immediate financial restart, and she worries that any income she could earn would disappear into daycare costs. All of that feeds into the central question she posted: is she the a**hole for even considering divorce when she still loves him?
Why this hurts so much: trust, survival, and past trauma
This isn’t just about a bad investment. The combination of financial secrecy, addictive behaviors, and clandestine subscriptions hits multiple wounds at once. First, financial infidelity is a betrayal that affects basic survival, food, housing, the kids’ security. Then there’s the relational betrayal: he promised transparency and therapy and didn’t follow through. Finally, because they escaped a cult together, there may be a deeper trauma bond making it harder for her to separate; leaving now feels like another kind of abandonment.
She loves him, describes him as “amazing to [their] kids,” and is torn. That cognitive dissonance, loving someone whose actions threaten your family’s stability, cements the agony. It’s no wonder she’s questioning whether a marriage can survive repeated betrayals even when affection remains.
What Reddit said: blunt reactions and concrete advice
The post drew hundreds of comments and many blunt takes. A top commenter summarized the pattern bluntly: “This isn’t one mistake it’s a pattern he keeps repeating.” The tenor of responses leaned toward protecting the poster and her children. Commenters advised legal and financial action, “Find a ruthless lawyer who will pin all the debt on him” was one recommendation, while others urged her to consider leaving before “he drags you and your kids down further.”
People flagged gambling and secret subscriptions as signs of addiction and bad faith: “He’s cheating on you, lying and gambling away your finances and security. He’s an addict who isn’t willing to get help. Leave before he drags you and your kids down further,” one commenter wrote. Another called it “financial infidelity,” and a different user insisted “you may be in love with him but he’s no longer in love with you.” Some replies were practical: look for daycare jobs, document everything, remove him from joint accounts, and get legal counsel. Several commenters were less sympathetic, arguing that his being “nice to their faces” doesn’t absolve the real harm he’s causing to the family’s future.
What To Take From This
This is a tangled, heartbreaking situation with no single right answer, but there are clear next steps she, and anyone in a similar position, can consider. First, document everything: copies of bank and credit statements, texts, and any evidence of secret accounts. Second, get professional financial and legal advice about separating finances and protecting the home and kids; some commenters suggested trying to separate or challenge debt that came from unilateral risky trading. Third, think safety and backup plans: establish an emergency fund or a trusted family member who can step in temporarily, and research local resources for stay-at-home parents returning to work. Fourth, address the addiction angle, encouraging counseling is reasonable, but you can’t force someone into recovery; protect yourself and your children if promises aren’t kept. Finally, seek emotional support: friends, family, and a therapist who understands trauma bonding can help you parse love from harm.
She asked if she’s wrong to consider divorce despite love. The clearest answer from readers was that love alone doesn’t have to be the deciding factor, safety, stability, and consistent, trustworthy behavior do. Loving someone doesn’t obligate you to stay if the relationship is eroding your family’s future. Whatever she chooses, making a plan grounded in documentation, legal counsel, and community support will give her more power to protect herself and her children.
