26F here. i’m going to use code names for it all. this is a long story but i’ve finally got the balls to finally post this and let it all out, to try and free myself from the guilt i’m feeling and have been feeling for a while.
any judgement, advice, support, hate, give it to me. i want all sort of feedback as i know this is bad but i also need to know i’m not going crazy.
like i said, 26F. in 2011 i joined secondary school, where i met this guy called samuel. we were both extremely good at maths so we always stayed close. he was more of the nerdy type, and i was more of the “party animal”, if i should label it. this is anonymous so i have no shame to admit that i come from a well off family, so even at a young age i was in non school uniform day in my louboutin trainers, things like that, im still that kind of girl at heart.
we were polar opposites, but we both shared the same humour, and we stayed close. like i said this was also influenced by our shared love for maths. we stayed close through maths competitions, out of school and in school, we were the top performers in our year group. nothing happened romantically between us, until year 10, and we dated for around 7-8 months if i remember correctly. that doesn’t seem like a long time, but it definitely was for secondary school, he was my first proper boyfriend and i was his first proper girlfriend.
we broke up but things were amicable, i feel like we were quite mature for our age due to different things that we both went through in our personal lives at young ages, which definitely mixed some trauma bonding in there too.
at the end of year 11, i was hosting an end of year / after prom party at my house. samuel felt uncomfortable coming, as we were close but we weren’t part of each other’s friend groups. i urged him to come, and i told him to bring a friend if he felt that uncomfortable. so he did, he brought his friend johnathan with him.
i’d heard of johnathan over the years briefly, his childhood best friend from primary school, but he ended up going to a different secondary school in our town. me and johnathan really hit it off, we got on really well and we started dating, at 16.
like i said due to my maturity at my age, things moved quickly with johnathan. he was my first “time”, and i truly felt like he was the love of my life. and i did enjoy him being samuel’s closest friend, so samuel was very much still involved in my life even after school.
we got engaged very young, and we got married just two weeks before my 19th birthday. we both shared extremely old fashioned views, traditional views if you must. it was a gorgeous wedding, in a church, i honestly have tears in my eyes just writing about it. my parents bought us a house, and we were really happy. at my wedding, samuel was the best man, and he introduced his new girlfriend to us, called amanda.
amanda came along to the wedding as a plus one, and she even met samuel’s family at the wedding too (that’s how deep the familial ties are between samuel and johnathans family, as well as samuel and mine).
but a few weeks after my wedding i made a huge mistake. i slept with samuel. i can’t remember much of it, and johnathan never found out. it was a drunk mistake, i was just 19. i called the “affair” off, i didn’t want to pursue anything else, i had just married his best friend, and id never slept with anybody else apart from my husband up until that point.
my marriage was good, really good. people thought we wouldn’t last because of our age. we’d go clubbing together, go on late night drives. we had our ups and our downs, we were serious, jokey, i truly felt like i’d spend the rest of my life with johnathan (think you know where this is going).
just three years after i got married, samuel and amanda were getting married. at this point me and amanda didn’t really get along. she knew about me and samuel dating back in school (as did johnathan, but he didn’t care and certainly wasn’t threatened by samuel). i’m not sure if amanda was threatened, i don’t know what it was, but we just didn’t gel at all.
backtracking now, around a year after i got married, i personally got into some trouble legally. i made a big mistake, and i still regret it to this day. my husband stood by my side, and samuel supported me and my husband too. who didn’t? amanda. she urged samuel to stay away from us, more particularly me.
samuel didn’t listen to her, maybe that’s where her grudge against me started, i’m not sure.
like i said, they ended up getting married, and things were okay. we did double dates, and when me and amanda did get along we actually went abroad to turkey together, on a couples holiday. it was really fun. and i never thought about the mistake me and samuel made years ago at this point, it didn’t affect me.
i never wanted kids going into my marriage. but to cut a long story short, typing this now ive miscarried three children, with the second time being twins. i’m not going to write a lot on it as it’s still raw and i think even now im not quite sure how to grieve.
after my miscarriage with twins, me and johnathan couldn’t do it. we’d moved into a big house next door to my parents, i’d been a maths teacher for a few years at this point, business was going well for johnathan with him co-owning a restaurant and bar with his parents. things were really good in that aspect, but neither of us could move forward having to grieve yet again, and this time it being with two babies.
i miscarried in the february, and in the august i filed for divorce. it sounds silly but i moved out (next door to my parents’ house). at this point samuel and amanda had moved up to edinburgh, a job opportunity had come up for her. we didn’t speak much to them at this point, i think johnathan and samuel did speak, but my communication with both of them was very limited, naturally. and i couldn’t stand amanda to be fair.
in the october, i was back in the house, and johnathan had leased a terraced house nearby. i still had love for him, you can’t just turn your love off like that, he was my husband, my world.
what happens next i do not want to be judged for. i was young and naive, and i grew up to trust and commit myself to my husband.
after my legal trouble years ago, an investigation was launched on me and my husband. i don’t know the ins and outs even now, but they were thoroughly investigating the finances of me and johnathan. it wasn’t good at all. like i said i was naive, if my husband told me to sign a letter, i signed it. i didn’t know any better, and i never was given a reason to not trust my husband.
in the same month, october, we were “caught”. multiple counts of fraud, tax evasion (him, not me), fraud on our mortgage etc. we were getting divorced at this point, but legal proceedings were put on hold.
i’m looking back at what i’ve written and it’s a lot so im going to try and wrap this up. we both pleaded guilty in april last year, and in july we were both sentenced.
i didn’t get any prison time, just a shit tonne of money to pay back, it was awful but i take full responsibility for it. johnathan was sentenced to prison for almost 4 years.
this was so tough for me, i was divorcing the love of my life because of a tragedy, and it now feels like i have to grieve someone im not allowed to grieve, all over again. his sentence began last september, and our divorce finalised two weeks later at the beginning of october.
but in the midst of all this, last january (2025) the school i work at announced there was a new maths teacher joining. i had no communication with samuel specifically since before id filed for divorce.
but, he was the new maths teacher. he’d split up from amanda the same month id left johnathan. this is where my memory / what id been told goes blurry. i don’t know if johnathan knew, if he did im confused on why i didn’t know, there’s still a lot of question marks regarding that period. but, i was too focused on trying not to put myself in prison if im being honest, the idea of it now even makes my hairs stand.
samuel seemed to be doing well, we got quite close again quickly, now working together. it was awkward at first sure, he told me about his new girlfriend from america (he’s big on american basketball, i think he met her there). he was at a good place in his life, even if he was back in his hometown living with his mum.
18 months since samuel has come back into my life, working alongside me, we’ve even introduced a new course together, we do well together, but… it comes with a price.
he goes and sees his american girlfriend quite often, during most half terms, she seems sweet over facetime. that’s my problem, ive spoken to her and she seems so sweet. and yeah, as you guessed it, me and samuel must’ve really missed each other, and i feel so guilty about it. he’s in america right now with her, but he’s still messaging me, facetiming me when she’s at work.
i hate it, but i can’t stop. sometimes i wish i married him instead of johnathan. but also sometimes when im “intimate” with samuel, i close my eyes and think of my ex husband.
i feel like such a piece of shit when i think about it, when i talk about it with samuel, even writing this now. johnathans nearly a year into his prison sentence, samuel’s poor girlfriend is super happy with him, and i feel like such an ass.
i’m with samuel every working day, our classrooms are across the hallway from each other. he even walks me to my car now. i’m so filled with guilt, but the want fills me up so much more and i hate it.
i’ve missed out so many details on here so i apologise if this doesn’t make sense, but i already feel like such a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.