His Wife Divorced Him for Cheating, Found Out He Didn't, and Wants Him Back. Should He Do It?

Every once in a while, there’s a story on Reddit that’s both compelling and touches on larger issues. This is one of those stories and it has so many twists and turns that you could probably make a gripping movie out of it without having to touch it up all that much:

My (33m) wife (32f) filed for divorce because her friend told her we slept together. Now she knows that friend lied and wants to reconcile. My mom (56) is on her side. How can I get my mom to understand she's hurting me?

Almost two years ago my ex went on a girls trip with her sisters and mom leaving me at home with our son (8) and daughter (6). The night before she was due home she sent me a message saying she knew what I had done and she wanted me gone by the time she arrived home. That's all she said. She didn't reply to my messages and let my calls to to voicemail.

When she arrived home I was still there because I had no clue what was going on. She came in ready to go. Yelling at me, accusing me of having other women in the house, telling me her friend had told her all about my affair with her and at least one other woman. Our fight went on for days. In the end I told her if she believed that, if she thought I was capable of doing that to her and our family then she could pack her stuff and leave. She did and then she filed for divorce.

Days later the cops showed up at my door and took my kids. I didn’t see them again for 5 months.

She made it as difficult as she could for me to see my kids. She made up stories of physical and financial abuse just to keep them from me. I fought hard, my lawyer fought just as hard as I did, and eventually, I got weekend visitation.

The first time seeing my kids after all those months apart destroyed me. Their misery was written all over the both of them. They saw me and threw themselves at me. They clung to me crying so hard.

I didn't care about my marriage at that point, I just cared about my kids. They were full of stories they couldn't wait to tell me. There were so many stories that first visit, and every visit after, that I started to record them. I went back to my lawyer. He said the best way to use this information was to hire a private investigator to get us proof and that way we could leave the kids out of it, so that's what I did. My P.I. found all the proof of what my kids told me and more. I moved forward with plans to go for at least 50/50 custody. I got it. For the past two months I have my kids one week, they go back to their mother the next, a week later I get them again.

According to what I've been told by people that were there, my wife was at a party while my kids were with me. There were a lot of ex-mutual friends there. Ex friends of mine. They all believed the lies and shut me out. My ex was there with her new boyfriend. Her friend, the friend that convinced my ex we were having an affair, was falling over herself drunk. In front of everyone she told my ex she was owed a thank you. My ex asked what? For breaking up our marriage? This woman started laughing and said she didn't know it would be so easy to convince my ex that I was cheating but my ex was dumber than the friend thought that she didn't even question it, she just believed. Then she started in on how even after my wife left and did all that shit with my kids, she still couldn't get me into bed. Then she laughed and laughed until my ex attacked her.

My ex has been calling me non-stop since and sending messages. Getting her parents to call me. Her friends. I've had old mutuals trying to reconnect with me. I shut them all out. I don't care that they all know the truth now and want to apologize for their treatment of me. All their calls and messages go unanswered. They're all dead to me. If not for my kids my ex would be dead to me to. Not because she believed the lie and made up some of her own, but because she used my kids against me. I can't forgive that she used my kids.

My ex is making regular visits to my parents, giving them a sob story of how sorry she is, how she regrets everything and all she wants is to put her family back together. My dad was blunt. He reminded her that she broke our family, and he wouldn't help her con me into giving her another chance. My mom is a different matter. The sob story got to her. She's telling me it's best if kids are raised in two parent homes. To think of them and the love I have for them, not of the hurt and humiliation my wife put me through. To push all the resentment down for my kids sakes and be the father they need.

I hate my mom a little for not being on my side and basically telling me to suck up all the sh*t that b*tch has put me and my kids through the past two years. I know I'm doing what's right for me and my kids. It won't be any benefit for them to grow up in a house with their dad hating the sight of their mother.

This is ruining my relationship with my own mother. How do I let my mother know that she is pushing me away from her and that I'm close to cutting her off if she doesn't let this go? How do I tell her in a way that she listens and that what I have to say sticks so she gives it up?

There’s a lot to unpack there, so let’s try taking the three most important issues one at a time.

First and foremost, should he get back with his wife? After all, marriage is sacred, right? Remember the part of the vows that goes, “To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part?” Splitting up a marriage is not a small thing, and it should never be treated as if it is. Failed marriages can bruise people’s souls, give them pain they never truly get over, make them cynical, and statistically, it’s one of the absolute worst things you can do to your kids. That doesn’t mean every marriage can or should be saved, but people are way, way too cavalier about getting divorced.

All that being said, they’re not married anymore because she chose to get a divorce over a lie.

So, we’re no longer talking about whether this is a marriage worth preserving, we’re talking about whether this is a woman worth marrying. Despite the fact that she’s the mother of his children, pretty clearly the answer to that question is, “no.” Setting aside the fact that she obviously has horrible taste in friends and terrible judgment for believing a lie about her husband having affairs, she falsely accused the man she was married to of imaginary abuse.

Theoretically, you can forgive someone for anything, but as a practical matter, I don’t know how you can come back from that kind of thing and repair a relationship after doing something that… let’s just call it what it is… evil to someone you used to love. Personally, I wouldn’t even want to be alone in a room with a woman who had done something like that, much less be in a relationship with her. If this guy were a friend of mine, I would tell him that he owes her nothing and he’s right that this is too far beyond the pale to fix.

Second, it’s also worth noting that false accusations of this sort regrettably happen quite often in divorces, although there are disagreements about the exact numbers:

False allegations of abuse are an all-too-common phenomenon during divorce and child custody proceedings. One parent fabricates a false allegation against the other parent to gain leverage in court and to undermine the parent-child relationship going forward. The frequency of false allegations in custody cases is not fully understood, with estimates ranging from 2% to 35% of all cases involving children. Whatever the percentage, attorneys, judges, and mental health experts all know firsthand that it is a vexing problem in court cases. And nothing can disrupt, sidetrack, or impede a case more than an allegation of abuse that eventually proves to be false.

Parents never admit to their conniving and harmful behavior during a legal action. As such, proving an allegation is false can be extremely challenging. Why? Because a false allegation is hatched in the mind of the offending parent, who then enlists the help of their child to unwittingly carry out the plot. The intent is to harm the other parent, but to do so as if the offending parent is the real victim. Parents know that an allegation of abuse has the potential to help them win their case, which is their ultimate goal. Unfortunately, being honest and fair is not always a virtue in a contentious child custody case.

Detecting a false allegation is critical because judges can be swayed by the accusation, even if it is not substantiated by the evidence. More often than not, custody decisions go in favor of the accusing parent. So, uncovering and exposing a false allegation is vital in making sure the offending parent is not rewarded for his or her destructive behavior.

The reality is that any parent who is definitively caught making a false allegation should, as a matter of course, permanently lose custody of their children. Furthermore, given that we all know that the person making the accusations is highly incentivized to lie, the standard of proof for accepting their allegations should also be high. Are there police records? Medical records? Questions about abuse in the record at school? Some kind of evidence that this abuse happened that goes well beyond the word of a (usually) vindictive wife and her allies?

We have gotten to the point in our society where the degree to which divorce court is rigged against men in almost every way possible is convincing a lot of men that they’d be fools to get married in the first place. Once men get to the point where they feel like if they get married, it’s flip a coin and, “heads it’s forever love” and “tails, your life is destroyed,” they may conclude marriage is no longer worth the risk, which is very bad for our society. Fixing that isn’t a matter of just telling men they need to “pick the right person,” it’s a matter of making structural changes that do more both to decrease the likelihood of divorce and make it less devastating, particularly to men, when it happens.

Last but not least, it’s understandable that someone who has been falsely accused harbors some resentment toward friends who believed he cheated and toward his own mother who he feels is not taking his side like she should. That being said, there’s a reason this is one of the best quotes of all time:

"One does not really love mankind when one expects too much from them." - Eric Hoffer

As for his friends, maybe he should cut them a little slack. Yes, maybe they should have known better, but if they didn’t and they apologized, that means something if he chooses to allow it to mean something.

In regards to his mom, he certainly shouldn’t cut off contact with her over this, but it is okay to say, “This is my decision, I have decided the issue and we’re just not going to discuss it anymore.” It’s perfectly fine to set a boundary and then enforce that boundary, either verbally, or, if that’s not enough, just by ending any conversation whenever she brings it up. It’s his life, he’s made his choice and ultimately, he has no obligation to relitigate that choice if he doesn’t want to do it.

At the end of the day, this is a sad story all the way around. The husband suffered, the kids suffered and even the wife seems to realize she made a big mistake albeit way too late. Some people set good examples for others with their lives, but sometimes, all you can do is look at people whose lives have gone wrong and hope to learn from that bad example.

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