Woman was devastated to learn her mom urged her husband to cheat on her a year into marriage — a painful teenage memory made the betrayal even worse
Sometimes, the deepest hurt isn't what a loved one does to you, but what their actions reveal about how they see you. For one woman, that person turned out to be her own mother, who had secretly encouraged her husband to cheat on her just a year into their marriage. The woman, who goes by u/Lower_Watercress9471 on Reddit, shared the shocking discovery on Monday, October 19, 2026, after learning that her husband had kept the conversation to himself for five years. But one other detail about her relationship with her mother made it even more hurtful.
When the conversation came up during couples therapy, her husband revealed that five years earlier, while she was in the kitchen, her mother had told him it was perfectly normal to have a "side piece," even just a year into marriage. He refused but kept quiet for years because he knew how much his wife loved and admired her mom. The reason her mother considered her "difficult" made the heartbreaking truth sting even more. At 16, she was working to help support her family and simply asked if she could keep an extra $100 a month instead of sending it all home. She’d already moved out, was renting a room, and was struggling financially herself. Yet her mother held it against her for years, even while her daughter was still financially supporting her and suggested that her son-in-law cheat.
The woman explained that she had always admired her mother for leaving her abusive biological father and taking her daughter with her. She grew up wanting to protect her mother, which made the betrayal especially painful. She also shared how she started working at 16 to help support her family, often taking long shifts and even sleeping on a chair because there wasn’t enough room at home. As an adult, she continued sending money home and later gave her mother a job in her own business. When the business struggled and her mother’s projects were paused, her mother continued to hold a grudge against her, despite building a successful career of her own.
After the truth came out during couples therapy, the woman blocked her mother. Still, she didn’t see her mother as a bad person. She believed her mother’s own trauma and possible untreated PTSD had affected their relationship. Having spent more than a decade working through her own childhood trauma, she could understand her mother’s struggles without excusing the pain she had caused.
Reddit users offered support. u/GoldenYear wrote, "Some mothers want to see their children fail to feel better about themselves. It's sick, but I've seen it. Please keep her out of your life as much as you can.” u/EasyLizin commented, "So sorry your mom’s a terrible person, you didn’t deserve that." Meanwhile, u/thejoebrossuck wondered, "Maybe your dad has cheated on her, and she’s trying to normalize it as well?"
Betrayal can hurt even more when it comes from the family members we trust most. In another story, a teenager paid their stepmother $300 in monthly rent for eight months while her own adult son lived there for free. After discovering their stepmother was trying to push them out of the house they co-owned, the teenager confronted her with legal documents at her birthday dinner. But the deepest hurt came from their father’s silence, which left them questioning the trust they had placed in him.
For more of her stories, you can follow u/Lower_Watercress9471 on Reddit.