'AITA for kicking my husband out because his ex sends me awful messages?' UPDATED

I kicked my husband out after his ex sent me awful texts and videos.

Bigsghimmo writes:

We’re both Indian, but we’ve both lived in North America since our childhoods. As you might guess, it was an arranged marriage, so we only met a couple of times before the wedding.

He told me right away that he had just gone through a breakup with a long-time girlfriend, and it was the only reason he was going down the arranged marriage route. I was fine with this, as long as there wouldn’t be any infidelity issues down the line, and he promised.

He stayed true to this, but he was very cold to me for the first couple of months. In these months, we got intimate, but the relationship lacked any emotional or personal connection. Even the ring he got me was a $60 ring from Walmart. Seeing that honestly broke my heart, and I wasn’t sure if he would ever actually love and care about me.

The one thing he did for me was noticing that I was struggling and overworked at my job. He makes 12 times what I was making at my job and told me that I didn’t have to work and could be a housewife/homemaker as his income was more than enough to afford us a very comfortable lifestyle.

I want to say that he never pressured or manipulated me into quitting my job; the decision was solely mine. Anyway, this gave me a lot of time to really get to know him, learn to cook his favorite meals, etc. Despite me trying everything to be the best possible wife to him, he was still super cold to me, and the most affection I got was a smile for anything I would do for him.

Suddenly, just before our three-month anniversary, he asked me if I wanted to join him on a walk after dinner. That walk was the first time I felt him being affectionate and caring. These walks became our new normal, and it expanded to actual date nights, spontaneous activities, better intimacy.

I feel super loved and safe with him. Everything became great - he would compliment and appreciate even the smallest things, surprise me with gifts and flowers, makes me feel beautiful, but he never said “I love you” despite me saying it very often, and this was nearing our first anniversary.

The night before our first anniversary, we were watching a show together and around 11:30 pm, he said let’s go for a walk. He had planned this, and on our walk went so we reached my favorite spot in our area, a specific spot along a walking path with a beautiful view of the nearby lake, just before midnight.

He apologized for how cold and distant he was in the first few months after the wedding, followed by him telling me how thankful he was to have me as his wife and appreciating my presence turned his “giant pile of bricks” (referring to the house we live in) into a place he can actually call home.

At midnight (aka our anniversary), he told me he loved me and got on one knee and slid a beautiful diamond-studded ring onto my finger and presented me with my favorite flowers that he had hidden nearby a few hours ago. He had some friends of ours secretly record and take pictures of this entire conversation. I couldn’t stop smiling. The beautiful ring, his “I love you,” his genuine appreciation meant the world to me.

24 hours, and many more I love yous later, we had just got home from our anniversary dinner. We looked at our photos of the previous night and the dinner, and I posted some on my social media.

A few minutes later, I got a nasty DM from his longtime ex calling me names and saying I ruined their relationship and she should be the one with the ring and just sh%^ting on my entire existence. She also sent a video of her and my husband.

I started crying and yelling at my husband, accusing him of cheating. My husband showed me his phone, and it showed 1000s of messages from his ex over the past year that he never responded to.

My husband hugged me and held me close, but I couldn’t stop crying and asked my husband to leave the house. He reluctantly agreed, hugged me again, and promised he never betrayed me and headed to his best friend's place for the night.

I feel so insecure because his ex is so much more attractive than I am, and the video showed how intensely in love they were. I asked two of my girlfriends to spend the night, and they came immediately and were able to calm me down.

My husband came by the next day to talk but couldn’t bear to look at him. I asked him to give me some time alone. He said ok and kissed my forehead and dropped off some food and my favorite chocolate he had got for me.

Three days went by like this, and I called him asking if he could come back home. He left work early and came straight to me. I didn’t even say anything; I just broke down crying when I saw him. He held me close and promised that the only woman he cares about is me, his wife.

It’s been four days since he came back home, and he’s been giving me flowers, random hugs and kisses, everything a wife dreams of getting from her husband, but I just can’t move on from seeing that video of him and his ex.

My husband has been trying to talk to me about this, but I’ve been shutting down any conversation. He tried again during dinner today, and this time I blew up at him and told him to leave. It was something in the heat of the moment, but he looked hurt.

He packed some clothes and said he’s going back to his friend’s place until I’m ready to talk. I tried to stop him when he was leaving, but he left anyway and won’t pick up my calls. My girlfriend (his friend’s wife) called and said he’s staying over for at least the night.

I called my sister and explained the whole situation to her. She told me I f&^ked up big time and told me I was an a*&%ole for 1) kicking him out the first time 2) not even being open to a conversation 3) kicking him out again. AITA? I understand that my husband is innocent in this, but no one seems to understand what I’m going through.

Update after the comments:

Here are a few comments:

Level-Fortune-4062 writes:

YTA You're the A%@#ole). 100%, you know he didn’t do anything and still kicked him out. Your sister is right about what you did wrong, which was everything here. You had a right to be angry but not at him, not even a little bit, he didn’t do it, the ex did.

Ironmike11B says:

YTA. Yeah, you f^@$ed up big time. You let an ex-gf get in your head and ruin your marriage.

Karma_1969 says:

YTA, plainly. He's done absolutely nothing wrong. The ex sending you a video has nothing to do with him at all. It's fine to feel cr%$py about seeing it, but just delete the message, block her, and move on with your life.

What's with all this drama? Welcome him back and give him the big apology he deserves, and then either let this go, or go see a therapist and deal with it in an emotionally healthy way.

I've been happily married for 30 years and I'm sitting here trying to imagine getting mad or upset at my wife if one of her ex's sent me a video of them from the past, before she was with me. I just can't even imagine why I would care.

OP provided an update:

I couldn’t sleep after he left the second time (last night) and stayed up reading every single comment. Thank you all for helping me realize how much I was hurting my husband by not being open to a conversation and repetitively asking him to leave.

I called him again. He didn’t pick up, so I left a voicemail and begged him to come home and promised that we could talk about everything. He couldn’t sleep either and came home around 3 a.m. I was still awake and asked if we could talk now. We sat down, and I began the conversation.

I explained that I truly love him, but seeing the intense chemistry he and his ex had in the video made me feel jealous and insecure. He promised that that was something of the past and I am his present and future, and he only loves me. I apologized for ignoring his attempts at talking to me and telling him to leave.

I said a lot of "I'm sorrys" and promised to be a better communicator. He forgave me but also told me that he was at fault as well. He said he enabled his ex by not blocking her, giving her the idea that she still had a chance with him, which caused her to try to come after me and cause a rift in our marriage.

He also told me she messaged him the day after sending the message and video, again begging him to leave me for her. He apologized for “his part in letting his ex disrespect” me and showed me he had blocked her now. We decided to not go to counseling for now and just work on things ourselves.

For my self-esteem issues regarding thinking his ex was much more attractive than me, my husband reassured me and told me that I’m perfect the way I am and he loves every part of me.

He suggested that some sort of physical exercise could help me improve my own self-confidence, the same way weightlifting helped him when he was going through a dark phase in his late teens.

So I’m going to be joining a pilates class, where a couple of my girlfriends already go quite regularly. We spent a few more hours just talking and the topic of his ex came up, and I asked if he could tell me what happened between them.

Long story short, he was reluctant to tell me, his ex of 4 years cheated when he was planning to propose, he went on a bender, parents asked if he wanted to try the arranged marriage route, he agreed saying he was in no condition to make good decisions. We met a month after he got clean and things went from there.

He said he regrets treating me poorly early in our relationship and regrets giving me the sh%&ty Walmart ring because of what another woman did to him, and asked for my forgiveness.

About the thousands of messages, he didn’t block his ex on any form of communication because his “revenge” was showing her his life could be better without her, but admitted he also found her desperation pretty funny. We read some of the messages together and had a nice laugh before he deleted all of them permanently on his own accord.

So that’s that I guess. Talking with him went as best as it could have. He forgave me and admitted to and apologized for his parts in this. We fell asleep together, I cooked his favorite meal for lunch, we went on a walk, and all seems good. Thank you everyone for helping me realize how much we needed to calmly talk to each other.

What do you think?