My Wife Left Me Weeks After Our Wedding To “Support” Her Sick Ex—Now, She Came Back Pregnant…

My wife left me weeks after our wedding to support her sick ex. Now she came back pregnant. But what I said flipped her world upside down.

I'm a 30-year-old male and Emma is a 28-year-old female. I thought we had a rockolid relationship for 5 years before we got married. We met at my buddy Phil's barbecue back in 2018.

I wasn't even going to go to be honest. I had a rough week at work and just wanted to chill at home, but Phil kept bugging me saying I needed to get out more. He'd been trying to set me up with random girls since my last relationship ended badly.

The moment I saw Emma, something just clicked. She was helping Phil's girlfriend set up the food table, laughing at something. She had on this casual blue sundress and just looked so natural, not like the typical Instagram perfect girls Phil usually tried to set me up with.

We got talking about how we both hate barbecue chicken. Yeah, a weird conversation starter at a barbecue. Laugh out loud and ended up talking for like 3 hours straight.

It was just one of those conversations that flows effortlessly, you know. After that, we were pretty much inseparable. We started dating officially like 2 weeks later.

She was everything I wanted in a partner. Smart. She's a pediatric nurse.

Funny. She has this adorably weird sense of humor. Beautiful but naturally beautiful, not high maintenance.

And we just clicked on every level. We had the same values, wanted the same things in life, and even had the same stupid taste in reality TV shows. 90-Day Fiance is our guilty pleasure.

laugh my ass off. We never had those dramatic relationship problems you see on here all the time. No trust issues, no fights about dumb stuff, none of that nonsense.

Sure, we had disagreements, but we always worked them out like adults. My buddies used to give me grief for being whipped, but honestly, I was just happy. Emma made me want to be a better person, as cheesy as that sounds.

Fast forward to last year. I proposed during a hiking trip. She loves outdoor stuff.

I almost messed it up because I was so nervous I nearly dropped the ring off the mountain. laugh out loud, but she said yes, crying and laughing at the same time. We started planning the wedding right away.

Emma had always dreamed of getting married at this historic vineyard about an hour outside the city. It was expensive, but seeing how happy it made her was worth every penny. The wedding was, man, it was perfect.

And I'm not just saying that because I spent a small fortune on it. Seriously, why the heck are weddings so expensive? The vineyard looked amazing, all decorated with lights and flowers.

Emma looked absolutely stunning in her dress. I remember looking at Emma that night, watching her laugh with her bridesmaids, and thinking how lucky I was, like this amazing woman actually chose to spend her life with me. It felt unreal.

We had all these plans. We wanted to travel more, maybe buy a house in the suburbs next year, and start trying for kids in a couple of years. Emma even had names picked out already.

She wanted to name our future son after her grandfather, which I was cool with. If someone had told me then what was about to happen, I would have laughed in their face. How could anything go wrong?

We were solid. Or at least I thought we were. So, 2 weeks after we got back from our honeymoon in Greece, which was amazing, by the way.

If you ever get the chance to visit Santorini, do it. Everything went to complete chaos. It was a Friday night and I was at home grilling these fancy aged ribeye steaks I'd gotten from this bougie butcher shop downtown.

They were like $60 per steak, expensive. Emma loves a good steak dinner, and I wanted to surprise her because she'd been working crazy shifts at the hospital lately. Emma was supposed to be home by 6, but she texted saying she was meeting her best friend, Ashley, for a quick coffee after work.

Ashley's always been, well, let's just say she's not my favorite person. She's one of those people who's constantly stirring up drama and acts innocent about it. But she was Emma's best friend since college, so I tried to be cool about it.

By 8:30, the stakes were getting cold and Emma still wasn't home. I was getting kind of annoyed and hungry as heck, but I figured they must have gotten caught up talking. Emma finally got home around 9:00, and the second she walked in, I knew something was wrong.

She had this weird look on her face, kind of like when she has to tell parents bad news at the hospital. She didn't even notice the fancy dinner setup I'd made. She just said, "We need to talk.

" In this serious voice I'd never heard her use before. Not going to lie, my first thought was that she was pregnant. We talked about waiting a couple of years, but accidents happen, right?

Honestly, I wish it had been that. What she told me next made me wish we were just having an unexpected baby. She sat down at our kitchen island and started telling me about her ex-boyfriend, Mark.

Now, I knew about Mark. They dated for 3 years in college. It seemed pretty serious.

Emma didn't talk about him much, but I knew they'd ended things because he took a job across the country, and neither wanted to do long distance. Turns out Ashley, Emma's friend, had run into Mark's brother at the gym earlier that week. Mark had stage 4 glyobblasto.

Basically, this super aggressive brain cancer. Doctors gave him maybe 6 months tops. Emma found out through Ashley and had apparently been texting with Mark since then.

She showed me their messages, which by the way, who keeps texting their ex when their spouse is at home making them dinner. There were dozens of them going back and forth about his diagnosis, his treatment options, and memories from their time together. While I was out dropping $120 on fancy stakes, my wife was having deep conversations with her dying ex.

The texts weren't even inappropriate or anything. I almost wish they had been. It would have made what happened next easier to deal with.

They were just emotional. Lots of I never forgot about you and you were such an important part of my life type stuff. The kind of conversations you probably shouldn't be having with an ex when you're married.

Then Emma said that Mark's dying wish was to spend his last months with her. Apparently, facing death made him realize she was the one that got away or some Hallmark movie nonsense like that. And Emma, this still hurts to type.

Emma told me she felt like she had to do this, like it was some kind of test from the universe or something. The worst part, Ashley had been encouraging this whole thing. She told Emma it was fate that she found out about Mark's cancer, that Emma would regret it forever if she didn't go to him in his time of need, that sometimes life gives us second chances for a reason.

Yeah, real helpful, Ashley. Great advice for a newlywed. I just sat there in shock, staring at our fancy dinner getting cold, while my wife of three months told me about how she needed to go be with her dying ex, the same wife who'd been planning our future together just weeks ago, who still had a suitcase in our bedroom that wasn't fully unpacked from our honeymoon.

The thing that really got me was how Emma was talking about it like it was some kind of noble sacrifice she had to make. Mark has no one else, she kept saying. His family is all on the East Coast.

Convenient, right? He's all alone facing death. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there thinking, "What about me?

What about your husband who you literally just promised to spend your life with? " I asked her straight up if she still had feelings for Mark. She started crying.

Emma's one of those people who cry when they're stressed. Usually, I find it endearing, but at that moment, it just pissed me off more. She said it wasn't about that and this was bigger than our relationship.

That Ashley had helped her see that this was something she needed to do to be able to live with herself. Oh, yeah. Let's talk about Ashley for a minute.

This girl has been a thorn in my side since day one. She's one of those perpetually single friends who always has to be involved in everyone else's relationship. The type who posts inspirational quotes about following your heart on Instagram but can't keep a relationship longer than 3 months.

According to Emma, Ashley was the one who really pushed her into this whole thing. After running into Mark's brother, Ashley set up a chance meeting with Mark at their usual coffee spot. She'd been feeding Emma all this spiritual mumbo jumbo about how the universe brings people back into our lives for a reason.

And sometimes first loves are meant to be last loves and other nonsense. I tried to be rational about it. I asked Emma if she'd seen any of Mark's medical records herself, if she'd talked to his doctors, if she'd even verified the diagnosis with his family.

She got defensive. Said she couldn't believe I was questioning something like this. That the mark she knew would never lie about something so serious.

the mark she knew. Those words just kept echoing in my head. You want to know the most messed up part?

She actually expected me to be understanding about this, like I should just be cool with my wife leaving me to go play nurse for her ex-boyfriend. She even suggested we could take a break while she helped Mark through his final journey. Her exact words, I kid you not, I lost it at that point.

I told her marriage doesn't have a pause button, that she couldn't just put our life on hold while she went to fulfill some dying guy's romantic fantasy. I asked her how she'd feel if I left her for an ex who was dying. She said that was different, but couldn't explain how.

The conversation went in circles for hours. Emma kept talking about karma and doing the right thing. I kept trying to make her see how insane this whole situation was.

At one point, she actually said, "If you really love me, you'll understand why I need to do this. " Classic manipulation right there. Finally, around 2:00 in the morning, I'd had enough.

I told her she needed to make a choice right then and there. If she walked out that door to be with Mark, we were done. No breaks, no temporary separation.

No coming back when she was finished playing Florence Nightingale. Done. She looked at me like I was the one being unreasonable.

Started talking about how life isn't black and white and sometimes we have to make hard choices. I cut her off and said, "Actually, this choice is pretty black and white. Either you're my wife or you're not.

" The way she looked at me then, man, I'll never forget it. this mixture of disappointment and resignation, like I was the one failing some kind of test. She said she needed time to think, grabbed her purse, and left to stay at Ashley's.

The sound of the door closing behind her was like a gunshot. I didn't sleep at all that night, just sat in our kitchen, staring at those stupid expensive stakes, wondering how my life had turned into this ridiculous drama. I kept checking my phone, thinking maybe she'd come to her senses.

Then things moved pretty fast. Emma stayed at Ashley's for a few days, barely responding to my texts. Meanwhile, I was going through hell.

I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, just kept replaying everything in my head, trying to figure out where I went wrong. My buddy Phil, the one who hosted the barbecue where we met, came over with pizza when I told him what was happening. He couldn't believe it either.

We'd all hung out together so many times, double dated, gone on group vacations. Emma had always seemed so normal, like not the type to pull this kind of stunt at all. Then about a week after she left, I got this long text from Emma saying she'd done a lot of thinking and decided she had to follow her heart.

Gag. She was moving in with Mark to help him through his final months. She actually wrote that she hoped I could find it in my heart to understand and maybe we could revisit our relationship after Mark passed, like I was just going to sit around waiting to be her backup plan.

The next day, I got an email from her lawyer. Email, not even a phone call. She wanted a divorce and was hoping we could handle this amicably.

I'll never forget sitting at my desk at work, staring at that email, feeling like I'd been punched in the gut. I had to tell my boss I was sick and went home. Some of our friends actually took her side, said I was being heartless and unsupportive.

Like, what? My friend Rachel, who I thought was my friend first, actually told me I should be proud of Emma for being so selfless. Proud that my wife was leaving me for her ex.

What kind of messed up logic is that? I remember this one dinner with our couple friends. They tried to convince me to see it from Emma's perspective.

Said, "How would you feel if you knew you could give someone comfort in their final months, but chose not to. I straight up asked them if either of them would leave their spouse for a dying ex. " They got real quiet after that.

The worst part was everyone treating me like I was some kind of jerk for not being okay with this, like I was the bad guy for expecting my wife to actually honor our marriage vows. Even Emma's sister, Lisa, who'd always been cool with me, started posting these vague Facebook statuses about how true love means supporting each other's difficult choices or some nonsense like that. When Emma's lawyer sent over the divorce papers, I got my own lawyer, a real shark of an attorney, my brother recommended.

I wasn't about to get screwed over twice. Emma apparently expected me to move out of our house, which I'd paid 70% of the down payment for, by the way. I told her she could buy me out if she wanted to, but I wasn't going anywhere.

She seemed shocked that I wasn't just rolling over and giving her what she wanted. I think she expected me to be understanding about this whole thing right up until the end. The day she came to get her stuff was brutal.

Ashley came with her, of course, and kept giving me these dirty looks like I was the villain in this story. They took 3 hours packing up Emma's things. Every time they walked past me with another box, Ashley would make these little huffing noises.

I just sat on the couch drinking beer and watching football, refusing to help. Emma tried to take our dog, Max, a lab mix we'd adopted two years ago. That was the one time I really lost my cool.

I told her there was no way in hell she was taking my dog to go live with her and her dying boyfriend. She started crying about how she needed emotional support during this difficult time. I just laughed and reminded her that Max was registered under my name and I'd paid all his vet bills.

She left without him. The divorce itself was pretty quick since we hadn't been married long. Emma didn't fight me on anything financial.

I think she felt too guilty. She even signed over her share of the house to me without argument. Her lawyer seemed surprised by that, but Emma just wanted it done fast so she could go play nursemaid to Mark.

So, after Emma moved out, the house felt huge, like way too empty. I threw all her stuff right in the trash. My mom wanted me to start dating again right away.

She kept trying to set me up with daughters of her friends from church. Thanks, but no thanks, Mom. My buddies tried dragging me to bars, saying I needed to get back out there, but honestly, I wasn't ready.

The thought of trying to explain my situation to some random woman at a bar. Yeah, my wife left me for her dying ex-boyfriend 2 months after our wedding just seemed exhausting. Instead, I threw myself into work, started taking all the overtime I could get.

My boss was actually pretty cool about everything. Let me pick up extra projects to keep my mind busy. I made some decent money, too, so that was a plus.

But sitting alone in that house every night was killing me. I started having trouble sleeping. would wake up at 3:00 in the morning and check my phone, half expecting to see a message from Emma saying this was all some messed up mistake.

Max was a lifesaver during this time. Having him there forced me to keep some kind of routine. I had to get up to walk him.

Had to come home at decent hours to feed him. He'd sit with me on the couch while I binged Netflix, probably wondering why I was watching so much Breaking Bad at 2:00 in the morning. I started doing some home improvements, too, just to keep busy.

But the hardest part was dealing with social media. Emma didn't post much about her situation. Guess it's hard to make left my husband for my dying ex look good on Instagram.

But mutual friends would share stuff. Pictures of her at dinner with friends, acting like everything was normal. Ashley's posts were the worst.

All these cryptic quotes about following your heart, and sometimes life has other plans. I had to block both of them eventually. I lost some friends in the split, too.

Couples we used to hang out with started taking sides. Some people thought I was being a jerk for not supporting Emma's difficult choice. I still can't believe that others just felt awkward and stopped inviting me to things.

That hurt almost as much as the divorce itself. My brother was actually the most helpful during this time. He'd come over with his kids, forced me to get out of the house.

Fast forward a couple of months, I was actually doing pretty good. I got promoted at work, bought a new truck, always wanted a Tacoma, and was in the best shape of my life thanks to Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I even started dating a little bit.

Nothing serious, but at least I could get through first date small talk without having a mental breakdown talking about my ex. Laugh out loud. Then one random Tuesday afternoon, my phone starts blowing up like notifications going crazy.

At first, I thought it was a work emergency or something. Nope. Emma's number.

I hadn't heard from her in over 3 months at this point. She's calling, texting, leaving voicemails. I ignored it at first because what the heck does she want after all this time?

But then I get a text from Lisa, Emma's sister. Now, Lisa and I stayed kind of friendly after everything. She actually apologized to me a couple of months after the divorce.

Said she couldn't believe how Emma handled everything. So, when she texts saying, "I really need to hear what Emma has to say. " I figure something serious must be up.

I finally answer one of Emma's calls on my lunch break. She's hysterical, like I can barely understand what she's saying through the crying. At first, I thought maybe Mark had finally died.

Yeah, I'm a jerk. Whatever. But nah, this is so much better.

Turns out Mark never had cancer. Never had any kind of cancer. The whole thing was a lie.

This dude faked an entire terminal illness because he saw our wedding photos on Instagram and decided he wanted Emma back. Let that sink in for a minute. He had faked everything.

The medical reports, his buddy worked at a hospital and helped him forge them. The remote work during his treatment just an excuse to avoid being seen around town looking perfectly healthy. The whole thing was an elaborate scam to get Emma back.

You want to know how Emma found out? Mark's sister ran into her at Whole Foods, started chatting, catching up. Emma mentioned something about Mark's treatment, and the sister has no idea what she's talking about.

Turns out the whole family thought Mark and Emma had just gotten back together normally. He never told any of them about faking cancer. Emma confronts Mark about it that night.

This jerk just laughs. Says, "Yeah, I made it all up, but it worked, didn't it? " Oh, and the best part, he's been dating his coworker Jessica for the past 6 months already.

Had plans to move to California with her for a new job. He literally looked Emma in the face and said, "I needed you back then, but I'm in a better place now. People change.

You should move on, too. Laugh my ass off. " I sat there in my truck listening to all this, and you know what the craziest part was?

I started laughing like full-on belly laughing. The kind where you can't breathe. The whole thing was just so absurd.

This guy managed to blow up a marriage with the most insane lie I've ever heard and then just moved on like it was nothing. Emma kept saying how sorry she was, how she couldn't believe she fell for it, how she'd ruined everything for nothing. She was crying about how she'd thrown away our marriage for a lie, that she'd never forgive herself, that she'd been so stupid.

You know what I said? Yep, that's it. Then I hung up.

My phone kept blowing up for hours after that. Emma sent me this novel length text about how this was a sign that we were meant to work things out, that maybe this was the universe's way of bringing us back together. She's still on that spiritual nonsense, I guess.

I didn't respond to any of it. Just drove to the gym, did some rolling, went home, and cracked open a beer with Max. Felt weirdly calm about the whole thing.

The next day, it really hit the fan. Turns out Emma went nuclear and posted the whole story on Facebook, tagged Mark, his new girlfriend, everyone. It was like watching a train wreck in real time.

The comment section was wild. Mark's girlfriend, Jessica, found out about everything through the Facebook post, dumped him immediately. His company found out he'd been lying about needing medical leave and fired him.

His family was horrified. This dude literally destroyed his entire life just to get back at his ex. The karma was so perfect it almost felt scripted.

But after the whole Facebook nuclear explosion, Emma went into full desperation mode. She started showing up at my work with coffee. She remembered my order.

Cool, I guess. Sending emails to my work account. Even tried to get my mom to talk to me.

Mom shut that down real quick. She never forgave Emma for what she did. After like a week of this, I finally agreed to meet her.

Not because I wanted to reconcile or any of that nonsense, but honestly just to get her to stop harassing me and my family. I told her to meet me at this coffee shop downtown. Picked it because I knew it would be busy and she couldn't make a scene.

The moment she walked in, I knew this was going to be rough. She looked rough like she hadn't slept in days. Wearing one of my old hoodies that she must have kept after moving out.

What the heck? She started crying the second she saw me. You guys want to know the first thing she said to me?

You look good. Been working out? Like my response?

Yeah. Turns out getting abandoned by your wife is great motivation for the gym. She didn't appreciate that, but whatever.

Then she launched into this whole rehearsed speech about how sorry she was, how she'd never forgive herself, how leaving me was the biggest mistake of her life. She said she thinks about me every day, still keeps pictures of us on her phone, blah blah blah. The whole time she's talking, I'm just sitting there thinking about how I need to pick up dog food on the way home.

But here's the part that really got me. She tried to spin this whole thing as proof of how loyal she could be. She said Mark's lie proved she was willing to sacrifice everything for someone she cared about.

I almost spit out my coffee. I asked her straight up, "If you're so loyal, why didn't you show that loyalty to your husband? Why didn't you at least verify Mark's story, check his medical records, talk to his doctors?

" She got all defensive, said she couldn't believe I was still questioning her intentions after everything. Then she said that maybe this was all meant to be, that Mark's lie was the universe's way of showing us how strong our love was, that we could start fresh now, stronger for having gone through this test. I lost it at that point.

I told her our marriage wasn't some cosmic test run. That real love doesn't mean abandoning your spouse for your ex. That loyalty isn't something you only show to people who are dying.

She tried to grab my hand across the table. Bold move. I pulled back and said, "You know what the worst part is?

If Mark had actually been dying, you'd still be with him right now. You're only here because he turned out to be a liar. I'm still your backup plan.

" That hit her hard. She started doing that thing where she cries but tries to hide it by looking at the ceiling. She always did that during sad movies, too.

She said I was being cruel. I told her cruel was leaving your husband of 3 months for your ex without even questioning his story. Then she pulled out the big guns, started talking about how we could go to coup's counseling, how she'd spend the rest of her life making it up to me, how she'd prove she could be trusted again.

She said she still had her wedding ring and wore it sometimes. Weird flex, but okay. You know what I did?

I laughed. Not like a mean laugh, just couldn't help it. The whole situation was so absurd.

2 years ago, this woman destroyed me, and now she's sitting here thinking couples counseling could fix it. I told her she needed individual therapy way more than couples counseling. that she needed to figure out why she was so willing to throw away a marriage for someone who turned out to be a pathological liar.

That she needed to work on herself before trying to be with anyone. The conversation ended with her asking if there was any chance for us in the future. I said, "Emma, the guy you married died the day you chose Mark.

I'm someone else now. " Then I got up and left. I got a text from her an hour later saying she'd wait for me and prove herself somehow.

I left that on Reed, went home, hugged my dog, and ordered a pizza. So, it's been about 4 months since the whole Mark Faking Cancer show blew up. I was actually starting to feel good about life again.

I started dating this awesome girl, Amy, from my gym. She teaches the morning kickboxing classes. We'd been seeing each other for a few weeks.

Nothing super serious yet, but definitely heading that way. She's completely different from Emma. Straightforward, no drama, doesn't believe in all that universe has a plan nonsense.

Then yesterday happened. I was at home cooking dinner. Amy was coming over later when Emma showed up at my door.

I hadn't seen her since the coffee shop confrontation. She looked different. Then I realized why.

She was pregnant. Like obviously pregnant. My first thought was, "Oh, Mark knocked her up before he bailed.

" But nope, life isn't that simple. She was holding this envelope, hands shaking. She told me she was 14 weeks along.

I did the math in my head right before everything went to hell with Mark right before she left. Guys, it's mine. She had a paternity test done already.

one of those early blood test things. She showed the results right there. 99.

9% probability I'm the father. She'd been trying to work up the courage to tell me for weeks. I just stood there in my kitchen holding these test results while my pregnant ex-wife cried in front of me.

And my new girlfriend was on her way over for dinner. It felt like I was having an out-of body experience or something. Emma says she found out right after everything imploded with Mark.

She's been going to doctor's appointments alone. Didn't tell anyone except her mom. She said she knows this complicates everything, but she thought I had the right to know.

The messed up part. Part of me is actually excited, like I always wanted to be a dad. Emma and I had talked about having kids, you know, back when we were actually married.

But then I think about everything that happened, about how she left, about Amy. I haven't told Amy yet. Emma just left like an hour ago.

I ended up texting Amy saying I was sick and needed to rain check dinner. I've been sitting here with Max just trying to process everything. How the heck do you even handle something like this?

Like obviously I'm going to be involved in my kid's life. That's not even a question. But co-parenting with someone who abandoned you for their fake dying ex, that's going to be interesting.

Plus, there's Amy. How do you tell someone you just started dating that your ex-wife who left you for her dying ex? It feels like too much to put on someone this early.

Emma wants to talk about things. Says maybe this is a sign we should try again. That a baby changes everything.

But does it though? Does it change the fact that she left me for her ex without a second thought? Does it change that she only came back when she found out he was lying?

My head is spinning. Max keeps bringing me his toys like he knows I'm freaking out. Good dog.

I honestly don't know what to do. Part of me wants to be excited about becoming a dad. Part of me is terrified of having to deal with Emma for the next 18 plus years.

And part of me feels guilty about Amy, who didn't sign up for any of this drama. So, what would you guys do? Seriously, how do you co-parent with someone who broke your trust like this?

How do you tell your new girlfriend that surprise, you're going to be a dad with your ex? How do you make sure you're there for your kid without getting sucked back into Emma's drama?