Caught him cheating,should I forgive him for the sake of our family?

In 2018, I put all my money into a business property—a small plaza with several office and restaurant units. I was passionate about the investment and believed in it. Then the pandemic arrived. Most of the businesses shut down, I could not find new tenants, and I had to use my salary and stock investments to keep paying the loan. After I got married, my wife and I looked at the balance sheet and realized we were constantly losing money. We had already spent a lot on renovations, and things were beginning to improve, but we still worried about what would break next and what the future would bring. Maybe part of me wanted to prove that I had been right—that I could eventually recover the money. But I kept asking myself why I was staying in an investment that continued to lose money. We sold the property in 2022. The selling price was roughly what I had paid, after agency fees, but when we counted everything we had put into it, we had lost around $40,000 or $50,000. We had also lost the chance to use that cash elsewhere. Still, I felt very relieved. After we sold it, everything became much better: I still had a good job, some cash, and the freedom to invest differently. Sometimes you lose money, but when you cut something off and leave it behind, things can finally get better. I did not have to stay trapped trying to prove I was right.

I wanted her to be happy, so I took her to expensive restaurants every day, gave her gifts, and regularly took her traveling. I hoped she would feel that our time together was happy and that I was making an effort. I also wanted us to have a fuller life, because we did not have enough to talk about. We had no mutual friends and not many shared experiences. Gradually, I realized that we often saw things very differently. She would become furious at restaurant staff if the food was slow, argue with strangers in public, or curse at drivers who honked at her. I felt that her behavior showed poor manners, but I could not openly take the other person’s side against her. Our attitudes toward money were different too. She often bought luxury goods or other expensive things far beyond her income. At first I helped pay for them, but eventually I could not afford to keep doing that. She never asked me to take responsibility for her spending. I did it because I thought that, as her boyfriend, I should pay. In the beginning, it also felt like a chance to prove that I could take care of her and be a good boyfriend. In the end, I realized that I had been putting in time, money, and energy, but I was still not happy. The main problem was that our values were different. Experiences and gifts could not support happiness between us, and she did not really pay attention to my thoughts or feelings. No matter how many things I gave, they could not bridge that gap. Nothing dramatic happened when we separated. I was the one who ended it, because I felt that continuing gave us no way forward. I had thought about it for a long time, so I was not especially sad; I felt relieved. Looking back, I do not think what I did was wrong. In a relationship where two people share the same values, those things can be advantages. But some things cannot be obtained through effort, even total effort—especially a good outcome in love. If two people are not suited to each other, forcing it might still lead to marriage and a shared life, but living that way would be exhausting.