Alright so as the title says I am a mess right now. I asked close friends but I want to see what other people without an emotional connection might make of this situation.

This will be a long post so for that I am sorry I will try to add a TL;DR at the bottom.

I will start by saying that I am not American but I am a foreigner. I speak English well and can speak Spanish but not a lot of Japanese.

In December 17th I went on a trip back to my home country in Europe to see family and friends as with Corona and everything I have been stuck in Japan for soon to be 3 years. This idea of going is actually something that my wife brought up as she felt bad for me not seeing family for so long. I came back to Japan on January 11th and did the whole quarantine procedure. We have a small kid with us of 1 year and 4 months. After the quarantine stay at a hotel (decided to stay in a hotel so the kid can continue kindergarten without problems) is when the trouble started.

I came back home Wednesday 26th, I was a bit shock as the house was a bit of a mess (lots of cans of alcohol on the sink, packages of snacks everywhere, bed being a mess, dirty clothes around, etc). I thought it was maybe because my wife was taking care of our son by herself so it was a bit understandable. She has been having friends over in the house to party and play games on the Nintendo switch and this she told me.

After seeing this mess I decided to clean a bit while my wife was away with our soon. I had a gut feeling already that something was up and that’s when I discovered a bag inside the garbage that had a used condom, the condom’s package and a toothbrush.

After such a discovery my whole world shattered, I felt like throwing up and my legs were shacking. I could not think straight and could not understand what happened.

I decided to keep calm, I hid the evidence and decided to talk about it the next day once our son was in kindergarten. I did not want to argue or fight or cry in front of our son.

Next day I dropped our son to kindergarten and decided to grab the evidence I had and go talk to her parents.

Once the parents saw what I had they were devastated. I know who the person she cheated with is also. It’s a friend that I hanged out with many times. He is Japanese.

After that her dad came with me home to mediate so we could talk about this.

She admitted to have cheated and also confirmed that she cheated with the person I thought off.

Now comes the hardest part and probably the hardest decision I had to make until now.

She is asking for forgiveness and her grandma is also asking for forgiveness but I am not sure I can do that.

I saw only 1 condom but for all I know they could have had sex for all the time I was away. Also finding this in the garbage could mean it was very recent and it happened while I was here already doing quarantine.

I said that in order to forgive her and try to fix the relationship I needed proof of 3 things:

1. that this was a 1 off thing only and it didn’t happen multiple times.

2. that it was not premeditated or planned and it just happened (they were drunk or whatever)

3. that there are not feeling between the two of them.

For this I asked her to share her phone conversation with the guy for the past 2 or 3 months so I could see that they did not talk about feelings or decided to meet up for sex , etc. She said she deleted the conversation and does not have a backup which means the only option left for me is to trust that she is saying the truth and move on? (Which I don’t think I can).

What my brain is telling me tho is to move on, get a divorce (I visited a lawyer already with the evidence , etc) and to simply try to stay near my son so he can have a life as close to normal as possible.

I don’t hate her and I will work together if she is capable of in order for our son to be able to spend time with the both of us equally and I won’t talk I’ll of her, etc. what’s done is done and that bullshit won’t help my kid in anyway.

What are your thoughts?

I am a bit scared I live in a rural area and my Japanese is not very good, luckily I work remote and I have a good salary so money should not be a huge issue.

TL;DR: came home from a visit to my home country to find that my wife has cheated with a friend. She is asking for forgiveness but when I asked her to let me see her phone or any proof to know that this was only a 1 time off thing and that there are no feelings between them she said she did not have the chat anymore. She does not have a backup either or any way to show me any profs that this only happened once and it was not a premeditated action. I am now considering divorce (already went to a lawyer) but the whole situation is a bit scary because we have a kid (1 year old and 4 months) and my Japanese is not that good. What should I do? I am doing the right thing if I continue with the divorce?

Thanks you for reading this I know it’s very long.

Edit: fixed some typos.

Update:

Alright I tried to read as many comments as possible and reply as much as well.

Yesterday I wanted to test the ground a little bit with her and I mentioned the idea of having her contribute more economically from now on. She did not take that very nicely, she even went as far as to want to cancel some of the plans we already have (like going to have dinner with some friends) if she had to pay half the tab. Obviously this is a hugeeeeee red flag and confirms what many of you said here already and what I think I already knew but did not want to admit. It’s even weird because e before all this she would sometimes help but now after doing this I get such a strong reaction. I may need to accept already that she probably doesn’t love me anymore so there is nothing to save here. She is not sorry, she does not regret it, she is just upset that I caught her and the strong reaction I get from her is mostly at the idea of her having to go through divorce, live by herself and having to work to pay for things again (plus probably the shame and stigma from being divorced that Japanese society seems to have).

I will look for myself and my son from now on. Healing should be priority and then I will try to proceed carefully.

I decided that divorce is the only way. I could forgive her with time but I don’t want to be with her anymore and I don’t think she deserves to be with me neither.

I think divorce will also be a suiting punishment. She wanted to have a second kid (well that won’t happen no more). We live in a small town so eventually people will know what happened or at least that we divorced. So she will have to live with that as well.

Now as many people here mentioned it seems that in order to go for divorce I will have to play my cards right and even then things could get sour fast. But I need to at least give it a try.

I have the evidence in a bag hidden in my car (will probably move it to somewhere safer until I can hand it over to a lawyer if that is possible), I also took pictures and videos showing the evidence and how I found it and made several backups of it.

I took pictures as well if all the cans, the messy kitchen and the bags of garbage full of cans to use it to mention she has been partying while I was away.

So I guess what is left is to keep a cool head, discuss everything with my lawyer and try to see if I can keep custody and offer here equal visitation rights.

I will try to be nice in the mean time and only make a move once I am sure it is safe to do so.

I will get in touch with the BAR association on my prefecture and see if there is any luck getting a lawyer that speak a English or Spanish.

I also contacted my embassy to see if they could help me getting in touch with a lawyer or some counseling or something.

Once this whole thing it’s over I think me and my son will be fine.

Thank you to everyone for your comments, advice and some of you for sharing also your painful stories with me.

I really appreciate it.