POV: I'm a S'porean woman in my early 30s. My husband gave me an STD. He cheated on me with several women.

For eight years, Min Jin (not her real name), thought that her marriage was going swimmingly well.

In her early 30s and with three young children, life was busy for both her and her husband.

But in the past year, everything changed.

She claimed that her husband became physically abusive towards her, put her in financial debt, and passed on a sexually transmitted disease (STD) to her.

She also discovered that he had multiple extramarital affairs.

Min Jin said she endured unimaginable pain before finally finding the courage to speak out recently.

She first shared her story publicly online.

She spoke to Mothership as another step towards reclaiming her voice and moving on.

By Min Jin

Not seeing the signs

It started innocently enough.

My husband loved gaming, especially MapleStory.

That’s where he made friends with other players, often hanging out with a close-knit group.

Unbeknownst to me, he grew especially close to one particular woman from that group.

He even gave her a job under his vehicle-wrapping business.

That should’ve been the first red flag.

But I thought he was just being kind — helping out a friend in need.

I should’ve known better.

Finding out about the affair

Everything came crashing down during Chinese New Year in 2025.

I remember the exact moment I found out about the affair.

On the second day of Chinese New Year, I noticed an open chat on his computer with a contact saved as initials, who was the woman he was known to have a close relationship with.

In one screenshot, he told her that he was awake and would be leaving the house in a few minutes.

She responded she would need several minutes to get ready, and subsequently, that she was done.

The messages were intimate.

They talked about visiting each other’s homes.

He would even ask to visit her home in the afternoon and she would reply she would need to check if it was convenient to do so.

I sat there feeling numb.

Through the daze, I managed to screenshot as much of their conversations as I could.

I also found messages on his phone later on.

He would ask if she slept well and she would flirtatiously reply that he was not beside her.

They appeared to meet during the day, such as late mornings, when messages were exchanged about getting ready to head out.

And then I kept quiet, pretending everything was normal throughout the rest of the New Year celebrations, just to keep the peace a little longer.

Confrontation and gaslighting

After CNY, I finally confronted him.

As expected, he denied everything, claiming she was “just a friend”.

He had no idea I had already seen the messages.

He tried to gaslight me, manipulating the truth and making me question myself.

It was laughable.

Even after I laid out the evidence, he continued lying.

Eventually, it escalated one day when I was picking my son up from my in-laws' house.

He must have been afraid of what I would say to his parents, because he incessantly texted me asking what I spoke about to them.

Saying his parents had nothing to do with this "issue", he got into another argument with me that night.

He finally went overboard and slapped me twice that night.

He also punched me and left me with a bruise in another one of our fights.

Throughout our eight years of marriage, he had never once laid hands on me.

And still, he tried to make me feel like I was the one making things up.

That was the moment I decided I needed a divorce.

Second chance

But things weren't that simple.

I have three young kids to think of, and I was pressured by my in-laws to give my husband a second chance for their sake.

He also promised to cut off contact with the person whose contact he saved as initials on his phone and asked for a fresh start.

So, I reluctantly gave in.

I let my guard down, never imagining how much worse things could get.

More secrets unveiled

Once the first thread came loose though, everything else eventually unravelled as well.

A few months later, I received a message from an unknown number.

The profile name started with "E".

She confessed to being involved with my husband and apologised.

Her message started with saying what she did was not a nice thing.

She also said she had ended things with my husband.

She even wrote she was "sorry" to have hurt me.

But I was stunned. Betrayed all over again. I felt humiliated.

The audacity though.

At the time, my husband was on a work trip to Vietnam.

Soon after, I started hearing from mutual friends that he was seeing other women from Vietnam and Malaysia.

He even posted a selfie with a Vietnamese woman on his Instagram story, after blocking me from seeing it.

Stuck in a limbo

After many fights and confrontations, my husband eventually said he was willing to let me decide on the fate of our relationship.

I knew for sure that I wanted a separation this time.

He moved out of our home around June 2025.

Since then, he has barely checked in on the kids, and financial support has been inconsistent and insufficient.

Unfortunately, I’ve been hesitant to file for divorce due to the remaining time left on our flat’s minimum occupation period (MOP).

Right now, I’m stuck in limbo.

Getting an STD

This September, I decided to take an STD test.

I did so because I wanted to check if I caught anything from my husband as he was fooling around.

To my horror, it came back positive.

I had been faithful to him the whole time.

How else could I have been infected?

This was the final straw for me to break my silence about my husband's behaviour.

After all, marriage is a public institution.

I knew I shouldn't have trusted him and yet my vulnerability gave him the chance to hurt me again.

But even if I made the mistake of trusting him, he doesn’t get to walk away from the harm he has caused.

That’s why I’m speaking out, to take back the voice he tried to silence and distort.

I also know that I am not the only person out there who is going through such a situation of infidelity in the household.

But clarity did not come easy for me when I was going through it.

It took months.

I know other people in a similar boat might have different circumstances.

But if only I had heard other women speak up and tell their story, I might have come to a quicker realisation where the point of no return was to protect myself and my children.

Yes, people change for the worse and also for the better.

But I should not just be hoping for "better".

While I have no clear answers as to how I should navigate my life now, I know one thing for sure.

I will never let him hurt me again.

And I will never forget.

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Top photos from Min Jin