First time posting, and I'm new to reddit in general, so I'm not sure if I should put the NSFW flair or not, but since this is about relationships, I naturally includes sexuality, and I'm trying to be as honest and clear as I can. Also, sorry for the long post. It is quite a long story. Lastly, forgive me for any spelling or grammar mistakes. I've known english for many years, but it still not my native language, and I don't think I've ever writen anything so long before.

So I (25M) was 22 at the time when I started dating my ex-wife (20F at the time). I was very religious at the time and we met at church. I already knew her from a church event from years ago (like, I knew who she was, but we weren't friends), but I was like we were getting to know each other for the first time. I admit I was way more eager to get into a relationship than I should have at the time, and that kind of made me needy. She gave me all the attention I wanted, even though we had very little in common (so conversations weren't super interesting). We started dating maybe less than 2 week before meeting again after all these years.

It was pretty soon into the relationship that I discovered that she was from the church, but didn't followed the same standards as I followed. I was still a virgin at the time (according to the law of chastity) and she had a body count about the same number as her age. That was a hard hit for me, but I tried to be a good christian man and tried to believe that she was going to heal, be forgiven and improve, so I decided to continue with the relationship. That, however, made me extremely insecure physically, so I would pursue physical contact kind of to reafirm myself that she was MY girlfriend, and was with ME, not with all those other guys. We didn't had sex, but a lot of hands and oral stuff.

As the relationship went further and we got to know each other, it was continualy clearer that we had very little in common indeed. I am kind of an intelectual and nerdy, interested in history, theology, politics, philosophy, games and so on, and she was very much not interested in literally any of that. Still, we had good and fun moments together. However, as she told me more aboutt her life, she told me terrible stuffs that happened to her during childhood (like extreme neglect from her mother, abuse from the uncle, and, of course, she was sexually abused a few times by a few different people). It got to a point were every time we were talking about life she would reveal something absolutely terrible that happened to her, and it kind of traumatised me (I feel extremely anxious every time anyone tells about their life, even if it is just what they ate for breakfast that morning). I wasn't looking for a casual relationship, I was looking for someone to get married with, so it was like I was absorbing all of her past trauma into myself, which was very agonizing.

Months went by and traumatic information from her part kept pouring in, making me extremely anxious. I had always been a very calm and relaxed guy, never worrying too much about anything, and all that drove me to a series of anxiety attacks that lasted for a few months. However, breaking up with her was never really an option in my mind, and I honestly have no idea why. Maybe I saw myself as some sort of savior to get, bringing her from chaos ans suffering to a life of love and peace. How naive I was...

A lingering feeling that she was hidding things from me started to creep in. I resisted for quite some time, but eventually started questioning her about her life story and her experiences, because I had the gut feeling that something was not adding up. She always told of her experiences as a naive and ignorant victim to the predation of ill people, and I believed in her. However, from the sheer amount of stories (and dudes) in her life, either she was incapable of learning from any mistake ever... or they were intentional (not the childhood stuff, obviously, but during her teen years, getting laid with lots of dudes, being convinced to smoke weed and stuff like that). She even sent so far as to tell me that she, who had been frequent at church since she was like 12, did not know that the Law of Chastity, one of the most basic and explicit commandments, meant that no sex before marriage. For someone from my church to say that is the same to someone who just graduated high school to say they don't know how to read. It was so absurd that the feeling that she was lying and hidding things crept even closer. That got me maybe my second trauma from this whole story: I got severe trust issues. Now it's really hard for me to trust anyone with anything.

One sunday morning, when we were spending the weekend at my parents place I was feeling sick, so I stayed at home while my ex-wife went to church with my mother. A few minutes after they left, I noticed that she had forgotten her phone home. I knew they would be out for at least 2 hours, so I took my chance. I felt bad and guilty for invading her privacy, but I needed to know the truth. And the truth I did find. She was obviously not a naive and innocent girl, she was very much aware of everything that she did that was against the church, she knew how wrong it was to our standards, and spoke with people as if she didn't care at all. I discovered that she was fucking a MARRIED dude from her work just a few months before we started dating, while she told me that she had not been with anyone for a few years. I found old nudes she sent and stuff like that. I felt really really disappointed that she lied to me so much. I was after someone from the church, so I could get married in the church and have a churchy family. That's all I wanted at the moment.

Yet, for some reason that I still don't understand, I didn't break up with her. I don't know where my brain was at that moment in my life, but certainly it wasn't inside my head. I confronted her, and she reluctantly admitted, but told me there were a lot of stories she made up to impress people from her city (stories about, to put it clearly, she being a whore). She agreed to tell me the whole truth, and I interrogated her on her whole life story, and she told me many many things she had omitted, or corrected false information she had given. That, for some reason, made me trust her, so we continued dating. One of the information she gave me was her real body count, which was actually over twice her age. That got me extremely anxious again, same as before, and we ended up having actual sex. Yup, my first time was spended as a coping strategy. By this time I was getting out of the church as I was getting more and more into paganism, but still upheld (and I still uphold) most of the moral commandments that I learned from my christian church, so it was still morally bad for me to do it. I also pushed myself to my physical limit, because I had the accute consciente that, in her, I was competing with every other guy she ever had sex with, and if I wasn't better than all of them, it would not be on me that she would be thinking when we had sex (I don't know if it is true or not, but it is what I've felt at the time).

A few months after that she lost her job, and my family invited her to work with them in their business, so she moved to my house (I was still living with my parents at the time, about to enter university). We lived together for a few months, and I realized she demanded a lot of attention from me when she wasn't working (and sometimes when she was). Between preparing to college and giving her attention, I had little time for myself. The first semester of college I had an extremely exhaustive routine, but that didn't change at all her need for attention. Everytime I failed to meet her expectations she made me feel like I was worthless and a bad person (even though, inside, it frequently felt that I was almost doing her a favor for being with her).

In college I met this quirky, nerdy and shy girl, and we shared a lot of interests in common, and became good friends. I'll call her Beth in this story. At the same time, my ex-wife was talking about her kinks and mentioned that she wanted to try a threesome. I told her I wouldn't like another dude, but was fine with another girl, and told her that if she wanted she could arrange something, as I was afraid she would get jealous if I were to seek someone. She talked with a couple of her friends, but no one was down for it, so she asked me to try to convince one of my college girl friends to try it. I wasn't that comfortable with the threesome idea, but didn't wanted to disappoint (also the horny started speaking in my mind), so I tried to convince Beth. I was honest and direct, and she told me that she was reluctant, but agreed to be open to know us better and to see where it would lead us. Beth was the last available option for the threesome, so even if it wasn't what my ex-wife wanted, she agreed to it. Us three went out on a couple dates, and me and Beth got along super fine, and Beth kind of got along with my ex-wife, but they also didn't share much in common.

During these few dates, my ex-wife became extremely jealous and fickle. One day she would come up demanding that I stop talking to Beth altogether, and the next day asking when the next date with her will be. It got me extremely confused, and we had plenty of fights because of it. In the meantime I was trying to rectify my ways with the church, despite my pagan inclinations, and was told that I would have to get married in order to not be excommunicated from the church, so we did get married not long after. My family offered me full support, and even paid for a nice honeymoon. My life became hell as soon as the honeymoon was over. My ex-wife demanded 3x more attention from me everyday, and almost everyday we would fight over the smallest thing, and she would be upset for days. Eventually I gave up on the whole threesome idea, since it was not my idea to begin with, and was causing extreme stress. I returned to having anxiety attacks during this period. Meanwhile, I started to notice my feelings for Beth, particularly when I caught myself missing her a lot during vacation. I told her that I realized that I liked her, and she told me that she liked me too, and that she was really sad for me because of the situation I was in. In the last few days of class that semester we kissed once or twice, and it was confusing for me. Loyalty was a virtue that is extremely important for me, and yet I was so sad and exhausted regarding my ex-wife that I had acted against it, which was really shocking for me, weirdly enough. I told Beth we could't do that while I was still married (divorcing was already on my mind).

We had so many fights during this period that I cant tell them all here. I came to my family and told them I've made a mistake getting married with that girl, and my brother asked me to try to keep the relationship going for a few more months because my ex-wife was replacing my brother's wife at work, who was pregnant with his first son. I tried, I really tried, but I was getting extremely anxious and depressed. My ex-wife started to get extremely dramatic, pretending that she was going to kill herself multiple times a week over the smallest things (I had past trauma with suicide, so it hit me extremely hard). While my ex-wife was at work I started having calls with Beth through discord. We would either chat or play games together. I told her what I was going through, and she gave me some advice. I also was seeing a therapist for a couple months, and almost every afternoon during vacation, while my ex-wife was at work, I would take a walk to think.

I really have no idea why it was so hard for me to just break-up. I knew I should have done it right at the beginning, and I didn't do it. Neither had I done in the many opportunities that I had, and now I was married with her. I felt overwhelming guilt: for breaking my morals because of her, for putting my brother and his pregnant wife (and the family business) at risk, and for letting it scale to the level that it did. And yet I tried to make things work, I tried to find anything to justify this relationship and to keep it going, but eventually I realized that my ex-wife was incapable of caring about me. Some of the biggest and most stupid fights we ever had was me trying to have my way in literally the smallest things (like asking her to stop waving a knife around while cooking, I mean, seriously, she even hit my finger accidentally while gesticulating with it, and refused to stop), and she would not budge an inch, would make a huge drama, and would threaten to kill herself because of it. I was completely exhausted and quite depressive.

I tried everything I could, and it was no use. I understood that she most likely had borderline disorder (and maybe narcissistic personality disorder). My therapist asked my the golden question: "You told me many times you want to have a family, so do you really want her to be the mother of your children?". I absolutely didn't, but only after he asked that I realized that. I was so trapped in the present that I had forgotten my future plans. I had continued to have calls with Beth almost everyday.

One weekend we went to spend at her mother's house, and we eventually started fighting, so her mother started to act like an intermediate between us so we could try to solve our problems and return home in peace. We discussed and argued for hours, and my ex-wife didn't budge an inch, ever. Her mother was even on my side, trying to explain to her daughter that there were necessary sacrifices in a relationship and stuff like that. I realized, after maybe over 8 hours of discussion, that I was absolutely no use. I had exhausted everything I had to offer, and realized that trying to convince her to do anything for me was like trying to convince a concrete wall to step aside. So I dumpe here there. Naturally her mother instantly turned against me, but whatever. I brought her home to get her stuff (we were living in a house a few kilometers away from my parents at the time) and then one of my father's employee, who was going to her city anyways, drove her back to her mother's house. Our total time together was about 1 and a half years in a relationship, and about 45 days of marriage.

The days following were so weirdly calm that felt uncanny. I started to realize all the manipulation, the gaslighting and the lies she was still telling me. I also had a lot of calls with Beth. Vacations were almost over by that time. Me and my ex-wife broke up on a tuesday. On that same week, at Thursday, I drank my first beer with my bros, and Sunday was Beth's birthday. We hang out, chatted and kissed again, now that I was free from my ex-wife.

Me and Beth started officially dating a few weeks after that. I was full of traumas, and my head was really really messed up. I asked if she was sure about dating me, because at that point I was in the lowest I've even been, but she told me it was alright, and that "if she didn't love me in my lowest, how could she deserve me in my highest?". I knew at that moment that this was the future mother of my children.

Me and Beth have been dating for almost 2 years now, and it's been really a paradise on earth every single day. She is the most wonderful, kind and loving person I've ever known. She is even better than the most perfect girl I've ever imagined even in my boldest imaginations. She is now my fiancée, and we organizing ourselves in order to get married before the end of the year. In that meantime I had done a lot of therapy, discovered that I got way more traumatized than I initially thought, but I think I've been able to overcome 90% of it, so I'm feeling quite well now.

The reason why I'm posting this is that sometimes I still feel guilty about my ex-wife, and about all that happened, and about the time I kissed Beth while I was still married. Was that as bad as I think it was, or it was somehow... excusable?

TL;DR got out of a hellish relationship with my ex-wife to the most wonderful relationship I've ever imagined, but still feel guilty somehow.