Bestof title: u/toonslinger explains the concept of "trickle truth" and how it affected his marriage

Here's a personal example of how trickle truth works in a real life scenario:

A month before my wedding, my soon-to-be-wife had a minor freak-out. Seemingly out of the blue she informed me one evening that we should go for a walk because she needed to talk to me. I said okay and we took a stroll along the lake. About ten minutes into our walk she sits down and tells me she's having doubts about getting hitched. I stay calm and ask her why. She responds with a lot of peculiar reasons that didn't make much sense but finally slides in that she's been chatting it up with a co-worker and enjoys the flirting. She tells me that she's not really attracted to him but she likes the attention and even offers to show me his picture on her phone. She was right--not an attractive guy--frumpy, morose, looked rather like a putz and had even nicknamed himself Stupid Fucker at work...a real mope of a dope. She said he meant nothing to her but the fun she had flirting made her question the wedding plans. Anyway, I take this all at face value and tell her she needs to think good and hard about if she wants to get married because if the answer is no, then we need to call it off and tell all the invited guests to cancel plans. Two days later she assures me she was just being silly, wants to get married more than anything and we move forward. Again, because I trusted her completely, I took it all as the truth.

Two days before the wedding and suddenly something is feeling off. I arrive in a city I've never been to before, get introduced to a whole bunch of friends/extended family I've never met and the whole day my fiance is ignoring me and spending the majority of her time on her phone, texting and playing games. I let this go on until we get to our hotel room and then ask her WTF is happening and who the hell has she been texting all day. She admits its this coworker and that she's just under a lot of stress and its nothing. I call bullshit and threaten to call my parents or Best Man and have them get me to the airport but she breaks down crying and insists she's just being stupid and wants the wedding to happen. I'm about 5 seconds from calling anyone who can bail me out when she swears that she's just nervous and anxious and confused and truly wants us to tie the knot. Again, because I loved her, because I trusted her, because we'd lived together and built something over 5 years together, I took her for her word. The next day went ahead without incident and the day after that we had a wedding for the books. It was an amazing day from start to finish and everyone there said it may have been the finest, funnest wedding they'd ever experienced.

For days later things started to unravel fast. The trickle became an ever-increasing flow. First, after a night with friends to celebrate our union, she gets totally wasted and, upon returning home, tells me, "I don't even see us lasting a year together. But the good thing is, I've got someone waiting for me...and I know he has a small penis...but he cums really fast and he shoots like a fountain!" She then blacked-out and didn't remember it the next day. I on the other hand, went through her phone, found his number and texted him, asking point-blank if he was really in fact waiting to fuck my wife. After trying to reach her by phone (she was passed-out) he finally replied that yes, he probably wasn't a very good person, but it's a choice she'd have to make and that I probably wouldn't like what she chooses in the end.

The next day she sobered up and, when confronted with the texts, broke down into sobs and swore she'd stop talking to Stupid Fucker. A week later, she packs an overnight bag to stay at a girlfriend's place, walks out to "find herself," and I tell her not to come back unless she's serious about making things right. 2 days later she's back crying and sorry for being confused and then, the next weekend, I find out everything that had been kept from me.

Turns out, for about 3 months before the wedding, she and Stupid Fucker had been walking home together after work. On top of that, on the nights I was at work, she was over at his place. All her happy little text check-ins were really timing cues so she could be back home before I got in, to pretend she'd just been on the sofa the whole evening, waiting for me. She'd gone out with him countless evenings to the bars, met his kids and formed friendships with them and, based on some of her comments, its highly likely she brought him back to our apartment when I wasn't around. In the end, they were having a full-blown affair because, well, I trusted her implicitly and never imagined she could stoop so low.

Her final words, on the day she left, were, "With you I'd have the life I've always dreamed of. But he has the condo I've always wanted, so I have to go." She left and I haven't heard from her or seen her since. In February it'll be 6 months since she disappeared from my life.

That, sir, is trickle truth in action. It is the act of revealing just a little at a time, to manipulate a trusting innocent, to keep a lie going as long as possible until the guilty have a final solution in play.

She was also good at gaslighting, which is an attempt to re-write the past, claiming things happened another way, in order to keep the innocent confused and questioning their sanity as their world seems to fall apart around them.

Hope that helps you get a handle on what it's all about. Good luck to ya, however you decide to proceed.