“We continued to talk every day. He made it impossible not to fall in love with him. The moment came. I was in his city. He walked up to the table. We hugged, but the next part I wasn’t ready for. The restaurant was a short walk back to my hotel. A month later, it all come crashing down. My husband saw some messages on my phone.”
‘Something was missing in both our marriages. Feelings came rushing back. ‘Maybe he’ll change his mind.’ Innocent messaging soon led to flirting.’ Woman recounts emotional journey loving man she can ‘never be with’
‘My husband left to work on a ‘project.’ Receipts for bars, motels showed up on MY credit card. I demanded he show me his texts. ‘You’re not going to like it.’: Woman gets huge wake-up call after husband leaves for ‘work’
“Shaking and my heart pounding, I scrolled through comments. ‘I miss you.’ ‘What are you wearing?’ ‘When do I get to see you again?’ I don’t know how it started. I woke up with purple bruises on my throat in the outline of my husband’s fingers. I never questioned my decision.”
‘Did you tell her about the drama at work?’ I noticed my husband get uncomfortable. ‘There is a rumor your husband is sleeping with a girl who works with us.’ He laughed.’
“The week after bringing my son home, I couldn’t get a hold of my husband. I had the urge to check his social media. There they were. Messages between him and a girl. He would tell her where to pick him up, where to meet. Most times were in the middle of the night when I had laid pregnant and asleep. ‘HE WAS LYING TO YOU!’”
‘Rage rushed through me. Her profile picture was a photo of her with MY husband, faces smashed together side by side, smiling ear to ear. Can you imagine? That was MY HUSBAND.’
“I dialed the number. ‘Who are you? Why are you talking to my husband so much?’ She responded with, ‘Who is your husband?’ I told her his name. Her response baffled me. She said, ‘Oh… wow… I KNEW he had to be married.’ As if she was proud of herself.”
‘My entire 10-year marriage was a lie. I never really knew the man I was sleeping next to. I married a stranger. ‘Now what? What do I do?’ Something in my gut told me I needed to dig deeper.’
“Both of my girls were upstairs napping when I sat down to surf the internet. Messages started coming in from iMessage. The name didn’t look familiar, and it just seemed odd. I started reading the conversation between my husband and a name I didn’t recognize… He had a stranger over at my house where my kids sleep.”
‘Since my divorce, I’ve seen a plastic surgeon every month. Not for Botox. I had to face what I’d done with every shower, every decision to wear short sleeves or a bathing suit.’
“I had surprised my family with it. My husband told me he loved what I’d done to myself, but what he didn’t tell me was that he was having an affair. I often wonder what he must’ve felt when he saw his name on my wrist and knew he was lying.”
‘You were sending me strange text messages. I returned home to you acting even stranger. The paranoia set in. You accused me of infidelity. I did not recognize this man screaming at me.’
“I got the boys from school. We went straight home. I could feel your presence had been there. I went into your closet and your guns were missing. Two hours later, there was a knock on our door. I looked out the peep hole and there was a man dressed nicely with a manila envelope.”
‘At 13, I walked into my dad’s office and opened a filing cabinet. There, I uncovered a large yellow folder. My innocence was ripped away from me. I knew nothing would be the same again.’
“My father was addicted. His secret life became an open book. The porn, the enhancement pills. Endless text messages to various women. He’d be gone for days, then weeks at a time.”
‘I stayed in a destroyed marriage for a year, convinced we could make it through. It didn’t matter he was in love with another woman; I KNEW he would come to his senses.’
“I would hide in vain in my closet. ‘Get up!’ I would tell myself, ‘Get up!’ I wanted to get up; I didn’t want my son to find me like this- to see me like this. But he would and it started to become a regular occurrence.”
‘I lied to you,’ my fiancé said. ‘It has all been a lie.’ I felt sick to my stomach. He told me there had been another incident with the woman from work. Turns out, that was the LEAST of my problems.’
“‘I don’t want to get involved in a relationship with you until she is out of the picture,’ I told him. I asked him outright, ‘Is there anything I should be worried about?’ He reassured me, ‘no.’ I could see there was something on his mind. Nothing prepared me for what followed.”
