The Christmas Catastrophe
My wife and I have been married for slightly more than three years now. Last Christmas, I saw texts I wish I could unsee. I found she had been having a long conversation with a co-worker of hers, in which they talked about sleeping together multiple times and that they couldn’t wait for the next one.
The guy said he was going to book a hotel near their office right after Christmas. In this conversation, when he said he was looking forward to seeing my wife, she would reply with things like “I’m looking forward to much more than just seeing you” etc. You get the idea. Overly flirty and all that.
When I confronted my wife, however she denied the conversation existed. After deleting it, she showed me her phone to prove it didn’t exist. But I had taken a few pictures. She then said it was all virtual and that they never did anything physical.
To prove she was right, she messaged her co-worker (in front of me) asking if he had booked the hotel, he replied “not yet.” She then asked if he was really expecting them to meet, to which he replied negatively.
She promised they would never talk again and I agreed, simply because I love her a lot and wanted to trust her, but in my mind I wasn’t completely sure she had been honest.
For a few weeks, I must admit I checked her phones a few too many times, so she changed her password, which I was fine with because I was probably being too paranoid.
This week, I picked her phone up because I needed a code that had been sent to her phone number; I didn’t even need to unlock the screen to get it. When I saw her messages, my blood ran cold. To my surprise, under the message with the code there were other messages from the same guy.
One of them was an audio, the second one was a shirtless photo of himself in front of a mirror, and the third one said “sweaty” and a few emojis with the tongue. I confronted her, since she had promised they wouldn’t talk ever again and she said he just wanted to show her he’s going to the gym to show progress.
But that the rest of the times they talk it’s just about work, and that this is just a coincidence. I asked her to show me the rest of their messages but she said she had mistakenly deleted their conversation history.
My wife says she’s going to change this time and that I never really forgave her and that’s why she kept talking to the guy. She says this time she’s really going to stop but I have a hard time believing it. Or even if she does stop, I fear when things don’t go so well between us she’ll do it again.
I really love her but can’t keep living like this. My brain just can’t overcome the catastrophe and the collapse of the world I had built for me in which my wife is my love, my best friend, and partner, as well as the person I admire the most. She was entirely perfect, and made me happy for many years.
I thought no couple in the world could have what we had. We were both very happy for a long time. We were both attractive, we were both inherently good, had big hearts, and were individually wildly successful in our careers. Recently, I moved in with my family to think things through for few months.
It’s been a terrible time but a psychologist is helping me recover from a terrible mental state. My wife was very sorry and continued saying they hadn’t met. I knew it wasn’t true but was willing to forgive the woman of my dreams, who continued being in the highest altar of my universe.
Fast forward to last Saturday morning. I went back to our place, ready to forgive her and talk things through in the most mature way possible. And well, there she was, but I was the one who received the biggest surprise. THE guy was in my house totally bare, and so was my wife.
The guy from the messages, the guy from the pictures. The one she said she didn’t even like. I caught him hiding in my bathroom as my wife was putting her pajamas on. When I saw him hiding in my bathroom, he uttered, “Sorry dude.” I didn’t even know what to say back.
All I said was, “I’ve got nothing against you.” Even if he was doing it in a house full of pictures of me. Pictures of our wedding and our families. Pictures of my late father who would be so sad to see how the marriage he never witnessed was going to end.
He has always been the reason I try to make the world a better place. He passed two months before our wedding. I’m sorry. But I understand enough is enough.
Even if my world collapses, I hope I can build a new one without lies and in which I’m not just a blind believer under an altar of a fake god. Story credit: Reddit / (ThrowRA_0123)