“We never agreed to be monogamous.” That’s what my wife said when I confronted her with screenshots of her affair. Three years of marriage, and she was claiming I should have assumed she could…

I sat across from my wife and told her she would be served divorce papers. She blinked. “Excuse me? ”

I repeated myself, casually, like I was commenting on the weather.

I told her I knew about Gabe. I knew she’d been lying about going out with her friends so she could be with him. I had screenshots of every message they’d exchanged. I also had confirmation from Alice and Natalie’s husbands that their wives had been home on the nights Lucy claimed she was out with them.

She went silent. When she finally spoke, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She claimed we had never explicitly agreed on a monogamous marriage. She said it was stupid to assume that by default.

I asked if she was kidding. She crossed her arms and said she was dead serious. This was the woman I’d been married to for three years. The woman I’d loved since our first date.

And she was rewriting our entire relationship to excuse her betrayal. We’d met six years ago through a mutual friend who thought we’d be perfect for each other. He was right. I fell for Lucy immediately.

She was smart, focused, and I could see us building a future together. After a year and a half, I proposed, and we got married as soon as we could. The first couple of years were great. We built a routine and saved for a house.

We made plans to have kids. I felt like the luckiest man alive. Around six months ago, things started to change. Subtly at first.

She stopped bringing up places she wanted to go. When I suggested doing anything together, she’d say she was tired or didn’t feel like it. “Maybe later,” she’d say. Later never came.

She stopped wanting to spend time with me completely. We basically only ate meals together and slept in the same bed. Our sex life died. She always had an excuse.

A hard day at work. She wasn’t in the mood. They were normal excuses, so I didn’t jump to conclusions. I believed her.

I tried to make things easier for her. Then the contradictions started. She was too tired to watch a movie with me, but she had plenty of energy to go out with her friends, once or twice a week. That was more time than she spent with me.

We argued about it when she didn’t tell me she was going out until she was halfway out the door. I told her I just wanted her to communicate. She flipped on me, called me clingy, and said she was allowed to have a life that didn’t involve me. I reminded her we were married.

She huffed and said I was exaggerating. I asked her to tell me the last time we’d done anything together, even grocery shopping. She opened her mouth like she had an answer, but she didn’t. She said she was already late and we’d talk later.

Then she left. For a second, I thought I’d made progress. But the longer I sat there, the more I realized she was hiding something. When she talked about going out with friends, she usually meant Alice and Natalie, friends from college.

I knew their husbands. I texted them, asking if their wives had gone out with Lucy that night. Both said they were home with their wives. Lucy had lied to me.

When she got back, she apologized for snapping at me earlier. She said she didn’t realize things had gotten so bad and she wanted to make more of an effort. If she’d said that before she left, I never would have discovered the lie. It was too late now.

I just nodded and said we’d talk in the morning. She slept like a baby that night. I didn’t want to think about why. I took her phone and went through her messages.

Part of me hoped I’d find nothing. That part was wrong. There was a contact named Jim Amy. She hadn’t been to the gym in months.

Jim Amy was a man named Gabe. Their texts went back months. They looked like they’d only been sleeping together for two or three weeks. Somehow, that made it worse.

She’d built a relationship with him while completely neglecting me. I screenshotted everything. Every message, every photo. I emailed them to myself and uploaded them to a password-protected cloud folder.

I put her phone back and went to bed. I didn’t sleep much. I just stared at her and planned my next move. There was only one conclusion.

We were done. I didn’t talk to her the next morning. I told her I’d talk to her when I got back from work. Instead, I went to a divorce lawyer and retained his services that same day.

He told me not to tip her off before we had everything in order. Living with her after that was weird. She actually started putting more effort into our relationship. She spent more time with me the way I always wanted.

I couldn’t be happy about it. Every bit of effort she put in just made me hate her more. It was too little, way too late. The night I confronted her, she kept trying to gaslight me.

She said modern relationships weren’t strictly monogamous unless discussed. She said she hadn’t cheated and it was my fault for assuming. I reminded her we got married. That was the discussion.

Marriage was monogamous by default for thousands of years. She rolled her eyes and said I was being old-fashioned. She claimed she always thought I was better than that. I stood up and told her I was leaving.

I didn’t care what she believed. The divorce was happening. I moved out the same day and stayed with my brother. She even used the same excuse again during the divorce proceedings, claiming we’d had a discussion about it.

I was shocked by how easily her lies came to her. She was cold and lied without blinking. Because our marriage was short and she had her own job, I didn’t have to pay alimony. We split our savings and property.

She got the apartment. I moved into my own place two months after the divorce was finalized. But Lucy wasn’t done with me. Her dad called me, angry.

He said he had to defend his baby girl. She’d told him the same story about us having an open relationship, but this time she said she hadn’t gone through with it. She’d only considered talking to someone, and I’d blown up and filed for divorce. He blamed me for agreeing to it and then going back on my word.

I let him vent. Then I told him I’d explain everything, but I wanted Lucy’s mom there too. He called me back in ten minutes. I didn’t hold anything back.

I told them she invented the idea of an open marriage to cover her infidelity. I told them about how we’d drifted apart and how I discovered her affair. I even sent them the messages between her and Gabe. Apart from the graphic images, I left nothing out.

They saw every dirty text their daughter had sent and received. I pointed out the messages where they discussed secrecy. Gabe asked if I knew about the relationship. Lucy assured him I was clueless.

I asked why they’d care about secrecy if she was allowed to sleep with him. Her parents were shocked. They told me she’d sworn nothing happened. Her dad apologized.

He said he’d call me back. He never did. Lucy texted me the next day. She said she couldn’t believe I’d gone to her parents and aired out her personal business.

She said what happened between us was private. She accused me of being vindictive and cruel. She claimed her mother cried for hours and her parents had stopped talking to her. I didn’t know whether to believe that.

She lied so often, I had no way of knowing what was real. I kind of hoped it was true. It would serve her right. There was no point in responding.

She’d just twist my words or pull more lies out of thin air. So I blocked her. On every platform. Even LinkedIn.

She didn’t know my new address, so I wasn’t worried about her showing up. It’s been easy for me to move on. Watching her devolve into a full-on gaslighter made me realize what a bullet I dodged. I’m still thankful we never had kids.

I don’t miss her. I just regret the months I spent blaming myself while she was building something with someone else. Work is getting me through. My brother makes sure I get out a couple of weekends a month.

Also, I got a dog. I’d always wanted one, but Lucy hated them. Taking care of him has been great for my mental health. He loves hiking as much as I do.

It’s nice to have a companion that will be loyal no matter what.