The first thing I noticed when I walked through the door was the perfume. It wasn’t mine, and it definitely wasn’t my husband’s. One of my kids even commented that the living room smelled nice. I had been gone for about four hours.
My husband had spent the whole morning pushing me out of the house, first suggesting I go grocery shopping, then asking me to make his favorite dish, and finally sending our youngest daughter to tell me we were all going to the family restaurant. I thought he just wanted a quiet day to himself. I was wrong. I tried to convince myself there was another explanation.
Maybe he had invited a contractor over. Maybe I was imagining things. I hated how hard I tried to make excuses for him. That night, I asked him about the smell.
He told me I must have been imagining it, that he had been home alone the whole time. I believed him. I know I was stupid. A week later, he came home an hour late.
When I hugged him, he pulled away too quickly. The perfume on his jacket made everything clear. He was cheating on me. I checked his phone and found a chat thread with a woman named Melanie.
The messages made it obvious they were sleeping together. The way he talked to her, the way he lusted over her, made my stomach turn. He never spoke to me like that. That hurt in a way I can’t fully explain.
The next morning, I asked him who Melanie was. I barely got the question out before I started crying. He seemed surprised I knew, but he wasn’t shaken. That hurt more than anything.
I asked him why. I asked him what I was doing wrong, why I wasn’t enough. I was sobbing, begging for an answer. He told me he needed freedom.
He said I was keeping it from him, so he went out and found it for himself. He said it wasn’t personal, that it was just physical. Then he walked away, and we haven’t talked about it since. For three days, it felt like an elephant was in the room.
He didn’t seem interested in discussing it. I felt like I needed closure, but I wasn’t going to get it from him. I posted about it, and I told everyone I was going to stay. I said I couldn’t leave 17 years of marriage behind, that I didn’t want to break up our home, that I loved him too much to let go.
I blamed myself. I thought I must have been stifling him somehow. But a month later, I changed my mind. A few people talked sense into me, and one woman in particular stood by me.
I realized I was worth more than I had been telling myself. I decided I was going to divorce him. I wanted him to hurt the same way I had been hurting. And I’ll admit it, my first instinct was to hurt him badly.
I thought about doing it with someone he knew, someone he didn’t like. The first person that came to mind was Ben. Ben and Kevin had been close friends for almost as long as we had been married. But two years ago, they had a falling out over something at work.
Ben felt Kevin was at fault, but Kevin never admitted it. Ben ended up quitting. I always thought Ben was the bad guy in the story, but I reached out to him anyway. That’s how hurt I was.
I told him I planned to divorce Kevin. My goal was to sleep with him, to fight fire with fire. But Ben swatted away my advances. He said he’d be there once I was officially split.
That pushed me to serve my ex with divorce papers. He laughed when I did it. He said there was no way I was serious. I told him he could have the freedom he wanted.
He signed the papers right there in front of me. The divorce was messy, especially when it came to custody. He tried to paint me as a bad mother. I didn’t play dirty like he did, but I made sure all the evidence of his cheating was front and center.
In the end, I won custody 70% of the time, because I had been a stay-at-home mom for the the children’s entire lives. I also got spousal and child support. I let him keep the house because I couldn’t afford the mortgage, and the court awarded me a percentage of its value. I used that to get an apartment.
Once the divorce was over, I met up with Ben for the first time in ages. He was as nice as I remembered. With my head clear, I realized I wasn’t entirely motivated by revenge anymore. I actually liked getting to know him again.
He wanted to take things slow, and we’ve been doing that. But honestly, I already know I really like him. Meanwhile, my ex-husband called me drunk one night and cursed me out. He said the money I was taking from him was making his bills harder to pay, especially the mortgage.
He said I contributed nothing to his life the whole time we were married, and now I was making him do everything alone. He was angry, and it scared me a little. I hung up on him. About a week later, he messaged me asking if it was true that someone saw me with Ben in town.
I told him it was. He flipped out. He said I did it on purpose. I lied and said it just kind of happened.
He didn’t believe me, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he was right. I told him whatever he was feeling was what I felt when he did the same to me. He didn’t reply. Ben has been good with the the kids the two times he’s seen them.
The kids are taking the the divorce okay for the most part. Kevin keeps asking if I’ve started working. I’m looking, but it’s hard after being off the market for so long. Life isn’t horrible.
I hate that everything got flipped upside down, but I don’t need to be with a cheater any longer. There’s a lot of peace of mind in that. Let him stew in his regret. He wanted freedom.
Now he’’s got it. Plus a mortgage, alimony, and stone cold silence from someone he took for granted.
