I was sick at home, lying in bed, when I asked my wife to grab the iPad so I could watch some videos. You’d have thought I’d asked her to commit a crime. She grilled me: what did I want to watch, why couldn’t I use my phone, why not the TV? I just wanted to lie down comfortably.
She finally brought it to me, but she was acting weird about it. I didn’t think much of it then. But later, I couldn’t help but remember how strange she was that day. We’d been married for four years.
We weren’t rich, but we managed most months. We each had our own phones, but we decided to share an iPad. I bought it for work since the bigger screen helped. She knew it was for both of us.
It shouldn’t have been a big deal. Things got messy on a Friday night. She told me she was going out with her friends. She dressed up nice, which I didn’t think was unusual for a girls’ night.
She said she was running late and rushed out of the house. I decided to watch a video on the iPad while drinking a beer on the porch. I had to search the whole bedroom for it. I eventually found it tucked away in a drawer of her bedside table.
I unlocked it and felt my stomach drop. Tinder was open. I honestly tried to think of any other explanation. Maybe she was catfishing a friend, maybe it was a prank.
I would have preferred that to the truth. But it was her profile. All her photos, and she said she was single. I went through the messages.
She was supposed to meet a guy named Jared that very night. The so-called girls’ night was a lie. She had messages with at least ten other guys. And I could see from other chats that she had already met with at least one of them.
This was going to be the second. My head was spinning. But thankfully, I had read enough stories to have some common sense. I documented everything.
I made sure the timestamps were visible so she couldn’t claim the screenshots were old. Then I got in my car and drove to the bar where she was meeting him. I didn’t plan to confront them. I just needed to see it with my own eyes.
It wasn’t hard to spot her at the bar. She was laughing with some guy, touching his arm, his shoulder. He touched her thigh. Anyone would have thought they were a couple.
I took a picture and a video. That was all I could bear. I left. I wanted to make a scene so badly.
But I knew that screaming and shouting wouldn’t teach her anything. So I decided to end things with her and make sure it hurt. She came home that night and saw the iPad lying on her side of the bed. She asked if I had used it.
I told her I didn’t, that I just left it where she put it. She was suspicious, but I didn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing what I knew. A few days later, I finally confronted her. She came home from work, started talking about her day like everything was normal.
I told her to shut up. She was shocked. I’m usually calm, so she knew something was wrong. I asked her to admit she had been unfaithful.
She stayed quiet for a long time, probably trying to figure out if she could deny it. Then she started crying. It made me angrier. She didn’t have a one-night stand.
She had a dating profile and was planning to sleep with as many people as she could behind my back. Now she was crying and saying it was a mistake, that she was stupid, that she didn’t appreciate me. She begged me to forgive her. I told her I couldn’t.
I told her to pack her bags and leave. She said she had nowhere to go. Her family lives across the country, and we couldn’t afford a hotel for her. She should have thought about that before cheating.
She stayed in the house, but we became roommates. I told her we were getting divorced, and she agreed not to fight it. I thought she meant it. She didn’t.
Once the divorce proceedings started, her lawyer made things difficult. She wanted to split my savings. The proceedings got heated. I told her to pack her things and get out.
I didn’t care that she had nowhere to go. I told her to impose on one of the girls from her “nights out. ” She eventually left. In court, her infidelity was on the table in full.
My lawyer presented all the evidence. Her lawyer tried a different angle, claiming she had been using Tinder as a way to cope with my alleged abusive and neglectful behavior. I couldn’t believe it. But the judge saw through it.
Since we were renting and I paid most of the rent, and our finances were too close for alimony, I only had to pay her a few months of housing costs. She got to keep the iPad, which was ironic. She moved in with a friend. She didn’t use the money for a place of her own.
She just stayed with her friend for free until the friend kicked her out. Then she came knocking on my door, crying, saying she was about to be homeless. She begged me to let her stay. I didn’t care.
It felt like consequences of her own actions. She had a roof over her head when she was with me, but I wasn’t enough for her. I told her to go stay with one of the guys she cheated on me with. She started crying at my door.
I shut it in her face. She kept knocking until I threatened to call the cops. I would have done it, too. Now she’s truly single.
She can have as many guilt-free Tinder dates as she wants. I’m glad not to be tied down to a cheating woman. I handled life on my own for a long time, and I’ll do it again. It’s frustrating how someone can blow up a marriage, then try to play the victim when accountability shows up.
It’s laughable at best and insulting at worst. But the judge saw through it, and I’m free now.
