8.
“The first time I suspected my ex-husband was cheating was right before our wedding, when I found voicemail messages from his coworker that were slightly inappropriate. I started to do some digging and found out he would talk to her on the phone for hours while commuting home from work. When confronted, he claimed it was an innocent friendship and that nothing was happening. I chose to believe him (big mistake)! After being married for two years and together before that for 10, I was graduating from my doctoral program, and he randomly told me he wasn’t in love with me anymore but wanted to work on our marriage. We started couples therapy, and he denied cheating but continued to say he just wasn’t in love with me.”
“Then, I had a pretty serious health scare, and the doctors suspected I could have cancer. About a week before my surgery, I was talking to the anesthesiologist, and she said, ‘Just make sure you’re completely healthy before surgery.’ That comment felt like it triggered a lightbulb moment in my head. I immediately left work, was able to see my OB/GYN, and told her I had just had a weird feeling that something was wrong. I asked to get tested for literally everything. Right before my surgery, my test results came back, and I had chlamydia! I had never slept with anyone else in my life besides my husband. I panicked, went home to confront him, and he played dumb, saying he didn’t know how this could have happened, and even suggested it might have been from touching doorknobs while at work. Later that day, he admitted to cheating, but the story was still a lie. Then, the next day, he finally came clean with the real story. He was a police officer and met another woman who was much younger than him, and they would have sex in his car while parked on a street in a major city before and after work. We went on to get a divorce, and he knocked up the other woman a couple of months later. They are still together, but I am happily remarried. I’m sure one of them will end up cheating on each other again.”
—Anonymous, 40, California