My Husband Cheated With My Friend, and My Gut Knew

Friends, Judith had a funny feeling for a long time. But when it came out that her husband really was having an affair, her world fell apart anyway. Here's her whole story:

Dear Judith, your second child had barely been born when you found out your husband was having an affair. How did you see your relationship up to that point?

Right. Our second child was nine months old and we were on vacation when I found out my ex was cheating on me. I woke up in the middle of the night and realized he wasn't lying next to me. After a while I got up to see if everything was okay. I looked for him and caught him outside, on the phone. He'd been drinking and was talking pretty loudly, so I could hear everything.

In fact, I'd been asking him for a while whether he might be seeing another woman. He was physically and emotionally very distant, and suddenly he was paying a lot of attention to his appearance. Whenever I asked, all he did was accuse me of being jealous. But I want to stress that we both wanted the second child very much. Our oldest was four at the time.

But it wasn't just some random woman…

True. So I caught him on the phone, and he didn't notice me until I was standing right next to him. He hung up really fast. When I asked who he'd been talking to, he said right away, “Melanie.” Melanie was a good friend of mine. I stared at him and said, “You're having an affair with Melanie?!” He didn't deny it. There was no point, since I'd heard everything. I went back into the house, completely stunned.

What happened next?

The next morning I booked a flight home for the kids and me, and told him to use the time to think. And to figure out what he wanted. Because for me there were only two options: either he stayed with us and never saw Melanie again, or he left us. I just wanted to go home and think too… I was so hurt, sad, angry, and helpless. I felt overwhelmed, unloved, and alone. It was truly awful.

So he cheated on you with a friend of yours. What did that do to you, and did you confront her?

Of course I felt doubly lied to and betrayed. That's a massive breach of trust. It was immediately clear to me that she didn't deserve a second chance. I cut off contact, but I never confronted her.

Did you want to give your husband a second chance?

I did a lot of thinking at home on my own, and I also talked on the phone with Melanie's husband. The two of them had already been separated for a few months, and he told me the affair had probably been going on for over a year. Another shock, because it meant my husband had cheated on me during my pregnancy, too.

What did your husband say about that?

He denied it and kept insisting the whole thing had only been going on for three months. When he got home, I asked him to pack his things and go. I couldn't stand having him around. He did move out, but he told me he wanted to save the marriage and would never see Melanie again.

We stayed in touch and wanted to see whether we still had a chance. But then I found out he was still seeing Melanie. For a long time I hoped he was just saying “goodbye,” but eventually I couldn't kid myself anymore. I knew it couldn't go on like this. That's when I pulled the plug and told him I wanted to split up.

How did the kids handle it?

It was hard on our oldest. She'd seen that I was doing badly and crying. And she missed her dad. It was important to me that he see the kids regularly, but of course that's not the same as living together. My ex then became officially a couple with Melanie. Our divorce followed, which was hard and ugly, and a lot of it was about money. I could no longer afford the house, so I moved out, and my ex moved in with Melanie. The two of them have since gotten married.

How are you doing today?

It was hard for me that my ex moved into our old house with his affair partner, who by then was his wife. He threw himself into life with her and saw the kids less and less. At some point the kids lost interest in a dad who didn't stick to the plans they'd made.

I'm happy again today, and without a man. What I definitely learned from all of this is that you should listen to your gut, always. You can just feel it when something's off. I will never again let anyone talk me into believing my gut is wrong and that I'm being hysterical.