The Betrayal I Couldn't Unsee

Kay, I used to think I knew what betrayal looked like.I thought betrayal was coming home to find your husband in another woman's bed. I thought it was lipstick on a shirt, a hotel receipt in his pocket, or a phone call at midnight that he couldn't explain.

I didn't know betrayal could also be words.Words typed casually on a phone. Words sent to someone from a life that existed before you. Words that can sit quietly on a screen and completely rearrange the way you see the person sleeping beside you.I have been married to my husband for six years.

Six years of marriage, children, work, responsibilities, routines and all the ordinary things that come with building a home with someone. I genuinely believed I was doing my best as a wife.I cooked. I woke up early to prepare his breakfast and lunch. I made sure he had something to carry to work.

I took care of the children, worked, cleaned and tried to keep everything running.I wasn't perfect, but I was trying.Then one day, I saw a conversation between my husband and a woman he had dated before he ever met me.An ex.

They had broken up two years before we met, and as far as I knew, that chapter of his life had been closed for good.Until I read their messages.They were talking about sex.And then I saw the sentence that broke something inside me.He told her, "Sex is very important in a man's life. I wish I married you instead."I read it again.And again.

Sometimes you read something so painful that your brain refuses to accept it the first time.This was my husband. The man I had spent six years building a life with. The man I had been waking up early for. The man whose children I was raising. The man I thought looked at me and saw his wife.

But apparently, somewhere in his mind, he was comparing me to a woman from his past.It wasn't just that they were talking. It was the fact that he was telling another woman how much he enjoyed being with her and trying to convince her to sleep with him again.

And when she didn't agree, he went even further.He told her about me.He...