Infidelity threatening to ruin our marriage

My husband and I have been happily married for 10 years and God has blessed us with four children.

Generally, ours was a blissful marriage until eight months ago when I discovered he had been cheating on me, not with only one, two, three… but seven women, some of them married, who also happen to be his subordinates at work.

I had never suspected my husband of infidelity; not in my wildest dreams, until I discovered photographs of a semi-nude woman on his laptop, which he had lent to me to facilitate my research work.

My husband is a high profile person, who travels regularly and I suspect the pictures were taken during one his trips abroad. When I inquired, he was elusive.

At first I did not want to believe that he had all along been cheating on me, but after thoroughly searching my remotest inner self, I realised I was being too naïve, playing the proverbial ostrich, when the clues were glaringly before me. I thus embarked on a thorough clandestine mission to find out the truth.

In my investigations, I landed on some hotel reservations for two; my husband and a married female colleague during one of his official trips outside the country. I also found a text message on his phone from another female subordinate (also married) after what I suspected was a night out, with the words: “Thank you for the good time we had last night. I can’t wait for the opportunity of having you again in my arms.”

Armed with the above information, I set out to probe further. Being an IT expert, I scrutinised his communications through web-based technologies and confirmed that he was actually exchanging erotic e-mail, phone messages and chat messages with seven married women.

I then embarked on my groundwork to establish the identity of these women and as I talk now, I have established that four of them are out of the country, each leaving in a different country, which my husband frequents. The other three are his colleagues (subordinates) at work.

I went ahead to secure a hotel report bearing their names and passport details and confirmed that actually the two shared a room. My suspicion was further confirmed by the erotic e-mails explicitly describing the various sexual encounters between these different women and my husband and the undeclared love gifts from various women.

Whenever my husband travelled, in most cases, I did not even know the details of the hotel he was booked in. I would always wait for him to call which he was always in a rush to do.

On that bizarre trip with a subordinate, since I had the hotel details, I called several times when the children were sick, but it seems he had instructed the hotel personnel not to transfer any calls to the room.  This prompted me to do more groundwork.

Having wholeheartedly loved and trusted my husband for all these years, I felt terribly betrayed, more so after realising that these women did not measure up to my standards. They are all much older than me and not physically attractive. As a well brought up girl, I kept calm and I waited for the right environment when I would get him into talking to give me a full account of this story.

He was elusive at first, but with the various evidence I presented, he got remorseful, apologised and made a lot of flowery offers, but that did not divert my attention. However, despite the fact that he knew I was armed with the truth, he could neither confess nor tell me details of his sinister acts.

At this time, I did not tell anybody or seek anybody’s advice. As a born-again Christian, I knew the power was on my knees. I cried out to God earnestly and called upon Him to intervene. I decided to think positively about the whole thing, and reminded my husband of the vows we made. Prayer has been my weapon and I already see positive results.

I later confided in my pastor, who advised me that in order to get total deliverance, I needed to forgive my husband and all those women he was involved with since they were being used by the devil to fulfill their insatiable desires. This was so painful at first, but it was the key to my total deliverance.

I do not feel the burden on my heart anymore and I keep reminding myself that vengeance is the Lord’s, not mine.

I sat down with my husband and we laid down action points. Since communication was a key setback, we agreed on open communication policy in whatever form; phone calls, SMS, e-mails, social networks, etc since these were the channels used by those women.

My husband and I keep joint business accounts and we both sign in case of transactions. My prayer is that we can discuss and agree about securing our children’s future. My desire would be for us to open up a joint foreign account and a young savers account for each of the children. All property, assets or shares should be registered in both names.

After this heart-rending experience, I advise fellow women to never take anything for granted. My husband has always been the most caring husband. Every time he travels he comes back with boxes of the latest trendy clothes, shoes, perfumes, lingerie, children’s clothes, expensive games, toys, etc, so for me there was no room to suspect anything.

It is now that I look back and recall that on a few occasions, I have seen one of his female colleagues wearing clothes similar to mine; I now know the origin of this.

Never trust any woman close to your husband whether it is your best friend, your colleague, his female colleagues, etc.

Always do a background check on any of his trips or frequent phone calls. Cheaters always use mobile phones, e-mails and social networks like Facebook, twitter, Quepasa, Badoo, Netlog etc to flirt.

I have since failed to get to terms with the fact that he betrayed my trust. Every time I see him naked I imagine him sleeping with those women. However, I have tried to do everything to protect our children from knowing their father’s irresponsible behaviour. Besides, he adores them a lot and they are too young to imagine such a thing so we always discuss these issues in privacy.

Like I said earlier, vengeance is the Lord’s. But the victim should look for facts, maintain a decent outlook and avoid confrontation as it brings you down to the same level with your tormenters.

Inform your husband of the facts and let him know the dangers he is exposing you and the entire family to, pray for him to change and avoid talking to friends, some of whom may ill-advise you. Seek counsel from professional marriage counsellors.

Maintain your dignity, walk with your head high, look after yourself well and dress your best, keep focused in your career and shield your marriage against any dangers which can lead to separation or divorce. Fill all the gaps in your marriage and always pray for wisdom. In God’s own timing, the home-wreckers will find their level. Always pray to God to make you a wife of noble character (Proverbs 31:10)

I got to know all these seven cheating married women at once – three are from his office and I see them occasionally, but I chose to ignore them since they add no value to my life. Of course, it is devastating, but as the Bible says “No weapon formed against us shall prosper in Jesus name.”


As told to Her Vision writer