If you found out that your spouse was sleeping with your coworker and they begged you for another chance, would you grant them one?
In January, this 30-year-old woman celebrated her four-year wedding anniversary with her 30-year-old husband, and they have been with one another since college.
Two years into their marriage, they relocated to a new state for her husband’s job, which was a big change for her since they didn’t know a single soul.
“I didn’t really want to move, but I love my husband and wanted to support him in his career. I always knew that, based on his job, there was a good chance we’d end up moving to another state sooner or later,” she explained.
“I have a teacher’s license and was working as a teacher prior to our move, but we live in a pretty small town with not many teaching opportunities, so I ended up just getting the best job I could for now as sort of a temporary thing, and that’s where I’m currently working right now.”
“One of my co-workers was around my age, a newlywed, and not originally from this area. So, we sort of clicked and became friends. Eventually, it led to us getting together with our husbands, and we’d hang out together a lot, the 4 of us.”
9 or 10 months after she met her coworker, her coworker got pregnant with her firstborn, and she was thrilled for the happy couple. The baby arrived five months ago.
While her coworker was pregnant with her first child, her marriage was doing fine. Her husband is wonderful, but she grew very homesick, leading her into a depression.
It was extra sad to her to realize that she likely would never move back to where they were from, and then she and her husband decided to begin building their own family.
“I think I caught the baby bug being around my coworker throughout her pregnancy, and my husband and I decided to start trying for a baby of our own,” she added.
“I just wasn’t getting pregnant, though. I started to get depressed and worried that after 4 months of trying, there was nothing. I know 4 months isn’t long, but at the time, it felt like it was….nothing I did made me get pregnant.”
“5 months into trying, I got pregnant. Unfortunately, I had a miscarriage just 2 weeks after we found out. We decided to put the baby thing on pause for a little while and focus on things we’ve always wanted to do together, visiting certain places and things like that.”
As she was struggling through her miscarriage, her coworker was her biggest source of support and comfort. She spilled all of her extremely personal details to her coworker and told her things she didn’t even dare share with her family.
But then one day, another one of their coworkers, a 50-something-year-old woman who is super direct, texted her to say she saw her husband and her coworker in her husband’s truck, sitting in the parking lot of a hotel.
She instantly tried to make sense of the news, but she couldn’t understand why her coworker and husband would be in his truck at a hotel. Also, they had never hung out alone, or at least she didn’t think so.
She confronted her husband, who said that the woman had made a mistake because he wasn’t at a hotel, let alone hanging out with her coworker.
Deep down, she did not believe her husband. The woman who tipped her off doesn’t stir the pot or make mistakes. Despite that, she attempted to believe her husband and overcome her suspicions.
She also chose not to call out her coworker. She was humiliated and didn’t want her coworker to know that, so she took a step back from their friendship.
Her coworker didn’t ask if anything was going on, and that should have been a clue to her, because any good friend who isn’t sleeping with your husband would be concerned.
A month later, her husband announced that he was going away for a work trip for three days. He had to go stay in the mountains for that.
“Guess who asked for 3 days of PTO from work for the exact same 3 days? I stayed silent, but seething. That night, he went to bed, and I spent over 30 minutes trying to figure out his passcode on his phone until I finally got in and looked at their texts,” she said.
“Yep, they were going to be in the mountains, alright. In the mountains, in a cabin with her! Their entire conversation was just dirty texts and pictures back and forth.”
“They were meeting up multiple days a week during lunch breaks to [sleep together]. Multiple days a week!”
Her coworker is off Sunday through Monday, and her husband was going to her coworker’s house to hook up with her on her days off.
She couldn’t go to sleep that night. As soon as her husband got up, she laced into him, and he tried to lie, but she had screenshots of the messages.
Finally, her husband burst into tears and apologized, stating it was just a physical connection, and he was extremely compatible with her coworker that way.
He said their own physical romance became a chore when they were trying to have a baby, and her husband said his affair had gone on for the last six months, meaning her coworker was pregnant when it began.
“Everything I sacrificed and gave up for him, and this is what he does to me? And while I was going through trying to get pregnant and a miscarriage and spending sooo much time talking to her and sharing so many personal things with her, she was sleeping with him,” she continued.
“The betrayal I feel is unreal right now. My marriage, my closest friendship here, my job. I just don’t know what I’m going to do. This was 2 weeks ago that I found the text proof.”
“I took a few days off work because I couldn’t be around her, but I’ve been going to work and literally working right next to her every single day. I told everyone at work, though. They all know, and I don’t care how unprofessional that was. I can’t believe she continues to show up and not really act with any sort of shame.”
Her husband is pleading with her to give him another chance, but she’s not so sure she’s capable of that.
I think her husband is only sorry that she caught him, not that he cheated. He doesn’t deserve another chance, and she should file for divorce, pack up, and move back home. She will be a whole lot happier in the long run.
Also, I am curious if her husband is the father of her coworker’s firstborn.
What advice do you have for her?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
