The Lies Between Us

A betrayed husband uncovers his wife's passionate affair, spirals into heartbreak and rage

I always thought marriage would be hard work. I was ready for that. Ready to build a life with Sally — my best friend, my lover, my partner. I gave her everything: my time, my devotion, my heart.
But nothing prepares you for betrayal. Nothing prepares you for the slow, rotting feeling that starts in your gut when you realize the person you loved most in the world saw you as disposable.

It all started two years ago, but the wound is still fresh like it happened yesterday.

Sally had always traveled for work — a few days here and there, conferences, seminars, interviews for better jobs. I was proud of her, pushing her career. I never once questioned it. Not once.
That's how much I trusted her.

I remember the night she left for "work." Her suitcase sat by the door. She kissed me on the lips — quick, distracted — and promised to call when she landed.
I watched her leave, a little ache in my chest already missing her.
God, what a fool I was.

When she came back four days later, she was different. Her touches were colder. Her hugs mechanical. She smiled at me, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
But again, I brushed it off. Maybe she was tired. Maybe work was stressing her out.

Then she left her phone on the coffee table

Unlocked, even though I had the password just never had reason to use it to snoop as I trusted her.

I swear to God, I didn't mean to snoop.
But a message flashed across the screen — a name I didn’t recognize. Steve.
Just three words: "Miss you, sexy."

My blood ran cold. My heart slammed against my ribs so loud I thought I might black out.
Something pulled me to pick up the phone.
My hands trembled.
I opened the message.

And that’s when my entire world caved in.

Hundreds of messages.
Dirty ones.
Pictures.
Videos.

Sally had sent him everything. Nude after nude. Poses she never even gave me after years of marriage. She bent over, spread herself open for him, her eyes wild and needy.
The kind of need she hadn’t shown me in years.
God, the things she said to him.
How wet she was thinking about him.
How she couldn’t wait to taste him.
How badly she wanted to feel him inside her.

And then I saw it — the hotel room photos.
Sally lying naked on rumpled white sheets, her thighs spread.
Steve's hands gripping her hips, his cock buried deep inside her.

My stomach lurched.

There were videos, too.
Sally moaning like a slut, riding Steve hard, her tits bouncing, nails clawing his chest.
Telling him how good he fucked her.
Telling him no one had ever made her feel like this.

I dropped the phone like it burned my skin.

For some reason I had to pick it back up and keep going.
When I looked deeper through her phone I saw more than just the naked pictures and the filthy messages.
I saw them.
Sally and Steve.
Together.
Like a fucking couple.
There were dozens of photos she didn’t bother to delete — smiling selfies in front of famous landmarks, holding hands down crowded streets, Sally’s head tucked against his shoulder like she belonged there.
I stared at each one, feeling like my chest was caving in.
She had flown thousands of miles to see him — told me it was a "corporate meeting" — packed her best dresses, her heels, her makeup, not for meetings, but for him.
I could almost picture it:
Her stepping off the plane, her heart pounding, looking around the busy terminal until she saw him.
Steve waiting there, grinning that cocky, wolfish grin, arms open wide.
And Sally — my wife — running into them, laughing, letting him spin her around like they were some star-crossed lovers in a goddamn movie.
They wasted no time.
Sightseeing.
Laughing.
Holding hands.
Taking cheesy tourist photos — her kissing his cheek in front of the cathedral, him playfully grabbing her ass when no one was looking, both of them smiling like they'd known each other forever.
One photo gutted me more than all the others.
It was Sally sitting on a park bench, sunlight in her hair, gazing up at Steve with a look of pure adoration — the kind of look I hadn’t seen from her in years.
Not even on our wedding day.
She wasn’t stressed.
She wasn’t guilty.
She wasn’t hesitating.
She was happy.
With him.
After sightseeing, they'd find some dark little cafes, order drinks, Sally's leg pressed up against his under the table.
I read the texts where she giggled about it later — how she couldn't keep her hands off him, how she was "so wet" walking around the city knowing what they'd do once they got back to the hotel.
And then the videos —
God, the videos.
Back at the hotel room, Sally straddling him on the bed, still half-dressed from their day out.
Her sundress hitched up around her waist.
No panties.
Steve's hands gripping her ass, guiding her down onto his cock.
She rode him slow at first, like she wanted to savor it, their mouths locked together in sloppy kisses.
She was moaning his name, whispering filthy things in his ear, begging him to fuck her harder.
I could see her wedding ring flashing on her finger as she clawed at his chest.
And when she came — when she threw her head back and cried out —
it wasn’t my name on her lips.
It was his.
They fucked like they were making up for lost time.
Like they were the real couple.
Like I was the affair.
And later —
after they'd finished, sweaty and tangled in the hotel sheets —
there were more pictures.
Sally curled up against Steve's chest, smiling, her body naked and unashamed.
With rage my hand holding the phone get tighter and tighter and sill I wanted to do squeeze it just that little more and..... crush the fucking thing, but I'm not that strong so I had to settle for a sore hand from squeezing so hard.
Breathing hard, nauseous, angry, confused,
She didn’t just cheat on me.
She lived another life with him.
Pretended I didn’t even exist.
While I sat at home, missing her.
Cooking dinner for one.
Sending her sweet texts: “Hope you’re having a good trip, I love you.”
While she was out there, living a fairytale with a felon who saw her as nothing but another conquest.
When she came home, she lied straight to my face.
Kissed me like nothing had changed.
But everything had.
Everything.

When she came back into the room, she froze.
She knew, she knew even before seeing the phone in my hand.
I saw it in her eyes — that brief flash of panic before she hardened, defensive.

When I confronted her, finally — when the evidence was too much for her to deny — she didn’t fall apart crying like I thought she would.
No.
Sally just looked... Lost, confused and probably thinking fuck how am I getting out of this.
I asked her why — demanded it, my voice shaking, heart hammering so loud it hurt.
How could she do this? After everything we’d been through? After everything I’d given her?
Her excuse?
"I don’t know, John. I just... I felt trapped. Bored, maybe. I needed to feel... wanted again."
Wanted.
Like all my love, all my devotion — every touch, every kiss, every whispered "I love you" —
wasn’t enough.
She said it like it was nothing.
Like slipping out of our marriage vows was the same as buying a new pair of shoes.
Like fucking another man wasn’t a choice — but some need she couldn’t control.
"You were always working late," she added, as if that justified it. "You were stressed. I was lonely. Steve just... made me feel special again."
Special.
She needed to feel "special," so she spread her legs for a stranger from the internet with a rap sheet longer than my goddamn arm.
I asked her if she even thought about me.
If, at any point during the flights, the sightseeing, the hotel sex, she remembered she had a husband at home — a husband who adored her.
She just looked away, ashamed maybe or maybe not.
"I didn’t plan it," she mumbled.
"It just... happened."
Bullshit.
You don't just accidentally book a plane ticket.
You don’t accidentally suck another man's cock in a foreign hotel room while texting your husband, "Miss you, baby."
You don’t accidentally talk to him for 6 months 12 months or whatever it is then plan a romantic trip.
You choose it.
Every text.
Every photo.
Every kiss.
Every thrust of her hips.
It was all a choice.

She changed every password.
Deleted what she could in front of me to try satisfy me.
Swore she was done with him.
That it was just "a mistake," "a moment of weakness," "something she regretted."

But when I asked to see proof, to see the messages she promised she had deleted — she refused.

Told me I needed to "trust her" again.
Told me I had to "move on" if I really loved her.

Move on.
Like flipping a switch.

But every time she took a business trip now, every time she opened her phone and tilted the screen away from me, that knife twisted deeper.
I started second-guessing everything — every work trip, every interview, every late night she said she was at "meetings."
Had she been fucking someone else before Steve too?
Was she ever really mine?

I wasn’t perfect. I made mistakes in our early years — being young, dumb, selfish sometimes.
But I learned.
I grew.
I became the man she deserved: loyal, hardworking, adoring.

But none of it mattered.
Not to her.

Two years later, we barely touch.
There’s no intimacy. No affection.
She keeps her body at a distance like it's a weapon she refuses to give me access to anymore.

I lie awake at night, my body aching for her, the memories of her moans — for him — echoing in my skull like a curse.

I see her walking around the house, phone always glued to her hand, always shielded from my view, and I wonder if she's sexting someone else right under my nose.

I wonder if she ever truly loved me at all.
Because a true love would not do such things.

Or if I was just a stepping stone.
Someone safe.
Someone stable.
Someone boring.

While she chased the thrill of being wanted — even if it was by a man like Steve, a criminal who used her, lied to her, fucked her and discarded her like garbage.

But the cruelest part?
Even after everything, some nights when I close my eyes...
I still want her.
I still dream about her — the way her body once melted against mine, the way she used to look at me with real love in her eyes.

I hate her for what she did.
I hate myself for still loving her.

I don't know how this ends.
Maybe someday I'll find the strength to walk away.

But right now...
I’m just a ghost in the house we built together, living with the woman who destroyed me —
and pretending I don't notice how eagerly she hides her sins.