Men think they are smart until they start cheating. Everything shows yet they think they’ve covered up their tracks. They change. They change the way they behave. The way they talk, the way they lead and the way they let their guard down. They start keeping to themselves even while with you and the time they spend at the toilet becomes longer than usual. They go in with their phones and they return with a smile on their lips. They claim to be the leaders of the house yet they can’t lead themselves successfully when cheating is involved. Unless you’re not watching or you don’t want to know but if you do, and if you possess average observational skills, a cheating man becomes an open book. 

My husband didn’t stop caring or didn’t stop playing his role as a husband but once another woman came into the picture, I noticed it. He was overly happy and talked freely about things on a normal day he wouldn’t talk about. Whenever I asked about his day, the answer he gave was general and short; “My day was fine. Just work and back home.” Previously it was, “Office was very hectic today and to make things worse, Alice was on my neck all day pushing me around as if I was his son.” Alice is his boss. Once he introduced her name into the conversation, he’ll go on and on and on mentioning all the names in his office who contributed in making his day good or bad. 

Because of these little conversations, I knew everyone in his office by name. Once we went to their end-of-year party and he would point at people and say; “That’s Mavis. That’s John…” My husband is very detailed when he talks but once a woman started filling up his days, his answers became short and the time he spent with me after work also suffered. He would like to stay at the corner of the hall, pressing on his phone while pretending to be working on his laptop. He’ll smile at himself while reading something on his phone. He’ll hurriedly type. Once in a while, he’ll lift up his head and look in my direction to see if I’m watching him. 

I would be watching him from the corners of my eyes while asking myself, “What has come over this man? Who’s rocking his world that he doesn’t look my way?” There’s a popular meme that says, “When the conversation gets shorter with you, it means it’s getting longer with someone else.” That’s very true so I started fishing out for who’s taking my place in my husband’s life. Our marriage was too young to breed secrets or to have people coming between us. We had married for two years after dating for the same number of years. 

One night, while he was asleep, I took his phone. There was nowhere to look but on his phone. It had the same password he gave me when he promised to be transparent but his Whatsapp password was different. I tried all the combinations I knew and it didn’t work. I went straight to his iMessage and started reading whatever I could find. There was a thread between him and a number saved as Eli. I went straight to it. The last message between them was three days ago. Eli said, “Have you seen the photo I sent on Whatsapp?” My husband responded, “Let me check.” The next message was an emoji. The one licking its lips. He said, “You see why I’m crazy about you? Because you’re crazy.”

I started imagining the kind of photo she sent him that made him say that. I went to Whatsapp again to try another combination. It didn’t work. I went back to iMessage and scrolled through until I met another set of messages. The lady said, “We should have met earlier.” My husband answered, “It’s not too late. We can still make something happen or we can run away.” The lady asked, “Can you leave your wife for me?” My husband answered, “If only you’ll leave your husband.”

“Wow! He’s dating a married woman? Of all the women in this world he chose to cheat on me with a married woman? What does he see in her?” 

I had all the evidence I needed but I didn’t rush. I wanted more. I wanted an opportunity to see the photo of the woman. I wanted to see her and see what she had that I didn’t have. I wanted to know where she works, if she had kids. I wanted to know the name of her husband. Anything at all. I wanted to be ready with all the facts before facing my husband with them. I took the lady’s number but I didn’t know where to start. 

Each time I saw him happy in front of his phone, I got angry. There was a huge change in me but the head of my house wasn’t able to detect the changes. Or he did and decided to ignore. I was giving him straight answers. I started keeping to myself too. I was waiting for a day he would approach to have shuperu so I would say no but he never did. I started thinking back to the time he approached for shuperu and I didn’t remember. All the times we did, I initiated it. Another way to detect cheating tendencies in a man. They stop asking for shuperu when previously they were on you each night. 

Days rolled into weeks, weeks into a month. I couldn’t access his Whatsapp to read what was there. I couldn’t call the woman too. She owed me no explanation as to why she was cheating with my husband when she had her own. One afternoon, his phone’s screen lit up and the name that appeared was Eli. He looked at the phone and took his eyes off it as if he hadn’t seen her calling. I said, “You have a call.” He answered, “He’s coming to worry me, I won’t mind him.” 

“Him? Eli is him?” 

“Yeah, he’s a colleague at work. Why?”

“Pick the call and put it on a loudspeaker let’s see if it’s a man’s voice we’ll hear. Pick the call up!” 

“What are you talking about? Why are you talking as if you know the one calling than I do?”

“I know her but not more than you do. How can I possibly know someone you’ve been sleeping with more than you do?”

He called me crazy. He started flexing his authority around just to keep me quiet. “How dare you speak to your husband like that? What has come over you?” “You want to know what has come over me?” I asked. “Eli has come over me. You’re not ashamed that you’re cheating with another man’s wife. You’re even waiting for her to leave her husband so you can also leave me for her. Or you’ve decided to run away with her as you suggested?”

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When he realized I knew too much, he went quiet. I said, “I know where her husband works. Tomorrow I’ll go to him and show him the evidence. I hope it makes you happy because your dream of her leaving her husband will come through so you marry her.” My husband didn’t utter another word. He sat there looking at his phone ashamed and confused. There is no need to beat a man who is already down so I walked away. That night when I was in bed, he woke me up, knelt beside the bed and begged me. He made a lot of promises and even promised to compensate me for the pain. He promised never to do it again and he showed me a message he sent to her a while ago telling her it was over. “I swear it will never happen again.”

I didn’t forgive him right there and there. I asked for space to heal and also asked if I did something wrong for him to go that far. He admitted I did nothing wrong but rather, he did everything wrong. He gave me the space I needed and with time I healed. As I indicated, he was cheating on me but never did he shirk his responsibility towards me or even treated me badly. Except for the emotional absence, all was well. It was not easy to forgive but for the sake of peace, I let it go. 

Eight months later, I found out that he was still seeing the woman. He had changed her name on his phone to Eric but he couldn’t change their line of conversation. I was four months pregnant when I found out. I didn’t say a word. I had said enough. I didn’t act angry, there was no point to. My father’s house has so many rooms waiting for me so one day I packed my things and left the house without telling him anything. He called to ask where I was and I told him, “I’ve told my parents about my intention for a divorce. Tell your family to get ready for us. We’ll come and see them very soon.” He screamed, “What are you saying? What happened?” I answered, “Eric happened. Eli turned Eric is the reason our marriage is over.” 

He likes To Stare At Women Who Have What I Don’t Have | Beads Media

He’s still pleading. Our child is now three months old. He comes around to visit and uses the opportunity to ask for forgiveness. I’ve forgiven him but I’m no longer going back to the marriage. My parents are delaying the process thinking the birth of our child will make me change my mind. They don’t know the kind of heart I have. Once my child is old enough to be left in the care of others, I’ll initiate the court process to bring my marriage to an end. He can go ahead and marry Eli so I can have my peace of  mind 

–Mina

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