I started cheating a year after marriage. I had no particular reason to apart from the fact that I met a beautiful lady out of town who didn’t care that I was married. Matilda. Right from day one, she gave me cues and I followed. A week later, we were in bed together.

I was happy that she knew I was married. It made our relationship easier. We could draw boundaries on anything. She knew when to call, and she understood why I wouldn’t respond to her text messages at certain periods of time.

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When she needed something, I did my best to give it to her. She wasn’t materialistic. She needed more of my time than I could possibly give. So she would travel to town, lodge in a hotel for days, and I would see her every day until she finally left. It didn’t mean I loved my wife less. I loved her. She still was the right choice for me, and I would marry her again if it came to that. I was only cheating for cheating’s sake.

My wife wanted a child badly. I told her she should close her mind and sleep, and that a child would come when it would come. I didn’t realize it until she told me that our bedroom life wasn’t as it used to be. “Are you tired already?” she asked. “We just started ooo. We don’t even have a baby yet, so you better get some boosters and let’s get going.”

Matilda was taking all my attention and was giving me positions my wife wouldn’t dream of. I loved it more with her than with my wife, so I gave it all to her while my wife had to ask for it, or even beg for just one round. She needed it to conceive, but I was busy giving it to another woman who threw it away. I felt guilty. I felt I was wasting my life out there when I could put all my eggs in my wife’s basket.

Two years without a child, and my wife was getting desperate. We were doing our best, but the child wouldn’t come. One day, Matilda called and said she suspected she was pregnant. I told her, “Please, you shouldn’t ooo. That will complicate our situation, and you know it.” She said she knew what to do and I shouldn’t worry. That was the last time I heard of the pregnancy. Whether it was true and she handled it, or it was a false alarm, I don’t know, but I was glad it didn’t happen.

I saw a call on my wife’s phone while she was dressing up. Her phone didn’t ring. I only saw the caller’s number dancing on the screen. She picked up the phone, asked, “Who’s this one too?” and then put the phone back down. The number called again. She saw it but didn’t pick up. She dressed up, and once she stepped out of the door, I saw her phone on her ear making a call.

It was a very innocuous scene, but it triggered something in me. Why was her phone on silent? And why didn’t she pick up the call? Who was she calling when she stepped out, the same number? So when she came back from town, I decided to go through her phone and see who she was calling. It was the same number she refused to pick. They spoke for only forty-seven seconds.

I checked her call log, and that number was a constant feature. There was no name on it, but it had been calling her every day. I typed the number into my phone and ran it through Truecaller. He was James. I couldn’t go through her messages. She had a password on them. Everything looked like I wasn’t the only one playing the cheating game. My heart started racing faster than it should. Even the thought made me go crazy.

I got angry easily. I would give her silent treatment over little issues. She wondered what was happening, but I couldn’t tell her what I’d seen. I wanted concrete evidence first before I kicked the ball.

It took a long time, but I was always vigilant. There was a funeral the two of us should have attended, but she cancelled it the night before the funeral. She said she was tired and Monday was going to be very stressful at work, so she needed to rest. I left home Friday after work, but I came back on Saturday when she thought I would return on Sunday.

She wasn’t home when I got there, but on the phone she said she was home. I waited patiently until late at night, around 9 p.m., when she came, dressed like she was coming from a king’s banquet. I snatched her phone and went through her call logs. She had called James a few minutes earlier. “What’s your password?” I demanded.

That was all we fought about all night, her password. She didn’t give it to me, even when I threatened divorce. When I asked who James was and why she hadn’t saved his number and why she was always talking to him, she said he was a work colleague and they talked a lot because of work. I narrated the first time I saw James calling and she didn’t pick up, then later stepped out to call him. She said she didn’t remember. She was lying, and it was obvious. The only truth should have been on her WhatsApp, but it had a different password.

I screamed, “If you’re not cheating or hiding something, why is the password different on WhatsApp?” She asked, “Haven’t you done the same on your phone?” I asked her to leave my house if she wasn’t going to tell me the password. That night we didn’t sleep. Eventually, our parents had to be involved. I told them I wasn’t going to marry a cheat, so the marriage was over. “I can only forgive if she will confess.” She responded, “There’s nothing to confess.”

We lived apart for three months. It looked like I was the one suffering while she was calm about everything. One day, my conscience kicked in. “Why are you dragging this? Aren’t you doing the same thing?” This played in my mind anytime I thought about it. It was obvious I didn’t want the marriage to end, and she also didn’t want a divorce.

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We are back together, rebuilding from scratch. There’s no more Matilda and there’s no more James. Our phones have become open doors. No more closed doors. We are rebuilding the trust we lost. It hasn’t been easy for us, but I see this—sharing my story—as the final step to healing. I’m confessing what I wouldn’t confess to her, hoping it makes the process easier since I’m owning up to my own shortcomings.

—Josh

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