My husband, Mike, had been working from home, often joined by his colleague John. I thought nothing of it, welcoming John as just another pleasant presence in our house.

I, Grace, am 30 years old. I met Mike, who is also 30, in college. And even though we’ve been happily married for six years, our love story isn’t a fairytale. I pursued him relentlessly until he finally caved. He was flattered by my persistence, which made a lasting impression.

Once I started to get to know Mike, I noticed that he was a distant man but he also had a caring heart and was very attentive. That was enough for me.

He introduced me to his family a year after we started dating, and they grew fond of me. “We never thought he would bring someone home,” his mother told me one evening at a Christmas dinner.

It turns out his family knew that he was reserved too and rarely discussed his love life. I was just happy that I was that one person he brought home to meet his family.

Three years into our relationship, his father started pestering him about getting married. I told Mike that I would only walk down the aisle when he was ready. I knew that he preferred taking his time doing some things and I did not want to add to the pressure.

One summer, he suggested that we go on a romantic getaway and I agreed. Mike chose a secluded yet romantic location for our time together.

While there one evening, he asked me to meet him outside near the lake and wear something nice. I walked into a candlelit dinner where he stood smiling from ear to ear.

I was taken by surprise yet I could not contain my excitement. He had been working too hard and was often stressed out because of his job, so I figured this would be a good thing for us.

As we sat down for dinner, Mike told me how much of an influence I had been in his life and that he was glad his family liked me. He then reached for his right pocket and pulled out a ring box.

Stunned by the surprise, I covered my mouth as he asked, “Grace, would you make me the happiest man and marry me?” With my heart jumping for joy, I screamed, “YES! Of course, I will marry you!” We sealed our evening with a kiss.

With him being a reserved individual, it felt incredible to see him give his heart to me in that moment. That said, we returned home with good news for his family and mine and everyone was happy for us.

Six months later, we had a romantic beach wedding. Soon after, we bought our first home. A year into our marriage, we found out we were expecting twins.

We knew that we needed to plan for our family financially. I’m a nurse and Mike is an architect. We already had the mortgage and car loans to pay off and the global pandemic only added to our financial woes.

This motivated Mike to work even harder to get as many projects as possible at work. However, he was not alone, his good friend and colleague, John, worked tirelessly to ensure they secured more projects.

The company they work for shifted a lot of the employees to remote work. This made Mike and John spend much more time together as John often came to our house to work on a project with my husband.

Besides work, John also became a good family friend and even joined us on vacations sometimes, including one trip to the Bahamas. John was a nice and sweet guy, so I had no problems with that.

One day, Mike went to meet John at a nearby restaurant which he had told me about. He left his computer on. When I went to turn it off, a message from John appeared. It read, “Darling, I’m already here, waiting for you.”

Shocked, I scrolled through their chat and discovered photos and messages that shattered my world — they were in a romantic relationship.

Being in disbelief yet feeling betrayed, I headed to the restaurant where they were. Catching them in the act confirmed my worst fears. Overwhelmed by anger, I took several photos of them together.

Back home, I didn’t confront Mike directly. Instead, I sent those pictures to all his colleagues at the post. The fallout was immediate and intense.

Mike was furious, accusing me of ruining his reputation. It seemed his concern was more about the workplace backlash than the betrayal itself. That’s why I left him.

My sister, who is bisexual, condemned my actions. She argued that even in our conservative country, where LGBTQ+ rights are only recently recognized, outing someone was a cruel tactic. She believed that while my anger was justified, the method of revenge was not.

Reflecting on her words, I realized the depth of my actions. Had it been any other secret, I might have exposed it too in my rage. But this was different — it involved outing someone’s sexual orientation, a deeply personal aspect, in a hostile environment.

This incident has left me questioning not just the betrayal, but the consequences of my own actions for revenge. Since discovering Mike’s infidelity, my entire world has crumbled. I am more torn that the man that I have come to love switched up on me after I exposed his affair.

I felt numb and wanted to scream at the top of my lungs when I realized he valued his reputation more than our life together. As for John, he left me completely speechless because I had welcomed him into my home and he became a part of my family.

Even our twins, Billy and Ella, have grown to like him as he spent much of his time in our household. Both he and Mike hid their romance fairly well. It turns out this had been going on for two years and they only got caught because Mike got careless.

It pains me that they knew what they were doing behind my back and continued to live like they did nothing wrong. In the aftermath of my revenge, I packed up my bags and moved into my parents’ house, taking along the children.

Mike became even more enraged when I moved out with the kids. He protested, saying, “The kids have nothing to do with this.” I responded that he should have considered our family before his actions.

It has been a few weeks since this discovery and I have become an emotional wreck. Never, did I think, that the man who was withdrawn in the beginning only to grow on me, would deceive me like this.

I told him that I would be filing for divorce and that the children would not be used as pawns in our breakup. Fortunately, we both agreed that we would shield them from this mess.

While staying with my parents, it has occurred to me that I missed all the red flags about Mike. Throughout our courtship, I was the one initiating things most of the time, he was overly private with his love life, and he only considered marriage once his father started pressuring him.

He did not want his secret known because he even married a woman, knowing very well that he liked men. I believe his father, a traditional man whose beliefs cannot be swayed by anything of this day and age, also played a role in Mike’s decision to live a lie.

Funnily enough, he became a good husband and father after we started our lives together as a married couple, and he never gave me a reason to believe that he was being unfaithful.

Yet again, I was so madly in love with him and could not believe that I managed to woo him even after his initial resistance, that I thought he loved me too.