My Husband Didn’t Suspect I Was Cheating on Him

I’d just walked into our house after seeing the man I was having an affair with, only to be startled by the sight of my husband in our living room. He was seated on the sofa as if he’d been waiting for me to get home.

He had been waiting for me.

“Hello,” he said.

“What are you doing here?” I stammered.

“I live here,” he answered.

Of course — I had to calm down. I just wasn’t used to seeing him out of bed. My husband rarely left our bedroom anymore, instead spending the majority of his day sprawled out on our mattress, reading about conspiracy theories.

He was unemployed. We hardly spoke to one another. We never had sex. That was why I was cheating, after all.

And still, I wasn’t afraid that he suspected I was having an affair. In the two months since I’d been seeing another man behind his back, he never once asked where I went off to each morning after I dropped our kids at school, only to arrive home again at 2 p.m.

And I did this Monday through Friday. This was why our marriage was failing. Any regular husband would have wanted to know where his wife was for hours at a time, five days a week.

But my husband wasn’t a regular husband. He was an obsessed conspiracy theorist.

My husband and I both adopted solutions to survive our problems. Cheating was mine.

After we lost everything in the financial crisis of 2008, my husband became obsessed with conspiracy theories. I believe this was his way of dealing with the implosion of his career. The properties he once owned foreclosed, we lost our house, and both became bankrupt.

I picked up the pieces the best I could. My husband didn’t fare as well. That left me to deal with our kids on my own as he dove deep into conspiracy theory and refused to find new work.

I finally got fed up with the treatment and took a lover. I had an affair because I didn’t want to leave my husband. Cheating was my way of staying married.

I was cheating to survive. I felt neglected and unloved. I felt like my husband had forgotten about my existence entirely.

Cheating was a Band-Aid over the wound that was our dissolving relationship. Maybe having an affair wasn’t so different than what my husband had done by becoming a conspiracy theorist when his properties were seized by the bank.

We were both just trying to cope with our sad realities. I wanted to be loved — but because my husband could no longer manage loving me, I found someone who could.

The real reason my husband was looking for me that day.

“Where have you been all morning?” my husband asked as I faced him in our living room after I’d spent the entire morning with my lover.

Suddenly, I was nervous that he might suspect I was betraying him.

“Deborah,” I spluttered.

There was no Deborah. My answer was nonsensical. The name was simply the first thing that came to mind.

My mind raced to create a story that made sense.

“Deborah is a friend from yoga,” I clarified. “After yoga, a bunch of us went back to Deborah’s place.”

I was lying through my teeth, but my husband didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t ask me to explain who Deborah was or who the rest of these people were who’d gone back to “Deborah’s place” on a Tuesday morning with seemingly nothing better to do with their lives but “hang at Deborah’s after yoga.”

If my alibi didn’t smack of reality, my husband didn’t say so. All he said was: “Please don’t leave again without telling me.”

The way he said it. That’s when I knew. There was another reason he’d wanted me while I was out.

“What did you need from me while I was gone?” I asked suspiciously.

Part of me still hoped he’d say it was because he missed me. Nothing could prepare me for what came out of his mouth.

“My clothes. I couldn’t find anything clean to wear in the closet.”

I’d done a wash the night before but had yet to empty the dryer.

“You mean don’t leave again without telling you where your clean clothes are,” I snapped. “Try opening the dryer door next time.”

He hadn’t been waiting for me to arrive home because he was curious about my whereabouts or worried about me.

All he cared about was what I could do for him. I was nothing more than his maid.

The only person I was really cheating was me.

I finally accepted reality that day. Our relationship was over. Soon after, I found the courage to leave my marriage.

By cheating to stay married, I didn’t just betray my husband — I betrayed myself.

In the end, the only true loser was me.