Love is the most overrated emotion. As a child, we keep dreaming of the prince who will come rescue us, make everything okay with a kiss and give us our happily ever after. Sadly, though, princes don't exist in real life.

I too got married to the love of my life after being in a relationship with him for eight years. Yet, he cheated on me twice.This is how my husband paid me back for loving and worshiping him.

It happened in November 2016. There was no premonition of any sort to warn me of the impeding disaster that was to occur in my personal life. Nothing to indicate that this would become a day I would want to forget for the rest of my life, but would never be able to. 

Just like any other day, that evening too when I was leaving office, I only had my cozy bed and maybe a drink or two to soothe my nerves, on my mind. On my way back home, I stopped at the supermarket and picked up a few groceries and reached the metro station just in time to catch the last train. From there, I walked towards my home, met a few people, chatted with them for a while and finally reached home to find my little baby playing badminton. I sat down with a cup of coffee and my mobile phone. I noticed the 'other' inbox on my Facebook messenger that had somehow skipped my attention in the past. I realized that anyone who was not my friend on Facebook could send me a message here and decided to go through these messages and clear this folder. It's strange how we never bother to clear our minds of unnecessary baggage, yet we do so with our mobile phones, our homes, our wardrobes and everything else.

Anyway, I noticed how year after year, many messages had accumulated in this 'other' inbox. Some were messages from marketing campaigns, some were sale announcements and a few were sleazy messages from desperate men.

Then, I came across one message which was sent precisely three years, eight months and a day ago. I didn't know her, yet she knew me by my name. She also knew my husband.

And in the message she said that she had dated him four years back and even had a physical relation with him. I was gripped with anger. Who was this woman trying to defame my husband?, I thought. But, I kept reading her messages, trying to make sense of everything. She had also sent an audio clip, it was a piece of conversation between her and my husband. I listened to it once and thought it was fake. Maybe she was just leveling an old grudge, I argued with myself. But my mind was in turmoil and I listened to it again, and then I recognized the peculiar way my husband speaks in and realized it was him.

No, I didn't cry. I didn't stop functioning either. In fact, I just kept my phone down and went out to play badminton with my son. Later, I fed him, packed his school bag and put him to bed. Only then did I let myself sit down and think things through. I messaged my husband and asked him about her. When he came home, he started weaving a web of lies for me. He said that he did not know her, that she had worked with him for a very short time and that he had no idea why she could have messaged me. He then had his dinner and we went out for our customary walk. He again tried to convince me of his lie. I didn't counter-question him, but I didn't believe him either and I think somewhere he too knew it.

Later that night, I messaged that woman and asked her to prove her relationship with my husband. I messaged her after my husband made passionate love to me. By early morning, her replies started pouring in my inbox. She sent me screenshots of their conversations and after finishing my daily chores, I forwarded them all to my husband. This time, he knew that I knew. He still only accepted half the truth and blamed it all on a few extra drinks. But in the end, he had to accept that he was young and successful and didn't know right from wrong. He told me that their affair had gone on for three months and had come to an end when she asked him to commit. I accepted his explanation and tried to move on with it. I tried to be strong but I was completely shattered from inside.

I just wanted everything around me to collapse and finish me along with it. I wanted to lock myself in a room and cry out loud without explaining anything to anyone. I wanted to be away from it all. But I couldn't do a thing. I had a responsibility to shoulder, a corporate meeting to attend, many more pending work to do. My responsibilities didn't care that my husband-  whom I had chosen and loved unconditionally - had let me down and cheated on me.

That evening, I left office early. Since I share a home with my in-laws, I didn't even have a place to cry at. So I just cried over the roads. I kept walking till I could cry aloud no more. You can't just walk out of a marriage, leave everything behind and go someplace where no one knows you, when you have children to take care of, when you have handed over all the money you earn to your husband. I felt like someone had robbed me of all oxygen in the world and I could not breathe anymore. I could not come to terms with the fact that my best friend, the love of my life could stab me in the back and yet stay cool all these years, with no remorse whatsoever. He robbed me of my life. Yet, I could do nothing. I wish I had the guts to move away from him, even for once.

When I was young, I always thought that if someone did something like this to me, I would just go away and never, ever even keep any contact again. But today, six months later, I am still his loyal wife and no one knows what I am going through.

Whenever I ask him about it, he has the same answer - that it happened long ago and he doesn't remember anything. How convenient for him! It leaves me with no more questions to probe him with and he no longer has to worry about giving me any clarifications. And the onus for making up falls on poor me, for I should move on. I should not ask any more questions or even cry. But I am only human.

Living with the fact that your spouse had an affair is a daily struggle. You fight with this knowledge, every single day. For days I have been struggling to tell my husband that I want to end our relationship. I want to tell him to either start speaking about it or else let me go, but I don't have the courage to do so and all I want is my life to end somehow so that I do not have to make these difficult choices. I don't want my son to go through the pain of his parents' divorce either. It's like a storm inside me which never ends. During the early days' post-D-Day, I thought we could make up. But on some days, I feel like I cannot continue anymore and I just want to run away to someplace where no one knows me.

There is another night that I keep thinking of. Almost three years back, our relationship was at an all time low. I had almost given up on us and had decided not to pursue him anymore. On one such night, he came home early and went off to sleep. It was unusual for him to do so, for he often used to work late into the night. I used to nag him about his long work hours, but nothing changed, so I stopped getting bothered with it. So that day, he came home and slept. His phone rang and he took it. Later, he asked me to put it on charge. Being the unsuspecting wife, I never checked his phone. But something that night made me check it. And I found his chats with a random girl. I woke him up and asked him about her. He tried to act normally till I made him read his chats and he couldn't lie about it anymore. That night, something inside me broke. I guess I have never healed ever since.

My husband tried to make amends after I caught his chats, the first time. He changed his job, his friends and we moved to a new place. He started spending time with us and devoted himself to family. Yet he never had the courage to tell me the complete truth. I know that he feels guilty even this time and is trying to make up for it, but the pain of betrayal will never me. 

How can men be so unfaithful? They fall in love with a girl, marry her and then expect her to adjust in their families however weird they might be. I still do not know whether I have the courage to move on or not. It feels like a trap. The only way out of all this seems death to me. Millions die each day, why can't I? 

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