My husband and I had a love marriage; it took place after a lot of struggle and resistance from my family. We started living away from my in-laws just a month after our wedding. 

I spent most of my days after my wedding at the office while my husband worked from home.

At times, I felt guilty that I wasn’t able to be a good wife. To make up for this, I would call my in-laws or our friends over so that my husband would feel good to meet everyone. 

One day, my brother-in-law planned to visit us. Although I was exhausted, I didn’t mind. I returned from work around 8, and after freshening up, I started cooking dinner. His brother was already reaching home soon, so I told my husband to rush and buy the alcohol they needed from the shop nearby. 

He ended up leaving one of his two phones in the kitchen. Around 15 minutes later, his phone began buzzing with messages. Now, I’m not the sort of person who would ever check his or anybody else’s phone. Since it was buzzing continuously, I thought it might have been something urgent. 

I opened the message inbox, and what I read left me with an unexplainable feeling. My heart began pounding. My vision became blurry. I couldn’t control the tears that rushed down my face. My whole world broke in front of me.

There were around twenty-four messages from an old school friend. All of them were filled with how much she loved him and how pleased she felt when he spoke with her.

She messaged him about how much she missed the time spent together. Reading on, I realised that they had been speaking over video calls, too, when I was out at work. She texted on, that she wanted to speak with him immediately. 

I put his phone face down on the kitchen table and forced myself to calm down. His brother was at home, and I didn’t want to create a scene. We all had dinner together, but I couldn’t take much because of the whirlwind of emotions within me. 

After he left, I asked my husband to check the messages on his other phone, the one he left behind. He read them and was silent. 

Tears began rushing down my cheeks. He came and hugged me. He didn’t say anything except a whispered “Sorry”. 

I asked him how he could have done that to me. He said he only spoke to her over video call but had no idea that she had begun thinking about him this way. I found it difficult to believe him.  

I couldn’t sleep the whole night. I kept wondering what I should do. Somehow, I decided to forgive him and give him another chance to prove that he really didn’t have any feelings for her. To see if anything changed. 

Today, it’s been four and a half years since this incident took place.

Nothing has changed between us, but our trust has increased. He never told me if he spoke with her after that, and I never asked. I checked his phone for about a year after the incident but have never found anything suspicious. 

I know that many of you will feel that this is me being naive and that there are many ways for them to stay in touch. But I believe in intuitions, and my intuition is that he isn’t hiding anything from me anymore. 

Sometimes in life, you have to decide whether you want to live with the person or not.

Your decision that day determines your remaining life with that person. My choice of forgiving him went right. Maybe the presence of my brother-in-law at the time when I got to know all of that, gave my mind a sense of calmness that I couldn't react.

Maybe things would have been different if I had not gotten those 2-3 hours to settle my mind and not let my emotions flow. 

At times, some things do not need an explanation but a heart to understand what the other person is feeling. That hug from my husband and a simple apology meant much more than any excuse given. Everyone needs one more chance in life to change things.

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