Janet and her two children kept cuddling on the bed while her husband’s phone rang for the seventh time in five minutes. It was a Saturday afternoon.
Soon enough, the sound became “deafening” and she had to answer the call to tell the person to call back in few minutes when he would have finished in the bathroom.
“The contact of the person calling was saved as ‘James office’ so I felt the person should be one of his colleagues and so I didn’t hesitate to use ‘sir’ when I answered the call, but I was surprised to hear a female voice,” she recalled.
Notably, that call did not only open Janet’s eyes to the fact that her husband had been cheating on her, she also got to know how long she had been sharing her man with another woman, or even other women in their nine-year-old marriage.
Janet said, “The moment I answered the call, the lady calling screamed in anger even before I could say a word. I think both of them were supposed to be somewhere at that time because my husband was also rushing to go out for an ‘appointment’. She even asked (him) if it was his ‘stupid wife’ that was delaying him. When she finished ranting, having said so many things that left me in shock, I simply asked who she was, and she answered, ‘so what’ and she dropped the call.”
Apparently shocked, Janet said she confronted her husband and that instead of apologising, he was furious and even told her she could pack her things and leave his house if she was no longer comfortable.
She added, “Before then, I had heard him countless times making silent calls and he would always terminate the call once I was approaching, but I didn’t want to assume wrongly, until that day that everything was confirmed.
“He has not changed because I have caught him many times after that. I can’t leave him, because God is against divorce and for the sake of my children.
Even though the relationship is not as exciting as it used to be, the couple are still together and had even had another child after that.
According to findings, being cheated on can be emotionally and psychologically draining, but interestingly, Janet’s experience is representative of what many women go through in marriage. Studies have shown that about 70 per cent of men cheat on their wives and that 17 per cent of divorce cases are caused by infidelity.
But, beyond religious teachings that admonish people to stay in marriage ‘for better, for worse,’ it would be interesting to know the reasons women stay with cheating spouses:
Continue To See In The Next Series Of Pages
