Discovering a hidden email on my husband’s iPad was the first shock. What I uncovered next left me reeling and questioning everything about our life together.
My husband, Adam, goes on a trip with our son and his brother to visit their mom, right? So, I’m just cleaning up the den when an email pops up on his iPad from some apartment complex.
It’s about shutting down the hot water for repairs, and it’s addressed to him by name. We own our house and haven’t rented in over ten years. This was fishy as hell.
He’s in upstate New York with no service. I tried sending him a picture of the email, but it wouldn’t go through. When I finally got a hold of him, the connection was terrible.
I explained the email, and he just says, “Must be a mistake. They got the wrong email.” Seriously? If it’s a mistake, how do they have his full name spelled perfectly?
There were no other emails from this sender, but my husband is super picky about clearing his inbox. There’s no unit number in the email, but this complex is only fifteen minutes away.
I had no reason to mistrust my husband, but this email felt strange. I tried to piece it together while fighting my own emotions. I trusted Adam completely; we had been happily married for six years and shared two kids, a daughter and a son.
Yet, my gut feeling was telling me something was off. I replayed our interactions over the past few months in my head, searching for signs I might have missed.
Adam had always been attentive, but lately, there were small things—like how he seemed to prefer spending time with the boys rather than the whole family, or how he often had excuses to be out of the house. The paranoia gnawed at me, but I wasn’t ready to face the conclusions my mind was drawing.
So, I called my bestie, and she’s all in. She calls emergency maintenance, posing as a delivery driver, and gets the apartment number. We drive over there, knock on the door, and I’m left in tears when it opens because there’s a 25-year-old woman standing there asking what we needed.
We introduced ourselves as delivery workers with a package for Adam and asked when he would be there. While we were asking questions, two small children, about five years old, ran up to the door and stared intently at us.
We heard at least three more women talking from inside the apartment. The woman who opened the door looked frightened and abruptly closed it. We tried knocking again, but the door stayed shut, and she threatened to call the police.
I was really upset and started crying as we headed down the stairs. My friend Stacy was just as shocked. When we got outside, we saw the three women and the kids looking at us from the window before they quickly closed the curtains.
Stacy looked at me with wide eyes, her voice trembling. “Jennifer, what the hell was that? Who are these women? And those kids?”
I wiped my tears, trying to steady my voice. “I don’t know, Stacy. This is… this is insane. How could Adam do this? We’ve been married for six years. We have kids! What is going on?”
“You should call a lawyer,” she said. But I didn’t want to believe that Adam had done anything wrong. Stacy put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “We need to figure this out. This can’t be real. Maybe… maybe there’s some explanation.”
“But what kind of explanation makes sense?” I shot back, frustration and hurt blending in my voice. “Did you see how that woman reacted? She looked terrified. And those kids…”
“Do you think he’s living a double life?” Stacy asked hesitantly, clearly afraid of the answer.
“I don’t know what to think,” I admitted, my voice cracking. “I trusted him. I never doubted him for a second. And now this? I feel like my whole world is falling apart.”
Stacy nodded, her expression serious. “We need to talk to him. Confront him. You deserve to know the truth.”
“But how? He’s upstate, and I can barely get through to him on the phone,” I said, feeling helpless.
“Then we go to him,” Stacy said firmly. “We’ll drive up there. You need answers, Jennifer. We’ll get them together.”
Her determination gave me a small sense of comfort. “Okay. Let’s go,” I agreed, wiping away my tears. “I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
When I arrived, Adam met me with a worried look on his face.
“Jennifer, did you go to the apartment?” Adam asked, his voice tinged with worry.
“Yes, I did,” I replied, my voice trembling with anger and hurt. “I saw everything, Adam. Who are those women? Who are those children?”
Adam sighed deeply, running a hand through his hair. “We need to talk, Jennifer. There are things I need to explain.”
“Explain?” I almost shouted. “Explain what, Adam? That you have a whole other life I didn’t know about? That you have other women and children? How could you do this to me? To our kids?”
He looked at me with sad eyes. “I didn’t want you to find out this way. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” I scoffed. “Adam, you’ve shattered my world. Ten years of marriage, two kids… and you do this? Why? Just tell me why.”
“I’ve always dreamed of having a large family,” he began, his voice barely above a whisper. “I wanted a life with multiple wives, but I knew it wasn’t accepted here. I thought I could manage it without anyone getting hurt.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “You thought you could manage it? Do you hear yourself? You have other wives? Children? And you never thought about how this would affect me? Our children?”
“They’re not legally my wives,” he said, trying to find the right words. “But in my heart, I consider them as such. I take care of them, and I have children with them.”
I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. “So, all this time, you’ve been living a double life. What did you think would happen if I found out? Or were you just hoping I never would?”
“I didn’t think it through,” he admitted, tears welling up in his eyes. “I was selfish. I didn’t want to lose you, but I wanted this other life too. I thought I could handle it, keep it separate.”
“And you’ve been paying for everything with company money,” I said, realization dawning on me. “That’s how you hid it. That’s why there were no red flags.”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I covered all the expenses through the company.”
I shook my head, feeling utterly betrayed. “Adam, how can you expect me to stay after this? You’ve lied to me, to our children. You’ve broken our family.”
“I know I’ve made a terrible mistake,” he said, his voice breaking. “But I still love you, Jennifer. I don’t want to lose you.”
Tears streamed down my face. “You already have, Adam. I can’t do this. I need to protect our children. I’m taking our son and going home.”
My mother-in-law and brother-in-law, who had been standing nearby, were shocked after hearing the revelations. They questioned Adam about everything they heard, but he couldn’t even look them in the eye.
He didn’t try to stop me. He knew there was nothing he could say to fix what he had broken. As I drove away with our son, I felt a mix of sadness and relief.
The man I thought I knew was gone, replaced by a stranger with secrets too deep to forgive. I contacted a lawyer and filed for divorce and full custody of our two children.
