I laughed about it, not thinking about anything. But as the night went on, and I stayed up watching old Christmas movies, that message kept flashing through my mind.
When Travis woke up the next day, I asked him about the party.
He said they started at his office, then went to a bar to sing karaoke, and ended up at a club for a few hours.
I asked him about the message and he looked confused. ‘One of the lads probably wrote it,’ he said. ‘There’d been a lot of drinking, and you know how blokes can be.’
‘Still, it bothered me. So I went to my mum for advice. I confided in her and asked her how to deal with the anxiety and mistrust in my marriage – something that had never occurred in the last five years.
Mum’s solution was to install a GPS tracker in Travis’ car. I’m not a fan of peeping, and I didn’t really want to do it. But I needed to dull that nagging feeling. So I agreed to do it.
But I knew that if Trav ever found it, he’d feel betrayed. Anyway, in the last week before Christmas break, I followed his movements on my laptop, tracking his commute to and from work.
But one evening he called me and told me that he had to stay late and finish some work before he went on holiday. I believed him – I had deadlines too.
But while he was talking, I opened the app on my laptop again and saw that his car was in motion. The car was travelling in the opposite direction from the house, not taking me to a suburb with mansions and fancy cars.
Naturally, I got in the car and followed him, having downloaded a tracking app on my phone beforehand. My heart raced as I parked across the street from where his car was parked in the driveway of the stunning house.
Sitting in the car, I texted my mum and updated her on my Friday night adventures. About two hours later, Travis came out of the house, beaming from ear to ear.
I sat up a little straighter, trying to get a good look at everything. To my shock, there was a woman walking closely behind him. She pulled him by the arm as he turned to face her.
She put her arms around him and kissed him on the lips. My heart dropped and the knots in my stomach finally unravelled because the root of my anxiety was staring me in the face.
The world seemed to stop for a moment as I came to terms with the reality unfolding before me. In a rush of adrenaline, I sketched a few pictures of them together, capturing the undeniable evidence that my marriage was over.
I scrolled through them on my phone, realising that sitting in the car wasn’t going to help me. I walked up to the house and Travis saw me first. He was too shocked to react.
He just stood there watching me walk towards them. ‘So you’re the woman who left a message for my husband?’ I asked. But to my amazement, her response was not at all what I expected.
Instead of chickening out or denying anything, she boldly stated that I deserved better. ‘Husbands like that deserve to be treated like change,’ she said, glancing at Travis.
He, red with anger and embarrassment, exclaimed: ‘How dare you?’ But it didn’t matter anymore. The woman had already closed the door. I left Travis standing there and walked back to my car, ignoring him.
And when I got back to the car, there was a text from my mum and the number of my divorce lawyer. It was a heartbreaking Christmas present I had given myself instead of the Christmas holiday I thought we would have.
Instead, I’m starting a new year – a year of rebuilding, rediscovering myself and finding happiness on my own terms. Life is unpredictable, that’s for sure – especially after five years of marriage. What would you do in his shoes?
Here’s another story for you: Concerned about her husband’s suspicious behaviour for weeks, a loving wife arranges for a caring taxi driver to go after her, no matter what it takes or where it leads. But all is not as it seems when she eventually learns the truth and uncovers a long-hidden secret.
