Have you ever been caught in someone else’s revenge plot?

The Discovery and the Plan

My husband cheated on me then threatened the other woman with leaking her intimate videos so I drove him into insanity and had him committed.

Two years later he’s begging me to tell everyone the truth. I was once walking my child to school when I noticed one of the moms glaring right at me. So I did what I always do in these situations: I simply stared right back.

You see, my husband is a stud: green eyes, curly hair, stable income. So it wasn’t rare for women in our daughter’s class to give me dirty looks. If anything, I lived off of it, like: “Yes, you know what I have and you can’t have it,” mwah.

Usually this only happens once and my death stare scares them off enough to never try again. But then I saw her do it again the next day, and the next day. I was honestly close to clocking her, but then I noticed something. One time there were tears in her eyes, like she was heartbroken.

If there’s anyone you can count on for gossip, it’s the moms, so I did some digging and found out she was a single mom, never had a husband in the picture and was new to the area. I honestly thought she was just trying to be my friend.

So the next week I gave her a chance. I always saw her being bubbly with the other moms so I felt pretty comfortable doing this. But the second I turned to her to strike up a conversation, her eyes fell to the floor. She put her hand on her stomach as if to stop herself from hyperventilating.

So then I figured it was just social anxiety or something, until I got in the car.

“Honey, why the f were you talking to that woman?”

My husband yelled with pure rage in his eyes. Well, my husband never yells, so my first reaction was to start crying. I think he realized he was overreacting because that’s when he put his arm around me and claimed to have not gotten his first coffee of the day yet as his explanation. I nodded, but fear still clouded my mind.

So much so that I didn’t even mention the woman again. I was sort of hoping an explanation would just somehow fall into my lap, that it would be simple and lighthearted. Honestly, I think deep down I knew the truth.

That same day as I got our daughter ready for bed:

“Mommy, Ben’s mommy told me to give you this.”

“If I read it a monster would come after me. Can you tell me what it says?”

Ben, of course, is the mystery woman’s son. I nodded, thinking it would be some sort of kind-hearted apology. Oh, how wrong I was. At the very top of the piece of paper read: “Open when you’re alone.”

So I told my daughter I would tell her in the morning before kissing her forehead and turning off the light. I locked myself in the bathroom. Every possibility ran through my head: Was the teacher a creep? Was my daughter secretly being bullied? But it wasn’t any of these things.

Luckily, the letter read: “Your husband has been threatening me. I never knew you guys were together. I’m sorry.”

That’s it. There was no other explanation. It was like some dystopian treasure map written by a person with schizophrenia. So I went downstairs and opened my husband’s favorite bottle of whiskey.

As soon as he heard the bottle open he was practically drooling for a glass. I practically filled it to the brim and he swallowed it down in under a minute. And just as planned, the next morning he was too hung over to go to work or drop off our daughter at school.

So like the loving wife I am, I made him breakfast in bed and reassured him that one day off wouldn’t do any harm. I dropped off Bella extra early so I wouldn’t miss Charlotte, Ben’s mom, and that’s when I saw her. As soon as she waved goodbye to Ben, I cornered her.

One thing about me: I’m a girl’s girl. I will always prioritize a woman’s safety above all else.

“Charlotte, I need you to explain what’s going on. You have my word that I won’t tell, okay?”

She said it without hesitation like she knew this conversation was bound to happen. She then followed me to my car and whipped out her big black iPhone. I wasn’t sure what she was doing, but then she opened a message and began to scroll. My heart dropped when I read the name at the top.

So before I continue the story, there’s some information you need to know. Me picking our daughter up from school is a very new thing. Before it was my husband who was assigned to that. So Charlotte had genuinely believed he was a single, unmarried father.

With my own eyes I read my husband’s threats. He had clips of them making love and dozens of intimate photos. He said he would leak them to the school, her family, and her workplace because she had found out he had a wife—me—and wanted to make sure I knew the truth.

I swallowed the bile in my throat. Charlotte took my hand. She promised to help me with whatever part of the divorce process I needed as long as I made sure her stuff didn’t get leaked. But I shook my head. I didn’t want that.

He had not only broken my heart but he broke our home. Our baby girl won’t get to grow up with two parents. I wanted something worse than divorce, something that would destroy him.