Women, What’s Something Worse Than Cheating That You Discovered About Your Partner?

The Path to Honesty

Omar gave us homework before our next session in a week. He said Tom needed to write out a complete timeline of everything, when his symptoms started and when he got diagnosed and when he rented the apartment and every lie he told along the way.

He needed to see it all laid out so he could understand the full extent of what he’d done. I needed to write about what I needed from Tom to start rebuilding trust, not what I thought I should need or what seemed reasonable, what I actually needed to feel safe in this marriage again.

We both agreed to do the work, though I wasn’t sure writing things down would make me feel any better. It felt like putting a band-aid on something that needed stitches.

The next day, Tom and I drove to the apartment to start clearing it out. I hadn’t been back since the day I found it, and walking through that door again made my stomach hurt.

Everything looked different in daylight, more sad than scary. I could see how carefully Tom had arranged everything to match our real home, the couch in the exact same spot, the TV at the same angle, even the pictures on the walls were hung at the same height.

I found a calendar in the kitchen with things written on it in Tom’s handwriting. Emma’s soccer practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays. James’ piano lesson on Wednesdays. Sophia’s doctor appointment for her 18-month checkup.

He’d created an entire schedule for children who never existed.

In a drawer, I found birthday cards he’d written to them.

Happy 7th birthday, Emma.

You’re growing up so fast, I couldn’t read the rest.

I asked Tom if there was anything from the apartment he wanted to keep.

He said no.

He needed to let it all go. We started packing up the furniture piece by piece.

Tom had bought most of it new or from Facebook Marketplace so we could sell it or donate it. He handled each item slowly like he was saying goodbye to something precious.

The couch where he’d sat with his imaginary family, the dining table where he’d served pretend dinners. The high chair where baby Sophia would never sit.

I watched him fold up the small clothes and pack away the toys. And I realized this apartment had meant something to him I couldn’t fully understand.

It wasn’t just a delusion or a lie. It was hope.

Twisted and sad and completely wrong, but still hope for the family we’d talked about having since before we got married. the family that Huntingtons had stolen from us before we even had a chance to try.

I moved a box of baby clothes to the side and found a manila folder wedged between the wall and a dresser drawer. The label said medical information in Tom’s handwriting.

Inside were printed articles about IVF and something called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. The papers had highlighting and notes in the margins where Tom had calculated costs and success rates.

One page showed a clinic in the city that specialized in genetic screening for Huntington’s disease. They could test embryos before implantation to make sure we only transferred ones without the gene.

Tom had written our names at the top of a cost estimate sheet. $45,000 for one round. No insurance coverage.

I held the folder and felt my hands start shaking. He’d researched this months ago and never said a word to me.

Tom looked up from the box he was taping and saw what I was holding. His face went pale.

I asked him how long he’d known about this option.

He said he found out right after his diagnosis. The genetic counselor had explained it during his first appointment.

I asked why he never told me we could still have biological children without passing on the disease.

Tom said it was too expensive and too much to ask of me. The IVF process was hard on women’s bodies with all the hormones and procedures. He didn’t want to put me through that when there were no guarantees it would work.

I felt my anger come back hot and sharp. He decided for both of us again without even asking what I wanted.

Maybe I would have said yes to trying IVF. Maybe I would have said the money was worth it or we could have found a way to afford it.

But he took that choice away from me, just like he took away my choice to support him through his diagnosis.

I told him I was tired of him deciding what I could handle, like I was too weak or stupid to make my own decisions.

Tom said he was trying to protect me from disappointment. The success rates weren’t great, and the process was painful and expensive. He thought he was sparing me from getting my hopes up about something that might not work.

I said he didn’t get to decide that. Protection felt like control when he did it behind my back. Every time he hid something or made a choice without me, he was treating me like a child instead of his partner.

Tom’s voice got louder and he said he was dying and trying to figure out how to handle that. He made mistakes because he was scared and didn’t know what else to do.

I said being scared didn’t give him the right to lie to me for 6 months. Being scared didn’t mean he got to spend $20,000 of our money on a fake family. Being scared didn’t excuse any of it.

We stood on opposite sides of the apartment yelling at each other until my throat hurt. Tom said I didn’t understand what it was like to know your body was breaking down and there was nothing you could do to stop it.

I said he was right that I didn’t understand because he never let me try to understand. He kept me locked out of the biggest thing happening in his life, and now he wanted credit for trying to protect me.

The protection just made everything worse. It delayed the pain and added betrayal on top of it.

Tom sat down hard on the floor and put his head in his hands. He said he knew I was right, but he didn’t know how to fix what he’d broken.

I told him I needed space and walked out of the apartment.

I got in my car and drove without knowing where I was going. My hands were tight on the steering wheel, and I could feel tears on my face, but I didn’t remember starting to cry.

I drove through neighborhoods I didn’t recognize and passed parks and shopping centers until an hour had passed.

When I came back to the apartment, Tom had kept packing. All the baby clothes were in boxes. The wigs were in garbage bags. He’d taken down the family photos from the walls and stacked them neatly by the door.

He looked up when I came in and said he was sorry. Not just sorry for today, but sorry for all of it.

Sorry for making choices that affected both of us without including me. Sorry for letting his fear make him selfish.

He said he wanted to do better, but he understood if I couldn’t trust him anymore.

I told him sorry wasn’t enough. Words were easy, but I needed to see him actually change how he acted.

No more secrets. No more deciding things for me. No more protecting me from information I had the right to know.

Tom nodded and said he would try.

I said trying wasn’t good enough either. He had to actually do it.

Over the next week, we went back to the apartment every evening after work to finish clearing it out. Tom had posted the duplicate furniture on Facebook Marketplace, and people came to look at the couch and the dining table and the TV stand.

A young couple bought the sectional for $800. A college student took the bookshelf for $50. By the end of the week, we’d sold most of the big pieces and made back about $4,000.

It didn’t come close to covering what Tom had spent, but it was something.

I opened a new bank account in my name only and deposited the money there. I told Tom I was taking over our finances until I could trust him again.

He handed over his credit cards and his debit card without arguing.

On Thursday, Tom came home from work looking stressed and said his supervisor, Keith Barber, had called him into a meeting. Keith had noticed Tom’s performance slipping over the past few months.

missed deadlines, errors, and reports that Tom normally wouldn’t make. Keith asked if everything was okay at home, or if Tom was dealing with something that was affecting his work.

Tom said he tried to brush it off at first, but Keith kept pushing. Finally, Tom told him about the Huntington’s diagnosis.

Keith was quiet for a long time and then asked what Tom needed. Tom said he didn’t know yet, but he might need some accommodations as his symptoms got worse.

Keith said Tom needed to talk to HR to formalize everything and they’d need documentation from his doctor.

Tom was scared about what disclosing his condition would mean for his job. The HR process took two weeks and was more complicated than either of us expected.

Tom had to get multiple notes from Dr. Magnamera explaining his diagnosis and prognosis. He had to fill out forms about his current limitations and what accommodations he might need in the future.

I went with him to the HR meeting and watched him have to explain in detail how the disease would progress and what abilities he would lose.

The HR representative was professional, but I could see how much it cost Tom emotionally to admit he was declining.

The company approved intermittent FMLA leave and some schedule flexibility so Tom could make it to medical appointments. They said they’d work with him on accommodations as his needs changed.

Tom should have felt relieved, but instead he seemed smaller somehow. His pride was hurt by needing special treatment.

At our counseling session the following week, Omar asked how we were doing with the homework he’d assigned.

Tom had written out a complete timeline of everything. He’d first noticed symptoms almost a year ago. Small things like dropping his keys or forgetting words he knew.

The symptoms got worse gradually and 6 months ago he finally went to the doctor. The diagnosis came back positive for Huntington’s and that same week he found the apartment listing online. He’d been going there three or four times a week ever since.

My list of what I needed to rebuild trust was shorter but harder. Complete financial transparency with no hidden accounts or spending.

No more secret spaces or activities of any kind. Regular honest communication about his health and symptoms.

Tom read through my list and said he could do all of that.

Omar said we also needed individual therapy to process our separate experiences. He recommended a therapist named Michaela Travis for me who worked with partners of people with chronic illness.

Tom agreed to find his own therapist to work through his diagnosis grief separately from our couple’s work.

I called Michaela that afternoon and got an appointment for the next week.

When I walked into her office, I felt like I could finally breathe. She asked me what I was most afraid of and I realized it wasn’t Tom’s illness itself.

It was the loss of trust and partnership. I didn’t know if I could stay married to someone who lied to me, even if his reasons came from fear and pain.

Michaela listened without judging and then said something that made me start crying. She said I was grieving multiple losses at once. The future I thought we’d have, the partner I thought Tom was, the version of myself who felt secure in my marriage.

She said it was okay to be angry and sad and confused all at the same time. I didn’t have to make any big decisions right now about staying or leaving. I could just sit with all these feelings and figure out what I needed one day at a time.

I started going to Michaela’s office every Tuesday at 4:00. The sessions helped me see patterns I hadn’t noticed before. Tom’s need to control everything came from feeling like his body was betraying him. His lies weren’t about me at all, even though they hurt me.

Michaela asked what I wanted from my marriage now that everything had changed.

I told her I wanted a partner who trusted me enough to be honest, even when things were scary.

She said that was reasonable and I should tell Tom exactly that. So, I did.

I sat him down on the couch one evening and explained what honesty meant to me going forward. No hiding symptoms or medical information. No secret spending or accounts. No pretending things were fine when they weren’t.

Tom listened without interrupting and then said he understood.

He’d found his own therapist named Dr. Smith, who specialized in helping people cope with terminal diagnosis. Tom said his first few sessions had been hard because he had to admit out loud that he was dying.

Dr. Smith helped him see that the apartment fantasy was his way of trying to control something when his disease made him feel powerless. Tom understood now that it was wrong to shut me out and make decisions for both of us.

He promised to do better, but also said changing these patterns would take time.

I appreciated his honesty about that. At least he wasn’t pretending therapy would fix everything instantly.

We had another appointment with doctor. Magnamera scheduled for the following week. I cleared my schedule to go with Tom this time.

In the waiting room, Tom seemed nervous and kept checking his phone. When we got called back, the nurse took Tom’s blood pressure and weight and noted both in his chart.

Dr. Amnamera came in and asked how Tom was doing with the medication.

Tom looked at me and then at the doctor.

He admitted he’d only been taking it about half the time because the side effects made him nauseous and tired.

Dr. DeNamera’s face got serious and he explained that consistency was critical for slowing disease progression. Missing doses meant the medication couldn’t do its job properly.

Tom said he understood, but the side effects were really bad.

Dr. Amnamera adjusted the prescription to a different formulation that might be easier to tolerate. He also emphasized that Tom needed to report side effects immediately instead of just stopping the medication on his own.

I sat there realizing Tom had been sabotaging his own treatment for weeks. Either he was in denial about needing help or he was scared of what the medication represented. Maybe both.

After the appointment, I told Tom I’d be coming to all his medical visits from now on. He bristled immediately and said he wasn’t a child who needed supervision.

I kept my voice calm and told him his track record of hiding things meant I couldn’t trust him to manage his health alone. He’d lied about symptoms. He’d lied about taking medication.

I needed to be there to make sure he was honest with his doctors.

Tom’s jaw tightened, but he agreed after a long pause. He knew he didn’t have much room to argue given everything that had happened.

The apartment lease termination took another week to finalize. Bo called to say the paperwork was ready, and we needed to come sign and pay the penalty fee.

Tom and I drove to Canyon Ridge on a gray Saturday morning. The complex looked different in daylight, just a normal apartment building instead of the sight of my worst discovery.

Bo met us in his office and had us sign multiple forms. The penalty was $3,000, which we paid from our already damaged savings account.

Bo handed over the security deposit minus charges for cleaning and minor repairs. We got back about $800.

Tom held the keys in his hand for a long moment before giving them to Bo. We walked to apartment 67 one last time.

Tom unlocked the door and stepped inside. The space was empty now. We’d cleared everything out weeks ago. Just blank walls and carpet and the echo of our footsteps.

Tom stood in the middle of the living room looking at the spot where the duplicate couch had been. I watched him say goodbye to something I couldn’t see.

The fantasy family he’d built here. Emma and James and Sophia, who never existed but felt real to him anyway.

After a few minutes, Tom turned and walked out. He pulled the door closed behind him and we left Canyon Ridge for the last time.

That night at home, Tom broke down completely. We were sitting at our real dining table eating takeout when he just started crying.

Not quiet tears, but full body sobs that shook his shoulders. He said he couldn’t stop thinking about the children we’d never have.

Emma would have been seven by now. James would be five. Baby Sophia would be learning to walk.

They felt real to him. Letting go of the apartment meant letting go of them, and it felt like losing actual kids.

I moved my chair next to his and held him while he cried. I was crying, too, because I’d been grieving those phantom children as well.

Not the specific imaginary kids Tom had created, but the real ones we’d planned to have.

The daughter who might have had my eyes, the son who might have had Tom’s smile, the family we talked about building together. All of that was gone now, or at least impossibly complicated.

We sat there crying together for a long time. When Tom finally stopped, he looked exhausted. I got him a glass of water and he drank it slowly.

Neither of us said anything else that night. We just went to bed and held each other in the dark.

The genetic counseling appointment doctor Magnamera had recommended kept coming up in my mind.

I finally brought it up a few days later. Tom and I sat on the couch and talked seriously about whether we wanted to explore IVF with genetic screening.

I’d done research and learned the full process cost between 30 and $50,000. Insurance wouldn’t cover any of it. Plus, the physical process would be hard on me.

hormone injections, egg retrieval, multiple rounds might be needed with no guarantee of success. Tom said he couldn’t ask me to go through all that.

I told him it should be my choice, not his. We’d both wanted children before his diagnosis. That hadn’t changed for me, even if the path forward was different now.

Tom looked conflicted. He said the money was a huge problem given how much we’d already lost.

I agreed, but said we should at least learn about our options before deciding anything. Tom finally nodded.

I called the genetic counseling center the next morning and scheduled an appointment for 2 weeks out. The first available slot was on a Thursday afternoon. Tom said he’d take off work to come with me.

The genetic counselor’s office was in a medical building downtown. We checked in and filled out family history forms. The counselor was a woman in her 40s named Dr. Brown.

She invited us into her office and asked what brought us in.

Tom explained about his Huntington’s diagnosis and our concerns about having biological children. Dr. Brown listened carefully and took notes.

Then she explained pre-implantation genetic diagnosis in detail. The process involved IVF to create embryos.

Before implanting them, they’d test each embryo for the Huntington’s gene. Only embryos without the mutation would be transferred to my uterus.

This meant we could have biological children with zero risk of passing on the disease. The success rates varied based on my age and other factors, but averaged around 30 to 40% per cycle. Most couples needed two or three cycles to achieve pregnancy.

The cost per cycle was 15 to $20,000. Dr. Brown showed us charts and statistics.

She explained the physical process I’d go through. The hormone shots, the monitoring appointments, the egg retrieval procedure, the embryo transfer.

Tom held my hand while she talked. By the end of the appointment, my head was spinning with information.

Dr. Brown gave us a packet of materials to review at home. She said we should take our time deciding and call her if we had questions.

Tom and I sat in the car in the parking garage for a while after the appointment. Finally, I asked what he was thinking.

Tom said the process seemed overwhelming and expensive. He wasn’t sure we could afford it, even if we wanted to try.

I said I wanted time to think about everything before we decided. We could explore other options, too, like adoption or accepting that we might not have children at all.

Tom looked relieved that I wasn’t pushing for an immediate decision.

We agreed to table the discussion for now and focus on fixing our relationship first. The child question felt urgent, but we couldn’t make good decisions while everything between us was still so broken.

We drove home in silence. That night, I reread all the materials Dr. Brown had given us.

The numbers were scary, but not impossible. We’d have to save aggressively and maybe take out a loan, but it could work if we both wanted it badly enough.

I still didn’t know if I wanted it that badly. Part of me wondered if having children with Tom was even a good idea given how much care he’d need in the future.

Our next session with Omar happened 3 days later. Tom and I sat on his couch and Omar asked how we were doing.

I explained about the genetic counseling appointment and the conversation we’d had about children.

Omar listened and then said something that surprised me. He thought we were trying to solve too many problems at once.

the trust issues in our marriage, Tom’s health management, the question of children, financial recovery. It was too much to tackle simultaneously.

Omar recommended we prioritize, focus first on rebuilding trust and establishing better communication patterns, make decisions about children later when our relationship was more stable.

Tom and I looked at each other. Omar’s suggestion made sense, even though the child question felt urgent.

We couldn’t make good choices about something that big while we were still figuring out if our marriage would survive.

We agreed to put the IVF discussion on hold for at least a few months. Omar seemed pleased.

He said this showed growth in our ability to work together and make joint decisions. The session felt productive in a way our earlier ones hadn’t.

Tom went back to work the next week. He’d been taking a lot of time off for appointments, and I could tell his supervisor was getting concerned.

Tom tried to focus and do his job well, but the disease was affecting his performance in ways he couldn’t always control.

On Wednesday afternoon, my phone rang at work. It was Keith from Tom’s office.

Tom had lost his balance and knocked over a filing cabinet. He wasn’t hurt, but he was really shaken up. Keith thought someone should come get him.

I left work immediately and drove to Tom’s office. I found him sitting in a conference room looking pale.

The filing cabinet was back upright, but papers were still scattered across the floor. Tom stood up when he saw me and tried to act like everything was fine.

I could see his hands shaking, though. We thanked Keith and I drove Tom home.

In the car, Tom finally admitted how scared he was. He said losing his balance at work made everything real in a way it hadn’t been before.

He was terrified of losing his independence, of not being able to do his job, of becoming a burden to me.

I didn’t know what to say to that. I was scared, too.

That night, we sat on our bed with all the lights off except the lamp on my nightstand. Tom asked what I was thinking, and I told him the truth.

I was scared I wouldn’t be strong enough to take care of him when things got really bad. The disease would take away more and more of him until he needed help with everything, and I didn’t know if I could handle that.

Tom nodded slowly and said he understood if I wanted to leave.

I looked at him sitting there in the dim light and said I wasn’t leaving right now, but I couldn’t promise I’d stay forever.

The honesty hurt both of us, but it felt necessary.

We sat there for a long time, not saying anything else because there wasn’t anything else to say. Neither of us knew what our future looked like anymore.

2 days later, I had my session with Michaela. I told her about the conversation with Tom and how guilty I felt for not being sure I could stay married to him long term.

Michaela leaned forward in her chair and said something that surprised me. She said it was okay to know my limits.

Staying in a marriage because I felt obligated instead of genuinely committed wasn’t healthy for either of us. I needed to figure out what I actually wanted separate from what I thought I should want.

The permission to consider leaving without being a terrible person made me cry.

Michaela handed me tissues and we spent the rest of the session talking about how to separate Tom’s illness from Tom’s choices and what I owed him versus what I owed myself.

The next evening, Tom’s phone rang while we were making dinner. It was his mom Alina asking why they hadn’t seen us in months.

Tom made excuses about being busy with work, and I could hear the hurt in Alena’s voice through the phone.

After he hung up, I told him his parents deserved to know about his diagnosis. Tom said he didn’t want to worry them, but I pointed out they were already worried because he was avoiding them.

We argued about it for 20 minutes before Tom finally agreed to have them visit that weekend and tell them together. He looked sick about it, but he made the call and invited them to come Saturday.

When Saturday came, I cleaned the house nervously while Tom paced around checking things that didn’t need checking.

Alina and Luca arrived at noon with a casserole and a bag of Tom’s favorite cookies from his childhood. We all sat in the living room making small talk for about 10 minutes before Tom said he had something to tell them.

His voice shook when he explained about the Huntington’s diagnosis. Alina started crying immediately and Luca’s face went completely white.

They both asked why Tom hadn’t told them sooner and Tom said he was ashamed. He didn’t want them to see him as broken or dying.

Alina reached over and grabbed Tom’s hands and said they were his parents.

Worrying about him was their job and he should have let them help carry this. Luca asked detailed questions about Tom’s prognosis and treatment plan.

I watched him process the information the same way Tom did, needing to understand every detail and timeline. I could see where Tom got his need to control and manage everything.

Alina wanted to know how she and Luca could help and what we needed from them. Tom admitted he needed support, but didn’t know what form that should take.

We all agreed to stay in closer contact and be more honest with each other going forward.

Luca said they’d come visit more often, and Alina said Tom should call her anytime he needed to talk. Before they left, Alina hugged me tight and whispered that I should call her too if I ever needed anything.

After Tom’s parents drove away that evening, Tom seemed different somehow, lighter maybe, like telling them had lifted weight off his shoulders that he didn’t know he was carrying, he said he wished he’d told them months ago instead of dealing with everything alone.

I pointed out that this was exactly why his secret about the apartment had hurt me so much.

Isolation made everything harder and scarier. Tom nodded and said he was starting to understand that.

He asked if I thought his parents would really help or if they’d just worry from a distance.

I told him I thought Alina would call him everyday and Luca would research Huntington’s until he knew more than the doctors.

Our next session with Omar happened on Wednesday. Omar asked us to talk about what we needed from each other moving forward.

I said I needed complete honesty even when the truth was hard or scary. No more protecting me from reality by hiding things.

Tom said he needed patience while he learned to be vulnerable instead of protective.

Omar said these were reasonable needs and asked us to practice small moments of honesty and patience every day.

He gave us homework to share one difficult truth each day, no matter how small. Tom agreed, but I could tell the idea made him uncomfortable.

The following Monday, Tom came home early from work looking devastated. He’d gotten his performance review, and it wasn’t good.

His supervisor, Keith, had documented all the errors and missed deadlines from the past months. Keith, was understanding about the medical situation, but he said Tom needed to decide if he could still do his job effectively.

The company couldn’t keep covering for mistakes that affected clients and other team members. Tom might need to consider disability leave.

Tom sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands and said the idea of leaving work felt like giving up.

I sat next to him and said it wasn’t giving up. It was being realistic about what he could handle right now.

Bianca gave me the name of a disability lawyer she knew and I made an appointment for the next week. Tom and I met with the lawyer in his office downtown.

The lawyer explained that Tom’s diagnosis qualified him for long-term disability insurance through his employer and eventually for social security. The application process was long though and approval wasn’t guaranteed.

Tom would need extensive medical documentation and it could take months to get approved.

Tom resisted the idea of applying and said it felt like admitting defeat.

I told him it was being practical and planning ahead. The lawyer gave us a folder of forms to fill out and said to call him when we were ready to start the process.

That weekend, I found a support group for partners of people with Huntington’s disease. The group met at a community center on Thursday evenings and was run by a woman named Laney Ferguson.

Laney had been taking care of her husband for 8 years and knew everything about managing the disease progression.

I went to my first meeting feeling nervous, but everyone there understood exactly what I was going through. Hearing other people’s stories helped me feel less alone in my fear and confusion.

Laney gave practical advice about setting up care systems and maintaining my own identity separate from being a caregiver. After the meeting ended, I signed up to come every week.

On the drive home, I felt like I’d found people who could help me figure out how to do this impossible thing I wasn’t sure I could do.

Our fourth wedding anniversary came 2 weeks after I started going to the support group. We didn’t make reservations anywhere fancy or plan anything big.

Tom picked up Chinese food from the place near his office, and I rented a movie neither of us had seen before. We ate on the couch with the container spread across the coffee table, and I realized this felt more real than our first anniversary when we’d gone to that expensive restaurant and pretended everything was perfect.

Tom handed me a card after we finished eating.

Inside, he’d written three paragraphs about the apartment and how sorry he was for lying. He promised to be honest going forward even when the truth scared him. He said he knew trust took time to rebuild and he’d wait as long as I needed.

I folded the card closed and told him I was choosing to stay and work on us. Not because I had to or because leaving felt too hard, but because I wanted to see if we could build something better than what we’d had before.

Tom’s eyes got wet and he nodded and we watched the movie without talking much.

The next month, we fell into new patterns that felt strange at first, but gradually became normal. Tom had doctor appointments every other Tuesday and I went with him to all of them.

I had support group on Thursday evenings and individual therapy with Michaela on Monday afternoons. We did couples counseling with Omar on Wednesday mornings before work.

Our calendars filled up with medical stuff and mental health stuff until it felt like managing Tom’s illness was a full-time job on top of our actual jobs.

But something was shifting between us. Tom started taking his medication at the same time every morning.

And he’d tell me when he noticed symptoms getting worse instead of hiding them. He’d say his hands felt shaky or he was having trouble concentrating and I’d just listen instead of trying to fix it.

I told him when I felt angry about the apartment money or scared about the future and he’d sit with those feelings instead of getting defensive.

We were learning how to be honest in small ways every single day.

3 months after I found the apartment, we drove past Canyon Ridge on our way to one of Tom’s appointments.

I looked at the building as we went by and it just looked like an apartment complex. Not the place where Tom had built a fantasy life or where I discovered his secrets. just a regular building with regular people living regular lives inside.

Tom reached across the center console and took my hand. I held on and kept my eyes forward on the road ahead of us.

We had another appointment to get to and then therapy after that and probably take out for dinner because neither of us felt like cooking.

One honest day at a time.

Real talk, how many of you have secrets from your partner right now that you’re justifying as protection?

No judgment.

Just curious how common this actually is.

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