Signs & Suspicions

I wish I would've thought to start this blog sooner, so that I could post in "real time" what was happening and when. But at the time, I was just trying to survive and make it through the day. In no way did I have the mental or emotional capacity to start or maintain a blog. So because I'm writing this months after everything happened, I'm relying not only on my memory, but also on text messages, written journal entries, video diary entries, audio recordings, conversations with friends and family, and more. I hope to be able to describe the events as they unfolded, but please forgive me in advance for not remembering all of the details. In today's post, I'm going to go back to the very beginning, to the very first inkling I had that something wasn't right.

But before I do that, let me fill you in on some quick but necessary background info. C's job ramped up in the summer months, and what was essentially a seasonal position was created so that he could have an assistant during this time. On April 5th, 2024, C interviewed K for this position. At the time, he was 31, and we had been married for coming up on 4 years. She was 23 and a student pursuing her Associate's Degree. He decided to hire her, and her first day of work was May 6th. On May 3rd, C and I had just closed on our very first home. We were so excited to finally be homeowners after 5 years of renting. Our new home was in the woods and had a pond. It was perfect for 2 nature lovers - C loved to fish, and I loved to watch wildlife, especially birds. When we toured the house, I spotted a hawk perched in a tree overhanging the pond. I took that as a sign that THIS was the place that was meant to be our home. C and I had so many dreams for that house. Neither of us were fans of the exterior colors of the house. Since I worked at a paint store, I brought home a ton of paint chips so we could choose our colors - body, trim, and front door/accent. We chose our favorites, and I even got samples of the blues we were looking at for the main color. Sadly, these samples never left the plastic bag I brought them home in. But now I'm getting a bit off track.

I really don't know what the very first thing was that made me suspicious. I don't even know if you could say that it was just one thing. Really, it was a compilation of a bunch of things that, together, painted a picture that I didn't want to see. For starters, I noticed that he was constantly bringing K up in conversations with me - more than I thought was normal for a coworker you barely know. In addition, he was constantly talking to her - text messages, phone calls, even gaming with her into the late hours of the night. Even more strange was that they had pet names for each other. He was Garfield and she was Odie, and Odie is how her name was displayed in his phone. He changed my name in his phone so that I was no longer "Wifey." Nope, now I was just plain old "Hannah." On June 6, I found some messages between them on his Apple Watch that seemed like they were a little too comfortable with each other (sexual innuendos, the purple devil face with the horns emoji - you get the picture). Nothing screamed that they were having an affair or engaging in physical contact, but I thought it was definitely an odd conversation to be having with someone of the opposite sex that you've only been working with for a month. Then, all of a sudden (suspiciously after confronting him about those messages), his passcodes changed. The passcodes that had been the same for years. The phone passcode that was a combination of his birthday and mine, and the watch passcode that was our dating anniversary. And finally, one of the biggest red flags was that he stopped wearing his wedding ring. So I decided to talk to him about it. And for every concern I had, he gave me a justification. Changing my name in his phone? Well, he didn't think it was healthy that our identities were wrapped up in each other. Gaming with her at midnight? Well, I was being controlling and he could be friends with whoever he wanted. The inappropriate text conversation with her? Well, I was paranoid and they were just friends. Changing his passcodes? Well, I needed to respect his privacy because he felt like I was "spying" on him. Not wearing his wedding ring any more? Well, he had lost weight and now it was too big. He had a rationale for EVERYTHING. And honestly, at the time, he made most of them sound good. I really did begin to wonder if I was making something out of nothing. Maybe I really was just paranoid. But looking back now, maybe that was just me being oblivious, not wanting to believe what was right in front of my face.

Before, C was always a homebody. He hardly ever went anywhere or did anything, and if he did, it was almost always with me. Now, when I got home from work, he wasn't home. Supposedly, he was out listening to music or taking a drive. He started taking his phone everywhere, even into the bathroom. He started locking the door when he was using the bathroom or showering, when we always left the door open (or at least unlocked) before. He randomly told me that he wanted to get new clothes, which was strange, because he'd had the same clothes for years and never seemed to care about new ones before. In fact, I had tried to get him to get rid of some clothes that were looking pretty rough, and he always refused. The real kicker was the night of the baseball game. That was a turning point for me.

On June 20, C decided to go to a baseball game with K and another coworker, a guy named B. The ball game ended around 9:15pm. He told me at 9:40pm that he was in the parking garage talking to B and K. At 9:54pm, I texted him goodnight and went to bed. I fell asleep for a bit and then woke up around 12:20am. C was still not home. I texted him to ask him where he was, and told him I was worried about him and to please call me. But he never responded. Anyway, our house was basically in the middle of nowhere, with a lot of curvy roads required to get to it. I genuinely thought he had been in a car accident. I even texted his mom and his brother asking if they had heard from him or knew where he was, but they must have been asleep. I honestly don't even remember what time he showed up, but I want to say it was around 2am. He walks in the door completely nonchalant. I asked him where he had been. He said that he went to B's house after the game because he knew I was upset and he didn't want to come home to me. I told him I didn't think that was fair, and that I was upset because I had no idea if he was ok, if he had been injured or even killed in an accident on the way home. I asked him how I really knew B was even at the game, and he showed me a picture that the 3 of them had taken in the parking garage. But as far as after that, if he really went to B's house, who knows? Anyway, C announced that he was going to bed. I was absolutely flabbergasted. My husband is going to not come home for hours when he's never done that before, and I'm just supposed to go to bed like it was no big deal? No way Jose.

And then an argument ensued. During this argument, C told me that he didn't think we were compatible anymore. That we didn't "mesh" well. I was so confused. We literally just purchased a house together. We were discussing starting our family and had the baby names picked out. Now, all of a sudden, he thinks we're incompatible? None of it made sense. But the real topic of the argument was, of course, K. I was uncomfortable with how close they were getting, and all of the changes that I had seen since he met her. I asked him to set some boundaries with her in respect for our marriage. He refused and stated that no one was going to tell him who he could be friends with, and that one of the issues in our marriage was that I had been controlling.

Wait, WHAT? I was at a loss for words. He was the one who had always stated that he didn't think either of us should have friends of the opposite sex. And I had agreed with this. He seldom went out with friends, but it wasn't because of me. He was always telling me that he didn't like having friends, that friendships were too much work, that he only wanted to spend time with me. In fact, he wanted to ghost one of his friends and I encouraged him not to. When I reminded him what he had said about us not having friends of the opposite sex, he said that he had changed his mind. That it was different with her. That he didn't see why I had a problem with him "having a friend with a vagina." And he was absolutely not going to budge. Thus, a stalemate ensued. I told him that I was not okay with this supposed friendship, and that I wanted us to go to counseling and get someone else's perspective on the situation. He agreed to go, and I made us an appointment.

So, that was kind of how things started. I found out more things later, things that supported my suspicion that this was more than a friendship. Like the raunchy sex toy he purchased on his Amazon account on June 2nd that I never saw, because I had my own Amazon account. It most definitely wasn't to my taste. When I found out about that later, he told me that it was a gag gift for a coworker. I asked if that coworker was K, and he confirmed that it was. He insisted that I was making a mountain out of a molehill. But I knew otherwise. In what world does a man get his younger female coworker a sex toy as a gag gift? I mean, that's just a sexual harassment claim waiting to happen.

The thing about infidelity is that it calls your entire relationship into question. Things that you didn't think were a big deal at the time, you look back and wonder if they were more significant than you thought. Like when he started sleeping in the spare bedroom - a full year before this happened. He originally claimed it was because the cats woke him up in the middle of the night, so we stopped letting them sleep in there with us. Then he claimed it was because he got too hot, even though we had one of those oscillating tower fans on his side of the bed. Then he claimed that he just got better sleep when he was alone, and that plenty of couples slept in separate beds. But I was confused. We slept in the same bed for 4 years with no issues, so what suddenly changed? Another time, he received one of those 6-digit verification codes for Tinder. I asked him about it, and he claimed it was a scam, that of course it wasn't him. I searched the sender's number, and Google said that it did belong to Tinder. But once again, I just wrote it off. Partly because I didn't want to believe that the man I married was a liar and a cheater, and partly because I truly believed he wasn't. He had always told me that he would never cheat on me. That if he even so much as thought about it, he would tell me so we could part ways amicably. In fact, on June 11, he sent me the following text message: "I love you so much Hannah and I always will no matter what. I'd tell you if I ever started having feelings for another woman, you can trust me on that."

All of this, and we haven't even gotten to the other part yet. The part where I got confirmation, proof, evidence that the man I loved was lying to my face. Right now, all I had was a bunch of stuff that didn't add up, and a bunch of justifications from him. While I may not have had rock solid proof yet, I knew that something was going on. I knew it in my gut as sure as I knew that the sky was blue and the grass was green. But knowing that wasn't enough. I needed to catch him. I didn't want to end a marriage just on signs and suspicions alone. And so began my quest for the truth, however painful it was going to be.

"Trust your instincts. Intuition does not lie." - Oprah Winfrey