When My Wife Cheated, I Forgave Her But She’s The One Asking For Divorce

Grief is strange. It doesn’t always come from death. Sometimes it comes from abandonment, from betrayal, from the slow, painful tearing apart of a life you built with someone you thought would stay forever.

When I fell in love with Diana years ago, we dated for two years before marrying. We were the happiest couple on earth. Nothing could come between us except laughter, joy, and what felt like pure love. Our first child came just a year after marriage, so soon that people thought we’d been pregnant before the wedding. The second came a year later. Just when we thought we were God’s favorites, I had an accident that took everything away, including my leg.

Five years ago, when I lost my leg, I thought the world had ended. From that hospital bed, everything looked different. I was no longer the strong man who could run, work long hours, and provide for his family without flinching. I felt like a burden. The only reason I didn’t collapse into full despair was Diana. My wife.

She bathed me when I couldn’t stand. She fed me when my hands shook too much to hold a spoon. She lifted my body, wiped my tears, and told me every day, “You’re still my husband. Disability doesn’t make you less.”

She worked twice as hard to keep this family running. She paid the children’s school fees and our rent so we wouldn’t be homeless. She handled chores, picked up side jobs, and smiled through exhaustion. She acted as if the vows—for better or worse, in sickness and in health—were written for her alone. I admired her. I loved her more for it. I told myself that if God gave me a second chance, I’d spend every day making her happy.

So, imagine the pain when the woman you credit with saving your life becomes the one to break it apart.

It started with the late nights. Diana would come home tired, sometimes glowing in a way that didn’t look like exhaustion. Then came the lifts home. A strange car dropping her off late every evening. When I asked, she’d say, “It’s just a Good Samaritan.” But how many Good Samaritans drive the same car? How many drop a married woman home almost every night?

Suspicion ate at me until the night her phone rang. She was sleeping beside me, breathing softly, her back turned. I picked up. A man’s voice said, “Hello, babe.”

My heart stopped. I asked quietly, “Why are you calling my wife ‘babe’?” He hung up immediately. That was the night I went through her phone. Every disabled man knows the internal battle you dread confirming what your heart already suspects. I opened her messages, and the truth slapped me until I felt my heart leaking from my chest.

They had met that evening. She had kissed him. She told him she wished she could stay longer. My wife. The woman who held my crutches. The woman who wiped me when my hands were too weak to reach. She had been coming home late because she was with another man. A married man, for that matter.

My shoulders shook as I woke Diana. When she saw my swollen eyes and her phone in my hand, she knew. She didn’t deny it. She said she was sorry. She said she’d made a mistake. That loneliness and stress had clouded her judgment. She begged me not to leave her. And like a man who still believed love was enough, I forgave her.

We rebuilt from scratch. We never raised our voices. We never disrespected each other in front of the kids. We buried the cheating like a corpse and hoped it would decompose quietly. I believed we were healing. I believed we were moving forward.

Until one afternoon, Diana said, “It’s not working for me. I’m too tired. I need a rest.” I asked, “Rest from what?” She answered, “From this marriage. I don’t remember the last time I was happy.”

My crutch almost slipped. “Why? When did you become unhappy?” I asked. She said, “You won’t understand, even if I explain for days.” I thought it was a moment of depression, or a plea for me to try harder. But she was serious. She wanted a divorce, and she wanted it as soon as possible.

I called both families. Nothing changed. I took her to our pastor. For the first time, I mentioned the cheating. Diana flared up like fire touching petrol. When we got home, she snapped: “We agreed no one would ever hear about this. Why did you embarrass me?”

A week later, she packed her clothes, took our children, and left.

Now I am here alone, listening to the sound of my crutch tapping on an empty floor. I brought in a relative to help me move around, but she is not Diana. She is not the woman I built a life with. She is not the mother of my children, whose laughter once filled this house.

Every night, I cry on the inside. Not because I lost her, people leave all the time, but because I don’t understand why. How do you heal with someone, only for them to walk away as if healing was just the warm-up to a final heartbreak?

I am fighting the divorce because my heart is still stuck in the past. But every passing day shows me that Diana is already gone. Not just physically, but emotionally. Spiritually. Permanently.

What Will Happen If You Do It On The First Date?

I survived losing a leg, but losing her is the worse pain. My leg allowed me to walk, but Diana allowed me to live. And now I am standing here on one leg, with one heart, and neither of them feels enough anymore.

—Afrifa

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