Two years ago, I cheated on my wife.
I swear, it wasn’t deliberate. It just happened…and lasted for… well, for almost two years. Yeah, I know, something I didn’t plan and yet lasted for almost two years.
You won’t believe me but I didn’t plan this affair because the other woman involved is also married yes; she isn’t a single girl.
How did it happen?
Well, I don’t know…I mean, like I said, it wasn’t planned. Ok, let me be honest, I was going through a rough patch at work; I work in a hospital; a patient died under my watch and it kind of affected me. I know most Nigerians think we doctors don’t care, that we are very cold and if a patient dies, we are not bothered.
Remember we are human; we also feel pain when we lose patients, especially when you are so sure this one would not die, then you come for your rounds the following morning and the doctor you are taking over from tells you something happened overnight. Very painful.
It was a woman with breast cancer. We had done the operation, though I wasn’t the one who performed it, I was among the team of doctors that did.
She had a good chance of surviving; we had been monitoring the woman and she looked like she would at least enjoy a few more years but she was gone when I resumed my shift two days after I had assured her husband and her sister that she would be fine.
I was told they put her on a ventilator after they made some observations, unfortunately, there was an emergency need for our ventilator so they took the woman off briefly, by the time they used it to stabilize the other patient and returned it…she didn’t make it; story of our lives.
So yes, I was not handling it well and who was there to truly understand what I felt but a fellow doctor in our team. We used to flirt with one another before then but it was only harmless flirting…at first; we both didn’t take it to heart but well…when there’s always this one person who listens to you, really listens to you…you actually like the person…one thing led to another and I fell…and stayed there…for two years.
How did I end it?
I didn’t, my wife found out and that ended it.
My wife and I have been together for more than 10years; I really love her, a lot but when she found out through one silly but harmless WhatsApp image; she began to snoop on me and check my phones…she found what she was looking for.
As in, at first I denied it vehemently, then she produced undeniable evidence…sis, when you are cheating, just delete those nonsense WhatsApp messages, don’t leave them on your phone to savour later, delete, delete, delete! Me, I was foolish, I left them to reread later and pleasure myself…
Madam found out and she didn’t even shout. She just hissed at me and refused to let me touch her.
I should have known that couldn’t have been the end of the wahala. I thought that because I begged and promised to be a good boy going forward, she had forgiven me.
She didn’t as I was later to find out; some months later, I noticed she began to take extra care of her appearance; my wife is as basic as any woman in her early 40s who’s had three kids. She didn’t take much care of herself. It was always about the kids but she began to do her hair, her nails…pedicure…everything…you know those wigs you women wear? She would do different styles, she was buying new clothes, shorter too, by the way and she’s always had a lovely figure but she liked wearing big clothes, suddenly she was wearing fitted clothes…I thought she was trying to make herself attractive to me following my misadventure…
I was wrong.
She was having an affair with her boss! The same man she used to insult before back in the day (before our quarrel,) when we had time to talk about our day at work; the same man she had been looking to leave his job as soon as something better came up…she was sleeping with the fat bastard! And you know what really gutted me? She didn’t try to hide it.
So, it was easy for me to know, to find out and when I confronted her with it, she told me she did it to spite me!
I died!
I swear, I died!
I know I cheated but her revenge is worse.
I didn’t plan mine, it just happened in a moment of weakness and I couldn’t get out of it. I always regretted it, that lady meant nothing, just really…nothing to me! But my wife planned hers, she dressed up for it, she showed up for it, she went after it intentionally and deliberately.
The new clothes, the hairstyles, the manicure, pedicure, facials…she got herself set for it… can you see how it differs from mine? Hers was fueled by hatred, fueled by guile and wickedness and I WILL never forgive her for it!
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)