My wife came home from staying with her sick sister and told me they had finally talked about everything. She said her sister had apologized for the distance between them and had told her something she had been afraid to say for thirty years. Then my wife looked at me and asked, “Why did she say you already knew?”
I told her I didn’t understand. She opened her phone and showed me a message from her sister. It said that the weekend of our engagement party, she and I had slept together. She said we’d both agreed it could never happen again, and she had spent thirty years believing I would eventually tell my wife.
My wife asked me whether it was true. I could have lied one more time. Instead, I nodded. She didn’t yell. She just sat down and stared at the floor, then asked me why I’d let her believe her sister had abandoned her for no reason.
I told her I was ashamed and afraid of losing her. She shook her head and said, “You weren’t protecting our marriage. You were protecting yourself and making two sisters pay for what you did.” Then she picked up her coat and went back to the hospital.
