'Facebook kept suggesting my husband's work colleague as a 'person I might know'. Then I saw the text.'

As told to Bek Day 

I knew the name of the woman my husband was cheating on me with long before I realised the connection.

Every time I’d log into Facebook, there she was — a picture of her, her husband and their sweet little babe in arms, staring out at me from the 'suggested friends' section of my homepage. 

At first, I didn't think anything of it. I could see that my husband was a mutual friend of the woman, but I'd never even bothered clicking on her profile.

One day, early last year, I saw that same profile picture staring out at me from a little bubble on my husband's messenger app. 

"Who’s *Aimee?" I asked casually, because at this point, that's as far as my interest went.

When he just looked at me, I pointed to his phone. 

"That woman keeps popping up on my Facebook as someone I might know," I explained.

"Oh, she's one of the sales reps at work," my husband replied, "she has a son the same age as *Henry."

Satisfied, I went about my day, but something about his reaction must have stirred some part of my intuition, even if I didn't realise it at the time. 

Weeks later, a woman posted on Facebook mum's group I'm part of. 

She was looking for advice: she had found suspicious text messages on her husband's phone and wanted to know what she should do. 

My heart sank with pity for the wife. Her husband was clearly cheating on her — no smoke without fire, right? — and the responses in the group shocked me. 

There were SO many women who had been through the same situation, commenting with messages of support or commiseration. 

One response stuck out to me though. 

Watch: MM Confessions: The moment I was caught stalking on social media. Post continues after video.

A woman, sharing her own tale of infidelity, said: "If you ever get a niggling feeling about a woman your husband mentions (or doesn't mention) believe it. If one name pops into your head when you question whether your husband could cheat on you, that’s the name you should be worried about."

As I read those words, Aimee’s name popped into mine.

The following evening, we were in the car on the way home from dinner with my parents, when our son asked to watch YouTube on my phone. Mine had low battery, so my husband handed me his phone to pass back into the back seat for Henry. 

As I did, I noticed a text: from Aimee. At 8:00pm on a Saturday. 

I handed the phone to our son without so much as a second glance, but the unopened text message was burning a hole through my brain. 

Once we were home and Henry was in bed, I turned to my husband and asked, "What did Aimee want with you on a Saturday?"

The look of guilt that flashed across his face was unmistakable.

"Just a question about work," he said unconvincingly.

"Really? Can I see the message?" I asked, my stomach dropping. 

"I deleted it," he replied.

I said nothing in response. The silence felt like it went on forever, until quietly he said "I need to tell you something."

And then it came out. There were 'feelings' there. They hadn't acted on them physically. He'd told her he thought they should stop speaking to one another, that he didn't want to leave his family. 

My heart shattered into a million pieces.

I don't know how much of the whole truth my husband told me that night. I didn't stick around to find out. I asked him to move out the following day — a few weeks later, he'd found a rental.

We tried counselling for a while but I knew I couldn't get the trust back. We co-parent Henry with a surprising amount of success. Sometimes I feel like I made a mistake, that we should give marriage another go, but if I'm honest, I've not really let myself wallow in that space. I don't think I could ever trust him again and I'm not interested in a relationship with someone who isn't 100 percent committed to me. 

It was all fairly underwhelming, as far as the drama was concerned. I don't want animosity with him, and I never felt the need to blow up Aimee’s marriage by confronting her about it or telling her husband, as some of my girlfriends suggested. 

Most days, I'm resigned to the idea that for whatever reason, our marriage wasn't meant to last. I try not to hold on to resentment, but thankfully, her face has stopped popping up in my Facebook feed. 

I'm not sure I could cope with that. 

Feature Image: Getty.

*names have been changed.

The author of this story is known to Mamamia but has chosen to remain anonymous for privacy reasons.