‘I thought my husband was cheating – the truth was far more devastating’

It was the long, fruitless shop trips that first piqued Anna’s* suspicion.

She and husband James* were an ordinary, busy couple. They were both working; he was running his own tattoo business while Anna juggled part-time office work with caring for their two pre-schoolers who were raising chaos in their Midlands home. 

‘James would say he needed to get a few things from the shop and then leave. He’d be gone for a couple of hours, and when he got back, he wouldn’t really have anything. Just a bar of chocolate or something’, Anna tells Metro. 

It wasn’t the only red flag. James had been sketchy with his phone; taking it everywhere with him – into the loo and the bathroom when he showered. It was always in his pocket and he’d applied a privacy screen. 

‘He told me it was for banking and client confidentiality, and so people couldn’t steal his info when he was out and about. I just brushed it off, but the feeling of dread that had been growing in the pit of my stomach for months just intensified. 

‘If I challenged him – saying it looked a bit suspicious, for example – James always said I should know he wasn’t ‘the unfaithful kind’’,’ Anna remembers. And with two young children and 10 years of marriage behind them, she wanted to believe her husband. 

Yet deep in her heart, Anna knew James was lying about something. She found the answer in his work diary. Flicking through it while he was out one morning, Anna noticed the name ‘John’ appeared every couple of weeks, blocking out a whole day, which was strange for his type of work. 

‘A couple of days later, I went through his pockets, and I noticed that he had a train ticket on the same day “John” was supposedly booked to come into the studio,’ she remembers. 

Anna felt sick to her stomach. Desperate for clarity, and knowing James wouldn’t be honest, she contacted a detective agency called Reveal Private Investigators. She knew it was extreme, but didn’t know what else to do.

‘I felt I needed professionals to help because they would know the best way to uncover the truth. I didn’t want to do it myself because I didn’t want to be sneaking around and following him,’ explains Anna. 

On the day of the mysterious repeating appointment an investigator followed James. The next morning, while Anna was at home with the children, the PI called to deliver some shocking news. 

‘They were really considerate with how they told me and gently said  they had seen James arrive at his studio, go in, turn all the lights on and open the blinds. But then he locked up again, left through the back gate and headed for the train station. 

‘He’d made it appear that the shop was open – presumably in case I turned up – and got on the train.’ 

Once off the train, James bought a greetings card from one shop and baby toys from another, stopped to write inside the card, then met a woman and a newborn baby at a restaurant.

James had another family. 

‘I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and when I saw photos, I could just tell from the way he was holding the baby and looking at it that it was his. My heart dropped,’ remembers Anna. 

‘It was awful, just life shattering. I cried uncontrollably for a long time. We’d built a life together – we had two kids – and everything had come crashing down. But at the same time, I felt relieved to finally know the truth.’ 

Later that next day, with the children tucked up in bed, Anna challenged her husband, who, incredibly, continued to lie. 

‘I told him straight out: “I think you’re cheating on me. I think there’s more to the story as to why you’re going out at night, why you’re being so secretive.” I mentioned about the appointments in the diary, and he just denied everything. 

‘So, then I said I had proof and showed James the pictures – that’s when he broke down. He was immediately apologetic and begged for forgiveness. But how sorry can you really be when you’ve done all that? I knew it was the end then.’

James finally admitted that it was his baby and that he’d been seeing another woman for a year, who had got pregnant quickly by accident. 

‘I was furious. I told him that he’d ruined everything. He’d destroyed our little family unit, turned the kids’ lives upside down. I got all his stuff together, chucked it into a bag and threw it out the door and demanded he left,’ says Anna.

‘I was angry – I still am. You can never forget about someone doing that to your family. 

‘I told the kids that daddy’s gone for a holiday for a bit, and then when I calmed down enough, he came back for a couple of days while we tried to transition into our new seperate lives.

‘Eventually James moved out, but it’s been tough on the kids, because they didn’t really understand.’

Anna has now rebuilt her life as a single mum – though she lives under what she calls “a massive grey cloud”. The kids see their dad every two weeks on weekends.  

‘My family and friends were livid. We have a big mutual friendship group which has been a nightmare to try and navigate. His friends obviously don’t agree with anything that he’s done, but they were his friends from the beginning, so it’s been difficult. Most of the girls have sided with me, while the boys have stuck with him.’

The couple had lived in the Midlands because that was where James grew up, however, Anna is now considering whether to move back to her hometown, more than 100 miles away.

‘It still hurts. For so long, I thought I was going mad because of his denials. How can you do that to someone you are supposed to love? He’s betrayed me and the children and now he’s put me in a situation where I have to choose whether to uproot their whole lives. 

‘He’s done that to our whole family for what – a little bit of fun?’

Although Anna is rebuilding her shattered confidence, she knows she won’t be able to trust another partner for a while. However, she adds, she is grateful she found out the truth.

‘If I hadn’t, I think he would have just kept lying. I am glad I got that information when I did so I could at last know the truth and rebuild my life. I am glad that I am no longer living with insecurity and paranoia, I really thought I was going crazy.

 ‘I’m okay now. I have good days and bad days. The house is quiet and it feels weird to be alone but it’s for the best.

‘But now I know the truth, I’ve just got to move on.’ 

*Names have been changed