When my husband asked me to come clean, I didn’t know what he was talking about; plus, it came out of nowhere. One minute, we were talking and having fun. The next minute, he asked me to come clean. I asked, “Come clean about what?” He answered, “Isn’t there anything you need to confess?”
I looked at him quietly and silently juggled my mind through memory lane before responding, “No, there’s nothing to come clean about. Or do *you* have something to say? Have *you* done anything you need to confess?”
He shook his head and ended the conversation.
Our marriage was only seventeen months old, and yes, there *were* so many sins to confess, but I didn’t think I needed to. I loved him too much to say anything to destroy our young marriage.
When we were going to bed that night, he slept away from me. He was at the far end of the bed, coiled into himself as if he didn’t want his skin to touch anything. That didn’t feel right, so I asked if there was something he wanted to talk about. He answered, “You said there’s nothing to confess, so let’s leave it there.”
I couldn’t sleep. “*Has* he found something? If he has, then what could it be? Which of my sins?”
I went to work a disturbed woman. I went through every chat on my phone, looking for traces of anything he might have read. There was nothing incriminating on my phone.
I’m a woman who knows the essence of covering traces. Whatever I did wrong and wanted to hide, I buried six feet down and covered *it* with concrete so the sand wouldn’t erode to expose what *was* beneath.
A month before our wedding, I slept with a client to keep my job. I hadn’t met my target consistently for five months. The pressure was on me. I’d been queried. I’d been summoned. I’d been warned that if it happened again in the sixth month, I would lose my job. That client was my ticket to restoring my professional dignity. My boss told me, “If you bring this one in, it erases all your sins since you came here.”
The client proved difficult at first, but when I entered his office and he saw me, he loosened up. He flirted with me, and I let it all go so I could land him. It happened twice. The last time was a month before my wedding, and he was aware of it.
My next sin happened a year after marriage. It was with another client. I had promised myself I would start looking for another job—a job without targets and strict KPIs so I wouldn’t have to sleep with clients again. This one happened only once. He invested with us afterward and also got me a new phone, a phone I still use to this day.
I asked myself, “Which of these *infidelities* does my husband know about and is trying to extract a confession for?”
I was sure he didn’t know because I didn’t chat about these sins when they happened. “Maybe he’s tricking me into a confession,” I concluded.
His behavior kept changing. He wouldn’t talk to me like he used to. He wouldn’t even laugh with me. All he asked for was a confession. He even said he would forgive easily if I came clean. “Dear, if you’ve heard something, just say it and let’s talk about it. What’s this ‘confession, confession’ about?” I asked.
And then he asked, “Who gave you this phone? You told me it was from the office and that you would be deducted at the source. Tell the truth. Who gave it to you?”
I saw the entire lifespan of my marriage flash before my eyes. “So he knows. How come? How is that possible?”
I didn’t answer him but decided to walk away. He held my hand, pulled me back, and screamed, “Stand there and talk! That’s all you do when I bring this topic up. I said, who gave you that phone?”
We argued. He demanded answers. He screamed. I kept telling him the same story, and he kept calling me a liar. I said, “What do you know that I don’t? If you know someone gave it to me, then mention the person’s name.”
“I know you slept with him again to get it,” he said.“No, it didn’t happen again. It happened only once,” I calmly corrected him.
He was talking about my ex, the rich guy I dated before him. That guy was abroad when we got married. Unbeknownst to me, he was in town just around the time I got the phone. My husband put two and two together and concluded incorrectly. He had gone through my phone, checked my salary for three months, and realized there were no deductions on it. So he concluded the story I told was a lie.
I gave him the whole story, thinking he had somehow found out what I did for the phone. He opened his mouth and never closed it. “You’re sleeping with clients?” he asked. I responded, “I hate the way you’re putting it. I said it happened only once, and I did it to keep my job.”
I knew my marriage had come to an end, but guess what? That very night, after the confession, he slept with me while calling me a whore. I cried throughout, asking for forgiveness. He asked if I would leave my job, and I said yes. He asked when, and I said as soon as I got a new one. All this while he was inside me, with anger drawn on his face.
We woke up the next morning, and he went about his life as if nothing had happened.
It’s been weeks, but he hasn’t mentioned it again. So I sleep with one eye open. Before I sleep, I lock the kitchen and hide the keys. That’s where the knives are. I tell him what I’m doing to get a new job: the interviews I’ve attended, the poor offers I’ve been receiving.
All he says is, “Keep trying.” So I keep trying, and I keep hiding the kitchen keys every night we sleep. Men don’t forgive cheating, so his attitude surprises me. Maybe he’s trying to catch me unaware. I don’t know, but only time will tell.
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