I woke up because my hubby was singing and laughing in bed. I turn on the light, and he doesn’t move, but he starts to flap his arms. I call 911, and they take him to the hospital. They told me he had a little seizure, which scared me. It could have been because he was very stressed out or not getting enough sleep.
As I sat there, shocked, looking at his lifeless body in the emergency room, my heart was beating in my ears. He had apparatus linked to him, and a rubber mask covered his mouth. His chest lifted and sank very gently. The nurse questioned me, “Has your husband been acting strange lately?”
I wanted to say no. But something stopped me.
The previous few months have been odd. Not scary, just odd. He started staying up later than usual and always said he had work to do. I don’t like to pry, but I saw him close his laptop when I walked in. While he was on the phone, I heard a name I didn’t know: “Nadia.” He said she was just someone from procurement when I asked who she was.
He normally kept his phone on mute and took it with him to the bathroom.
I believed it was because I was under a lot of stress. Money was hard for us. His tiny logistics company almost went out of business during the outbreak, but we were just starting to get back on our feet. I thought he could be embarrassed and trying to get me to stop worrying.
But now that I see him like this, limp and quiet, I can’t help but worry that something is wrong.
The doctors wanted to keep an eye on him overnight. I went home to grab a new clothes, and for some reason, I brought his laptop with me. I told myself it was so the doctors would know what he was working on and what he had been doing before the episode.
At the table where we dine, I opened my laptop and my hands shook a little. There wasn’t even a password.
I spotted a folder on the desktop labeled “Invoices_2022” first. Inside, there is simply one document. But when I opened it, it wasn’t bills; it was a spreadsheet. There are a lot of names, dates, and cash numbers in the document. I went down. The total for the last nine months was $48,700. And “N.L.” was written on every contract.
I didn’t know most of the names. But one entry made me sick: “E-transfer—Nadia L.—$4,200—’Tuition Payment.'”
What does “tuition” mean?
I opened his emails and typed “Nadia” into the search bar. There were a lot of emails in the inbox. A few folks are just submitting articles or videos. Others penned long, complicated lines describing how they felt, what they wished they had done differently, and the dreams they had “when things were easier.”
It didn’t sound like buying items.
I clicked on one that stated, “Still thinking about your necklace in Santorini.”
That was it. I lost it.
I felt dumb as I stared at the computer. My husband, Sayed, had been sending thousands of dollars to another woman. He had called me “his lighthouse.” Maybe even paying for her education. And the love story wasn’t simply a one-night thing. They remembered things. Jokes that only you and your buddies will get. Images. There was an image of a ticket that was about to fly. He went to Montreal last October for “a conference.” But there was a photo of them in a cafe in his inbox.
She was younger. Maybe in their mid-20s. A group of people of different races, with pink hair and gold hoop earrings. She looked right at the camera. He gave her a kiss on the cheek.
I didn’t get any sleep that night.
He was awake in the hospital, drinking juice and watching the news like nothing had happened.
I didn’t say anything right away. I waited. Seen. He did what he always does. He joked around with the nurses. He sent a text while I wasn’t looking.
I told him to sit down at the kitchen table that night when we got home.
“Who is Nadia?” I asked in a soft voice.
He quit looking at his phone. “What?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know.” I found the emails. The steps. The whole thing came to light.
He looked blank. The silence was cold and flat. Then he stood up and said, “That’s not what you think.”
That saying. This term means what you think it means.
He mentioned that Nadia was the daughter of an old friend of the family, but that wasn’t true. She lost her mother, her father went away, and he thought of her as “like a niece.” He had been helping her with education and giving her money.
“And the photos? The kiss on the cheek? Was it the “Santorini necklace”? I shot back.
He stuttered. He told me he was “emotionally confused.” That he felt bad for her. That things “got fuzzy.”
I questioned him simply, “Did you sleep with her?”
He waited too long—three seconds too long.
I didn’t shout. No tears. I just got up, grabbed my keys, and left.
I drove about for a long time. At the end, I parked in front of my cousin Rukhsana’s house. She opened the door in her pajamas, glanced at me, and said, “You can stay as long as you want.”
Sayed wrote me a note the next morning:
“Don’t tell anyone about this.” Let’s talk. I’m done talking to her. I made a mistake.
Something changed in me at that time.
This wasn’t simply about being dishonest. It was about lies. He slowly made me think that I was just watching my own life. He gave a female who wore Chanel perfume and uploaded yoga pictures millions of dollars as I cut coupons.
I lived with Rukhsana for two weeks. During that time, I learned a lot. I looked for Nadia on social media. She put a picture of him from 2021 on her page, but she dubbed him “Shawn” instead.
My spouse had created a totally other person.
That made everything possible.
I called a lawyer. Without telling him, in a discreet way. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get a divorce, but I wanted to know what my options were. He told me he needed to “keep the business going” and took out a second loan on our house without telling me.
That night, I went home, walked in softly, and said, “I want all of your money.” All of them. Right now.
At first, he was angry. On the defensive. Things changed when he realized I wasn’t going to give up. He didn’t say anything else. Quiet. After that, he went into the study and came back with a box of papers.
There it was: Business income has dropped by 60%.
Credit cards are filled. Nadia wasn’t just a one-night stand; he promised to help her become a “lifestyle brand.”
– The worst thing was that he exploited my social security number to get one of the loans.
That was it.
I told him I wanted a divorce.
But here’s the twist that no one saw coming, not even myself.
Three months into the legal mess, I got a letter from a law firm in Vancouver. Nadia had really made a fraud charge against Sayed. She said he fooled her into thinking he was divorced, gave her money, and then “disappeared.”
She took images of the screen. Messages on voicemail. He even left a voicemail in which he said he had signed his name.
That letter rescued me in the end.
My lawyer used it to prove that someone was lying to me and other people also. I was able to keep my portion of the assets, fix my credit, and even—this makes me smile—keep the house.
His brother took him in. Nadia posted about it on social media for everyone to see. She put a video online called “The Married Man Who Stole My Twenties and Lied to Me.”
It got a little bit bigger. People in our region knew who he was. His business went terribly wrong.
I won’t lie and claim I didn’t feel any kind of pleasure.
But I also felt free.
I started teaching music classes at the community center again, but only for a few hours a week. I got back in touch with some old pals I hadn’t seen in a while. Every Thursday, I went to the basement of a Lutheran church to meet with a group of women who were there to help each other. We drank tea, spoke about our exes, and cried when we needed to.
I met someone at a craft show one day.
His name was Teo. He was a retired technician who taught welding to youths who were at risk. We talked about plants, how mint is just a weed, and how Facebook Marketplace can be incredibly annoying.
No sparks were present. No violins. Just… peace. Talk that stays the same. He helped me carry my stuff to the car. He called me back two days later.
We’ve been going slowly. I don’t need to hurry. But this time, I’m looking for the signals that anything is wrong.
Maybe that’s the most important thing to learn.
We don’t always see lying right away. Especially when they are hidden by kindness or years of confidence. The truth will set you free, even if it hurts to hear it. At last.
If someone is making you feel like you’re crazy or that your gut doesn’t matter… Believe me, it does matter.
Don’t forget about the little things. Think about the times when your phone is quiet. The emails come in late at night. They act kind to mask how sorry they are.
Everything will change one day when you turn on your laptop.
