I Had 2 Huge Secrets. Then My Husband Remotely Logged On To Our Computer, And Everything Exploded

“The affair was the worst thing I ever did. It was also the wrecking ball that took out the last wall I was hiding behind.”

Sixteen years ago, I was a 38-year-old mother of three young children living in the suburbs of New Jersey.

Chris, my husband of nine years, and I owned a small Cape, white with blue shutters. The kids – two boys and a girl, ages 7, 5, and almost 3 – happily played in the fenced-in backyard, jumping in piles of leaves in the fall and running through sprinklers in the summer.

Chris commuted into New York City for work. I worked part-time as an administrative assistant, a job that gave me the flexibility to be the kids’ primary caregiver.

It was a picture-perfect life from the outside.

No one knew I was harbouring two secrets – one life-threatening, one morally reprehensible, both shameful.

I was an active alcoholic, drinking vodka most days while taking care of my children, and I was a cheating spouse.

I had managed to hide the drinking from nearly everyone, including myself, for over 20 years. My entanglement with the other man lasted four months.

What I didn’t know then was that without the one secret, I would never have been saved from the other.

It was midday on a Monday in December. Chris was away on a business trip. The kids were at school or napping. Electricians were finishing the last tasks of our house renovation, milling around outside my bedroom door. I was sitting at my Ikea desk, sipping a vodka cranberry, crafting yet another email to the man I’d spent one night with in October.

We had reconnected at a reunion, so cliché! Facebook messages became texts, texts........

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