From The Straits Times    |

The father of my child had 9 affairs.jpg

Image: Seasons.Agency/Jalag/Neumann, Nicole/Click Photos

“I met Andy* through a social networking app. After realising we had many mutual friends, we started chatting. We dated for two months before we got together officially.

“Although he wasn’t a conventionally good-looking man, I was attracted to his caring and loving nature. He would always accompany me when I had to run errands, frequently had meals with my family, and introduced me to all his friends. Everyone had a good impression of him; I felt secure with him.

“One year into our relationship, I discovered that I was pregnant. I wanted to get married immediately, but he persuaded me to wait till I had given birth because it felt too rushed. I agreed, because I thought there was no reason for him to lie to me. Besides, we were really happy together.

“I gave birth to our baby girl last year. Two months after that, he still hadn’t mentioned a word about marriage.

An affair with the ex
“At that point, Andy started to stay away from the home we shared, sometimes even on weekends. When I questioned him about it, he explained that he was too tired to drive home after leaving work for the night. It sounded plausible, but – call it a woman’s intuition – I started to become suspicious.

“One night, after checking that Andy was sound asleep after he had come home drunk, I took his phone and synced his data to the computer before backing it up to a phone that I seldom used.

“By scrolling through his Whatsapp conversations, I found out that he had been seeing his ex-girlfriend, Belinda*, behind my back just a month after I got pregnant. In the messages, he promised to marry her if she had a child with him, and discussed the possibility of buying a house together.

“My heart sank. But instead of confronting him about Belinda, I broached the topic of marriage again. He said that we should get married at the end of the year. For the sake of my daughter, I was willing to take his word for it and even forgive him for his infidelity, just so we could become a complete family.

The serial cheater
“In the weeks that followed, I tried my best to salvage our relationship by suggesting a weekend getaway so we could have some couple time. He turned me down on the pretext of work, but I knew he was just giving excuses to spend time with Belinda.

“This made me determined to find out more about their interactions, so I started checking his movie bookings by entering his NRIC number online, and tracking his location using the ‘Find My iPhone’ function on iCloud. (I’m not IT-savvy, but the situation made me more resourceful.) I also decided to read his messages again.

“I was shocked to find out that he wasn’t just cheating on me with Belinda – he was having one-night stands with seven other women. One message read ‘We spent the night together’.

“After further browsing, I realised he was also seeing Karen*, whom he had said was his ‘godma’. “Little did I know that this ‘godma’ was, in fact, just a few years older than him! He was texting her every day, going on movie dates with her, and had even gone from calling her ‘godma’ to ‘wife’ – I felt sick when I saw this.

The deal-breaker
“The next day, I made up my mind to tell Andy that I had already filed for a notice of marriage in the following month – even though I hadn’t. I wanted to test his reaction and see if he would come clean about all the women.

“He didn’t, but to my surprise, he suggested getting married the next day. I decided to file for the earliest available date two weeks later. “However, I found out (through the messages on his phone) that he was complaining to Belinda about me forcing him to get married, and he told her he would ‘screw me up and not turn up on the actual day’. What made it worse was that they had purchased a condo unit together, and he had reassured her that he didn’t care even if I killed myself, and his only concern was getting child custody if that were to happen.

“My maternal instincts kicked in there and then. I knew I had to leave him to prevent him from ever taking my daughter away from me.

Leaving him for good
“I told my family and close friends the whole story. My brother encouraged me to leave Andy, and said that I could move in with him.

“One weekend, when Andy was on a work trip, I packed my bags, took my daughter, and left. He texted me at 3am – five hours after his plane landed – to find out where our baby was. I replied that I had left him because I’d found out about his affairs.

“Not only was he unapologetic, he flared up at me and even challenged me for custody of our daughter. He threatened to sue me for filing for our marriage without his consent, and infringing on his privacy by checking his messages. He wanted to prove that I was unfit to care for our daughter.

“I was shaken by what he said, but decided to ignore his threats and block him on Facebook and Whatsapp.

For my daughter’s sake
“It’s been almost six months since I left Andy, but I have yet to receive the lawyer’s letter that he threatened to serve me. I’ve also learnt that Belinda broke up with him after finding out about Karen.

“His Whatsapp profile now displays a picture of him and Karen, and his status suggests they are planning to get married.

“For all that he’s done to me, I’ve considered shaming him publicly, but I’m afraid he’ll get back at me somehow. To be honest, I would have forgiven him for sleeping around if he wasn’t serious about those women.

“Right now, I plan to keep my daughter away from him, and eventually file for sole custody so I can raise her on my own. Though I don’t think he deserves to be her father, I will tell her about him when she’s old enough because she deserves to know the truth.”

*Names have been changed

This story was first published in Her World Magazine September 2015.

Find out why this woman decided to forgive her cheating husband and how this woman dealt with her husband who cheated on her with their maid.