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23 Years of Marriage, One Hidden Journal, and the Truth That Broke Us | True Story
Sep 22, 2025
23 Years of Marriage, One Hidden Journal, and the Truth That Broke Us | True Story After 23 years of marriage, a simple home repair uncovered a secret that shattered everything I thought I knew about my wife and our life together. Finding her journal — detailing an 18-month affair and the raw emotions behind it — forced me to confront not just betrayal, but the painful truth about how we stopped truly seeing each other. This is the story of love, loss, trust, and the difficult journey toward understanding and closure. Watch as I reveal the journal entries, the court battle, and the moments that made me question everything — including myself. If you've ever felt invisible in a relationship or struggled with forgiveness, this story might resonate with you.
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0:00
My world started to unravel with a leaky
0:02
roof. After 23 years of marriage, our
0:05
Portland house finally decided to show
0:07
its age. My wife, Myra, had beenounding
0:11
me for months to get it fixed. But
0:13
between my job at the insurance firm and
0:16
her nursing shifts, we barely had time
0:18
to breathe, let alone deal with home
0:20
repairs.
0:22
The water damage was worse than I
0:23
expected. The contractor, Lewis, shook
0:27
his head when he saw the attic.
0:29
You've got mold issues up here, he said.
0:32
We need to clear everything out before
0:34
we can start. That's when I found it.
0:37
Tucked behind a box of old Christmas
0:39
decorations wrapped in a plastic bag
0:42
like some kind of forbidden treasure was
0:44
a leatherbound journal. The cover was
0:46
worn smooth, and when I opened it, I saw
0:49
Myra's handwriting. But it wasn't the
0:52
neat, careful script I knew from grocery
0:54
lists and birthday cards. This was
0:57
different. raw, honest.
1:00
The first entry was dated three years
1:02
ago. I can't keep pretending anymore.
1:05
When I'm with Vincent, I feel like
1:07
myself again, not like the woman who
1:10
makes dinner and asks about insurance
1:11
claims. He sees me the way I used to be.
1:15
Vincent, I knew that name. He was a
1:19
doctor at the hospital where Myra
1:21
worked. I'd met him at a few
1:23
fundraisers. A friendly guy, married
1:25
with twin daughters. I sat in that dusty
1:28
attic for 2 hours reading about my
1:30
wife's affair with clinical precision.
1:33
She documented everything. Their first
1:36
conversation by the vending machine,
1:38
their first coffee date, the first time
1:40
she lied to me about working late.
1:43
But it wasn't just the affair that was
1:45
gutting me. It was how she wrote about
1:48
me. Tom asked me about my day again. He
1:51
does that every evening like clockwork.
1:54
I used to think it was sweet. Now I
1:57
realize he's not really listening. He's
1:59
just going through the motions because
2:01
that's what husbands do. I made his
2:04
favorite dinner tonight, meatloaf with
2:05
mashed potatoes. He thanked me three
2:08
times. Vincent would have noticed I was
2:10
upset.
2:12
Tom just ate and talked about his day
2:14
like nothing was wrong. Page after page
2:16
of my failures as a husband, cataloged
2:19
with the same attention to detail she
2:21
used for her nursing notes. every missed
2:23
cue, every conversation I'd tuned out,
2:26
every time I'd chosen the TV over her.
2:29
The worst part was realizing she wasn't
2:31
wrong.
2:32
Somewhere between the mortgage payments
2:34
and the routine of 23 years, I had
2:37
stopped seeing her as a person and
2:39
started seeing her as a role she played
2:41
in my life.
2:43
The entries got more detailed, more
2:45
intimate. She wrote about hotels I'd
2:48
unknowingly paid for with our joint
2:50
credit card. Lies she'd told me that I'd
2:52
believed without question. Tom so
2:55
trusting.
2:57
Sometimes I feel guilty about how easy
2:59
it is to deceive him. But then I
3:01
remember how he looked right through me
3:03
at Janet's wedding last month and the
3:05
guilt disappears.
3:08
The affair lasted 18 months. 18 months
3:11
of detailed entries about their
3:13
relationship, their dreams of leaving
3:15
their spouses and starting over. Then
3:18
abruptly, it ended. It's over. Vincent's
3:22
wife found out. She's threatening to
3:24
tell Tom if Vincent doesn't end it
3:26
immediately. He chose her. Of course, he
3:30
chose her. They have children together,
3:33
a real life. What did I expect? I hate
3:36
him. I hate her. I hate Tom for being so
3:39
oblivious. I hate myself for thinking I
3:41
could have something more than this. The
3:43
final entry was dated 6 months ago. Tom
3:46
bought me flowers today. Daisy's from
3:48
the grocery store. He said he thought I
3:51
seemed sad lately and wanted to cheer me
3:53
up. I started crying right there in the
3:56
kitchen. He held me and said everything
3:58
would be okay. He has no idea what he's
4:01
forgiving me for. I love him. I've
4:04
always loved him, but I don't know if I
4:06
can live with what I've done. Every time
4:09
he's kind to me, it's like a knife in my
4:11
chest. I closed the journal and sat in
4:14
the silence of our attic, surrounded by
4:16
boxes of memories from a marriage I'd
4:18
thought I understood.
4:20
When I came downstairs, Myra was in the
4:23
kitchen, still in her scrubs, heating up
4:25
leftover soup. "How'd it go up there?"
4:29
she asked without looking up. "Fine," I
4:32
said. "Just a lot of water damage."
4:35
That night, I lay awake listening to her
4:37
breathe. the journal a leen weight on my
4:39
chest. For 3 days, I carried the weight
4:42
of what I'd read, watching her, looking
4:45
for signs of the woman in the journal.
4:48
I was angry about the affair, but I was
4:50
angrier about the truth in those pages,
4:53
about the husband I'd become without
4:55
realizing it. On the fourth day, I
4:58
called my lawyer, not for divorce
4:59
papers, but for something else. I need
5:02
to understand my options, I told him. If
5:05
someone were to hypothetically access
5:07
private documents during a legal
5:09
proceeding, what would the implications
5:11
be?
5:13
He was careful with his words. That
5:15
depends on the nature of the documents
5:17
and how they were obtained.
5:19
Are we talking about a divorce case?
5:22
Maybe, I said. I'm not sure yet. That
5:26
evening, I did something I should have
5:28
done years ago. I asked Myra to sit with
5:31
me, just the two of us. I want to talk,
5:34
I said. We talked for 3 hours, not about
5:37
the affair, but about everything else.
5:39
How we'd stopped seeing each other. How
5:41
our marriage had become a series of
5:43
habits instead of choices. I feel like I
5:46
disappeared somewhere, she said quietly.
5:49
Like I became this person I don't
5:51
recognize.
5:52
I know, I said. I think I did, too. I
5:56
wanted to say we could fix it, but the
5:58
journal was upstairs and I still didn't
6:00
know if she would ever tell me the
6:02
truth. I don't know, I said, but I think
6:05
we have to try. The next morning, I
6:08
called my lawyer again. I want to file
6:11
for divorce, I said. I want to use the
6:14
journal as evidence legally and above
6:15
board. Are you prepared for how ugly
6:18
this might get? He asked.
6:21
I thought about the woman in the
6:22
journal, the one who'd felt invisible in
6:24
our marriage. Yes, I said, "I'm
6:27
prepared."
6:29
The final reckoning.
6:31
The divorce proceedings started quietly.
6:34
Myra was shocked when she was served the
6:36
papers, but she didn't fight it. She
6:38
hired a lawyer, a sharp woman named
6:40
Patricia.
6:42
During the discovery phase, I submitted
6:43
the journal as evidence. I'd made
6:46
copies, of course, but I also submitted
6:48
the original authenticated by a
6:49
handwriting expert.
6:51
The court date was set for a Tuesday
6:53
morning in November. I'd been dreading
6:55
it for months, but as I sat there
6:57
waiting for the judge, I felt oddly
6:59
calm. This was it, the moment when
7:02
everything would come out. My lawyer
7:05
started with the basic facts. 23 years
7:08
of marriage, no children, joint assets
7:10
to be divided. And then, your honor, he
7:13
said, the plaintiff has evidence that
7:15
the defendant engaged in an
7:16
extrammarital affair that lasted 18
7:18
months.
7:20
This evidence comes from the defendant's
7:22
own diary found in the marital home,
7:24
Patricia objected. My lawyer countered.
7:27
The judge allowed it. He opened the
7:30
journal and began to read. I can't keep
7:32
pretending anymore. When I'm with
7:35
Vincent, I feel like myself again, real.
7:39
Not like the woman who makes dinner and
7:40
asks about insurance claims. I watched
7:43
Myra's face as her own words filled the
7:45
courtroom. She was crying silently. My
7:49
lawyer continued.
7:51
Tom asked me about my day again. He does
7:53
that every evening like clockwork. I
7:56
used to think it was sweet. Now I
7:58
realize he's not really listening. He's
8:00
just performing marriage. That's when I
8:03
saw it. The exact moment Patricia
8:05
realized what she was dealing with. This
8:08
wasn't just evidence of an affair. It
8:10
was evidence of something much more
8:12
complicated. A marriage that had died
8:15
long before the affair began. My lawyer
8:18
read entry after entry, the clinical
8:20
details of the affair, but also the
8:23
emotional reality of our marriage. The
8:25
way we'd stopped seeing each other, the
8:27
way I'd become a man who went through
8:29
the motions of being a husband without
8:31
actually being present.
8:33
Tom, so trusting. Sometimes I feel
8:36
guilty about how easy it is to deceive
8:38
him. But then I remember how he looked
8:40
right through me at Janet's wedding last
8:42
month and the guilt disappears.
8:45
I remembered that wedding. I remembered
8:47
standing next to Myra during the
8:48
ceremony, thinking about work, about a
8:51
claim I needed to process on Monday. I'd
8:53
missed the entire thing, including the
8:55
fact that my wife was falling apart
8:57
right beside me. My lawyer reached the
8:59
end of the journal. He read the final
9:01
entry about the daisies, the tears, the
9:03
realization that she'd always loved me
9:06
but couldn't live with what she'd done.
9:08
When he finished, the courtroom was
9:10
silent.
9:12
"Mrs. Chen," the judge said, "do you
9:14
have any response to this evidence."
9:17
Myra stood slowly. "Your honor," she
9:19
said. "I I don't dispute any of it.
9:23
Every word is true." Patricia, her
9:25
lawyer, stood up to interrupt, but Myra
9:27
was already talking. I had an affair. I
9:31
lied to my husband for 18 months. I
9:33
documented it all in that journal
9:34
because because I needed to make sense
9:36
of what I was doing. Tom, I'm sorry. I'm
9:40
so sorry. Not just for the affair, but
9:43
for all of it. For the way I wrote about
9:45
you. For the way I made you feel like
9:47
you were the problem when we were both
9:49
just lost. Patricia tried again to stop
9:51
her. But Myra pulled away.
9:54
I need to say this, your honor. I don't
9:57
want to fight this divorce. I don't want
9:59
to drag this out. I just want to say
10:01
that Tom isn't the man I wrote about in
10:03
that journal. He's better than that. He
10:06
was always better than that. She was
10:08
crying openly now. I wrote those things
10:11
because I needed to justify what I was
10:13
doing. I needed to make him the villain
10:15
so I could be the victim. But he wasn't
10:18
the villain. He was just a man who
10:20
worked hard and loved me the best way he
10:22
knew how. Patricia just packed her
10:24
briefcase and left the courtroom. The
10:27
judge called a recess anyway. In the
10:30
hallway, Myra approached me. "I know
10:32
you'll probably never forgive me," she
10:34
said. "And I understand that, but I need
10:37
you to know. Finding someone else wasn't
10:40
the solution. It was just a symptom of
10:42
something that was already broken." "I
10:44
know," I said. I read the journal, too.
10:48
"Then why did you write those things?" I
10:50
asked. because I needed to blame
10:52
someone," she said. "And you were there.
10:54
You were safe to blame because you'd
10:55
never fight back. You just took it like
10:57
you always did."
11:00
2 weeks later, the divorce was
11:01
finalized. Myra moved out of the house
11:03
we'd shared for 23 years. She took very
11:06
little, just her clothes and some
11:08
personal items. I kept the journal, not
11:11
out of spite, but because it felt like
11:14
the most honest thing either of us had
11:15
ever shared.
11:17
A year later, I ran into Vincent at a
11:20
coffee shop downtown. He was with his
11:22
wife and daughters, a picture of a happy
11:24
family. He saw me and went pale. Tom, I
11:28
don't. Just don't, I said. He nodded and
11:31
turned away. As I was leaving, I heard
11:33
his wife ask, "Who was that?" "Nobody,"
11:37
he said. "Just someone I used to know. I
11:39
never saw Myra again. I heard through
11:42
mutual friends that she had left nursing
11:44
and gone back to school for counseling.
11:46
I hoped she was happy. The roof got
11:48
fixed. The house looks good as new. But
11:52
sometimes late at night, I still hear
11:54
the echo of her words. Tom's so
11:56
trusting. Sometimes I feel guilty about
11:59
how easy it is to deceive him. She was
12:02
right. I was trusting. Maybe too
12:04
trusting. But I've learned that trust
12:07
isn't the same as being present. And
12:09
being present isn't the same as being
12:11
seen.
12:12
I still have the journal. Sometimes I
12:15
read it not to torture myself, but to
12:17
remember to remember the woman who felt
12:20
invisible in our marriage, to remember
12:22
the husband who made her feel that way.
12:25
Because the truth is, we were both right
12:27
and we were both wrong. And sometimes
12:30
that's all there is to say about 23
12:32
years of a life shared. The roof doesn't
12:35
leak anymore, but the house still feels
12:37
empty. And maybe that's okay. Maybe
12:41
that's exactly what it should feel
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