One day Melusi came home smelling like a tavern, luckily he wasn’t driving. He just jumped on the bed with his shoes on and blacked out. I took the shoes off and got him inside the blankets. His phone fell out his pocket while I was struggling to take off his shoes and putting him to bed. A message popped up and boom Melusi had been texting some girl. It seemed like this was going on for some time. I went through the messages and everything else. It was the first time I did this and I was shaking.

“How could he? How could Melusi betray me like this? After everything we’ve been through!” I said to myself.

I decided to call a friend I made from the counselling sessions. I told her everything in between sobs.

She comforted me and told me to confront him. I was going to wait until he was sober. I checked the baby and went back to sleep. His phone kept on beeping. I took the phone and guess who it was now? Nthabiseng! She had lost the baby and Melusi was comforting her.

“I had great time with you, I miss you already,” read Nthabiseng’s message. Why were they doing this?

I knew Melusi couldn’t live without sex! The late nights and even meetings on his off days. All the proof was there I just didn’t want to believe it. I was done, this time I was the one who was filing for divorce. He didn’t even have words to say to me, even a mere apology. We separated during the divorce. He told me he was getting help and he wanted to work on our marriage but I couldn’t be fooled twice. The divorce was messy because Mj was in the middle of this mess. I got full custody of Mj, I got the house and the car. I didn’t want anything else from Melusi. He was allowed to see the baby. I didn’t trust him that much with Mj because of his alcohol consumption but I didn’t want to keep him away from his father. Some men are terrible partners but good fathers.

‘All marriages have problems’ has trapped so many people in toxic relationships. There’s nothing wrong with starting over even after a messy divorce and even there’s a baby involved. Melusi never wanted to change, he was just going to get worse. You’ll never be enough for a person who doesn’t know what he wants. You can give them all of you and that won’t be enough either. Cheating will never be normal regardless of how much we justify it. A cheating boyfriend becomes a cheating husband becomes a cheating father and I don’t want that for me and Mj. We deserve better. Everything that Melusi did broke my heart but fixed my vision.

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