How I discovered my husband's affair and escaped gaslighting

The day I overcame my fear of being caught spying on my husband, especially if my suspicions were wrong, I was able to place an old iPhone in the boot of his car before he left for work on a Tuesday morning. In the afternoon when he arrived, he went for a walk on his own -another change in his behaviour after 20 years of marriage- and I stayed home charging the old phone so I could hear what had been recorded.

I promptly went to listen to what had been captured by this almost dead device and there was the explicit exchange of phrases between two lovers who had established a long time connection. I had recorded a telephone conversation between my husband and a woman who reached ecstasy while talking to him.

He was on his way to work and she was in bed. They used terms associated with eroticism and he showed a kind of enthusiasm in treating her that he had only displayed lately towards our eight-year-old daughter. I finally had the proof I needed to realise that I had been gaslighted for almost a year by my cheating husband. Even though my hands were shaking, I felt relieved about being right regarding the affair. I finally had a satisfactory explanation for the change of behaviour in the person I had spent the last twenty years of my life with.

The certainty that I was not insane overshadowed the pain of the betrayal. The disappointment about my husband’s choices to connect with a third person during the past months or years surfaced weeks later. I felt greater aggravation for all the gaslighting he had put me through every time I would bring up that he was having an affair than by discovering the infidelity per se. He had accused me of being unfoundedly jealous, negligent in the pursuit of my own happiness and ungrateful for all the benefits I was enjoying in my blessed life.

I had done everything in my power to get over my own mid-life crisis and, once I got strong and healthy again, I was ready to live the next stage of my life with my adored husband. But he had become distant and disconnected. He had cruelly gaslighted me when I had been honest about suspecting he was having an affair. I couldn’t force him to love me. I had finally realised my gut feeling was right and it looked like we had reached the end of our marriage.