I am in pain because I accidentally pushed my wife into the arms of another man.

"If only my wife had texted me 'Keep me, I can't keep myself anymore', I would have been more vigilant and our family wouldn't have been broken to this point," Quang shared.

Three months ago, I was still considered a happy man, with a good income, a beautiful wife, and obedient children. Now, everything has almost turned upside down. I live in a rented house in Hanoi, less than 30 minutes away from my home, but for the past month I have not seen my wife and children. During the day I go to work, at night I eat out, have a few beers, and then come home alone. I can bury my head in the phone for hours without hearing my wife grumble or my two children whining, climbing on me, pulling my legs, or pulling my hair. In my fitful sleep, sometimes the image of my wife and children splashing water on the beach, teasing each other, sometimes the image of my wife being intimate with another man appears in my mind.

My wife had an affair and we have been separated for two months. The divorce papers have been written and signed by both parties, just waiting to be filed in court. I am living freely - but it is a freedom in a painful, terrifying torment.

Illustration: Lovematters.

My wife and I have been married for 8 years. She is beautiful, gentle, and sensitive. We fell in love at first sight and ended up with a dreamlike wedding. Life has been steady with the birth of two children. From being a salaried employee, I opened my own company. The job is stressful so I have very little time for my family. Because of business relationships, I often have to go out to do business, drink with partners and customers, and only eat at home a few times a month. My wife takes care of the two children and does the housework. She is quite resourceful so everything is not too difficult, even though she works all day.

Married and having two children, she still likes romance like a young girl. On holidays and anniversaries, my wife usually doesn't remind me of anything in advance, but then she can be sad for half a month if I forget or remember but don't show it. She doesn't blame me or raise her voice, but just silently makes me feel suffocated. Sometimes, my wife complains that she feels very lonely because she can't talk to me. After listening, I just say "uh huh" and ignore it. "Women like to talk, let them talk, and when it's done, that's it", I think. And my wife usually doesn't make demands. She gets angry and then heals herself, without me having to coax or "bribe".

But for about a year now, my wife has been blaming me - all the same mistakes I've always made that she's willing to forgive. She often sends me messages like "I'm so lonely. I need you to be there to talk to me or just hug me", then "I can't stand this anymore. We're husband and wife, why are we so distant?"... "Cheesy. Probably because I watch too many Korean dramas", I once texted back. Most recently, she continued to text me: "Keep me, I'm about to lose control of myself". I texted her teasingly "let me go". And everything came crashing down like a nightmare.

I discovered my wife had another man when I accidentally saw the messages on her phone. At that time, I was only half-believing, not asking any questions, just holding up the phone and saying: "What is this?", she confessed everything, as if she had been waiting for a long time to say it. That guy was a friend of hers - someone I also knew. I didn't want to believe this truth. Was this a new trick of my wife, to make me jealous? She always wanted me to "know how to be jealous", right? But that wasn't it. They had been secretly seeing each other for 5 months. They had both gone to bed together. I grabbed the water bottle right in front of me and smashed it. What hurt me even more was that she didn't cry or kneel down to beg for forgiveness. Was she so weak? Normally, just a small argument between husband and wife would make her sniffle, right? Why was she so cold now?

She didn't explain much, just said that she was wrong and if I could forgive her, she would start over. I couldn't. There was no way I could forgive her. I never thought that this weak woman, who always needed me like a fish needs water, could betray me. I quickly decided to divorce her. It was all decided very quickly. She just asked to adopt the two children. I agreed.

But the following months were not easy. I did not dare to go home to see my children because I did not know how to face them, and partly because I was afraid that I would soften when I saw my wife. The children probably did not miss me much either because they rarely saw their father. There were times when I did not want to go out to eat, so I quickly made a package of instant noodles and sat there, not touching my chopsticks. I missed the meals my wife cooked, and the times I came home from drinking and opened the food box full of dishes but could not eat because my stomach was full of beer and meat.

I know I helped destroy this family. But I can’t do it again. I know that if I try to fix it, I will still not be able to forget the pain of betrayal, will still torment and torture her when those horrible images still haunt my mind. The bowl of water that has been spilled cannot be filled again. The mistakes of both of us cannot be corrected.

According to VnE