Should I have suspected something? Did I suppress the truth? I ask myself these questions again and again. It's been over a year since the affair between my husband Ingo and my best friend Sabrina. I still can't understand it. Ingo and I have known each other since the ninth grade. He is the man with whom I had my first kiss, my first time. After leaving school, however, we wanted completely different things and went our separate ways.
"It was so nice with Ingo. We wanted to grow old together"
Ten years later, we got in touch again more or less by chance via Facebook and rekindled our childhood love. It was so nice to have him by my side, everything felt so familiar and intimate. We soon got married and had two children. Our family happiness was perfect. As in every relationship, there were highs and lows in ours too. The time when our offspring were fledged was particularly difficult and we had to rediscover ourselves as a couple. Looking back, I think that Ingo was already distancing himself from me at this point.
He kept having mood swings. I didn't take it very seriously at the time, but threw myself into my new life without children. Among other things, I signed up for a yoga class and that's where I met Sabrina. We hit it off straight away and had an incredible amount in common. It goes without saying that we soon formed a deep friendship.
"We often did things together, we always had so much fun"
I was particularly pleased that she also got on so well with Ingo and was able to draw him out of his shell again. The three of us did lots of things together over the next few months. Whether it was a visit to a restaurant, a games evening or a weekend trip. There was always such a good atmosphere between us. We even set up a WhatsApp group for the three of us. I felt as alive as I did as a teenager. One evening in particular sticks in my mind: It was a warm summer's day, we'd been sitting in a beer garden for hours, fooling around, ordering one pint after another and taking lots of photos of ourselves. I particularly liked the picture I took of Sabrina and Ingo. How intimately she put her arm around him, how happy he was beaming. It seemed very intimate. And yet I never thought for a second that they could be cheating on me.
At the beginning of 2019, my mother fell seriously ill and I went to live with her in Bremen for a few weeks to look after her. When I was back home with Ingo, I sensed that the mood between us had somehow changed. He seemed tense and often only came home late at night. He suddenly didn't feel like going out with Sabrina and me either. When I asked him about it, he said that work was so stressful at the moment. Why shouldn't I have believed him? After all, we had been a couple for over 20 years. Of course, I told Sabrina about Ingo's behavior. She was sympathetic and advised me to just leave him alone for a while and everything would sort itself out. How sneaky of her!
"I never got any answers to the question: Why?"
Just three weeks later, Sabrina sent a strange message in our WhatsApp group, deliberately, as I now know. "Thank you for the lovely evening, my dearest Ingo. I love you so much!" At first I thought the whole thing was a joke. I even sent a laughing smiley face in the chat in response. An hour later, I saw that both Ingo and Sabrina had left the group. There I was, alone with this message, and the truth drilled itself into my heart: this is no joke. My husband is cheating on me with my best friend. Ingo was still in the office. Of course I called him, but he didn't answer the phone. When he came home that evening, I confronted him.
He said they had never planned it that way, it had just happened. No apology, no remorse, nothing. He packed a few things and then he was gone. He wasn't even willing to answer my questions. How long has this been going on between you? Why her? I was so disappointed, angry, desperate. I sent several messages to Sabrina demanding an explanation. But she had blocked me in the meantime, the texts came to nothing. Ingo also withdrew from me completely. He only wrote to me once more to let me know when he was coming over with the removal van to pick up the rest of his things. That was it. For a while I hoped that he would see the error of his ways. Stupid, as I now know. Our divorce will be final soon. But it will be a while before I can trust him again.
