It had been nearly a year of oddities in my relationship, but nothing quite caught my attention like my husband sleeping with his phone in his pocket. At first, I told myself it was just paranoia, that maybe he was just being overly cautious with his pricey new gadget. But as I would soon learn, Mark was being overly cautious with his phone for a reason.

He never pulled it out in front of me, often typing away messages under the cover of a blanket or swiftly pocketing it the moment I walked into the room. I mean, it didn’t take a genius to know he was hiding something from me. And I knew it wasn’t going to be anything good.

After a while of this sneaky texting, I finally had the opportunity to take a peek at what he was being so secretive about. Now, I never wanted to be the girlfriend who went snooping on my husband’s phone, but I also never thought I would have a husband who didn’t want me to even take a glimpse at his phone’s screen. And in any case, I didn’t mean to snoop in the first place.

Late one chilly night, as we sat tangled in a blanket on the couch in front of the TV, Mark’s phone slipped from the pocket of his sweats. I thought he would jump up in a panic and snatch it off the ground with lightning speed as usual, but he just kept snoring.

It ended up near my legs, buzzing intermittently with what I assumed were late-night notifications. At first, I ignored it. I just wanted to finish the last episode of the show I had been bingeing and go to bed.

Eventually, as the credits started rolling, I reached for it, my intentions purely innocent — I just wanted to plug it into the charger on the nightstand. But as I grabbed it, the screen lit up, revealing a barrage of notifications from a dating app. “Of course,” I remember thinking. “Of course, this would be what Mark was doing after two years of me supporting him.”

You see, Mark has been jobless for a while now. I’ve constantly had to carry him along, paying for everything he apparently “needed to get back in the game.” Looking back, I feel so stupid. And you best believe I felt even dumber the moment I caught him ogling random girls on dating apps.

Standing with his phone in my hand, bitterness and rage rose within me, and for a fleeting moment, I thought about waking him up with an onslaught of well-placed strikes. But, no. I wouldn’t be reduced to a wailing mess throwing punches and giving him incentive to turn the entire thing against me.

Instead, I wiped the few tears that had rolled down my cheek and hatched a plan. If he was going to betray our relationship, I needed a way to teach him not to underestimate me. And I knew just how to do that.

The next day, I called up my friend Lisa. She was stunning, blonde with piercing blue eyes — the kind that could make a man stop in his tracks — and she’d never met my husband. With her permission, I used her pictures to create a fake profile on the same dating app. It felt like I was playing detective in my own relationship. And just as I expected, he swiped right on her profile. We matched, and that’s when the real game began.

We chatted for a week, our conversations escalating with each passing day. He told me he was single and living with a “roommate,” which was news to me, his live-in girlfriend. The audacity of his lies made my stomach churn, but I played along.

Flirty messages turned into plans, and soon, we were arranging a rendezvous at a hotel downtown. He was eager, perhaps too eager, and agreed to everything, including paying for the hotel room.

The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me, since I was the one managing our finances single-handedly. He always promised to get a new job but constantly tried to manipulate me while he spent his days on the couch. “We’re family,” he would say, “We take care of each other.” Those words had cost me my savings. I drowned under the weight of my student loans, our rent, and every other expense that came with living in the city. I had supported him through everything, and this was how he repaid me.

But the day of our supposed hotel meet-up approached quickly, and I could feel my anticipation almost bursting out of my chest. I had gone to great lengths to expose him, and I was planning on making it one of the most satisfying things I had done in my entire life. The plan was simple: He would go to the hotel — one that I ended up paying for, mind you — and wait there. And then, I’d make my move.

never The morning he “left for his mom’s,” he was wearing a smug smile that I would never forget. It was carefree, almost like he was heading off for a vacation. He told me he’d probably stay the night, and I wished him well, barely able to contain a vindictive laugh.

As soon as his car was out of sight, I got to work. First, I packed all his belongings into boxes and bags, leaving them neatly by the curb outside our apartment. Living in a bustling city meant his stuff wouldn’t last an hour on the street, and I was right. The second step in my plan was to call a locksmith to change all the locks of the house.

Meanwhile, Mark still thought his date was getting dolled up for their romantic evening together. He messaged her (I guess me) a few times, eager and waiting, and I kept up the charade, telling him I wanted to look perfect for him and apologizing for my tardiness. My friend, ever supportive, had sent over some risqué photos with her face obscured to keep him interested.

I let him sit in suspense until about 1 AM, the anticipation building with every passing hour. Finally, I sent him one last message on the dating app — not the seductive image he was expecting, but a harsh dose of reality. It was a picture of his belongings, now strewn across the sidewalk and being picked over by a homeless man.

Along with the image, I wrote, “Enjoy your stay in the hotel.” As soon as my phone started ringing and his name popped up on the caller ID, I blocked his number and turned off the lights. That night, I slept better than I had in months. I felt like I had just finished the best spring clean of my life. My home was suddenly free of unwanted clutter, and I knew I didn’t have anyone piggybacking on my finances anymore.

The weekend passed quietly, and I returned to work on Monday with a renewed sense of clarity. But as I approached my apartment that evening, there he was. He looked like a mess. His eyes were red and swollen from crying and his expression was one of desperation. He was ugly-crying in front of my door, begging for forgiveness and pleading for a place to stay, saying he had nowhere else to go. I almost wavered, seeing him so pitiful, but I remembered the lies and the betrayal.

When I made it clear I wasn’t going to let him in, his sad charade quickly turned to anger — a quick change in his demeanor I had seen too many times. He began grabbing at me, trying to force his way past me into the apartment. That old bitterness flared up once more, and I pushed him back outside and locked myself in.

Shaking, I called the police. They arrived after a little while, and I filed for a restraining order against Mark. He had threatened not only me but also my pets. His final words as the police took him away were filled with vitriol, but they didn’t touch me anymore. I was done.

After that day, I found out through the grapevine that he moved a few hours away to live with his only family and had even found a job. Perhaps the shock of losing everything was what he needed to finally push him to change his ways. While part of me felt a sting at the thought of him possibly turning his life around after everything he had put me through, I also felt good about being free.

Standing in my newly secure apartment, I looked back and realized what a toxic cycle we had been trapped in. The whole ordeal had been painful, and excruciating even, but I think it taught me how important it is to stand up for yourself.

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