I discovered that my wife had cheated on me and that our youngest son wasn’t mine, but I kept her secret.

I was married to Lucy for 27 years, and I can’t say we were happy. Lucy was a difficult woman at the best of times, angry and bitter. It hadn’t always been like that. When I met her she’d been a sunny, laughing girl, the most beautiful I’d ever seen.

What Lucy wanted most of all was to be famous. She had taken part in a few local beauty pageants as a girl, and acted with the local amateur theatre company. She believed she was going to be a star, and instead, she married me.

It was the usual story. Lucy and I started dating, we became intimate, and she fell pregnant, so we married. Our oldest son Alan was a sweet, loving little boy and I adored him.

Lucy was only 19 when he was born, and she wasn’t ready to be a mom. She didn’t pay much attention to Alan, and It was her mother and I who took care of the baby. Today she would have been diagnosed with postpartum depression.

I loved Lucy so I was supportive and loving, and slowly she came out of that darkness, but she never did become a devoted mom. I think maybe she just wasn’t a motherly woman.

She told me she didn’t want any more children and I reluctantly agreed. I had grown up in a big family and I’d always dreamed of having three or four children, but if that wasn’t what Lucy wanted, what could I do?

Lucy threw herself back into her pursuit of fame and fortune and started going to auditions and her beauty won her spots in a few TV ads. She really was extraordinarily beautiful, but on camera, she was stiff and her voice was flat.

Lucy had no talent, and after a while, she started to realize it. She used to come home after an audition ranting about how other less attractive girls had gotten the part. “I know how they’re getting the parts!” she’d rant. “They sleep with the director!”

And a swift shadow of avid greed and envy would distort her lovely features. It was easier for Lucy to believe those women got the parts dishonestly than that they were better actresses than she was.

Lucy was 35 when she landed herself a small part in a daily soap opera about a hospital. She played a nurse and I think the way she filled the uniform had more to do with her getting the role than her acting.

Finally, Lucy was happy. She had fan mail, and people recognized her on the street. By then Alan was 16 and the nicest boy, loving, kind and bright and we two were very close.

Life settled down and for a while, we were a happy family, until Lucy discovered she was pregnant again. I came home one afternoon to find her raging. “PREGNANT! Do you know what that means? They’ll dump me! No one wants a fat sexy nurse!”

Lucy even talked about terminating the pregnancy, but she’d discovered it too late. She would have to go through with it. Fortunately for my peace of mind, the producers wrangled a story arc where Lucy’s character had one of the doctors’ babies.

A secret will always come out sooner or later.

Lucy’s role was actually increased, and they milked her pregnancy as a drama — the doctor was married and then has amnesia and doesn’t know who Lucy is — so she was ecstatic.

Little Kyle was born, and she immediately lost interest in him, except when people commented on what a beautiful child he was. I guess I must have known then, because Kyle had beautiful blue eyes, and both Lucy and I had dark eyes.

I loved that baby. Where Alan had been calm and sweet, Kyle was boisterous and mischievous. He quickly became the center of my life, and Alan doted on his little brother almost as much as I did.

The crunch came one day when Kyle was four. He’d spent the whole of one Saturday trying to get his mother’s attention, but Lucy just kept ignoring him. So like any toddler, he threw a tantrum.

“Lucy, for God’s sakes!” I cried. “Can’t you at least pretend to be his mother?” I added, exasperated.

“NO!” she screamed. “I’m too busy pretending that you’re his father!” The moment the words were out of her mouth I saw the horror fill her eyes. “I didn’t mean that!” she cried, but I knew she did. I just turned my back on her, picked up the crying Kyle, and walked off with him.

That night I practically didn’t sleep. I asked myself if I could live with Lucy’s betrayal and discovered that what hurt me most was the possibility of losing Kyle.

Neither Lucy nor I ever spoke about that incident again, but our physical relationship was over. After that, I suspected she had other affairs, and her infidelity became blatant when her looks started to fade. I didn’t care, really. I had my sons and they were my pride and joy.

Lucy passed away at 46 from complications after a facelift, and Alan, Kyle, and I were left alone. We put our lives back together, and we were happy.

But secrets never stay hidden forever, and when Kyle was 23 he was in a motorcycle accident. He was badly injured and lost a lot of blood. Our small hospital didn’t have his blood type on hand, so they asked Alan and I to test for compatibility.

Alan was compatible, and I never thought of it again, but a few months later, Kyle was looking through the test results from the hospital and asked me my blood type. I told him I was an ‘O+’ and he just stared at me.

“That’s impossible!” he said, “I’m an AB+, and Alan is ‘A’ like mom was…” I saw the color drain out of his face. “I’m not yours,” he whispered, tears filling his eyes.

I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around my boy. “Yes, you are! You’re mine, my son, and I love you more than you can ever know.”

He was shaking. “You knew!” he cried. “Have you always known?”

“Yes, I knew,” I told him.

“Why didn’t you… walk out? Do something…”

I looked him in the eyes and I told him the truth: “Because I loved you more than I hated what your mother had done. And I always will.”

We never told Alan. I guess it became our secret, and somehow it brought us even closer together.

What can we learn from this story?

Share this story with your friends. It might brighten their day and inspire them.