I cheated because I wanted to. I had everything and I still wanted more because I was selfish and I didn’t have empathy for how my husband would feel. I was like a child who has a packet full of sweets and still wants more. Now I am ashamed and I even hate looking in the mirror some days.

That was the beginning of the journal I started writing six months after my life fell apart. I wasn’t planning on ever sharing it, but maybe someone out there needs to hear this. Maybe someone is standing on the same cliff I once stood on, ready to jump without thinking of the fall.

I met Radu when I was twenty-four. He wasn’t flashy or mysterious, but he was consistent. Steady. He made me feel safe in a way no one else had before. I had just gotten out of a chaotic relationship where I never knew what version of the man would walk through the door.

Radu was different. He brought me coffee every morning and remembered the names of my colleagues. He folded my laundry without being asked and took care of my mother when she fell sick.

We got married two years later. It was simple, nothing extravagant—just close family, a small dinner, and his grandmother’s blessing. We rented a cozy apartment in Cluj and slowly built our life together. I worked in digital marketing, he was a teacher. Life wasn’t perfect, but it was good.

Then, somewhere between meal prepping and weekend hikes, I started getting restless.

I don’t even remember how the messages started with Alex. He was a client from work—charming, ambitious, a little arrogant in a way that made him seem exciting. It started as casual flirting. I told myself it was harmless. Just some innocent texts, an ego boost. But we all know how those stories go.

One night, after a team event, we stayed behind and talked for hours. Then it happened. I didn’t plan it. But I also didn’t stop it. And that’s the part I always go back to—the moment I could’ve walked away but didn’t. The part that makes everything else worse.

I cheated again. And then again. Always with Alex. I became someone I didn’t recognize. I was good at hiding things. Radu never asked questions. He trusted me completely.

The guilt didn’t hit me all at once. It came in waves. Like when Radu brought me flowers for no reason or when he called me just to hear my voice during a long day. Sometimes I’d cry in the shower, silently, because I knew I was destroying something pure with my own hands.

Then came the twist I never expected.

Alex started pulling away. The calls stopped. The messages dried up. I confronted him, and he gave me the most cliché line imaginable: “You knew what this was.”

I stood there, humiliated, realizing I had risked everything for someone who didn’t even respect me.

When I got home that night, Radu was waiting for me with dinner on the table. I wanted to tell him then. I really did. But I couldn’t. I sat there pretending everything was okay while my insides were rotting.

Three weeks later, Radu found out. I had left my work laptop open and forgot to log out of the client communication app. He didn’t shout. He didn’t throw anything. He just sat there and looked at me like I was a stranger.

I’ll never forget the way he said, “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

He moved out the next day.

I tried calling. I wrote him letters. I even showed up at his school once. Nothing worked. He had drawn a line and I had no right to cross it.

My friends were divided. Some said I made a mistake and deserved forgiveness. Others pulled away quietly. My parents were devastated—not just because of the cheating, but because they genuinely loved Radu. My mother cried more than I did.

I moved into a smaller place. My work suffered. I couldn’t sleep. And no, not because I missed Alex. He was never the point. It was about Radu. About the way I took love for granted and confused boredom with unhappiness.

One day, my neighbor knocked on the door. An older woman, maybe in her seventies. She said she heard me crying at night and brought over a bowl of soup.

We ended up talking for two hours. Her name was Maria. Her husband died five years ago. She told me how they went through a rough patch when they were younger, how he almost left, but they fought for it. She said something I’ll never forget:

“People think love is a feeling. It’s not. It’s a decision you make over and over again, especially on the days you don’t feel like it.”

I cried like a child in front of her.

That conversation marked the beginning of something. Not a dramatic shift, but a slow rebuild. I started going to therapy. I joined a support group, not for infidelity, but for women who had lost something they couldn’t replace. Some lost kids. Others, siblings. All of us were hurting and trying to be whole again.

I didn’t date. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I knew I wasn’t ready. I started writing more. Volunteering on weekends. I signed up for a pottery class. It sounds silly, but shaping something broken into something beautiful helped me feel less broken myself.

A year passed. Then two.

I heard through a mutual friend that Radu had started seeing someone. A nurse. Kind. Soft-spoken. They moved in together.

It hurt, but I didn’t hate him for it. I wanted him to be happy. Even if it wasn’t with me.

Then, something unexpected happened.

One afternoon, while grocery shopping, I ran into his mother. She looked older. Tired. But she hugged me. Told me she still prayed for me. Then she said something that shook me: “Radu isn’t doing as well as he pretends.”

I didn’t know what to do with that information. I wasn’t going to interfere. But it lingered.

A few months later, I received an email from Radu. Short. Polite. He wanted to meet.

We sat on a bench near the park we used to walk in every Sunday. He looked the same, just more distant.

“I’m not here because I want to start over,” he began. “I’m here because I think we both need closure.”

I nodded. I told him everything I never said—the reasons, the excuses, the regrets. He didn’t interrupt.

When I finished, he said, “I don’t hate you. I did for a while. But I realized that holding on to that was only hurting me.”

We talked for almost two hours. Laughed a little. Cried a bit. And then he stood up, said goodbye, and walked away.

That was it.

I didn’t expect anything more. But a week later, I got another email.

This one was different. Longer. He wrote about how seeing me again stirred memories he thought were gone. He admitted he wasn’t truly happy. That the nurse, though kind, wasn’t someone he saw a future with anymore.

He asked if I would be open to talking again. Slowly. As friends.

We met every other week for coffee. No expectations. Just conversations. Sometimes about the past. Sometimes about books or movies. He saw the changes in me, I think. Not because I told him, but because I lived them.

A year later, he asked me to come with him to his sister’s wedding. As his date.

We weren’t a couple again. Not officially. But we were healing. Together.

The twist? It wasn’t a grand romantic reunion with fireworks and second vows. We didn’t even move in together right away.

We built it slowly.

Patiently.

This time, with eyes wide open.

Today, we live in a quiet house on the edge of the city. We don’t talk much about the past. Not because we’re avoiding it, but because we’ve forgiven it.

Every once in a while, when we’re drinking tea or folding laundry, I think back to that version of me—the one who almost lost everything chasing nothing.

And I feel thankful. Not proud. Never proud. But thankful.

Thankful that life sometimes gives us second chances when we finally learn what to do with them.

If you’ve read this far, maybe you’re going through something similar. Maybe you’ve made a mistake that feels unforgivable.

But here’s what I learned: mistakes don’t define us—what we do after them does.

Don’t hide from your mess. Face it. Own it. Change because of it.

There is no shortcut to healing. But there is a path.

And sometimes, if you’re lucky, someone might meet you halfway on it.

If this story moved you, or you think someone in your life needs to hear it, please like and share it. You never know who might be standing on that same edge, needing just one story to remind them they’re not alone.