My Husband Was Grieving the Woman He Once Chose Over Me

Chapter 1: Shadow

Three days after she died, my husband began moving through our house like a shadow.

He was quieter than usual. He left meals unfinished, stared at his phone without scrolling, and stood at the kitchen window as though he were waiting for someone to appear on the other side.

I knew who occupied his thoughts.

Her.

The woman he had once said he could not live without.

We had been married for twenty-five years. We had raised two children, paid bills, survived arguments, celebrated anniversaries, and built what I believed was a permanent life together. Yet for eighteen months, my husband had shared part of that life with another woman.

The affair had happened three years earlier, but time had not erased the words he said during it.

He loved her more than anyone.

She was the person he wanted.

He planned to leave me for her.