“Mommy, daddy is kissing the neighbor”

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Nice, a moment for myself, Rosanne thought when her boyfriend went out with the neighbor again. Little did she know that she was being cheated hard.

Rosanne (42): “It started as a nice day: the beers tasted great, the music was good and I had fun with my girlfriends. In short, I enjoyed the concert six months ago, until I ran into an old acquaintance. He looked at me intently and told me that he had seen Alex with a red-haired woman in a hotel in Scheveningen.

The ground sank from under my feet. I only know one red-haired woman and that’s Sabine, my neighbor who I used to be good friends with. And I remembered how Alex once went to Scheveningen for a night ‘alone’ to get some fresh air after a busy period at work. One and one was two.

Ringing in the New Year

A few months earlier there had already been a strange incident. On New Year’s Eve Alex and I had invited some people, including Sabine, her boyfriend and their son and daughter. At twelve o’clock we woke the children for the fireworks. I was outside drinking in the street when my nine-year-old daughter Sacha came out in a panic. Shaking and with tears in her eyes, she grabbed my arm: ‘Mommy, Daddy is kissing Sabine!’

“My daughter insisted: ‘Not true, you are lying to my mother’”

I flew in. Sabine and Alex stood hand in hand in the kitchen. “Dirty bitches!” I yelled. I stormed upstairs crying. A dead drunk Alex came after me. Meanwhile, Sabine tried to convince our daughter that she hadn’t seen it right, but Sacha insisted: ‘Not true, you are lying to my mother.’ The tough sweetheart.

Sabine continued to deny everything, Alex shouted that he was drunk and knew nothing more. And no, there really was nothing else between them, he continued to claim in the weeks and months that followed. I was furious, but I wanted to put it behind us as a drunken act. Until my chance encounter with that acquaintance at the concert. Then I had to face the truth. I was cheated by the people I trusted the most.

Out to investigate

At home I waited for Alex at the kitchen table. ‘Don’t you have to tell me something about Scheveningen?’ I asked. He didn’t know what I was talking about. I’ve been a detective for years and this work experience came in handy now, because I used a well-known interrogation tactic: bluffing and turning up the pressure.

I asked Alex for his bank details and said I could see from his statements whether he booked a single or double room. He got stressed. When I asked if he had been there with Sabine, he turned white. At that moment, Alex broke down and admitted everything. That he had indeed been there with Sabine and that they had often taken a hotel together to have sex. I am someone who acts, no matter how great the misery. Ice cold, I asked him for his bank details and itemized phone bills.

I approached my research as an analysis job at work. I put everything together, including my agenda and whatsapp conversations with Sabine. Over a period of three years I was able to make a timeline. If I was in Helsinki for a weekend, they were together in Limburg. When Alex was in Scheveningen, Sabine texted that she had to take care of her demented mother-in-law that weekend. The worst part was that he was with her in a hotel in Utrecht on my birthday. With everything I brought up—hours of phone calls, countless dinners and lunches—my disbelief and anger increased.

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One hundred percent confidence

In hindsight I realize it was so damn thick on top. Alex and Sabine went swimming together with the children, to the petting zoo, watching a movie when everyone was in bed. Not for a second did I think that Alex would have an affair with our neighbor. As a former detective, I have quite a bit of human knowledge and I can see through bullshit. It’s terrible that I didn’t see this. Apparently I’ve had a blind spot to my own relationship.

“With all my knowledge of people, I didn’t realize this”

But why do I feel stupid for having 100 percent faith in the man I’d been with for 19 years? And in Sabine, with whom I had been good friends for many years. Our kids loved each other. We went on vacation together, weekends away, barbecued together. Sabine actually organized the party for my fortieth birthday, while she was already rambling with Alex. All those pictures where she’s hypocritically next to me. I trusted her with my daughter, my guy, my life. When she and Alex went out with the children, I thought: great, I can read a book on the couch. Little did I know.

Apart

I cried like a baby for two months. The first two weeks I thought: it will be ok, we will get out of here. But I just couldn’t anymore. I was dirty with Alex. And in front of my daughter, I felt so guilty. After the New Year’s Eve incident, I had assured her that Mum and Dad really weren’t going to break up. And now I broke that promise. A slipper might have been manageable, but this was unforgivable.

“A slipper might have been manageable, but this was unforgivable”

Alex left for his parents where he still lives. In Sacha’s interest I keep our contact good and sometimes we do something as usual with the three of us. But we will never be a family together again, no matter how much Alex hopes for a reconciliation.

Consequences

I haven’t spoken to Sabine since. She is afraid of me and now has a camera hanging at her front door and gate. She no longer dares to go outside alone, she always walks to the car with her children. With those little ones, I’m not going to call her a rotten fish. I wait for the right moment to confront her. At the most I’ve shouted ‘slut’ through the letterbox a few times. Childish, I know. I told her boyfriend everything, but Sabine made him believe that she only kissed Alex a few times. He chooses to believe her. As far as I know, she and Alex are no longer in contact.