Page 22 of The Other Woman

I settled down to sleep with a smile on my face, once again very thankful for the way my life has turned out. When my husband asked me for a divorce, I would never have imagined that things would turn out this way.

I thought for sure I would end up moving back home with my family until I could get back on my feet again. Who would’ve imagined that his cheating would lead me and my kids to an even better life?

I don’t think I’ve gone one day without pinching myself since our wedding because I wake up every day expecting to find that it was all a dream and I’m back there in the hell of someone else’s making.

I’m so glad I didn’t make a fuss and tried to hold onto something that wasn’t going to get any better in the long run. I haven’t seen nor do I wish to see my ex anytime soon, and since he’s been acting like an ass, I doubt I want to trust him with my kids in the future.

It's a hard decision to make and not something I take lightly, but all the things he’s done since the night at the club have been horrific. Since he’s been blocked on my phone and everywhere else, I haven’t really heard much about him, except for every once in a while, my sisters-in-law would keep me up to date.

Since my pregnancy, though, they had stopped, and I got the idea that it was my husband’s doing. He tries to shield me from anything he deems stressful and I can’t believe how different this pregnancy has been compared to my first two.

He's been there since the beginning, making sure that I have everything I need. I won’t lie; I was a bit worried that he’d be just like Doug when it came to my pregnancy, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Whereas Doug seemed to be repulsed by my pregnant body, I fall asleep every night to Jacob playing with my tummy and wake up with him doing the same. He’s fascinated and wants to feel every kick and movement the babies make.

I’m so happy sometimes it scares me, but I hold onto hope every day, and the fact that I have seen none of Doug in my new husband keeps my head in the clouds, but after betrayal, I have to keep my feet planted firmly on the ground.

I know that Wendy still looks at my social media pages, but I haven’t been posting too much lately anyway, so she’s starved for new information, which I imagine is driving her crazy. I can’t for the life of me understand why she’d be so interested in my life. She got the man she wanted, and my life should no longer concern her.

Doug had lost his mind and was telling anyone who would listen that I’d cheated on him with Jacob when we were married, which everyone laughed off, and then Jacob got so pissed he sicced his lawyers on him, so that was that on that score.

I don’t think about either of them these days because my life is too full to give place to losers. Doug doesn’t understand to this day why I didn’t fight for our marriage. There are lots of reasons, but the bottom line is it wasn’t worth saving. Other than my kids, I’d venture to say that he was the biggest mistake of my life.

I get a kick out of knowing what he is and how hard Wendy’s life must be. I sometimes wonder how happy she is with the prize she’d won. She’d had a lot to say in the beginning, even after the divorce. For some reason, she seemed to want me to be more torn up than I was, and when that didn’t happen, it seemed to send her over the edge.

I saw through her the first time she contacted me with a snarky apology for stealing my husband away from me and my kids. I never responded and it took me a while to realize that I never said a word to her, not even when she was right in front of me.

I might have been over Doug’s bullshit by the time he asked for the divorce, but he was still my husband when she decided to crawl into bed with him, so I have no respect for her and find her way beneath me as a human being.

I fell asleep feeling light but, for some reason, woke up and chose violence. For the first time in months, I went on social media and posted a picture of my pregnant belly. I gushed about how happy I was to be sharing the experience with my husband and how all of us, Jacob, Kevin, and Sarah, couldn’t wait to meet the new babies.

“Oh shit!” Jacob was the first to comment on the picture. How the hell did he get there so fast? Is he stalking me? He had the nerve to comment, ‘Who the fuck else were you going to do it with?’ So territorial.

Our friends chimed in, ragging on him, and I egged them on and left him fighting for his life in the comments. There’s nothing like friends who know you best putting your shit out there. They teased him about his overprotective and possessive nature and complained about him keeping me and the kids to himself.

Even Susy, Bree, and Helen jumped in, and then Nadine, Jacob’s mom, had to have her say. Somehow, the topic of baby names came up, and that was another fight from my husband, and before you know it there was a name war going on in the comments.

I’m petty, yes, thanks to my pregnancy hormones. I did all that, knowing she was going to see it somehow, even though she was blocked. She doesn’t know that I know her fake accounts and I haven’t let on to Jacob that I know she still stalks my pages.

I want her to know without telling her that I’d won, and right about now, I was sure that she was living with regrets because instead of a pot of gold, she ended up with a bag of shit. Hee-hee.

HOMEWRECKING SKANK

Irushed to the bathroom as soon as I got the notification on my phone alerting me that Rachel had finally posted. It’s been weeks, and I was beginning to think that she’d somehow changed her handle or something and was posting under a new name.

My hands were shaking so badly as I opened the app that I almost dropped the phone twice. I sat on the toilet because I was about to pee myself. I was hoping for some bad news from her end since things seemed to be going her way a lot lately.

I’ve been getting snippets here and there by stalking Doug’s family’s socials because they were the only ones, as well as some of Doug’s friends who hadn’t made their socials private that shared any news about her.

The first thing I saw was the picture she’d posted, and my heart sank. She didn’t look like she was suffering. Her pregnant tummy was showing in her clothes, and she had a big, stupid smile on her face. Then I scrolled down to the comments already with a knot in my stomach.

I didn’t expect to see all of Doug’s old friends and even his family playing around online with her. The back and forth between them seemed so warm and friendly, unlike the way they’ve always treated me. They were choosing baby names and her husband was being all cute with her in the comments, and it made me sick.

Everyone seemed to be rallying around them, the ‘it’ couple. There were a few comments made that were suspect, like when someone said she looked much happier than before and that Jacob seemed to be taking very good care of her.

He commented something about protecting the queen or some such crap, and she blew him a kiss; well, she used an emoji to do it, but it’s still the same. I hate her so much, and that has never changed.

I never stopped in all this time to think why I hated her. I didn’t even know her when I started sleeping with her husband. She was never that important to me. It was only after her reaction that I started paying attention, and I never liked what I saw.

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