'Why does he care?' One purchase tipped Kim off to her husband's affair

By Alice Hampson

"There was one thing that really tipped me off that my husband was having an affair," says Kim.

The pair had been together for 14 years and have three children together. It had mostly been a very happy marriage, she says, but of course had gone through phases when it was more difficult – primarily when they were in the thick of parenting young children and just trying to survive.

"We had only really planned on two children – we had them two years apart, and then we got a surprise third, which we found out about when I was only four months post-partum," says Kim.

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"Those years were chaos, but they made me feel kind of bullet-proof about my marriage. If we got through that – without any help from family – I figured our marriage could get through just about anything."

With their children older, their youngest aged nine, life was certainly a lot easier and they found they had more time for one another and themselves.

So, at first, Kim was very encouraging and supportive when her husband, Chris, started working out… a lot.

"He had admittedly put on quite a bit of weight in the last 10 years, and I worried for his heart, because his dad had a lot of heart issues," says Kim.

"I'd suggested in the past we work out together but he'd never wanted to.

"He'd always said he was too tired. It wasn't that I wanted him to change the way he looked, but I wanted him around for our kids!"

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Suddenly, Chris was up without a single complaint at 5am every morning to head to the gym. Sometimes he'd go for a run after work.

Then he started buying new, flashier clothes as he started to drop the weight.

Immediately, Kim felt herself getting suspicious.

"My gut reaction was to question: 'Why does he suddenly care about his appearance so much?'" she says.

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Then, sure enough, her husband started working on a "new project" and began working late hours.

"I let it go a couple of weeks, but, deep down I knew," says Kim.

"I knew as soon as he started working out that he fancied someone and was getting in shape for them."

Then, Kim confronted her husband.

"I told him I knew," she says.

"I said his colleague had called and let me know but that I'd already suspected because I'd found make-up on his clothes (all of that was lies). He admitted it pretty quickly. He was having an affair with a new colleague."

Kim says it was the hardest few months of her life – it was November, so she didn't want to 'ruin' Christmas for the kids. But she asked Chris to leave the family home.

"The best thing we did was to get us into therapy the day after I found out," she says.

'It was actually his idea, not mine, and I thought it was more about how we were going to get through it separately and co-parent our kids."

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Kim says she never imagined she could forgive Chris and move on, but here, five years later, they're together and actually stronger than ever.

"Oh how I wish he never had an affair," says Kim, "but, in a lot of ways it has made our relationship stronger. I learned a lot about myself over that period.

"Our kids know that we were broken up for six months and they don't know why. I don't know if we'll ever tell them why, but they know that we are happier now."

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