It happened today. I saw my husband messaging a woman I didn’t recognize.
He had just stepped into the shower after a long day with our kids and, as fate would have it, he left his phone on the table. Unlocked.
I’ve never felt the need to go through his phone. We’ve been together for almost ten years, have two beautiful children, and he has always been my rock—even at my absolute lowest. Yet today, for some inexplicable reason, I felt this pull, this curiosity I couldn’t ignore. I opened his messages.
I went straight to the thread I cared about most—ours. I scrolled up, hoping to find the sweet little messages we’d sent each other months ago, to bring a smile to my face. But what I saw instead made my chest tighten and my eyes well up.
The woman he was messaging—it was me. Or at least, it was a version of me I had almost forgotten existed. She was me, yet not the me I know now. She was the woman I had been trying to outrun, the one buried under years of pain, darkness, and self-doubt.
Reading those old texts, I felt the weight of my past self—the despair I had poured out to him, the frustration, the hopelessness. Life hadn’t been kind, and I was reaching out to him for a lifeline, for someone to witness my struggles. It was raw, unfiltered, and heartbreaking.
That woman, the one I saw in those messages, was deeply broken. She was trapped in mental and emotional turmoil, a version of me I barely recognized. And yet, here I am now—a woman who has climbed, little by little, day by day, away from that darkness.
Depression can make you feel stagnant, like progress is impossible, like the clouds will never lift. But then, moments like this happen. You confront your past self and realize—you’ve grown. You’ve healed. You’re not the same person anymore.
So yes, I saw my husband texting another woman today.
And I didn’t recognize her at all.
And in that, I found hope. I’m so glad I don’t.
