My husband used my mother’s cabin to cheat on me with his coworkers, but finding out was only the beginning. Later, I discovered his betrayal and his true nature.
I’m Ashley, I’m 33, and I was born and raised in western Massachusetts. By day, I work as a contracts analyst, buried in spreadsheets and deadlines. When the noise gets too loud, when the traffic, the crowds, and the petty office gossip corner me, I don’t escape to a yoga class or a bar. I go to my mom’s cabin. Or at least, I used to.
My mother passed away three summers ago. I still remember that day as if it were yesterday. That summer I turned 30. Cancer took her from me. It came quickly and dragged on. She was 57 years old, stubborn but gentle in every way.
An elderly woman lying in a hospital bed | Source: Freepik
The cabin had been his hideaway, a small pine shell with two bedrooms, nestled between a grove of maple trees and a year-round babbling brook. He called it his “quiet home,” and he meant it with all his heart.
When she left it with me, it wasn’t about the deed or the keys. It was sacred. The porch sag like a grimace of weariness; the wood stove coughed more than it warmed, and the roof sighed under the weight of too many seasons.
Even so, it was the only place in the world where I could hear myself think, or better yet, hear my mother’s voice when I couldn’t stand my own.
A cabin | Source: Flickr
I left everything just as she had left it. Her quilt remained folded over the back of the sofa. A faded jar of her dried balm sat on the windowsill like a shrine. The chipped green mug we used during blackberry season was still in the cupboard. It was mine to keep safe, and I never, not once, invited Liam to share it.
Liam, my husband, is 34. He’s charming and tall, always warm to the touch. He’s the kind of man who can make a room seem smaller just by walking into it. But he hated the cabin.
“It’s too far away,” he said the first time I invited him.
“There’s no Wi-Fi. The food delivery guys aren’t coming. Honey, you’re spending more on gas than you’d save on therapy.”
He liked electric fireplaces and sushi apps. I liked the deathly silence and the smell of wood smoke on my clothes.
An armchair and a table next to an electric fireplace | Source: Pexels
So I kept the cabin to myself until I knew that wasn’t the case.
It was a Tuesday, the kind of day that numbs your soul and gets under your skin. A client yelled at me for almost an hour about an overdue contract. Madison, the project manager, stole my idea and was praised for it at the team meeting.
Then, a truck accident blocked the driveway for three hours on the way home. She was so exhausted she couldn’t think straight. She needed the cabin like a drowning person needs air.
I texted Liam without thinking much about it.
“I’m going to the cabin for a few hours, shall we meet for dinner?”
He didn’t answer. It doesn’t matter. He might be in a meeting.
I put my backpack in the back seat, grabbed a flannel, and set off. The car ride is like a slow exhalation. The leaves change color halfway through, as if even the trees know how to let go. I remember finally relaxing as I turned onto the gravel lane.
A woman driving a car | Source: Pexels
Then I saw it.
His car. Parked crooked in the driveway, it looked like it belonged there. My chest sank.
He hated the cabin.
He never went up there. Not once. Not even when I begged him to.
I left the engine running and crept up to the side window. My boots barely made a sound in the pine needles. Maybe she had planned something sweet. A surprise? Or maybe I was overthinking it.
I rested my forehead against the glass and looked inside.
Liam was on the sofa, without shoes, with a beer in his hand and a smile on his face.
Beside him stood a woman he’d never seen before. Perhaps in her twenties, her legs drawn up as if she lived there. She was laughing, excitedly, her head tilted slightly, the way women do when they want to be looked at. And he was looking.
A couple embracing on the sofa | Source: Pexels
I didn’t make a sound. My breathing slowed. My vision blurred.
I backed away slowly, my heart pounding but muffled. I got into the car and drove back without touching the radio.
That night I cleaned the kitchen as if he had insulted me. I scrubbed the countertops until my knuckles ached. I made dinner and left it on the stove. I didn’t cry.
The next day, I bought three wireless cameras: small, black, and discreet. I placed one on the porch, another facing the entrance, and another pointing directly at the living room window. I told myself it was for security.
“If they ever break in to steal…” I muttered into the mirror, with a toothbrush dangling from my mouth.
The cameras showed everything. I didn’t have to wait long.
That Friday night, his car reappeared. Then hers. This time it was a different woman. She was thin, tall, and wore a long red coat.
A woman in a stylish red coat and matching trousers looking at someone | Source: Pexels
He escorted her inside, displaying practical courtesy. They laughed and sat down together. She took off her shoes as if she had done so before.
There was a pattern. Every week there was a new face, a new woman, but always the same routine. Their voices remained soft. There was always wine. The caresses were never clumsy. They were rehearsed. Once, a man came with them. I think he was a coworker. He brought a six-pack of beer and smiled as if it were all a game.
But it was the notebook that made everything real.
One night, I stopped by Liam’s office to pick up a sweater. The room smelled of his cologne and brown cologne. I shouldn’t have opened the notebook on his desk, but I did.
It wasn’t a diary. It was an accounting ledger.
Close-up of a man holding his glasses while sitting in his home office | Source: Pexels
Names. Initials. Ratings.
“7/10: Good laughs, fun in the kitchen.”
“8/10: She brings wine, stays late. Relaxed.”
The last page was titled: “The best options / The best ‘getaway’”.
My hands felt like they were freezing. I filmed every page with my phone. My mouth was dry.
When I sat on the edge of his desk, I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t even angry. I felt… hollow.
He wasn’t a man who deceived. He was a man who categorized, classified, and played.
I didn’t confront him. I didn’t yell. My mother used to say, “If you’re going to act, act like you mean it. Stay calm and composed,” so that’s what I did.
I greeted him with a kiss, prepared dinner, and even asked him about his meetings.
He called me “imperturbable.” He said it as if I were a prize.
When he told me that he would be busy with meetings over the weekend, I understood his whole plan and said, “Don’t worry, honey, I’ll be here at home.”
Close-up of a couple toasting with wine glasses | Source: Pexels
That Friday, I loaded the car as if I were ready for war. He had already left for work. I packed my mother’s quilt and photo albums.
The cabin greeted me with its usual creaks and the familiar scent of cedar. I made coffee and sat on the porch, watching the light fade behind the trees. Inside, I put the kettle on the stove, opened a bottle of red wine, and placed our wedding album on top of its black notebook.
A kettle on a gas stove | Source: Pexels
Let them touch, I thought. Let them see the difference.
As night fell, I opened the living room camera on my phone and placed it face down on the table. In silence.
Around ten o’clock, the gravel crunched.
The porch light turned on.
She walked in as if she knew where to step.
He smiled the same rehearsed smile. He kissed her cheek as if he’d done it a dozen times.
“Make yourselves comfortable,” I said, without moving from the kitchen.
My voice was slow like syrup.
“The kettle is on.”
They remained motionless.
Liam looked like he’d swallowed glass. His eyes darted quickly from the table to me and then, possibly, to the camera.
The woman blinked and her smile faltered. It didn’t disappear completely, but it was definitely smaller now.
A woman in shock | Source: Unsplash
And I smiled back.
The woman, realizing the situation, ran back to her car.
“Hello,” Liam said, barely above a whisper.
He didn’t get up. He remained standing, as if the ground might collapse if he moved too quickly. I noticed his hands were awkwardly resting in his lap, one thumb twitching, as if he didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t shout. I didn’t lift a single plate. That’s not how I operated. My voice had never been the loudest in a room, but I learned long ago that silence has its weight.
I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. I gently placed it on the table in front of him, smoothing the edges with two fingers before speaking.
“I thought you’d want to see this,” I said, keeping my voice steady.
A woman with a serious facial expression standing in a cabin | Source: Midjourney
He looked at it, but didn’t touch it. He recognized his own handwriting almost immediately. He had printed a few entries from the black notebook he thought was still safely tucked away in his office drawer.
The words were simple but sharp as glass: “Quiet, good for caressing. 8/10.”
“She speaks better in the kitchen, she stays late.”
“7/10 – would repeat”.
And then, at the end, in his scribble: “We should keep this off the record.”
His face lost all color. He stared at the paper as if his teeth were about to grow.
A man in shock | Source: Midjourney
“Is this…?” she began, but her voice broke before she could finish.
“Yes,” I said, clasping my hands together. “You turned it into a hobby.”
He opened his mouth, but said nothing. Just a strange, hissing sound, like someone trying to laugh without air. I saw his jaw tremble as he searched for a phrase that could save him.
“You’re being dramatic,” he finally said, but he sounded shaky, as if he didn’t even believe it himself.
I tilted my head slightly and looked at him, not as the man I had married, but as the man who had turned my mother’s sanctuary into his own private stage.
“Tell me something,” I said. I leaned forward, my voice calm. “When you bring them here… when you sit where she used to knit, sleep in the bed she chose, pour wine into her chipped cup… do you imagine I don’t know? Do you imagine this cabin is just a backdrop for your adventures and not a place where I still feel my mother’s presence?”
A woman sitting on a man’s lap | Source: Pexels
Liam’s throat worked silently. He couldn’t look me in the eyes.
“It’s nothing,” he finally murmured. “It’s… it’s just fun.”
“Fun,” I repeated, letting the word hang in the air. “This place is supposed to be sacred. We were supposed to be sacred.”
He picked up the wine bottle with an unsteady hand. He poured himself half a glass, but didn’t drink it. He just held it like a shield.
I didn’t speak for a moment. The silence was thick. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t even say he was sorry.
That’s when I took the envelope out of my bag. Inside was the USB drive. I had downloaded and saved all the videos from the camera, some short and others painfully long. I slid the envelope across the table, just as I had done with the printed paper.
A pink envelope | Source: Unsplash
“This is all,” I said softly. “All I’ve seen.”
Her eyes widened as she looked at the envelope.
“Did you record me?” he asked, his voice tense.
“You recorded yourself,” I said. “I just hit save.”
He didn’t touch the envelope either.
“I’m not here to humiliate you,” I continued. “Not publicly. But you have another option. I can take this to your office. I can send it to Human Resources. I can send it to the women you brought here and their partners.”
Liam shuddered at the word “partners.” For the first time, I saw him realize that these women had their own lives, with people they trusted, and who had trusted him as well.
“Or,” I said, “you can tell me the truth. All of it. Every reason. Every name. And we’ll see if there’s even a thread left worth holding onto.”
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it and opened it again without saying a word.
Grayscale image of a distressed man | Source: Pexels
“I just wanted to feel… something,” she said after a moment. “I felt like I was disappearing at work. Like nobody could see me anymore. And when they laughed at my jokes or touched my hand… I don’t know. It made me feel… important.”
“You mean powerful,” I corrected him. “Not important. There’s a difference.”
He lowered his gaze and did not argue.
I got up and went to the window, looking up at the trees. The light from the porch cast a long golden streak across the gravel path, and beyond it, the dark woods lay still. My mother’s trees. Their watchful silence.
Behind me, Liam started talking again. He said all the things men like him say when they realize the game is over.
“I’ll go to therapy.”
“We can start over.”
“I’ll stop. I swear.”
His words sounded rehearsed. They were like an off-key song. I let him say what he needed to because it didn’t matter.
A sad and reflective woman | Source: Midjourney
That night I let him sleep on the sofa. I wrapped myself in my mother’s quilt and snuggled into bed. I clutched an old baby blanket we used to keep for guests, more out of nostalgia than for comfort. I didn’t cry. I just stared at the ceiling and listened to the silence.
The following weeks passed slowly, but the consequences came faster than expected.
It started in her office. Her colleagues stopped responding to her messages. One night she told me on the phone that someone had heard rumors that she was keeping lists. That HR had received an anonymous complaint. Maybe more than one.
“Did you say something?” he asked me one night, in a deep voice.
“It wasn’t necessary,” I replied. “You left a trail a kilometer wide.”
Finally, she told me that one woman had seen the impression. Another had told her fiancé. The whispers grew in number.
A woman making a thumbs-down gesture | Source: Unsplash
When they reorganized their team, they didn’t invite him to any new projects. Meetings were held without him. Emails disappeared. It was as if he had become invisible.
His world closed in on him.
At home, the changes were quieter, but just as real. The cabin, which had once been his secret playground, was now locked. I changed the locks myself. I moved a rocking chair to the porch, planted mint on the windowsill, and started spending weekends there again.
One day he asked, his voice trembling: “Can I come up? Just for a few hours. Please.”
“No,” I told him. “Never.”
She looked at me as if she couldn’t believe it. As if the cabin had belonged to her. But it never did.
Two months after that night, she moved out. Not because I demanded it, but because she had nothing left to cling to. Her work was failing. Her image was tarnished. And her flirtations were no longer charming, just pathetic.
A man struggling to close his suitcase full of clothes | Source: Freepik
While packing her bags, she tried one last time.
“We could try therapy,” she said. “If you want. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
I handed him a box of his books. “I know,” I said. “But I won’t do it.”
I watched him come down the porch steps with his suitcases. The same porch where my mother used to sit and hum. The same porch where I had waited for a man who never deserved the version of me he had hoped for.
*****
A year has passed.
Liam got a new job downtown. Nothing fancy. An office job that left little room for politics or flirting. He lives in a small apartment with peeling paint and no porch.
Sometimes he sends me text messages.
“I’m sorry”.
“I hope you’re well”.
“Do you think we could talk?”
I’m not answering.
A woman lying down while looking at her phone | Source: Pexels
The cabin is mine again. Complete and silent. The kind of silence that hums in your chest like security. I fixed the sagging porch, repaired the stove, and repainted the faded shutters. My mother would have loved it.
Some nights, I sit outside wrapped in his duvet, with coffee in one hand, the air cold and sharp.
I never shared the images. I never sent the files to his boss or his HR team. I had no reason to. The consequences speak for themselves.
One night, while pruning a bush near the back shed, I took out the black notebook, the one that contained his classification system. I lit a small fire in the metal drum we used in winter and put the pages into the flames, one by one.
They curled and cracked, the ink bubbled, the paper blackened at the edges before turning to ash.
A close-up of a fire burning with incandescent flames | Source: Pexels
The smoke rose towards the pine trees and disappeared.
Then I sat down on the steps and let the tranquility settle over me.
Sometimes, when I drive along that dirt road, with the headlights sweeping over the familiar trees, I still stop at the bend in the road and remember the version of me who used to feel thin, worn out, and easily brittle.
He’s gone now.
What remains is someone gentler, but not weaker. Someone who understands that silence can be a strength. That love, when mistreated, only becomes sharper.
And from time to time, when I sit on that porch and watch the trees, I hear my mother’s voice again.
A smiling woman | Source: Midjourney
“You did the right thing,” he tells me.
I believe him.
And finally I’m home.
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