I discovered that my wife abandoned her children for a new marriage.
I met Catherine at a company party at the firm where I had just started working. We worked in different departments, and I knew almost nothing about her. She immediately caught my eye—tall, slender, with a gentle smile that was hard to ignore. We spent the entire evening together, dancing until we were exhausted, laughing, and chatting about everything imaginable. After the party, I called a taxi and saw her home in a quiet neighborhood in Manchester. The next day, I was eager to get to work, excited to see her again.
On the way, I stopped by a florist and bought a bouquet of roses and a box of her favorite chocolates. Catherine greeted me with a radiant smile, and from that day on, we were inseparable. We were in our thirties, too old for prolonged courtship. I asked her to move in with me, and she agreed without hesitation. Life with her was like a fairy tale; Catherine was a wonderful homemaker, cheerful and spontaneous. No worries, no clouds on the horizon—just happiness and harmony.
I decided it was time to take the next step. I bought a ring with a small diamond, got down on one knee, and proposed. She said, “yes,” and we immersed ourselves in wedding preparations. But when it came to the guest lists, I noticed something odd: Catherine had almost no close family. She explained that she only had distant relatives she had lost touch with long ago. I shrugged—everyone has their family stories.
The day before the wedding, she went to a beauty salon with her friends to prepare for the big day. She left her phone on the kitchen table at home. I picked it up, intending to take it to her since I knew the salon’s address. But as I sat in the car, it rang. The screen showed “Mum.” I hesitated but decided to answer—just in case it was important. A tired, trembling voice of an elderly woman came through. She immediately accused her, “Cathy has lost all conscience! She’s dumped the kids on us, the old folks. She doesn’t send money, and now she’s disappeared! They’re sick, there’s no medicine, what are we supposed to do?”
I introduced myself, feeling a chill run through me. “What happened?” I asked, and the truth hit me like an iceberg. It turned out Catherine had two children she left with her parents in a village near Manchester and moved to the city for a “better life.” At first, she sent money, but then she stopped. The elderly couple was struggling on a meager pension, and the kids were growing—they needed clothes, food, doctors. I asked for their account number and sent as much as I could—for medicine and groceries. Then I turned the car around and headed home. The beauty salon was left behind, along with my illusions.
At home, I packed her belongings into suitcases—carefully, yet with a hardened heart. When she returned, groomed, with a new hairstyle and perfect manicure, I silently handed her luggage to her. She was taken aback, asking what had happened. I tossed her the phone without a word. Her eyes widened—she understood everything. She started to explain, to justify, but her voice was just noise in the void. I didn’t want to listen. After speaking with her mother, she was dead to me as a woman, as a person.
People can deceive, trick, manipulate—we’re not saints. But abandoning your own children on elderly parents, forgetting them, not helping, and lying to my face that there’s no family? I couldn’t comprehend it. She stood before me—beautiful, yet hollow, like a burnt-out shell. In that moment, I saw her true self—and it was unbearable.
The wedding didn’t happen. I cut all ties with her, erased her from my life, like a bad dream. Yet the questions remained. Is it possible to understand Catherine? Can a woman who betrays her closest ones be a faithful wife? Should I believe her words of love, her vows that things would be different with me? I look towards the future and see nothing but the shadow of her deceit. Perhaps I’m too harsh, but to me, a mother who abandons her children for a new life is not a woman, but a ghost I never want by my side again.
