Drew was out celebrating her friend’s wedding day; however, she returned home to Minnesota with the most heartbreaking news. Despite the problems she had been facing, she was the happiest and most grateful for having a good partner and people. Returning home, she felt peaceful after a long time, and it had been a long while since she last felt this way.
After she put the daughters to bed and kissed them goodnight, she sat down and kissed them goodnight. While they napped, her phone rang with messages from an unfamiliar iMessage. The woman who had felt at peace after months had her whole world collapse when she clicked the messages open. She was being cheated on! While she was away attending the wedding, her husband had brought a stranger home. The feeling of being cheated on after standing strong beside a man and loving him through all the tough days made her feel like a loser.
She could recall the couple’s conversation about how grateful and proud they were to have made it this far, as they had been together for over a decade. Who could think of being cheated on after being the partner’s biggest cheerleader and after feeling so safe all these years? However, the realisation hit her, and within the next few minutes, she immediately called her mom to tell her that she was coming over, took the girls along, and drove for six hours straight to reach Wisconsin.
It took her a week to process all that had happened, after which Drew contacted her husband, who repeatedly begged her to stay and wished that it was a one-time mistake, for the girls and their relationship. She agreed.
No matter how hard she tried to believe in his words, her gut feelings were always negative. The couple moved in with Drew’s parents and tried their best to mend the damage that the husband had done; however, although things looked fine on the outside, Drew’s emotions and her physical health kept declining.
It would be fair to say that she was always falling apart on the inside. All the crumpling led her to gain over 400 pounds, and when she visited the ER to get checked, it was revealed that she was expecting! There were high chances that the pregnancy would result in a miscarriage, as all this time, Drew had no idea of being pregnant. Not just this, how disappointed and overwhelmed she was when her weight popped up on the screen made her realise that things needed to be changed before they fell apart.
She enrolled in a weight loss programme and then decided to undergo surgery. Soon, she had already lost more than 90 pounds, and it was one of her biggest achievements since the incident. Things started to feel better until she received more messages. Clips and pictures of her husband with multiple random girls, all his affairs, Craigslist ads—the marriage wasn’t love but only betrayal.
It took her immense strength to get a complete hold on herself, her emotions, and her life before Drew left her husband, 18 months after knowing the truth. It felt like rebuilding her entire life, as she did not lose her husband, but most of her loved ones did not support the decision, and she was not financially stable. But she knew she was a woman of steel, and she proved it!
After leaving her husband, Drew shifted back with her parents and became a wonderful mom to the girls and financially independent. She also remarried a guy she had been friends with for years; he was someone she could rely on and trust, and proved to be a good guy. Drew’s journey was full of pain and required strength, but thankfully, she was not blinded by the betrayal she had received in the form of love. She is free and has rebuilt herself today!
