Here’s your 300-word story:
I never thought I’d be in this situation. My husband, Jake, and I had been together for over a decade. We’d always been open with each other, or so I thought. But one evening, while cleaning up his office, I found it: another phone, tucked behind a pile of paperwork.
At first, I was skeptical. It could be anything, right? But curiosity got the best of me, and I picked it up. The phone was unlocked, and I scrolled through the messages, not expecting much. To my surprise, there were no flirty texts, no secret calls, nothing that would suggest cheating. But what I found next made my stomach churn.
Jake had been documenting everything—every moment of our life together. Every argument, every small mistake I made, every time I was upset or frustrated, he had written it down. Not only that, but he was making plans to change things in our marriage without telling me. It was as if he was treating our relationship like a project to fix rather than talking to me about it directly.
I confronted him that night. “What is this?” I asked, holding up the phone.
Jake’s face turned pale. “I… I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said quietly. “I was trying to find a way to fix things without you knowing. Without stressing you out.”
Before I could respond, he grabbed the phone and smashed it on the floor. “I don’t want you to see that. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
It wasn’t just the secrecy that hurt—it was the fact that he couldn’t trust me enough to have an honest conversation. That was worse than anything I could have imagined.
Let me know if you’d like any tweaks!
