I Found Hotel Key Cards in My Husband’s Wallet From Dates When He Told Me He Was With His Mother

I was making a return at a store and I needed the gift receipt Roy had been keeping for me, he’d bought something that didn’t fit, and I said I’d take care of the return and he said the receipt was in his wallet. I went through the card section looking for a paper receipt, which, not where receipts go usually, but Roy keeps things in unusual pockets sometimes.

There were three plastic key cards tucked behind his driver’s license. The thin hotel kind, white plastic, nothing printed on them. But each one had a small sticker on the back with a printed date, the way some hotels stamp them when they hand them out.

I stood in the kitchen with the three cards in my hand for a moment. I looked up the hotel chain — the logo was very faint on one of them, I could just make it out. I found the closest location, about 40 minutes from our house.

I don’t fully understand why I called the hotel. I think I was in the part of it where you think maybe there’s still a normal explanation and you want the normal explanation confirmed. The front desk person was young-sounding and perfectly pleasant and when I said I was calling about some dates and gave them the first date on the cards she looked it up, said yes, there had been a reservation that night, and then she told me the name on it. First name, just a first name: Patricia. Then she kind of paused and said actually she wasn’t sure she was supposed to share that.

I said thank you and hung up.

Patricia. I don’t know anyone named Patricia. Roy doesn’t mention a Patricia.

I sat at the kitchen table with my coffee that had gone cold while I was doing all of this. And I thought about calling Roy at work. And then I thought of something else.

Roy’s mother is named Carol. She’s 79, lives alone in a town called Greenfield about an hour from us, and I genuinely like her. She’s sharp and funny and she and I have always gotten along better than a lot of mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law do. Roy has been visiting her about twice a month for years. I thought it was one of the better things about him.

I called Carol. I said I was just checking in. We talked for about 20 minutes about various things. At no point did she mention a recent visit from Roy. I asked, toward the end, if she’d seen him recently. She said not for a while, a couple months maybe — “he gets so busy, I don’t like to bother him.” She sounded pleased that I’d called.

I’m 52 years old. I’ve been married 24 years. I’ve liked my mother-in-law this whole time. And Roy has been using visits-to-his-mother as the cover story.

I confronted Roy that evening. I put the three key cards on the counter and told him I’d called the hotel and I’d called Carol.

He went through deny, explain, minimize in about 90 seconds, which I found almost impressive. And then he sat down and told me about Patricia. He’d met her at a work conference two years ago. He said it had been going on, on and off, since then.

Two years. Twenty-four years of marriage and two years of hotels on Fridays.

Roy cried. I don’t handle Roy crying well, I never have, it makes me want to comfort him which is a very unhelpful instinct to have in this particular situation. I put the kettle on instead, which was something to do, and had tea while he talked.

Our kids are adults — our son Marcus is 28 and our daughter Reena is 25. Marcus called me about a week into everything because he could tell something was wrong during a routine phone call. I told him we were going through something and we’d tell them when we knew more. He said okay and we talked about other things for a few minutes and then said goodbye.

Roy’s mother still doesn’t know. I call Carol once a week the way I always have and we talk and she asks if Roy’s doing alright and I say he’s been busy and she says she understands. I don’t know how much longer I can do that.

Roy has moved to the guest room. We haven’t filed anything yet. There’s been some conversation about whether we want to try to repair things and the answer is not clear from where I’m sitting. Roy says he wants to. I say I don’t know. We eat dinner together most nights because we’re not ready to stop doing that either.

Carol called me last week and said she was planning to make a big pot of her beef and barley soup and could she send some home with Roy next time he visits. I said that would be lovely.

I still haven’t told her.