“Does Dad love her more than us?”
My heart nearly broke.
Instead, I kept my voice steady.
“Dad loving someone else doesn’t mean he stopped loving you.”
“What about you?”
I refused to lie.
“I think your dad made choices that hurt me very badly.”
His lip trembled.
“Are we still a family?”
“We will always be a family.”
“How?”
“Families can change and still be families.”
I don’t know where those words came from.
At the time, I barely believed them myself.
We flew home that evening.
The next morning, I called my lawyer.
Denise listened without interrupting.
Then she told me something important.
Tyler’s affair itself would not automatically determine custody or how our assets were divided.
What mattered were things like marital spending, parenting history, financial records, assets, and anything affecting Mason’s welfare.
“Document everything,” she told me. “Don’t delete anything, and don’t access accounts you aren’t legally entitled to access.”
So I didn’t hack Tyler’s private accounts.
I didn’t need to.
We had a desktop computer Tyler regularly used at home.
He had left his airline email and personal messages synced to it.
Apparently, once someone decides their marriage is already over, they start getting careless.
I found months of messages.
Hotel reservations.
Restaurant charges.
Photographs.
Conversations about Laila’s pregnancy.
Even a copy of the prenatal paternity test they had taken after she became pregnant.
I sent everything I was legally allowed to access to Denise.
Two days later, Tyler came home while Mason was at school.
He packed two suitcases.
“I’m staying with Laila for now.”
I stood in the bedroom doorway.
“Okay.”
He looked surprised.
Maybe he expected tears.
Begging.
A fight.
I gave him none of those things.
Instead, I asked one question.
“When are you going to have an actual conversation with Mason?”
Tyler looked down.
“I haven’t figured that part out yet.”
That answer told me more about him than the affair did.
Our divorce took nearly nine months.
It was exhausting.
Emails.
Financial disclosures.
Property appraisals.
Mediation.
Legal bills.
Arguments about schedules.
We sold our house because neither of us could comfortably afford to buy out the other’s share.
The equity was divided according to our settlement.
