The loneliness of betrayal and adultery in its purest form can only be felt not described, but I will do my best. 

A man has given his time every day, working as a shepherd over one-hundred sheep, making a wonderful life for his wife. He comes home to kiss her forehead. His two children ran into his arms. He picked them up and embraced them. His exhaustion slowly disappeared entirely, as he listens to his children talk about how they had learned a new letter of the alphabet or something interesting, they had seen or read.  

The man walked into his bedroom and saw a leather jacket lying on the floor. He knelt and picked it up only to realize that the sleeves were too short, and they could never fit his arms. He was about to ask his wife but decided against for a reason he could not describe. 

On one beautiful autumn morning, the man leaves for work. The door opens, and the chilly air greets him as it pours into the hallway that houses the entrance to the family’s home. 

After working a grueling ten-hour shift, the man arrives home, a bouquet carefully placed in his hand as if he were terrified to let it fall. 

The door is already open. 

As the man waits for his usual greeting, there lies a note and paperwork on the table.  

He set his bag by the door and had begun to rub his tired eyes. As his curious eyes scanned the words on the page, his stomach dropped. 

The note read: 

“I am sorry, my dear husband. I must get something off my chest. I am not a faithful wife. I met a man who is like you, except he expects nothing from me except his own pleasure. We first started seeing each other July 24 of 2014.” 

Nine and a half months before his firstborn child’s birthday. 

“I am now moving in permanently with him. I am writing you this letter for my own closure; I am not writing this to apologize. I do not owe you an apology for merely acting on my true feelings. Goodbye.” 

Petals scattered over the floor. He reread the note seven times in two minutes. 

The man felt as if a bomb had gone off inside his stomach. The love he had been pouring into his wife was now soaked into the dirt and dust beneath his feet. 

The man went to work with his flock the next day only to find that a sheep had run off. He dropped everything he was doing to look for this one lost sheep. Even as the skys began to turn dark grey and the skies began to pour rain, he kept searching and hoping. 

After 3 hours of searching in steep muddy hills, he finally found his sheep in the mouth of a wolf, not dead, but not fully alive either. He acted quickly and grabbed the wolf by the fur and opened its jaws. The sheep escaped, but the wolf had replaced the sheep for the man’s arm; its teeth sinking in as blood ran down his arm. However, the man did not panic, he instead took his shepherd’s rod and struck the wolf down. He then escorted his sheep back to its flock. The teeth marks leaving a symmetrical scar plastered across his forearm. 

It was 328 days before he heard from his wife again every single day his wife’s wedding ring sitting on the dining room table inhabiting the space his wife used to eat. However, on another autumn day, the man’s phone rang. 

“Hello?” He answered. 

“Hey, honey. It’s me.” 

The voice of his wife filled his ears for the first time in almost a year. 

The man wept, opening the floodgates of tears that had been stored up for so long. 

His wife began to weep as well, saying, “I am so sorry. I was wrong about everything. I left you for simple pleasures and worldly things. I need help. This man has left me and the children destitute. We are only slaves to him. He has no love for us.” 

The man did not think twice about what he did next. 

The man paid for everything his wife and children were lacking. 

He had paid it all and brought them out of complete and utter self-destruction. After all had been paid the wife spots scar on the man’s forearm and asks how it had got there. 

The man simply answered, “I had to protect a sheep.’ 

For you reading this story, let one thing be known: 

You are not the righteous husband. 

You are the unfaithful wife.