What would you say if you found out your partner was having an affair?

What would you say to the person with whom your partner cheated? Could you manage being able to get the words out? Would you even want to say anything to that person? This is the question that Carlie Maree had to grapple with. https://www.instagram.com/p/BGg1gExyewr/?taken-by=mscarliemaree Carlie, a writer and life coach who lives in Australia, learned about her then husband's affair when the woman emailed Carlie about it last May in a message entitled 'Your Husband'. The affair was over at that point, but the woman filled Carlie in on all the details. Now, just over a year later, Carlie has written an open letter addressed to that woman. "I wrote it for me, not for her," Carlie told Daily Mail Australia. "Writing has been such a massive part of my healing. I don't wish her any ill-will." Published on the site Mamamia, the letter says:

"A year ago today you hit send on an email that had a monumental effect on several people’s lives. Mine, my husband’s, my daughter’s, both our parents and families, our friends."

She continues:

"I can honestly say that, I didn’t know. I probably should have. I certainly asked him, but deep down I truly didn’t think that it could happen to us. We were rock solid, him and I. I really thought that."

https://www.instagram.com/p/BGtaniKye6E/?taken-by=mscarliemaree Incredibly, Carlie puts herself in the woman's shoes, imagining how the affair came to be:

"I can imagine what it must have been like for you, living in that small town. One night a good looking guy comes into your bar for a drink. He can be funny and charming, my husband. I can imagine how you would have fallen for him."

In the letter, Carlie tries to understand what caused her husband to do it ("Sometimes I wonder how much of it was him trying to find what he had lost in me"), before telling the woman exactly what the revelation did to their marriage and to their subsequent relationship.

"You could let him move on and try to make his marriage work, or you could take it all from him. You chose option two," she writes.

You can read the full letter here.

Cover image: Unsplash/Zack Minor.