The relationship between the spouses has always been smooth, but one thing added a weird tone to it.
A woman named Stephanie, 32, has written a letter to our editorial and told us her story. The woman wanted us to publish it, and she wanted her experience to serve a warning for other people to pay attention to any weird stuff that’s happening in their relationship.
Stephanie began her letter, saying, «I and my husband Mike have been happily married for over 5 years now. We’re a typical family, with no significant problems or scandals, that would make us stand out from the crowd. But since the very beginning of our married life, my husband Mike has been having a very weird demand for me. He insisted that I should never clean our fridge while he’s absent.»
Stephanie explained that of course she has been curious about the reasons for her husband insisting on her cleaning the fridge ONLY in his presence. She said, «He has never mentioned that I shouldn’t, for example, clean the bathroom or wash our car, whatever, while he’s absent. The only thing he was so persistent about, was our fridge. When I asked him about his motives for this strange behavior, he mumbled something like he didn’t want me to throw away food that we can still eat, and he wanted to keep this process under his control just because of this.»
Stephanie knew that her husband was just finding excuses, and that he wasn’t telling her the truth. She said, «I’ve never had a habit of throwing away food, and I always check the expiration dates on the packages. If the food is expired, I won’t of course keep it any longer in the fridge, but I believe this is something that all normal people do, because who wants to consume expired products?»
Mike was extremely protective of some stuff in the fridge, urging his wife to never touch it.
© Dids . / Pexels
Stephanie recalled how Mike once brought home a metal box that he carefully placed in the fridge. He used to check on it often during the day, which was really strange. When Stephanie asked him about it, Mike explained that it contained some olives of a rare kind that his friend James got from his granddad as a present and wanted Mike to keep for some time.
Stephanie explained, «I had no problem with Mike keeping this metal can safe at the bottom of our fridge. But he was really annoying, because he always asked me to be cautious with the can and to never open it, as, like he said, it’d be rude to touch other people’s stuff.»
Stephanie added that this can of olives had been kept in their fridge for many years now, and no one has ever claimed it. James never came to pick them, and Mike has never said anything about when he was actually going to give him the thing.
One day, Stephanie decided to break the rules and cleaned the fridge when Mike was away.
Stephanie goes on with her story, saying, «Last month, I decided to clean out the fridge while I had some spare time. Mike was at work, urgently completing his monthly plan, and I decided that I’d make some small violation of our family agreement and clean the fridge while he’s away.»
The woman started this ordinary procedure, and she didn’t even suspect that this step would mean the end of her happy marriage and the crash of all her hopes and plans.
The woman said, «The whole thing took me about 2 hours, including unplugging the fridge, emptying all shelves and putting away all items (groceries, some vegetables and food containers with pre-cooked dishes). I then started washing and cleaning out the inside of the fridge, and then I let it settle before plugging it in again. During this time I started sorting out all the items that I took out of the fridge before cleaning, checking the expiration dates on the packages and throwing away those that were off. I took the box my husband brought and checked the dates on it, too. I noticed that the olives were expired, so, without a second thought, I decided to throw it away, too.»
Stephanie explained that, besides the expiration date, she noticed that the container with olives was leaking, and it looked like it was dangerous to consume these olives anyway. So she didn’t even think of the consequences, except for the potential risk of this food to be further stored in their fridge.
Stephanie suddenly revealed a very unexpected thing about her dear husband.
© Andrea Piacquadio / Pexels
While she was bringing the can to the garbage bin, it cracked even more and the top of the can had almost fallen off. The contents of the can were spilled on the floor. Then, to her surprise and horror, Stephanie saw that those weren’t olives at all.
The woman wrote, «I saw some liquid pouring down on the floor from the can, it had some chemical smell. And then I saw what was stored in this liquid. These were 2 small cuts of an umbilical cord. I knew instantly what they were, because my sister preserved the remains of her baby’s umbilical cord to keep it a memory of the day when my niece was born. She used to show them to me once or twice, I didn’t find it gross, or whatever, and I just knew how these things looked like, so I recognized them immediately.»
When Mike was back home from work, Stephanie initiated a talk with him immediately. She told him that the «can of olives» expired and was leaking, so she decided to throw it away. She revealed, «When I said this, Mike went pale. I asked him why he was so worried about this can of olives, and he said that they were very expensive, and so on. But I interrupted him, asking him a straightforward question about those umbilical cord parts that I found in the can. He had nothing left to do but tell me the truth, and it was shocking.»
That day a mind-shaking revelation was prepared for Stephanie.
It turned out, that Mike had a love of his life, a woman named Rosa, with whom he had 2 babies, who were twins. The babies were born when Mike and Stephanie were already married, and he kept it a secret from his wife all this time. These were the parts of their umbilical cords that Mike was storing all this time in that «can of olives» in their family fridge.
Rosa and Mike couldn’t get married or be together, because her family was totally against Mike in Rosa’s life. All this time, while he and Stephanie were married, he was seeing Rosa secretly from everyone and taking care of his two kids.
Stephanie wrote, «I was absolutely shaken to find out all this information from a man, with whom I have lived a big part of my life. I hadn’t even suspected that a can of olives would be the ’beginning of an end’ of my family life and a total disaster for my marriage. I’m filing for divorce and I can’t stop thinking of this huge betrayal from the person, whom I sincerely loved.»
