A woman had a gut feeling that her husband was cheating on her, so she decided to follow him to a motel one day, where she discovered why he so often came home tired and unkempt. Evelyn was a forty-two-year-old housewife married to a doctor with two wonderful children. Since she and her husband were considered part of the “elite” families in their neighborhood, she placed great importance on her reputation and how others perceived her family. As a child, she dreamed of becoming a preschool teacher. However, after becoming a mother, she put her career on hold and used her teaching skills to help her children with their homework. Family was especially important to Evelyn, as she grew up in a broken home after her parents divorced when she was a child. Although her mother once told her that her father had left her to work in a faraway country, she later discovered that her father had actually cheated on her mother. Since then, she vowed that the same thing would not happen to her and worked to have an ideal family life. Evelyn lived that ideal family life—they were the perfect family, with a doctor husband and children who were straight-A students. Every morning, Evelyn got up to make breakfast for the whole family. Everyone went to the kitchen, discussed the morning paper and their plans for the day before it was time to go to school and work. Evelyn enjoyed her life and was happy that her family appreciated her food. Evelyn’s husband, Robert, was a well-respected surgeon. He was the most trusted doctor for complicated surgeries in their town, and people traveled from other states to be treated by him. Meanwhile, Evelyn was happy to stay home and wait for her children and husband.
When she wasn’t cleaning the house or preparing meals, she was at the yoga studio or at the coffee shop with other housewives from the neighborhood. One day, she was surprised when her husband didn’t come home on time for dinner. He hadn’t told her he would be late, which upset her. Robert came home an hour later than usual, and Evelyn and the kids had already finished eating. He looked tired and unkempt, so Evelyn asked what had happened. “Are you OK? You look exhausted,” she told him. “It was a hard day at work. I had to stay late because of a rare case,” he explained before devouring the food on the table. Being a very thorough woman, Evelyn didn’t quite let her husband’s explanation go. She sensed that something was wrong, but decided not to react to it at first. The next day, while eating breakfast, Evelyn noticed her husband’s phone light up with a message: “Are you coming over today?” When Robert noticed her looking at the phone, he immediately turned it face down. Evelyn’s gut told her that her husband was cheating on her. Still, she decided not to argue with him, not ready to face the truth if it turned out that he was actually seeing someone else. Instead, that evening, she waited for Robert to leave the hospital where he worked. At 6 p.m., he left the building on time, like he did every day. He got in his car and drove off, while Evelyn took a taxi to follow him. A few minutes later, his car pulled up in front of a motel. Evelyn’s heart was racing and she was shaking uncontrollably. She got out of the taxi and hid near the entrance. Her husband entered the motel, where a woman greeted him.
They went into a room together, and Evelyn was heartbroken. She couldn’t believe her eyes and wanted to punch something. An hour later, Robert came out, and an angry Evelyn stormed toward him. “You cheater!” she screamed. “How could you do this to me? How?!” she asked, slamming her hands on his chest. “Evelyn, calm down,” Robert said to his wife, trying to calm her down. “Let me explain.” Robert took Evelyn’s hand and led her into the motel. He opened the door to the room he had been in, and she was surprised by what she saw. Evelyn saw a man lying on the bed, his legs paralyzed. Robert explained that this man was his former teacher, who was living on the streets after being fired from his school twenty years ago. “I saw him on the street one day as I was walking home,” Robert recalled. “He was sitting helplessly on a dirty sidewalk, one hand on his leg. When I asked him what had happened, he told me that he couldn’t walk because of a leg injury.””I immediately decided to treat him for free since he couldn’t afford the operation,” Robert explained. “I come here several times a week, but no one knows about it. I wanted to keep it a secret because our hospital doesn’t allow free work.”
“I’m sorry I made you doubt my loyalty to you, Evelyn,” he apologized. “I love you, and I would never cheat on you.” Evelyn was in tears, overwhelmed with emotion. She realized that her husband was not what she expected – he was so much more. What can we learn from this story? Don’t be hasty in conclusions. It was easy for Evelyn to assume that her husband was cheating on her after a series of events suggested it, but in the end she was surprised that her husband was doing something noble and admirable. Do good even if no one sees it. Robert was a respected doctor who often received a lot of money for his treatments. But he decided to secretly treat a veteran in need for free because he knew it was the right thing to do. Share this story with your loved ones. Maybe it will inspire someone and make their day a little better.
