Amber had a secret. Something she hadn’t shared with anyone. Every day, around the 3pm mark, she would leave her work to get a coffee and sit aimlessly for 30 minutes scrolling through various influencers’ Instagram pages.
It was her guilty pleasure, her escape from work, and her way of resetting for the rest of the day. However, one afternoon, it was this guilty pleasure that led to her discovery that her husband was a cheating a-hole.
Husband caught cheating in an Instagram story
As Amber tells Capsule NZ’s Divorce Diaries, the influencer who “outed” her husband was Simone Anderson, a kiwi influencer with great cleaning tips and a 300k+ following.
She’s always so upbeat, it puts me in a good mood! Plus, she lives in a whole other world to me, it’s great escapism,” Amber explained to Capsule NZ.
However, on this particular day and through this particular story, Amber noticed that she and Simone were not actually ‘worlds apart’ after all.
Simone posted from a park that Amber knew quite well.
Not only did Amber recognise the park, which was on the other side of town to her, but she also noticed that the dress a woman was wearing in the background was also very familiar.
It was one she’d seen her husband’s work colleague wear. Something that was very pretty and something that she’d never seen in the shops around her.
Amber had even asked the colleague, named Lisa, about it in the past. Lisa had told her she’d bought it from a little shop in Venice.
Amber watched the reel over and over to confirm it was definitely Lisa.
How cool, right – to spot someone you know in an influencer’s story! But Lisa wasn’t alone. She was with a man.
It took Amber a few moments to realise she knew this man as well. It was her husband, John.
I can’t believe I recognised her first, and not my husband.
He was with her. They were walking. Like, next to each other. Like, right next to each other. She was in under his armpit and he had an arm around her. You could see his hand on her waist.”
A second opinion
Amber took screenshots and sent them to two friends to see if they thought it was her husband too. They both agreed it looked like she had, indeed caught her husband cheating, was but perhaps it wasn’t what she thought.
Her face doesn’t look happy,” one friend said, referring to Lisa. “Maybe she just found out her dad has terminal cancer and he’s comforting her?”
But why wouldn’t they just go for a walk around the block? Not drive to the other side of town?’” the other friend added.
Amber then texted her husband to see if he had anything out of the ordinary to say. The story had been uploaded to Simone’s Instagram that morning so that could mean the park Rendevous happened earlier in the day.
Amber asked about his day and he replied with, “All good. Pretty busy! What do you feel like for dinner?”
Deny, deny, deny
At home, Amber confronted her husband. She showed him the video. He denied it was him but he also was acting rattled and suss. She continued to bring it up over the next few months, only to be gaslit every time. He continued to deny it was him in the video, or that there was anything going on with Lisa.
It just wasn’t working.
Every now and then the video would gnaw at me, and I’d bring it up and he’d fly off the handle. Like, ‘Not this again! How many times do I have to tell you that wasn’t me?!?’”
I was right though.”
The couple stayed together for a few months before agreeing that it was best to separate. John never admitted to cheating and to this day, hasn’t said it was him.
However, he now lives with Lisa and Amber has still not received the truth she very much deserves.
To the women reading her story, Amber has these words of advice:
One: Trust your gut – and your trusted girlfriends who tell you that your husband is cheating on you.
Two: For God’s sake get a prenup! No one goes into marriage thinking they’re going to need one, that’s the whole point. You might think you can trust your fiancé or husband to do the right thing, but there are no guarantees in this life, that’s for sure.”
Amber admits she’s going through a nasty divorce and everything is an “insane mess”.
No word on whether she still follows Simone on Instagram.
