My Husband Called Another Woman’s Name in His Sleep — Then I Took Action

For three weeks, my husband came home late, fell asleep without a word, and whispered another woman's name in the dark. He swore he didn't know her, but then I found her number on his phone. I called her and discovered my husband had been keeping a secret that could cost us everything.

James and I had been married for two years. We cooked dinner together. We went to bed at the same time. He used to text me in the middle of the day just because...

Then the texts slowed down, and he started working late.

I didn't worry at first, but I should've.

One evening, James walked in looking like he'd been dragged behind a bus.

"Working late again?"

"We're wrapping up a big project. You know how it is."

I didn't. His job had never taken this much from him before.

But I nodded anyway, because that's what you do when you want to be the supportive wife.

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Weeks passed in a blur of late nights and short, clipped answers.

One night, I slipped into bed after James had already fallen asleep. I closed my eyes, then the silence broke.

"MARTHA."

I sat straight up and stared at James. He was deeply asleep.

"James?"

Nothing.

I lay back down and told myself it was nothing. But less than a minute later, he said it again.

"Martha. Martha. MARTHA!"

This time, he wasn't whispering. It sounded urgent. It sounded… intimatee.

I couldn't just lie there. I reached out and shook his shoulder.

"James. Wake up. James!"

He groaned, squinting at me in the dark. "What? Rose? What's wrong?"

"Who is Martha?"

He stared at me like I'd started speaking in tongues. "What are you talking about, Rose?"

"You just said her name three times, James. Who is she?"

James rubbed his face with his hands. "I didn't say anything. You're having a bad dream."

"I wasn't dreaming, James. I was wide awake. You shouted it."

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He sighed and rolled back over, pulling the covers up. "You must've been dreaming. Go back to sleep."

"I wasn't," I said to his back.

But he was already drifting off again.

It happened again the next night.

I was just drifting off when I heard James mutter, "Martha."

I didn't sleep at all that night.

The next morning, I tried to play it cool.

"You were talking in your sleep last night."

James snorted, not even looking up from his mug. "No, I wasn't."

"You kept saying a woman's name, James. Martha."

He took a slow sip of coffee and shook his head. "I didn't dream about anything. You're imagining things, Rose."

Imagining things. His continued dismissals stung.

"I just thought—"

"Rose, I'm exhausted. I have a million things on my plate at work. Can we please not do this right now?"

I let it go.

Well, I told him I let it go. But inside, I was building a case.

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For the next few nights, I became a detective in my own bedroom.

I paid attention to everything.

James would come home late, eat a few bites of whatever I made, and keep his phone face down on the table the entire time. He'd fall asleep before I even got my pajamas on.

And almost every single night, he called out for Martha in his sleep.

Sometimes it was soft. Sometimes it sounded like he was asking a question. Once, he sounded almost panicked, like he was running away from something.

I stopped shaking him awake. What was the point? He would just lie to me again.

Three weeks. That's how long I held it in.

Three weeks of him coming home late and looking through me.

Three weeks of hearing that name in the dark.

We didn't know anybody called Martha, and he'd never mentioned a colleague by that name, either.

She was a total mystery, and in my world, mysteries usually mean trouble. If he wasn't talking about her during the day, it meant she was someone he was hiding.

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I stopped pretending this was just some weird sleep habit.

I needed to know if my husband was having an affair.

One night, after James's breathing hit that heavy, rhythmic pace of deep sleep, I did something I'm not proud of.

I reached over to the nightstand and grabbed his phone.

My heart was beating so loud I was sure it would wake him up. I swiped through his contacts, my fingers shaking, and there it was: Martha.

My hands went cold and sweaty at the same time. It wasn't just a dream. She was real! She was a contact in his phone.

He had lied right to my face, over and over again.

I copied the number into my own phone and put his back exactly where I found it.

Then I sat there in the dark, watching the man I thought I knew, wondering what secret he was keeping from me.

Was he cheating? Every worst-case scenario played on a loop in my brain.

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The next morning, as soon as he pulled out of the driveway, I sat at the kitchen table and dialed Martha's number.

The phone rang three times before she picked up.

"Hello?"

"Hi," I said. "I'm James' wife."

There was a long, heavy pause on the other end.

"How do you know my husband?" I pressed.

The woman cleared her throat.

Her voice was calm and controlled. "We work in the same office. That's all I can really say."

"That's all you can say?" I felt a surge of heat go up my neck. "If you just work together, then why has he been shouting your name in his sleep for the last month? Why is he coming home at ten o'clock every night?"

"He's been calling my name in his sleep?"

She let out a short, sharp bark of laughter. "I really can't talk about this with you. You should speak to your husband."

And then the line went dead.

My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.

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If she were his mistress, she probably would have denied knowing him. If she were just some random person, she would have sounded confused.

Instead, she sounded… careful. Like she was reading from a script.

I realized right then that I wasn't going to get the truth by asking for it. I'd already tried that.

I needed to see what was happening with my own eyes.

Around noon, I drove down to his office building.

I stopped at a deli on the way and picked up a brown bag of lunch — sandwiches, chips, the whole bit. I needed a reason to be there.

The receptionist looked up and gave me a practiced smile.

"Hi. I'm here to see James," I said, holding up the bag. "I brought him some lunch. A little surprise."

She tapped on her keyboard for a second. "He's in his office, tucked away at the end of the hall. Go right on up."

The elevator ride felt like it took an hour. My stomach was doing backflips. What was I going to find? Was Martha going to be sitting on his desk? Was I about to blow up my entire life?

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I reached his door and took a deep breath.

I knocked softly.

"Yeah?" James' voice came through the wood. He sounded distracted, tired.

I pushed the door open.

"Surprise."

He froze.

He was sitting behind a mountain of folders, his tie pulled loose, his hair a mess.

"Rose?" His smile appeared, but it was about two seconds too late to be real. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought I'd bring you lunch." I walked into the room and lifted the bag. "You've been working so hard lately, I figured you might have forgotten to eat."

"That's… that is really nice, Rose." He glanced toward the hallway, then back at me. "But, uh, this isn't a great time. I'm right in the middle of something big."

"I won't stay long," I said.

James opened his mouth to say something else, but then the door behind me swung open.

"James, I need you—"

The voice was the same one from the phone. Martha!

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We both turned.

A woman stood in the doorway. She was holding a thick blue folder and staring at me with a strange expression.

"I'm sorry," she glanced between us, "I didn't realize you had company."

James swallowed hard. "This is my wife, Rosaline."

"Oh… Let me introduce myself properly then." She stepped forward and held out her hand. "I'm Martha, the internal compliance supervisor here. I need James to sign off on a few things before our big review meeting this afternoon."

"Internal compliance?"

My throat was so dry, I don't know how I forced the words out.

Martha looked into my eyes and nodded.

I rounded on James.

"James, are you under some kind of review?"

James let out a nervous, high-pitched laugh. "It's all just a big misunderstanding, Rose. Really. Nothing to worry about."

Martha tilted her head. She arched one eyebrow, looking at James with an expression that told me everything I needed to know.

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"Don't lie to me. How serious is this?" I asked, turning back to James. "Could you lose your job? Is that why you've been working late so often?"

"I…" James gulped. "It will be okay, Rose. There were just… a few mix-ups on the Johnson project. Some numbers didn't quite line up. But I'm confident we can work through it."

Martha didn't look nearly as confident.

She set the blue folder down on his desk with a heavy thud. "I'll give you two some privacy."

She shot me a sympathetic look as she turned to leave. The door clicked shut, leaving us alone in James' office.

"You lied to me every single night for three weeks."

"I was trying to protect us, Rose," he pleaded. "I didn't want you to worry. I thought if I could just fix the project, you'd never have to know how close we were to losing everything."

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"Protect us?" I shook my head, feeling a bitter laugh bubble up. "James, I thought you were having an affair! I spent three weeks wondering if our marriage was over because you were too cowardly to admit you were in trouble at work."

"I would never do that to you!" he shouted. "I love you. I was just scared."

"This isn't much better," I said. "You shut me out. You let me think the worst of you because you didn't trust me enough to tell me the truth."

He had no answer for that. He just stood there among his piles of messed-up paperwork, looking smaller than I'd ever seen him.

I turned and walked out of the office.

"Martha" wasn't a secret woman, but a lie that pointed to something even worse: James had messed up, and instead of owning that, he'd tried to bury it beneath excuses and lies.

Could I stay married to him after this?

I didn't think so.

This story is inspired by the real experiences of our readers. We believe that every story carries a lesson that can bring light to others. To protect everyone's privacy, our editors may change names, locations, and certain details while keeping the heart of the story true. Images are for illustration only. If you'd like to share your own experience, please contact us via email.

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