Reposted after editing by Rexford Dam. Further screwing with it by me. As always, all mistakes and mine.

Author’s note: The Bluetooth app mentioned in this story is a figment of my imagination and may not even exist.

I received an anonymous video in my email that ended my marriage.

I am Jeramy Weston, 45, once widowed and remarried, and am an inventor of many mundane little things that everyone uses every day, without even thinking about it. I have more money than I could spend in 3 lifetimes, but I am fairly frugal. I have been married (but not for long) for 8 years to Cindy. She is 40 and looks 10 years younger than she is. I am constantly being teased about ‘robbing the cradle’.

Back to the video; I opened my business e-mail account and found an anonymous email stating that I needed to see the attached video. Normally I do not pay any attention to any email from unknown sources, but the video was titled Reception.MP4. I assumed it was a phone video of my son’s wedding reception from a weekend ago. It was, but it was not a video of the happy couple. After virus checking the attachment, I opened it; and my happy world came crashing to an end.

The video started innocently and showed Cindy and I talking to various people. The video was time-stamped and showed that it was from the beginning of the party. It was somewhat choppy and showed various people who attended. Then it abruptly changed from random to focus on one person. He should not have even been there. His name is Ned Miller. He is Cindy’s former husband.

The video shows Ned standing in a corner trying to stay out of sight. It continues for about 3 minutes just showing him, but then Cindy comes into the frames, and shows that she is not surprised or unhappy to see him. They reach for each other and kiss like long lost lovers. After about 10 seconds of tonsil hockey, Ned put his hand under Cindy’s blouse and fondles her breast. Then they go around the edge of the building they were next to and the video loses them for about 15 minutes. When the video starts up again, Cindy is rounding the corner buttoning her skirt and arranging her blouse. She is also holding her bra in her arm.

Ned Miller is a real piece of work. Cindy divorced him 12 years ago for cheating on her. He then caught her alone one evening about a year later and beat her so badly that she spent a week in the hospital. Cindy took out a restraining order on him and the judge made it permanent. As I said earlier, he should not have been there.

I did not have a clue that my marriage was about to end, but I should have noticed some little things that were going on. Our sex life was either wild monkey sex for a few days or several weeks of no sex, Headaches, tired, not in the mood ... etc. Also Cindy seemed to start finding little things to argue about. I wasn’t taking the garbage out. I left a mess in the bathroom. I left the toilet seat up, those kinds of things.

After watching the video, I saved it to a thumb drive and called the investigations firm that my company uses for employment background checks. The chairman of the firm is an army buddy and is very good at what he does. I gave him a short description of the problem and made an appointment to see him with the video the next day.

I arrived at his office and we talked for a couple of minutes about other things concerning my company. Then we got to the business of the video. I explained about the restraining order and about all the circumstances leading up to it. I also gave him the go-ahead to start surveillance on Cindy and also on Mr. Miller. I told him I wanted everything he could get; audio, video, photos, records; anything and everything.

I then called Sue Johnson, the company attorney and asked her to refer me to the biggest divorce shark in the state. We live in a ‘No-Fault’ state, but adultery or cruelty, mental or otherwise, are the exceptions. When she said her Father-In-Law, Jerry Echols, I was surprised, because I knew she was not liked by her in-laws. She said she didn’t like him, but if I wanted the best, he was it.

I called that office and was given the run around for a couple of minutes until I said that I was referred by Sue. I made an appointment for that afternoon to talk to Mr. Echols. I arrived a few minutes early and I was shown right into his office. I laid out what I had as evidence that Cindy was cheating, and told him what steps I was taking to verify the facts. I explained that all of my wealth was tied up in a trust fund except for my salary and that I had a prenup that specifically mentioned penalties for adultery. Mr. Echols asked how fast I wanted the divorce to proceed, and that the fastest way was ‘No-Fault’, but adultery would take several months.

I told him that I wanted her burned, preferably at the stake, and that I was a patient man so do his worst.

That night when I got home Cindy was in her monkey sex mode, and while I wasn’t really in the mood at first, I went along. One thing I noticed was that Cindy wanted the lights out, which was highly unusual. When she said that, I told her that if the lights were out I could not see her beautiful face and her wonderful body. She insisted that she wanted the lights out, and I just said; “fine, I am not in the mood for one of your fights over meaningless crap, I’ll sleep in the guest room.”

She started to say something, but I was getting my clothes for the next day and left the room. The guest room was a mirror of our bedroom, so I had a nice bed to sleep in. I woke up the next morning and got my breakfast and coffee.

Cindy came into the kitchen and looked like crap. Her eyes were all puffy and red, her hair was a mess, and she didn’t have her usual makeup on. She tried to apologize, but I told her I wasn’t interested and that she had better think long and hard about where we were in our marriage. I told her the next time she wanted a meaningless fight would be the last. I left for my office.

My investigator wanted to know when he could get access to the house, the phones, and the cars. I told him I would arrange it for the house and phones for that afternoon and that I would take Cindy’s car tomorrow so he could have it then. I asked about monitoring Cindy’s cell phone, and he asked if it was in her name, my name or the company name. I told him it was in my name, and he said he had an app that would make it seem like there was a problem with the phone and he could then put a recorder and tracker on it. I gave him her number and he said that would be all he would need until he could have the phone.

He also told me that he had assigned two operatives to each of them and would follow Cindy from my house until she returned. He said that Ned Miller was being followed the same way.

I left him with that and got on about my business until midmorning. I called the house and asked Cindy if she wanted to go to lunch and talk about our problems. She got angry and told me I was the problem, and that she was going to be gone for the entire afternoon. She then hung up without saying anything else.

I told my secretary that I would be out for the rest of the day and met the electronics guy at the house to let him in. He installed the phone bugs and set my computer up to receive the audio and video recordings. He installed video cameras in every room (except the bathrooms); then microphones in all of the common rooms and the master and guest bedrooms. He activated the app to disable Cindy’s cell and installed a device that would make my car not run in the morning. In all he was in and out in less than two hours and said that all of the devices tested as working and if I checked every day, I could delete any files that were just taking up hard drive space.

That evening Cindy was very quiet and seemed distracted. I was trying to be civil and asked how her day went and she went off like a cheap firecracker. Her phone quit working, I was an asshole, all of her clothes were old, I was an asshole and; oh yes, I was an asshole.

I told her I would take her phone in and get it fixed. I also mentioned that there was something wrong with my car and if she needed a car tomorrow, she could ride in with me and I would rent one until my car was fixed. She was not happy but said she was not planning on going anywhere tomorrow but she could call a cab if she needed to leave.