I Heard My Husband Say Another Woman’s Name in His Sleep for Three Weeks – So I Made the Call He Never Expected

For three weeks, my husband came home late, barely spoke, and fell asleep whispering another woman’s name.

“Marlena.”

At first I told myself it meant nothing. Dreams are weird. Stress does things.

But he said it every night.

When I asked, Jake brushed me off. “You’re imagining things, Rose.”
Again. And again.

So one night, while he slept, I checked his phone.

There she was.
Marlena.

The next morning I called her.

“I’m Jake’s wife,” I said.

A pause. Then, carefully: “We work together. You should talk to him.”

Careful. Not confused. Not innocent.

My stomach dropped.

By noon I was at his office with a bag of lunch and a heart ready to explode. I walked in expecting lipstick, secrets, betrayal.

Instead, I found paperwork stacked to the ceiling and Jake looking like a man drowning.

Then the door opened.

“Jake, I need those signatures—” the woman said, stopping when she saw me.

She held out her hand. “I’m Marlena. Internal compliance.”

I turned to my husband.
“Are you under review?”

He tried to laugh it off. She didn’t.

After she left, the truth spilled out. Bad numbers. Failed oversight. A job hanging by a thread.

“I didn’t want you to worry,” he said.

I stared at him.

“I thought you were cheating,” I whispered. “But you were just lying.”

And somehow, that hurt almost as much.