My husband cheated twice... and IFORGAVE HIM!

Tori Santos has found a way to trust her unfaithful partner

- FRANCES LEATE, HELEN O'BRIEN

They say the right person will enter your life at the right time, and I really believe my husband Nelson and I were destined to meet when we did. A tired mum to two boys, Jacoby, then six, and Cillian, one, I was browsing the supermarket aisles in January 2017, distracted, when I wheeled Cillian's pram onto a stranger's foot. We were soon laughing, as I awkwardly apologised and Cillian giggled, oblivious to my embarrassment. Me and the stranger - Nelson, then 33 - ended up exchanging numbers that day, and I look back on it as a Sliding Doors moment, a chance meeting but one that has caused me so much happiness and pain in equal measure.

Nelson was Portuguese, family oriented and a great cook, and as a working single mum to two boisterous boys, I revelled in his home-cooked meals, romantic gestures and boundless energy – lifting Cillian onto his shoulders, playing Lego with them both for hours. I soon found myself falling deeply in love with Nelson, and when he declared he felt the same, it felt like nothing could ever ruin our happiness. In December 2017, I threw him a surprise birthday party and ended up proposing. He was so excited, telling me he’d been planning to ask me soon, too.

We were both so happy, but as we started making wedding plans, Nelson became more distant, always on his phone, and by February 2018, he was spending longer at his waiting-staff job, at work meetings or doing extra shifts. When he started carrying his phone around with him, even taking it to the bathroom, I became suspicious. We’d stopped having sex as much, and a gut instinct told me he was having an affair.