the betrayal behind closed doors
Home isn’t four walls; it’s where love lives. Without that, it’s just a well-decorated cage.
NOTE: This is the 7th edition of the Live Out Loud series. To view the full series please visit the table of contents. Make sure you never miss an issue, hit the subscribe button below.
My eyes still glint when I think back to my twenties. Those years were electric—filled with neon-lit nights, loud laughter, and that first spark of wild, reckless love.
We were young, fearless, and full of dreams.
Always chasing some kind of adventure, tangled up in each other, finding comfort in the chaos.
But love is tricky.
A high-voltage cocktail, intoxicating and unstable.
It changes. It fades. It surges.
One minute, it’s everything; the next, it’s slipping through your fingers, losing its shine as life grinds on, pulling you along for the ride.
As time rushed forward, the thrill of young love faded, slipping away like sand through fingers. The dates that once tied us together were gone. Replaced by the grind of life—bills, chores, endless responsibilities.
We drifted apart, strangers living under the same roof, trapped in the routines that once felt so full of promise but now felt empty.
We wore denial like a shield. Freud would've had a field day.
We stuffed our feelings down, let the silence do the talking. Laughter was replaced with cold, clipped words. Conversations shrank. Fights flared over nothing—dishes, laundry, whatever small thing broke the silence first.
Then came the quiet.
The real kind. The kind that settles in your bones.
The marriage was dead long before either of us admitted it. She wasn’t my partner anymore, just someone I used to know, fading into the background of my life.
And I sank.
The home we’d built, once safe, was now just an island of isolation, and I was stranded.
A Hollow Shell
December 21st—supposed to be a day of excitement, of holiday cheer on the horizon. Instead, it's burned into my mind as the day I came home to nothing. The day my house became a shell.
It started off like any other. I rushed through breakfast. Gave a goodbye kiss to my kids, still asleep. And left for work.
The drive was the usual blur, the sky heavy with winter’s early darkness. The cold cut through the city, but I had warmth—my family, our home. That thought kept me going.
But I couldn't shake the weight in my chest all day.
The last fight with my wife circled in my head like a bad song stuck on repeat. The words we hurled at each other, the look in her eyes. I couldn’t let it go.
When I pulled into the driveway that night, something felt off.
The house, usually glowing with light, sat in darkness. My gut twisted, but I told myself it was just nerves. Too much thinking. I fumbled for my keys, trying to ignore the eerie stillness in the street.
The other houses gleamed with decorations, twinkling lights.
But Mine was a black hole.
I opened the door. Cold air hit me in the face.
Silence.
Not the kind that welcomes you home. The kind that suffocates.
Where were my kids' voices? The laughter, the noise? I stood there, heart pounding, listening to nothing.
I walked through the house.
The living room was empty. The toys were gone. Bookshelves bare, like they were mocking me with their emptiness. The walls, stripped of the photos that used to make the place feel alive. Now, they were just blank, staring back at me.
Panic crept in.
I rushed to our bedroom. The bed—gone. Her wardrobe—gutted. Nothing but an empty space where her things used to be. The air smelled faintly of her perfume, like she had just walked out, like she had vanished into thin air.
I stumbled into the kids' room, hoping for some sign of them.
Nothing.
Their beds—Gone. Toys—Gone.
The only thing left were a few chalk scribbles on the walls.
Room after room, the house felt less like home and more like a graveyard. Each step heavier than the last, each glance another reminder that my family was gone. It was as if everything we had, everything that made this place ours, had been erased.
The silence was deafening.
The Shattering Revelation
It was then that I noticed the note on the kitchen counter…
"Gone to Calgary. Don't bother calling."
It felt like the ground disappeared beneath me.
Everything outside my window—the holiday lights, the carolers, the festive cheer—felt wrong, twisted, almost mocking. All that brightness was a sick contrast to the emptiness swallowing me whole.
In that moment, I was shipwrecked.
Trapped in the wreckage of my own life.
The house that used to buzz with love and laughter was now just walls.
Cold, hollow, lifeless.
It was the first night of my Christmas break, but instead of joy, I was standing in the middle of my worst nightmare—an empty home, a broken family, and a heart that felt like it might collapse under the weight of it all.
I was lost.
In the cold, empty husk of what used to be home, I stood alone.
Drowning in the wreckage of my own life, barely keeping my head above water.
The loneliness was suffocating. So, I turned to the easiest escape. A bottle. A blunt. Anything to numb the ache. Anything to make the pain quiet, even if it was just for a little while.
And then she showed up—an old friend.
She seemed like a lifeline at the time, a bright spot in the bleak mess my world had become. I let her in, thinking maybe, just maybe, she could fill the gaping hole my broken marriage left behind.
Unraveling the Lies
In the icy wreckage of my divorce, I fell into a storm of fake love and lies.
It wasn’t subtle.
Like a moth to a flame, I got pulled into the orbit of a woman who mirrored the emptiness inside me. She spun a world where I was everything—her sun, moon, and stars. She made me believe I was the center of her universe, the one thing holding her together.
I was desperate.
Desperate to patch up the pieces of a shattered life. To feel something close to love again. So, I chased this illusion, thinking it could fix what was broken inside me.
But behind that sweet facade a darker plan was brewing.
She was smart.
Dangerous, even.
She knew exactly what she was doing.
With her charming smile and slick words, she slowly chipped away at me—my reputation, my relationships. Bit by bit, she sowed doubts among my family, stirred up resentment with my friends.
It was all part of her game. To isolate me. Cut me off.
Until the only thing left was her.
As my reputation fell apart, the truth slithered out of the dark.
The late-night emails that didn’t add up. The texts that snapped shut the second I walked in. The unmistakable proof of betrayal, bold and shameless.
Each discovery was a fresh knife to the chest, twisting deeper every time.
When the full picture finally came into focus, it was like watching everything burn.
My heart was torched. Nothing left but ashes.
The fallout left me gutted, alone, floating in a sea of anger and disbelief.
In the end, my world shrank to the cold, empty silence of my car.
Just me, alone with the ghosts of what once was. Gone were the shared dreams that had once filled my chest. Now, all that remained was the bitter memory of her lies, bouncing off the walls of a life that had never really been mine.
The aftermath was brutal.
Like being wrapped in a thick fog that refused to lift. My reality had been stripped down to nothing. No warmth. No love. Just the hollow loneliness of sitting behind the wheel, parked in the ruins of my past.
That car became a cage.
Tight, suffocating, and endless.
Every look in the rearview mirror was a reminder of the life I’d left behind, the person I used to be. Each mile was just more distance between me and the home that no longer existed.
So, there I was—navigating through the wreckage.
Alone.
The sound of her betrayal playing on a loop, a dark lullaby rocking me into this new, broken reality.
—Ryan Puusaari
P.S. Your time and engagement with this edition mean a lot. Every reader adds value to our journey together. Thank you for being here!
P.P.S. "Sometimes, life strips you down to nothing, not to break you, but to give you a clear path to rebuild."
Healing Thoughts — A Journey of Reflection, Poetry, and Healing, Made Possible by You
Healing Thoughts isn’t just another book—it’s a living, breathing collection of reflections, inspiring quotes, and poetry, all pulled from the heart of this community.
Through the highs and lows, the moments of growth and vulnerability, your support made this book a reality.
Each page is a step toward healing, filled with wisdom, introspection, and emotional insight to guide you on your personal journey.
This book is more than just words—it’s our story.
Before You Go
Dive into the latest posts in the archives.
Learn more about me, this newsletter, or my daily texts.
Explore my journals and books over at Wood Island Books.
Follow me on social media for daily inspiration and updates.
Check out my recommended reading list for must-read books and authors.
View my exclusive merch collection—designed to inspire and uplift.
Have questions or thoughts? I am just an email away—reach out anytime.