I Found My Wife's Old Diary, Now I Cannot Look At Her The Same

I was looking for my charger inside the bedroom wardrobe on Sunday afternoon when I saw the small notebook behind her old handbags. I should have dropped it. I know I should have. But I opened it, and now something has shifted in my chest that I cannot explain to anybody.

It was her diary from 2019, before we even met. She was still dating her ex then, a guy called Chidi. The things she wrote about that man, the way she described how she felt when he touched her, the poems she wrote for him, the nights she said she cried because he didn't call. I have been married to this woman for four years. We have a son. And I am sitting here wondering if she has ever written one sentence about me like that.

The thing about life is that we carry things we never signed up to carry. I cannot confront her because I invaded her privacy. I cannot pray it away because God is not a vending machine. I just want to know, nwanne, is it normal to feel like a backup plan in your own marriage? Or am I just a man who opened a door he should have left closed?