Canadian author Jessica Waite, in her memoir A Widow's Guide to Dead Bastards, recounts the emotional turmoil she faced after discovering her late husband’s infidelity. Ms Waite learned of her husband Sean’s unfaithfulness, involving multiple women and escorts, shortly after his death during a work trip to Texas in 2015, as reported by the New York Post. While using his iPad to contact the hospital where his body was being held, she stumbled upon a revealing browsing history that included searches for “Houston escorts,” and their prices and locations.
This discovery marked the beginning of Waite's journey into uncovering her husband's secret life. Over the following months, she found that he had regularly seen escorts, cheated on her with several women, lied about working late, and downloaded a vast collection of porn videos, neatly organised into categorised folders. She also learned he had rented an apartment in Colorado for liaisons with escorts and other women.
In her memoir, Ms Waite describes her struggle to come to terms with Sean's hidden life. In her grief and despair, she recounted an incident where she took his ashes to her garden, mixing some of them into her dog's faeces. Overwhelmed by her emotions, she went a step further and consumed some of his ashes, describing their texture and taste in vivid detail.
"But then, in despair and guilt, took more of his ashes – and actually ate them. The remains feel dry against my fingertips, coarser than baking powder, grainier than salt. They mix with the teary water, a mineral mud on the back of my tongue. I swallow."
Waite reflects on how detached from reality she felt following Sean's death and admits that the experience profoundly impacted her. While she has since found a new relationship, she still grapples with the memory of Sean's betrayal.
"I feel better and stronger than before," Waite writes, "but I still cry almost every day, and I still feel like a part of me has died- because the part of me that existed within Sean did."
