Woman divorces husband after discovering secret nickname

woman husband in bed together
The women described how discovering the nickname was the final straw. Photo credit: Getty

An Australian woman claims she left her husband after discovering the cruel nickname he used for her when texting his friends. 

In an anonymous essay for lifestyle website Mamamia, the mother-of-one described how she found the heart-breaking text on her husband's phone when their son was two years old. 

"I didn't see it coming, but I should have," she wrote, saying how from the moment their son was born, "nothing changed" for her husband. 

"He absolutely hated telling me what his plans were," she said. 

"As a result of his disinterest in participating in our adjusted family life, our marriage, where we had once been 'best friends' and an equal partnership, floundered."

The woman said the final straw came one morning, after her husband got home from a late night out with his football friends. 

"I'd heard him get in at midnight," she described. "This morning, he'd woken at 8am, and headed straight for the shower, without even checking in on me and the baby in the kitchen, meaning that we hadn't seen him since the previous morning."

While he was in the shower his phone kept pinging, and she decided to check it in case it was something urgent. That's when she saw he had called her 'SWMBO' in one of the messages.

"Evidently, my husband had made the time to send a few replies. I didn't know what to make of his last one, which read: 'Don't think I can make it tonight. SWMBO will say no'," she said. 

Wondering what the abbreviation stood for, she asked her husband outright and he casually responded it meant 'She Who Must Be Obeyed'.

The woman wrote that the nickname was "a slap in the face".

"It wasn't a matter of 'obeying' me, or asking my permission, as he often complained," she wrote. 

"It's called respect. Courtesy in checking to see if you're needed - to say what your plans are."

After 10 years together, she left with her son the next week, as her husband clearly "valued them so little", she said. 

Newshub.