A cheater may not change its spots, but it can change its choice of prey; little did I know what Hubby was really covering for. — It’s easy to say you’d never throw your partner under a bus…but what if they pushed you first? In the bedroom of the Costa Mesa triplex far from my husband’s home security cameras’ threatening reach, I opened the box marked “CYA — Do Not Shred”. …

I caught another man in my husband’s cockpit, and I’m afraid an equally scorned woman is pulling the strings for his revenge. — When I deboarded the narrow aircraft, a buzzing in my pocket jolted me back to reality, just a slight downgrade from our Italian vacation from Hell. …

Here’s the Amalfi Coast getaway you won’t see on your favorite influencers’ social media. — When the carefree, size 00 Instamodel-turned-mail-order-teenage bride aboard your speedboat shoots her husband a fear-stricken glare and shrieks “Wire the money!”, you know your Amalfi Coast vacation is probably headed south in the worst of ways. Being stranded on an incomparably remote — yet, picturesque, pastel-sprinkled — foreign hillside might…

But the biggest shocker sat in my BFF’s driveway all night long. — A stampede of clamoring passengers charged towards us, with flailing arms wielding dozens of mobile devices dangling precariously over the boat’s railing. I braced myself against my friend — one of the lucky (or unlucky) few perched directly across from the ominous figure teasing the tourists with its fickle presence. …

And his ex-mistress is going out of her way to warn — or threaten — me. — Some say a picture’s worth a thousand words; I’d argue a picture accompanied by a link is worth a million — at least when that link profiles the woman surreptitiously captured on your husband’s arm, halfway around the world. I didn’t need to send a private investigator after my husband…

And seeing him on another woman’s social media sealed the deal. — My husband fled the tornado-ravaged warzone of a bedroom without so much as a “goodbye”, leaving a pile of reject garments in his wake as the dead giveaway that his flight was, indeed, commercial. …

And a text link from another woman tipped me off to an even bigger betrayal in our own backyard. — I hovered over the link in the email, before my eyes drifted down to the compensation breakdown below. The percentages increased as the dollars ascended from 7 to 8 figures. …

And an infamous party guest with a longer rap sheet than my husband’s proves who you know trumps what you owe. — I watched myself on the screen, as the incriminating 6-inch footage looped in my mother-in-law’s talon-like hands. The bird’s eye frames flitted from clay tile rooftop to modern glass balcony, to the rainbow arch of Corona del Mar’s colorful cliffside estates, then back to the Marigold alley where my husband’s…

The flames of misfortune put marriages and friendships to the test — and we’re all surprised to see who passes and who doesn’t. — A lot can transpire in a year, but sometimes — in the middle of the ocean with your husband’s accuser — even more life-changing sparks can ignite in a minute. As I spotted Brenda on the top deck of the yacht, I flashed back to 11 months ago, when she’d…