Husband's Death Reveals Heartbreaking Infidelity

When she found out, widow Julie Metz confronted her husband's five mistresses.

ByABC News via logo
July 1, 2009, 11:14 AM

July 2, 2009— -- When Julie Metz's 44-year-old husband died suddenly in the couple's kitchen of a pulmonary embolism, she thought her near-perfect world was crumbling.

It was only while settling her husband's affairs that she learned her near-perfect world never existed at all. She discovered a string of e-mails, chronicling vast infidelity that spanned several years and included five women, one a good friend.

In order to deal with her husband's betrayal, Metz took an unusual course -- she tracked down every one of his mistresses and confronted them.

She documented her extraordinary journey from betrayal to forgiveness in her New York Times best selling book "Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal."

Click here to read an excerpt of the book.

"He was gone, and I had a lot of questions," Metz said on "Good Morning America" today. "I wanted to know who he'd been, and I wanted to know who these women were... Mostly I wanted to know how I could have been so blind to what had been going on in my marriage."

When confronted, Metz said the other women did not shy away from the situation.

"The women I called were actually very receptive. Many were expecting me to call them," she said. "We had some interesting exchanges."

One of the women Metz confronted even became a good friend over time.

She was not wholly unfamiliar with their position. Metz admitted to having been the "other woman" when she had an affair with a married man before she was married.

"We were very young. What I learned is that there are lines, and you can't cross those lines," she said. "For me, that was a learning experience."