I'll keep details vague for privacy reasons. Be warned, it's a bit of a long story.

A much loved family member got married to a rather odd woman (let's call her Kate). She was super reserved and a little... Cold, and not from the UK.

By contrast, my relative (let's call him John), was extremely popular, well liked, affable.

He and Kate seemed pretty happy. Kate seemed to rule the roost a little, but we all liked her well enough and made an effort with her.

John had a good job, they travelled, had a nice house etc.

Kate never seemed to make any friends. After a decade of living in the UK, she never had friends, and never had a stable job. She flitted in and out of roles, occasionally dabbled in doing a PGcert etc that kinda thing. She wasn't super close to her family either, she visited them approx once a year though.

John got ill, pretty badly. He was vulnerable and had a To quit his job. But he had a good quality of life, he still had a good income, they travelled as they did before etc.

They were married for about a decade and things seemed pretty stable. But then we noticed that John seemed to be covering for her. Sometimes he'd be vague about where she was or what she was doing. Around that time, she'd gotten a job for a charity.

This started happening a lot. We live in a relatively small town. So for example, she'd tell John she was out meeting friends at the west of the town, but then a family member would spot her driving towards the opposite direction.

She had her niece come visit for a week, and her young niece mentioned they'd gone out with a male friend from Kate's work.

Anither relative took very well, close to death situation. John was frantically calling Kate, unsure of where she was. She didn't respond until the next day, and turned up to hospital without an explanation and not wearing her wedding ring. We all began to suspect an affair but didn't want to alarm John without proof.

Then Kate told John she was moving out of the marital home for a bit to stay with a friend. She didn't say where she was going, and kept him in limbo for years. She'd come and spend a weekend evening with him, then leave to stay with her "friend".

Things started going missing from the marital home, pieces of furniture etc. this confused John (who was vulnerable already). My mum tried to sort his banking out and help him. Kate had completely control over everything. So my mum transferred his income to his own account. The next week, Kate had manipulated John into adding her name to that one too. My mum (who was an accountant) helped him with his finances and noticed that he was paying disproportionately for the house, and that a lot of his outgoings were Kate's. For example, she'd buy theatre tickets when we knew John hadn't gone and had no recollection. She was basically treating his account like her personal debit account.

Eventually, a family friend found out she was living with a man (small town!). John was forced to accept the marriage was over, after about 3 years of confusion. I don't think she ever admitted to living with someone else.

They agreed to sell the house, and even then, she tried to screw John over. He was paying for example, for all the repairs, with some costs running into the thousands. She didn't pay anything towards this, but was nonetheless getting a 50% share of the property.

John was deeply stressed and unhappy by this point. They sold the house, and he was about to use the significant proceeds to buy another property in cash, when he died suddenly of a heart attack. My entire family laid the blame at Kate's feet. We all felt it was stress that she'd put him under.

She refused to have anything to do with his funeral, but she did at least turn up.

Then, the day after? Less than 24 hours since he'd been buried... Kate emptied his accounts. Everything. Hundreds of thousands of pounds.

He'd written a will, and it was clear he didn't want Kate to have it.

A legal battle ensued, in which Kate lied extensively. She initially claimed they weren't separated. She lied and said the family froze her out of funeral planning. She pretended she hadnt been having an affair for years.

Thankfully, in the end - the money was retrieved and we were able to honour John's wishes. But it made a traumatic loss, all the more traumatic. And what was extra hurtful, was the fact out family had never been anything but kind and loving towards Kate.

It always left a bitter taste in my mouth. The injustice of it. A few months of his death, and Kate married her affair partner, and seemingly rode off into the sunset.

Occasionally, I'd hear about what she was up to through the grapevine. Her affair partner (let's call him Al), was nothing special. He wasn't anything to look at, wasn't especially well off. He didn't have a good reputation locally. He ran a small business/charity venture. He seemed to fall short of John in every way, but then I was biased.

Maybe a year ago, I was having a catch up with someone who worked at the same charity as Kate. This woman hasn't realised our connection. She told me that allegedly, Kate had been forced to leave her job abruptly because she'd given money to Al's business. It was hushed up because the charity didn't want to suffer reputational damage.

It opened old wounds in a way. Not only had Kate cheated on my relative, done very well financially from it, but she'd also gotten away with corruption it seems to. It was a whole added layer of pain. Her family seemed to more or less disown her for how she'd behaved. Her own mother told our family she was ashamed of Kate.

But, that's life I figured.

So to answer your question, did she get her comeuppance?

Initially, I didn't think so. And I'd kinda come to peace with that. I'm Christian, my whole family is. So I decided that one day, Kate would answer for whatever she'd done and it wasn't for me to worry about.

Then maybe a month or so ago, I passed her in a supermarket.

The whole time she'd been with John, she'd been a rather glamorous woman. She worked out, ate well. She was attractive. Her hair was always styled immactuaely, she was dressed in expensive clothing etc.

The woman before me was barely recognisable. She'd aged considerably. Shed gained weight, but in a downtrodden and unhappy way, rather than someone who'd gained weight from taking joy in life and letting loose. Her clothes were unkempt and scrubby, her hair was a mess. Id never seen her like this in the years id known her, never. She looked liked she'd given up on life totally, her demeanor looked... Downtrodden.

Id only ever been civil to her, but she noticed me and then scarpetrd in the opposite direction, like a rabbit in headlights. Pretending she hadn't seen me. The woman id known had been quiet, but never... scared like that.

I realised then that Kate was not a happy woman. All I knew about her was that she was basically unemployed and doing some hobbies for cash on the side. But she was clearly very unhappy.

I realised that sometimes we don't always see the universe work it's magic, but shitty people end up feeling shitty. They can never fully escape themselves or their behaviour. And their comeuppance can look like obsessively showing off on social media, it can look like a faked outward smile, it it can look downtrodden in a supermarket.

But I genuinely believe everyone gets theirs, eventually, even if it isn't obvious. You just need to trust the universe to bring balance.