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Confused about wife's emotional affairs...

So my wife and I have been hitting a few rough patches and I have been quiet about it lately as I really don't know what to do in the situation.

A bit of background (sorry long read :/):

I have always been a long term relationship guy. Even my college days. I always wanted to spend my life with someone who cares for me and I care for them. Every break up I been through has been girls at different points in their life where they move away or are at a changing period and sort of life moving us in other directions. I have been contacted by ex's in the past who want to be together again, but again life moved in other directions. I eventually met my wife and it seemed everything clicked.
My wife and I first met 5-6 years ago when I was unemployed and just starting my career. We dated after she got divorced from a cheating husband and eventually became serious… and she stuck with me and we stuck together through the early year hard times. During these times on the side she worked as a model outside of her normal career path. She would do all sorts of modeling shoots and some artistic nudes, but they were always done on a professional level. She enjoyed the attention as it boosted her ego and helped with some emotional issues for her. As my career accelerated we eventually moved and then moved in together and then got married/bought a house. She eventually dropped her modeling past time as the money really wasn't needed and we had other focuses.

She has always kept in touch with old friends and ex's online and this never really bothered me as it was more of just keeping in touch and chatting about random things. She didn't hide it or anything and was open about her communications.

As time progressed she started to get the itch and talked with me about it and she wanted to pick up the hobby again. She eventually met a photographer in the area who wanted to do a shoot with her. Things fell through and the photographer would randomly send messages out to her and chat. Over time they were chatting every day.

One day I saw some of the messages pop up and it was basically him hitting on her very sexually. (This guy is married) I couldn't help but look. They had conversations about completely random topics, and then he would just hit on her – asking her things like if I am showering would you get my back? Along with other random stuff. He mentioned how he saw her and I at a store once and she looked hot basically admiring from afar. She would ignore those lines in the conversations and keep communicating and changing the topic. Eventually they were talking about doing face time etc as the guy was going through medical issues and she was curious. She ended up staying late after work one day face timing with him in the parking lot – and then later she made an excuse to go to another room and was face timing with him shirtless. I walked in on them and she quickly shut it down.

I confronted her about it. I was extremely hurt. I felt like my whole world was being torn asunder in a blink of an eye from some random guy in the area I have never met projecting his own inadequacies on others filling his hollow shell by reaching out to other women.

At first she was apologetic saying she loved me more than anything in life and she would never cheat on me. I said some cheating is more than emotional than physical and she again said nothing physical would ever happen and she is not emotionally invested in this guy. She said I cannot control who she can and cannot be friends with and I agreed but I asked for open clarity on what's going on in these situations. She said chatting with him gave her confidence and helped her ego and she got this from her other friends online/modeling in the past. She wasn't interested in him at all and it was just chatting and she did nothing wrong. Days later she approached me on it and yelled at me I don't trust her. She said I am one of the worst people in the world for snooping accidentally. She also went off how I never have anything to worry about and now she feels hurt I approached her about this. She discussed how I potentially have an inferiority complex and I am projecting it on her as being needy and untrusting. She asked if I want a divorce to which I said no I want to work this out. I told her I don't trust him and this situation is just really really weird. I said the facetime thing is too much connection, she said she facetimes everyone as its fun (WE never facetimed and I never seen her do it before). I asked we go to therapy and work it out and she said no as with her previous marriage it didn't work. Eventually things settled down and she drifted away from talking to him. She kept chatting with some of her other old friends and things sort of got peaceful again.

I still felt hurt overall. I felt like I am always the bad guy. I started to question if I was crazy in this situation and being overly possessive. I felt like a level of trust was broken for me and I always kept wondering what was really going on. Did I just need to take it at face value? For peace I just left it as it was done. As she was chatting with some of her friends months later she told one of her ex's I love you back in a message. This guy is out of state and married with kids but they apparently helped each other remotely through hard times throughout their lives. I eventually said nothing and shrugged it off as well people can love more than one person in their life time – and thinking about it I still love some of my old relationships but we have moved on and away from each other – they just happened to keep and touch and love each other as friends. There was nothing dirty or sexual ever said between them so this didn't bother me.

Again things calmed down for months and we were extremely happy. Going out and doing things together. We even started to play PC games together again. That's when guy number 2 happened…

As we were playing an online game we ended up joining a guild because this charismatic friendly person grouped with us. We were still learning the game and having tons of fun together. The guy who befriended both of us was in the guild with his GF at the time. Eventually we would all jump into voice chat together and progress in the game as a group.

One night next to me I heard my wife typing frantically at her keys. I asked her as question and she did not reply. When I glanced over I saw the guy sending private messages to her in the game talking about what he would want to do with her/asking for more pics etc. I instantly dropped a "WTF?" and approached her about it. Apparently she sent a link to her modeling account and they guy loved the pictures. He was showering her with complements and chatting on the side with her about it for the past week in the game. He was saying things like he would love to do oral, can she send him a P***y shot, and she was replying back she's not into that. She said he's just some super younger kid out of state and it made her feel good to be wanted by more people. I checked my wife's modeling profile and she had a new friend online – sure enough he was some right out of high school kid. My wife started joking with me asking if I was jealous of this younger man hitting on her. I replied yes and I think it's inappropriate. Things got weird again and she then stated how I don't trust her again. She said I don't have self confidence in myself or our relationship. Again she started asking if I want a divorce etc and I am blowing things out of proportion as obviously things would never get physical and this was just added entertainment to her.

Days later I was at work and she was online playing. I was still furious and anxious and wondering what was going on. When I checked some external tools to see what they were all doing in the guild it showed them in completely different zones and the guy was doing stuff with his girlfriend in the game.

Eventually interest died all around and they stopped chatting on the side and we ended up leaving the game later.

A few weeks after this my work was having an external event and everyone was invited. My wife went out and bought new clothing for it and was really excited for this dressed up event at a really impressive venue. She wanted to be my arm candy as she put it and was really excited.

The day of the event she had a depression streak. I needed to go to the event as I lined everything up with co-workers and bosses for it. I stayed with her and she started saying how the world sucks, our marriage sucks and going into further depression and yelling at me and our relationship and divorce and killing herself and everything else under the sun. She eventually told me fine just go and I left for the event as I felt I was doing what I needed to do. I also felt I was taking a bit of a stand for myself because this was only going to be negative with me staying home and she was constantly cutting into me and our relationship verbally. The moment I got to the venue she sent me multiple texts she hates me, I am the worst person in the world. After glancing at it – I didn't want to ruin my evening further and ignored my phone. When I got home I found myself locked out. We exchanged a series of texts and she was basically along the lines of because I didn't support her in her time of need I don't deserve to come home. She continued to say she hated me and us. After an hour of exchanging very hateful words via text I eventually went and crashed at a friends place.

The next day she text me saying well I guess I need to legally let you in some time. I went home.

When I got there she hasn't left the bedroom in 24 hours. We eventually talked and it was sort of an episode of depression and her main thing was that she didn't want me to leave when she needs me. I don't have to be right there with her but she wants me around the house when she has these emotional surges. I told her that's fine, but I really want her to think about what she says next time. The next day as we are chatting she mentions she made an online friend to talk to while I was out. She says she put a craigslist ad up for a chat buddy. I ask about this and what's the situation. It's an older local guy and she showed me some of the chats and they were all normal. The guy is having a baby with his girlfriend and they are just sort of anonymous chatters who can bounce things off each other. This time they are communicating via Kik as it's more anonymous and I won't see/get frustrated with the situation. They both agree they are never meeting up as a mutual friendship via online is agreeable…
I really don't know how I feel about this and eventually say fine and we move on.

Currently:

Things are going great again, my unease/trust issues are slowly improving over time. I have more confidence, she has more confidence and tells me I am the best thing that ever happened to her. I get promoted again at work and we are starting to look into having a baby and its been about 6 months down the road. She's not really devoting time to chatting with anyone, our house time is more spent with each other.


That brings us to this past week:

While we were hanging out after a long work day for us both, she starts asking me about how I feel about monogamy. I say I find it to be really the pinnacle of connection with someone in a relationship. She then starts to talk about human nature and cheaters. I told her I don't believe cheaters are normal people – I strongly feel that they have an innate internal problem where they reach out for self-validation. This causes a dopamine effect much like an addict. They get a rush from this and feel they have to repeat the process to feel normal. I then went into how this is sort of like recovering addicts – they are never the same person as they know there is this chemical rush reward mechanism right around the corner they can reach out to and it's always a monkey on their back.

She ended up getting quiet in this discussion and went back to her phone. She then says she was discussing this topic with her friend online and she was agreeing with me.

A few min later she is sitting next to me and on her phone pops up something from the guy about how hes trying to be good and how hard he is…

I immediately say "Uhh…. Wtf" she instantly snaps at me "No". She then types out this long reply about monogamy and how it's awesome to her etc. She then turns to me and tells me she was discussing with this dude the topic we just mentioned and they were debating it. I just don't say anything.

The next day I spend really questioning myself again. If I make it a big deal it will be a problem. If I don't react and remain confident it will probably die out? I also have zero context for the rest of the conversations. I feel I should just trust and keep moving forward for the peace and stability. I spend hours in my head though going over the 'wtf' scenario again. Why is he saying that? Why does she just change the topic and not just end it when a boundary is crossed? What is our relationship missing for her to do this? Does she care about how I feel at all? That night she's a bit more snippy about some things. She gets home and sits in her car before coming in. She says she does this because she needs a personal time to unwind, it makes me anxious but she does do this often. Eventually we are on the couch relaxing again and she is browsing things online, we are sharing jokes etc. At one point she turns away and starts texting the guy again. It's very brief and not super time consuming so I ignore it. Eventually we go to bed. I wake up much earlier and she does and we both like going to bed together to snuggle and she watches tv in the bedroom while I sleep. Tonight she is on her phone. I let her know I am laying down and she just says "ok". She's browsing medical topics of interest and reading articles. It's getting late now and past the normal time she snuggles up next to me. I keep laying there running through things in my head again debating if I say something or not, but eventually just get up and go to the bathroom. I glace over at her and shes texting the dude again who yesterday said hes trying to be good and hes hard etc. I just flat out don't know what to do – I am instantly filled with rage and wtf again but I just lay back down and turn away. She says to me go back to sleep etc I need energy for work tomorrow, but I lay there and keep shuffling around wtf is going on next to me? I don't lay in bed chatting with friends. I have no clue what they are chatting about at this point.

Eventually I keep shuffling around and she blurts out fine I am laying down etc and we go to bed. I again shuffle around and can't sleep the entire night.

This brings me to now – at this state I feel like I am going emotionally numb. I don't want to fight this battle anymore. There is no evidence she has ever done anything behind my back – but she loves the attention of other people and sort of just keeps chatting along and it doesn't matter with who.

I feel there were some trust levels broken and some emotional manipulation – and any time I bring anything up I am the bad guy. I just don't know what to do. It's like being married to two people. One is very sweet and loving and praises me for my efforts and our marriage and is loving, the other is the attention craver that will say the most hurtful things in the world, drops the D-Day words, dismisses me and tells me what I am feeling. I just don't know what to do. I asked if we have problems and she says no, I asked if there's counseling we can do and she says no everything is fine but the way I am reacting to this external communication/validation thing.

...Well I confronted her about it last night in a non-threatening, here are the logical concerns - this is bugging me - wtf way.

She assured me nothing is going on at all in this situation. She kept saying she just likes talking to different people through social media as it gives an outlet and perspective and she loves me and would never threaten our relationship. I brought up the past things and she said this isn't like that at all and she doesn't talk to those people anymore etc.

She handed me her phone and opened the app conversation and showed it all to me. It all seemed normal except the lines that we saw and I exclaimed about on the couch are now gone... she also said she wasn't texting from the bed the other night and said she was on other sites and looking things up... I reiterated what I/we saw from the messages and she denied it happening and then said oh it must have been about how this guy is trying to be good studying but it is hard etc. I didn't have my glasses on but flat out I didn't see the messages I swear I saw the other day… She also said you cannot delete messages in the app. She then also denied texting from the bedroom the other night and she was up browsing and reading things.

She kept reassuring/trying to comfort me and fell asleep holding me and made an off handed comment during another conversation with self-degrading remark about well she's a ***** etc. I told her I didn't want to hear it and don't know what to think.

This morning I looked up the app details and in older versions – yes you could not delete messages. You can now in its current versions.
I don't know wtf to think. I basically said this is really odd and left it so i could sleep as it was basically 5 hours until I had to be up for work.

I want there to be a smoking gun - boom here you go correct this or done or something along those lines but there isn't. There's sketchy behavior some past things and my memory. At this point – I think I will talk to a lawyer friend for advisement. It seems like I almost need to wait for something to happen again. If she comes and directs blame at me for talking to her last night I am going to call her out of the App being able to delete messages and I know what I saw (again) but can't prove.

TLDR: Wife having multiple emotional affairs with other men for self comfort - when I try to talk about or do anything she denies everything, covers the evidence and slowly manipulates me.

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