Long post, but I need perspective.
I (36m) have been married to my wife (36f) for 8 years. We dated and lived together for 5 years before that. We have two beautiful children as well. She is s social worker who has an intense job that requires a lot of emotional commitment. I am an icu RN.
My wife has worked her same job for 12 years and has always been close with her coworkers, they also spend time together outside of work. She became friends with another man at work during this time. It had anyways cause variable strain on our marriage. I admit to being the jealous type, but I’ve swallowed my pride and have done my best to trust her and not interfere with the friendship.
This guy took a new job 2+ years ago and based on what she had told me, I was under the impression they drifted apart. There is some minimal contact between them for work, but it truely is minimal (1-2 emails per year).
I found out about 6mo ago that they have remained close friends. They text and talk on the phone, as to how much I don’t honestly know. This was upsetting to me, mainly because it was essentially hidden from me. She had maintained friendships with two women from that group, and I have been fully aware of this, with my wife taking about their conversations on a regular basis.
After finding this out I slowly develop betrayal trauma (look it up) to the point of crippling anxiety and stress resulting in periods of physical illness (sleepless nights, nausea, irregular heart rhythm). It also resulted in serious martial strain.
Our sex life was pretty good up until the birth of our second child. I never pressed for sex really ever, I would try to initiate, but would be understanding if she wasn’t interested. But in the past 6mo she became increasingly repulsed by me to the point of abating simple affection like hugs and kisses on the cheek. I brought this up, along with our recent lack of intimacy, and she agreed to work on our intimacy. We decided to have sex once a week (her idea) and it went well for about a month. After that it became clear that it was a chore for her. She would grumble and complain when I would initiate and say things like. “Let’s hurry up and get this over with”.
Again we discussed it and really things have deteriorated since then. I spent a considerable about of time on self reflection, trying to understand what was going on with myself and our marriage. The result was a conversation with is basically what I’m writing in this post, about a month ago.
During this conversion there was a lot of denial, finger pointing at me, and gaslighting on her part. I made sure to be as calm, objective, and straight forward as I could be. But the result was basically I was pressuring her too much for sex and her hiding her friendship with this guy wasn’t a big deal. We haven’t had sex since.
I’m not convinced she is cheating with this guy, it actuality seems unlikely but I could be wrong. But what I have recently wondered is if there is another guy I’m unaware of.
I don’t have physical evidence of this, but my gut is telling me they’re is something going on that I don’t know about. My mind obviously goes to worst case scenario, but it could range from an affair to she’s not attracted to me anymore to she has personal issues that are affecting her sex drive to I’m losing my mind and creating a narrative that doesn’t exist.
The problem is it would be extremely easy with her job to maintain an affair with low risk on her part. She is always in the community, alot of the time by herself, with no real checks and balances from management. She is also frequently in contact with police officers and fire fighters, which are predominately male professions. Not to mention my wife is very attractive. It would be easy to meet up with someone on the clock without being caught.
I don’t know what to do and I’m looking for any advice or perspective from you all. I don’t really want to dig through her phone, it’s a violation of trust in my mind, and honestly if she was having an affair, she would cover it up easily enough that plain digging through her phone wouldn’t yield much, not to mention she doesn’t go far from her phone (red flag, trust me I know).
Please help.
2 comments
Does she want to save her marriage? From your post it seems it’s a one sided struggle. Does she have a medical condition that causes her low sex drive? Is she stressed and overworked? Regardless, you need to sit down with her and talk without any finger pointing. Tell her that if she wants to save this marriage she needs to stop treating you like a roommate. Her reaction will tell you the course you should take. If she recognizes that she needs to take some responsibility for her actions, there is hope for your marriage. If she gets overly defensive and blames you for everything, it’s not fixable. Relationships can only be fixed by both parties willing to learn and be better. Good luck!
>”Let’s hurry up and get this over with”.
NOT the attitude you’d like from the woman you’re having sex with!
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>My mind obviously goes to worst case scenario, but it could range from an affair to she’s not attracted to me anymore to she has personal issues that are affecting her sex drive to I’m losing my mind and creating a narrative that doesn’t exist.
These are not mutually exclusive, and more than one them may be true.
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>Please help.
You just may need to lay it on the line with her, and ask, “Do you still want to be married to me?”
As I like to say to my wife, there are only two answers:
1. “Yes.”
2. Everything else.
If she says “yes,” find out what makes the marriage worth it for her. It surely isn’t the sex or emotional partnership, so what value does she see in it? Why did she marry you in the first place?
If she says anything else, then it’s time to start heading down the road of separation, possibly ending in divorce, because this is not a stable long-term situation. The health issues you listed are very concerning to me: are they concerning to *her*?
At this point, I’d primarily be interested in what she thinks should/would like to happen, since it’s her behavior which seem to be driving things into the marital ditch.
Based on what she says, hopefully each of you will a clearer reality-based idea of where you stand, and what should happen next.