I think my wife’s relationship with her friend is weird and sad

I’m mostly just venting, I believe my wife needs to speak with a professional and I’ve brought it up before.

My wife and I were married in 2017.

My wife’s Biological Father abandoned her family when she was growing up.

In 2013 her mother died.

While planning our wedding in 2016 her Step Father also abandoned her family, similar to how her Biological Father had done when she was a child. My wife’s unprocessed trauma from her Biological Father’s abandonment was ripped fully open as a result of Step Father’s abandonment.

On top of this she was on year 3 of overnight shifts as a nurse. She was worn out, stressed, depressed, and overall exhausted.

The biggest target of my wife’s angst at this time was unfortunately my mom. They had a very close relationship for 9 years prior but with her abandonment trauma triggered, she immediately pushed away from my family and towards her own – namely her younger sister, who unfortunately wanted nothing to do with her. Neither I nor my wife understood at the time that her abandonment trauma was being triggered, in hindsight I wish we had postponed our wedding.

Shortly after we got married I found out my wife had been speaking with friends via text about our relationship difficulties, and in particular really lambasting my mom and my family.

We discussed but did not resolve those issues despite my best efforts to communicate. While our marriage was mostly positive, it seemed there was always something off as compared to before our wedding, and her Step Father’s abandonment.

I only found out the extent of her discussions with friends in 2020 when one of her friends actually out-of-the-blue asked to meet me in person and expressed their concern for my wife’s mental health, our marriage, and *my* mental health.

We’ve been through a lot since then. I went to therapy, we went to couples counseling, we’ve talked with some progress, but the issue of her communicating with friends behind my back continued. And to be clear – my issue wasn’t that she was talking with friends, but that she wasn’t talking with me. And all of the conversations with these friends would just breed resentment.

2 years later and it’s mostly ended. We’ve made a lot of progress. She still refuses to speak with an individual therapist about her abandonment trauma, but she acknowledges it and is working on other areas of her health, slowly.

But there is one friend – L – that my wife does still speak with about this stuff, but only via text and insta messages. They met 5 years ago at work, but they haven’t worked together since 2020. They’ve hung out twice to my knowledge. Not since 2020, I mean they’ve hung out twice.

The thing is, my wife’s relationship with this person is weird. She’s always sending her these emotionally fueled instagram memes about boundaries and being allowed to feel emotions, always with messages like “I love you so much bae” or “ilysfm” – like multiple times per month.

But L doesn’t really reciprocate. She kinda engages when my wife initiates. She’ll say “I love you too!” or just give a “heart” reaction, maybe one extra message.

My wife tells me she loves me, but it’s different energy(?) in these messages with L. It’s like my wife trusts L more than me, because of everything we’ve been through. But L isn’t really what my wife wants her to be – she could be saying these same things to a diary and be getting the same reaction. Or to a therapist and get some actual advice.