I[m23] have a suspicion my wife [f23] may cheat on me. Me and my wife are both fairly young (young twenties) and we have been together for 5 years, married for 2 years. Over the last year or so, my wife has been distant to me, we entered into a dead bedroom for about a year now, and even most physical attraction & action has dwindled to practically none.
She does suffer from depression, and has had sexual trauma twice in her life, so no sex is understandable and completely okay to me. Except it stopped on a dime and she was very sexually active with me before these past 14 or so months. Besides sex, there are some days she talks and acts to me more like a roommate rather than a lover.
This past week she told me her ex-boyfriend (who she was with on and off for a couple years) suddenly added and messaged her on Instagram. She told me that she replied to ex-bf, telling him she was married/have a son and family/giving cold shoulder to him.
The next day my wife said he messaged her again, and she claimed she repeated the cold shoulder replies to him till he “finally got the message”.
Finally on Mother’s Day she told me “Hey I’m sorry he messaged me again, I know you don’t blame me, but I know how I felt when your ex-gf tried texting you again.” My response was reassurance that I don’t blame her and she did nothing wrong
Tonight she fell asleep before me and I checked out their messages, and she lied about being cold to him,she had genuine shock similar to seeing an old friend again, using friendly emojis, and the worst being the fact that they didn’t stop messaging, they messaged the day she told me he finally got the message to stop talking to her, and even the next day.
My wife deliberately lied to me about how much she messaged this ex, lied about how friendly they were, and lied about how she stopped talking to him. Lied directly to my face more than once.
What should I do? Keep this info to myself and check in to see how this plays out? Confront her tomorrow? I genuinely need advice.
TL;DR: Wife’s ex-bf messaged her, she lied about the whole ordeal.
38 comments
The marriage is probably over, just make sure you don’t have any kids that will get caught in the crossfire of a divorce
Confront her
I think you should confront her about more than just that. I think unless she puts effort to make you a proper relationship again you should divorce, 3 year old child does not change this. You should also tell her that.
I wouldn’t want to be with someone who straight up lies to my face.
Don’t confront her yet, stockpile evidence like what you saw in her messages. Take pictures of the messages and keep them. If she actually does step out on your marriage, you’ll have evidence to take to a lawyer so you can divorce her. If you confront her now she’ll continue messaging her ex and sneaking around, she’ll just make sure to actually hide it next time.
Get screenshots/forward messages to yourself before confrontation. I never thought my ex would cry and apologize profusely for the absolute proof I found on her phone then turn around and tell friends/family that I was mentally unstable and basically hallucinated the whole thing because I couldn’t seperate fantasy from reality but she did.
Confront her.
Tell her that you know she lied.
Tell her that she has a choice. She respects your marriage, comes completely clean about everything (I doubt the only messages are on IG) and cuts communication with him completely. Or she leaves and doesn’t come back.
What do you need to do is get yourself a lawyer get the divorce paperwork going.
Take evidence and the confront her about why she lied ?? And go from there
Save the evidence before she deletes them, as that will come in handy.
You need to realise that it’s not a mistake, she deliberately told you enough details so that you don’t question her loyalty while she’s entertaining the ex boyfriend behind your back.
In most of the cases that I have came across, when these on & off exs contact you, it’s not a good thing as they usually try to start a fling. Considering that she gaslight you from the beginning it’s an indicator that she’s open to see how things go with that said ex.
You need to be prepared for what’s coming and should start preparing to protect yourself and your kid.
Since you’ve caught her in a lie I would do some more snooping before confronting her, if there’s more to this than just this one person any possible evidence will be gone after confrontation and you will probably be stuck with lies. Also because of the sudden change in your sex life and how she acts there’s always the possibility of her cheating on you. The main thing in this lie is that she’s been acting like a trustworthy partner while in fact doing the opposite meaning she’s a quite good liar. I would review your relationship and see if there’s more instances of her being forthcoming but not showing you messages from people.
Edit: Also save any evidence you have in multiple places, where she doesn’t have access, not just on your phone. If you end up breaking up over this, evidence might be needed to make sure the narrative stays true to the truth.
She’s probably getting a buzz from the attention but it’ll soon become a ‘guilty pleasure’ if not nipped in the bud and runs the risk of meeting up ‘just to catch up’. THEN the cheating starts.
Ask her to show you the convo and be upfront “I want to know what this old boyfriend is saying to my wife”
By inserting yourself into the conversation you’ll kill any growing vibe.
ask her if she truly want to be in the relationship with you.
If yes, than why the games. If no than divorce and move on to someone that values you
First you should have never got married so young
So this was an ex bf when she was like 16? You’re brought a kid into this crazy relationship where you guys haven’t been stable in years? I’m calling rage bait or someone made several extremely poor decisions.
Keep a copy of all the evidence, have it laying on the table when she walks in.
Tell her unless she breaks it off and goes total, verifiable no contact…. open device, open password, open apps, open location that you will be seeing a lawyer and filing for divorce immediately
This is the time for a hard boundary and bright red line.
Brace yourself, this is probably headed towards cheating and divorce. Begin stockpiling your legal/divorce ammunition: send yourself screenshots of these messages, do so regularly. You will need proof of infidelity to prevent the divorce negotiation starting at “husband takes 100% of losses and gives up 50% of assets, and now we negotiate those numbers upwards.”
Quietly consult a legal attorney as soon as you can, unnoticably, pay for one.
Well, you’ve got problems bigger than the ex, but this thing with the ex could be a catalyst to deal with this stuff.
Your marriage is on the brink my friend, it’s failing, it was before this ex messaged your wife. You guys aren’t in love anymore, and that kills marriage. Now, open communication *can* get that back…..or it can end it, but avoiding conversations out of fear to destroy the relationship will always destroy the relationship.
Take this opportunity to bring this up as part of a larger conversation. You could feel she was hiding something with this ex, so you checked, and were right. But, you feel she’s hiding a lot more, her feelings, what she thinks about. You can say you do it as well, don’t say what you’re thinking, don’t address your wants either…..and if you two want any chance of raising this child with two parents under the roof, this hiding of who you both are has to stop.
Propose counseling if you can afford it, sounds like she needs something and marriage counseling would also be a good idea.
Letting the way things are to just continue unchallenged will for sure destroy your marriage, your only chance is to face the problems in your marriage.
Are you looking for a best chance of survival for your relationship? If yes, confront ASAP. If you’re looking for the best justification for divorce, let it play out.
Why in the hell are you on Reddit and not immediately addressing this? It’s not ok for him to be messaging her and it sure as shit isn’t ok that she lied to you.
I would send a clear message if I were you – start packing a bag and tell her it’s over!
Updateme!
Screenshot those messages and send them to yourself. Then consider marriage counseling to help with the relationship issues that you clearly have.
You can either coparenting your child in a loving supportive marriage, or you can coparenting your child with your ex-wife. The first option is going to require that both you *and* your wife *both* want to keep being married to each other.
She’s lying to you so she can foster her relationship with her ex in secret. You should confront her immediately and ask her straight up, does she want to be married to you. If she does, then she must agree to block the ex and provide you with full complete access to her phone, email, location etc…. No exceptions. If she balks, tell her you caught her red handed lying and it’s either accept this or get out. If she says she wants a divorce, give it to her. She’s clearly got a wandering eye, and the ex is a convenient target. Odds are she’ll be trolling for other male attention even if the ex is blocked. Just be hypervigilant and get her into counseling.
Just as a side note, you do not have to stay in a dead bedroom. Even if they have trauma. If they are not activly working to heal so you can have sex again, do not stay and waste your time
I stayed 20 years in a dead bedroom and highly regret it. Now I might never find what I actually want in a partner.
Take pictures of everything and then confront her about the issue and really drill it in that you are absolutely not ok with this behavior and if it happens again there will be serious repercussions
Can you see exactly how far back this goes. Does it coincide with the suddenly stopping of affection?
Don’t waist more time on this relationship. She lies and have affected your trust in her. No trust = no foundation for your relationship. Get a divorce on the grounds she has proven too be untrustworthy and has closed off affection. If you live in a at fault state get proof of infidelity this will secure you in the alimony side off things. Be a good co parents and go be with someone who has a morel compass..
Is she going to be pissed that you went through her phone?
Gather evidence then talk. I am SO happy I have proof of the chaos in my life in the past two years actually happened.
On one hand you could confront it but I would honestly say to just let things play out, she is obviously on the path to cheat and if you stop it this time there’s no telling she won’t end up doing it down the road with someone else. Keep an eye on her behaviour, check again when you suspect something might’ve happened, and when she does eventually cheat on you it’ll make the decision to leave easier. Keep all the evidence, make an exit strategy, don’t let her suspect anything. Best to let people do what they wanna do and act accordingly. I know it’s easier said than done but it’s gonna eat away at you for the rest of your relationship if you know you’re with someone who is willing to lie & cheat on you
You guys are married so it sucks. She’s going to cheat on you. Make it a open relationship so you can talk to other women without guilt. She has emotionally cheated and betrayed your trust and disrespected you. I would have broken up with her immediately tbh. But marriage is different I think. Never married but yeah what a tramp
Don’t marry at 21, but that ship has sailed.
Block this person on IG or send him a message not to contact your wife.
How old is your child? If your wife has a history of depression, was she screened by her. OB for PPD if your child is still a baby.
I think this dude is the least of your worries. Sounds like your relationship has been in trouble for a long time. Now you only react because of this? Work on your relationship in general and this guy won’t more than a blip in the big picture.
If she hasn’t fkd him already.
If you want to continue the marriage, then you’ll need to get into marriage counseling, and she needs to work on her depression and her traumas. Otherwise, this ends badly.
She has already cheated on you. Lawyer up and get a divorce. Protect your child at all cost.
screenshot it as soon as possible, get as much proofs as you can, and wait a bit to see how it develops, even if it doesn’t end with them catching up, she still lied to you, if she doesn’t come clean, show her proof, she will most likely cheat too, wouldn’t have lied if that wasn’t the intention.