Sorry, this is lengthy. I already know what I want and what I’m working towards, but I would like input and advice. Here’s my story.
My wife and I have been married for 11 years with our 12th coming up, and we have one son. We have so much in common that we’ve never had a dull moment, there’s always something for us to do together. While things haven’t always been the best (no marriage or relationship is), I’ve always loved spending time with her. A few years back we had a disagreement about our families, since then I’ve tried to be patient and understanding, but conflicts would arise on occasion leaving me to feel like my thoughts didn’t matter. We’ve both been doormats to everyone else, losing confidence in ourselves and have both spent the last few years in and out of depression. Well, we’re finally getting on top of that, and I had thought (key word there) that these years together were going just fine until a few months ago.
She lays out this ultimatum of sorts, we need to find ourselves and explore, if we don’t try harder we will lose each other. We start going to our own separate counselors, and I feel like things are moving forward pretty good. We used to sell hand made leather horse tack, and would frequently take short trips out of town together to deliver. One day work got in the way (this happened just before the Ultimatum), and I couldn’t go so she went by herself to deliver the tack to a new customer we met, a nice guy, mid-thirties (about 6 years older than us). He quickly becomes a friend and she continues to this day to talk to him. Well I begin to notice her acting out of the ordinary. It went from us keeping our phones charging in the bathroom each night, to her hiding it in the bed. She would change screens when I got close, she would laugh in the other room, when I came to investigate she would be texting, I would sneak up behind her, see his name, and she would quickly shake it off as nothing or try to switch to her Facebook app mid text.
I got brave one night and snuck her phone out from under the blankets to check the texts, texts would go from first thing in the morning, to just before she came into the bedroom to bed, with conversations appearing to make no sense with gaps or long periods of time without texts when I already knew there were texts (the conversations present were normal friendly things.) We went out one night to play frisbee in the park across from our house, I had to go in for a drink, but thought on my way back I would play PI and do the sneaky sneak behind her, she was busy watching towards the house and didn’t see me sneak up. I come up behind and she’s texting again (texts always seem innocent but have winky faces). I see part of a picture, nothing strange about it, but when I say hello she jumps and quickly exits the text, she’s very visibly shaken, her hands are shaking trying to show me a picture she just took of herself. At this point I decide to keep a constant eye on her phone so I pair it with my computer. At one point I notice that as I’m reading the texts being sent they are being quickly deleted, even perfectly innocent ones. One text read something like “you’re so flirty and sweet, you’re in my head and I need to know how you feel about me”. She had come into the room so I had to exit, it was probably midnight, she was texting so I asked who it was, it took her a minute to reply with an honest answer, I think its far too late for “friends” to be texting so I say so and ask what they are talking about, she says something I can’t even remember, so I ask to see because this late at night is suspicious to me. She says, “well I just deleted them so I have nothing to show, but don’t worry we’re JUST friends, and I’ve deleted texts because I know you can get jealous and are sensitive so I’m looking out for your feelings.” This continues, even though I asked her not to text so late, she will find an excuse to leave the room and the phone is glued to her side. One night she tells me I love you but I’m not in love with you, and I haven’t been in years and I’m just realizing it. I felt so shocked and hurt and confused as to what had gone wrong. She says we can work on getting back to that point, but watching the phone records (because my computer was disconnected from her phone and I can’t get into her phone), she’s still texting from sunup to sundown with OM. I forgot to add, I told her if there was nothing to hide, I will just ask him to show me the texts or I want to recover the texts, she says "oh so now you don't trust me". Thoughts?
My wife and I have been married for 11 years with our 12th coming up, and we have one son. We have so much in common that we’ve never had a dull moment, there’s always something for us to do together. While things haven’t always been the best (no marriage or relationship is), I’ve always loved spending time with her. A few years back we had a disagreement about our families, since then I’ve tried to be patient and understanding, but conflicts would arise on occasion leaving me to feel like my thoughts didn’t matter. We’ve both been doormats to everyone else, losing confidence in ourselves and have both spent the last few years in and out of depression. Well, we’re finally getting on top of that, and I had thought (key word there) that these years together were going just fine until a few months ago.
She lays out this ultimatum of sorts, we need to find ourselves and explore, if we don’t try harder we will lose each other. We start going to our own separate counselors, and I feel like things are moving forward pretty good. We used to sell hand made leather horse tack, and would frequently take short trips out of town together to deliver. One day work got in the way (this happened just before the Ultimatum), and I couldn’t go so she went by herself to deliver the tack to a new customer we met, a nice guy, mid-thirties (about 6 years older than us). He quickly becomes a friend and she continues to this day to talk to him. Well I begin to notice her acting out of the ordinary. It went from us keeping our phones charging in the bathroom each night, to her hiding it in the bed. She would change screens when I got close, she would laugh in the other room, when I came to investigate she would be texting, I would sneak up behind her, see his name, and she would quickly shake it off as nothing or try to switch to her Facebook app mid text.
I got brave one night and snuck her phone out from under the blankets to check the texts, texts would go from first thing in the morning, to just before she came into the bedroom to bed, with conversations appearing to make no sense with gaps or long periods of time without texts when I already knew there were texts (the conversations present were normal friendly things.) We went out one night to play frisbee in the park across from our house, I had to go in for a drink, but thought on my way back I would play PI and do the sneaky sneak behind her, she was busy watching towards the house and didn’t see me sneak up. I come up behind and she’s texting again (texts always seem innocent but have winky faces). I see part of a picture, nothing strange about it, but when I say hello she jumps and quickly exits the text, she’s very visibly shaken, her hands are shaking trying to show me a picture she just took of herself. At this point I decide to keep a constant eye on her phone so I pair it with my computer. At one point I notice that as I’m reading the texts being sent they are being quickly deleted, even perfectly innocent ones. One text read something like “you’re so flirty and sweet, you’re in my head and I need to know how you feel about me”. She had come into the room so I had to exit, it was probably midnight, she was texting so I asked who it was, it took her a minute to reply with an honest answer, I think its far too late for “friends” to be texting so I say so and ask what they are talking about, she says something I can’t even remember, so I ask to see because this late at night is suspicious to me. She says, “well I just deleted them so I have nothing to show, but don’t worry we’re JUST friends, and I’ve deleted texts because I know you can get jealous and are sensitive so I’m looking out for your feelings.” This continues, even though I asked her not to text so late, she will find an excuse to leave the room and the phone is glued to her side. One night she tells me I love you but I’m not in love with you, and I haven’t been in years and I’m just realizing it. I felt so shocked and hurt and confused as to what had gone wrong. She says we can work on getting back to that point, but watching the phone records (because my computer was disconnected from her phone and I can’t get into her phone), she’s still texting from sunup to sundown with OM. I forgot to add, I told her if there was nothing to hide, I will just ask him to show me the texts or I want to recover the texts, she says "oh so now you don't trust me". Thoughts?
