Joined
·
21 Posts
I'm going to leave a lot of details out of this for the sake of keeping it fairly brief.
I'm 24, and my wife just turned 20. We've been together 3 years, and married for 1. Most of our relationship has been great. I've always felt so lucky to be with such a wonderful, beautiful girl. I really thought we were meant to be, and would be together forever.
These past 2 months, we've gone through a rough patch for reasons outside of our control. Things had happened in my life that put me in a strange, depressed state, and I wasn't treating her as well as I'd used to. We got in a huge fight 2 weeks ago because of how I was acting, and my refusal to see it. Eventually, she yelled "I want a divorce" and it hit me like a bus. I never thought I'd ever hear that from her, and I lost it.
We've since separated, and I've spent every waking moment trying to figure out how to fix things. I realized how I'd been acting, apologized, promised to change, sought help.. basically everything I could to show that she meant everything to me, and I'd do anything to work this out. All she could tell me was she wanted space. At first, I didn't want to give that to her, but I eventually realized that I was only making things worse by pushing the issue.
I was becoming increasingly paranoid because she had been spending a lot of time talking to, and hanging out with another man whom I knew to be a sexual predator who preys on vulnerable girls in shaky relationships. Eventually, I discovered pictures on her computer that confirmed that she has at least been having an emotional affair with him. There's no real evidence of a physical affair, but it would be naive to assume otherwise.
Edit: I think I should be very clear about my evidence, because I want to know if I'm right in my assumptions. On her recent pictures, there were pictures of herself in lingerie (that she never showed me), pictures of the guy's daughters, screenshots of text messages (Note that I can't be sure who these messages are between, but their content suggests it's them) where he is saying things like "I'm madly in love with you" and "You've fulfilled a missing piece of my heart, you make me so happy. You, my girls and out future children are all I need in this world to be happy." Lastly, there are pictures of a "bite mark" on her chest that she claimed to have come from one of the kids she babysits.
Along with this, many other things have come to light that suggest that she may be a pathological liar. She's told me many things throughout our relationship that I thought to be strange, but I've never truly questioned because I couldn't see why she'd lie. I've spent a lot of time talking to her father about this, and he recently told me about her mother (she's been out of the picture for many years), and how he experienced nearly the exact same dishonesty and disloyalty with her, and my wife may have some sort of hereditary mental illness.
I began thinking that I might try to work through this. Maybe if this is something that could be helped, as her husband, it may be my duty to try and help her... but I've been unable to decide whether things are too far gone. I still love her very much, but she's throwing her entire world away (and I mean it, her whole future is based around me) for a disgusting, 30 year old creep with 2 daughters, works at dominoes, lives with his parents and has absolutely no future. We were set up for an amazing life together. I would have given her EVERYTHING, all I wanted was her love, loyalty, and honesty.
For about two weeks, she's been doing what I've heard to be called "cake eating." When I ask her if she still loves me, whether she wants to try to make this work, whether she wants to come to marriage counseling, etc, all I get is "I don't know." From what I understand, she's doing this to keep her options open, so if she doesn't like the way her affair is going, she can fall back on me.
Due to certain circumstances, I've been unable to confront her about this. I've also had no idea how to go about it. A huge part of me hopes this can work out, but I know in the back of my mind that if I have any self-respect, I need to get out. I'm going to end up being the one to say "I love you, but I just can't be with you." I just don't think I can ever trust her after this.
Any advice would be appreciated.
I'm 24, and my wife just turned 20. We've been together 3 years, and married for 1. Most of our relationship has been great. I've always felt so lucky to be with such a wonderful, beautiful girl. I really thought we were meant to be, and would be together forever.
These past 2 months, we've gone through a rough patch for reasons outside of our control. Things had happened in my life that put me in a strange, depressed state, and I wasn't treating her as well as I'd used to. We got in a huge fight 2 weeks ago because of how I was acting, and my refusal to see it. Eventually, she yelled "I want a divorce" and it hit me like a bus. I never thought I'd ever hear that from her, and I lost it.
We've since separated, and I've spent every waking moment trying to figure out how to fix things. I realized how I'd been acting, apologized, promised to change, sought help.. basically everything I could to show that she meant everything to me, and I'd do anything to work this out. All she could tell me was she wanted space. At first, I didn't want to give that to her, but I eventually realized that I was only making things worse by pushing the issue.
I was becoming increasingly paranoid because she had been spending a lot of time talking to, and hanging out with another man whom I knew to be a sexual predator who preys on vulnerable girls in shaky relationships. Eventually, I discovered pictures on her computer that confirmed that she has at least been having an emotional affair with him. There's no real evidence of a physical affair, but it would be naive to assume otherwise.
Edit: I think I should be very clear about my evidence, because I want to know if I'm right in my assumptions. On her recent pictures, there were pictures of herself in lingerie (that she never showed me), pictures of the guy's daughters, screenshots of text messages (Note that I can't be sure who these messages are between, but their content suggests it's them) where he is saying things like "I'm madly in love with you" and "You've fulfilled a missing piece of my heart, you make me so happy. You, my girls and out future children are all I need in this world to be happy." Lastly, there are pictures of a "bite mark" on her chest that she claimed to have come from one of the kids she babysits.
Along with this, many other things have come to light that suggest that she may be a pathological liar. She's told me many things throughout our relationship that I thought to be strange, but I've never truly questioned because I couldn't see why she'd lie. I've spent a lot of time talking to her father about this, and he recently told me about her mother (she's been out of the picture for many years), and how he experienced nearly the exact same dishonesty and disloyalty with her, and my wife may have some sort of hereditary mental illness.
I began thinking that I might try to work through this. Maybe if this is something that could be helped, as her husband, it may be my duty to try and help her... but I've been unable to decide whether things are too far gone. I still love her very much, but she's throwing her entire world away (and I mean it, her whole future is based around me) for a disgusting, 30 year old creep with 2 daughters, works at dominoes, lives with his parents and has absolutely no future. We were set up for an amazing life together. I would have given her EVERYTHING, all I wanted was her love, loyalty, and honesty.
For about two weeks, she's been doing what I've heard to be called "cake eating." When I ask her if she still loves me, whether she wants to try to make this work, whether she wants to come to marriage counseling, etc, all I get is "I don't know." From what I understand, she's doing this to keep her options open, so if she doesn't like the way her affair is going, she can fall back on me.
Due to certain circumstances, I've been unable to confront her about this. I've also had no idea how to go about it. A huge part of me hopes this can work out, but I know in the back of my mind that if I have any self-respect, I need to get out. I'm going to end up being the one to say "I love you, but I just can't be with you." I just don't think I can ever trust her after this.
Any advice would be appreciated.
