I've been reading the site for a while now and figured I'd join and share my story. My wife and I are both 33, no kids, have a dog we both love. We’ve been together over 14 years and married almost 8. Things between us were pretty good, though we did need to improve communication on bigger issues, like things we wanted out of life, etc. Otherwise, communication was fine. We’d talk about our days, make plans for things to do, laugh together, text during the work days. It just felt like there was this imaginary wall that kept us from really moving further together. She is incredibly defensive at the slightest hint of criticism and flips everything on me. When I’ve tried to discuss things in the past, it always got shifted to be all my fault. So I kind of went on auto-pilot, like her. I knew it couldn’t work that way forever but I resigned myself to having to wait for her to check in and want to discuss things.
It got to be the middle of November 2016 and I could sense a change in her attitude. I had to ask repeatedly before she finally admitted that she was feeling depressed. She said she didn’t want to wake up and be 40 and have not had kids or travelled. That she had nothing to look forward to. She asked me if I had goals in life, things I wanted. I struggled to find the words and the courage to say them before she gave up. Still, I started to treat her extra nice and give lots of encouragement and affection. She responded well to it. Things felt like they were moving in the right direction. The weekend of 12/3 was really good. We cleaned the carpet in our house, talking and laughing throughout doing it. We had music playing and she spent time looking for a new song she wanted me to hear. She came to me and excitedly showed me an alert on her phone about a free agent signing our local sports team had made, knowing I’d be excited to see it. We went out to eat at the restaurant she chose that night and had a great time. The next day my extended family was having an early Christmas party. We coincidentally dressed in matching clothes and she jokingly asked if I was upset. I said, “Not at all, you look very pretty” and pulled her in for a hug she warmly returned.
Over the course of the following week her attitude took a nosedive. On Friday 12/9 she came home from her 3rd after work happy hour and barely said a word. I left it alone. We normally go out to eat every weekend so I just ordered pizza. Not much was said between us that night. The next morning, 12/10, she was still in a terrible mood. So I had to ask repeatedly what was wrong before she finally let loose on 4 hours of tearing me down in every way possible. She said I was too negative and too critical. She complained about not travelling, not having kids and not having enough affection, assigning all of the fault for those things on me. It even came down to really petty stuff, like how I cooked us breakfast for dinner every Monday, which apparently was boring to her. She complained about how we always went to the numerous restaurants near our house and not nicer ones more in town. She complained about how I sent her flowers on Valentine’s Day to her office but didn’t include a card. She complained about me doing my own home repairs because “we have the money and it isn’t worth the aggravation.” She complained about maintaining the garden we started together and putting up Christmas lights every year, like it was tortuous for her. This was the first time any of this had ever been said and she always acted like she enjoyed and appreciated these things.
I didn’t know what to do or say. This all came out of nowhere. On the one hand, I felt encouraged because she was finally acknowledging things and I felt like I had something to work with, that she was meeting me halfway. On the other hand, there was something about her demeanor that was very cold. I said I could be better and that we just need to improve our communication. I said how I wanted kids and I wanted to travel more. She said she wasn’t sure she even wanted any of those things with me anymore. We finished talking and she went to the grocery store, where she still purchased items for me.
We talked a bit more the next day but it was more of the same. At one point I was trying to get her to come over to me while we were talking because she was walking around doing various things. She said, “No, you’re just going to try to hug me.” Something just wasn’t adding up. This wasn’t her to just give up on me, give up on us. So that evening, as she was packing for a work trip she was going on the next day to another city in our state, I asked something I never thought I’d have to ask: if she was seeing someone else. She denied it at first but then got suddenly very angry and started saying things like “I’ve already told you everything you need to know” and “it’s a separate issue”, pretty much confirming it. She still wouldn’t say much, though. Eventually the conversation shifted into the bedroom where she crawled onto the bed and laid face down in shame and finally gave some answers in a timid voice.
She said they “just met, it wasn’t like it was on a dating website or anything”. She said they had been acquaintances. She said they had been to lunches. She said they hadn’t slept together. I asked her if this guy even knew what was going on or if it was just one-sided, in her own head. She said, “I don’t know.” She still refused to answer some things, like how exactly they met, who it was, if it was someone from work. She said telling me any more would just hurt me. I told her I never thought in a million years she’d be capable of doing something like that. She said in near tears, “I know, me neither.”
The next morning she was up early at the same time as me so she could catch her flight. I told her I was leaving and to be careful. She got a sorrowful look on her face and came over and hugged me while saying “I don’t mean to hurt you.” I left to go to work.
2 days later I reached out via text. I put the OM on the backburner because she made it sound pretty insignificant and this is the most moral, level headed woman I’ve ever known and I always trusted her unconditionally. I told her I missed her. She responded very coldly and with few words. Told me she didn’t miss me, that she didn’t think she ever did in the past on work trips. That she just missed her bed and the dog. I know that isn’t true. She said she just wanted some alone time and needed to figure out who she is. I told her I need to tell her how I felt and pasted in a letter I had written the previous 2 days. Heartfelt, emotional, sharing exactly how I felt about things, laying out a roadmap for us to improve the relationship. She didn’t respond. 3 hours later I asked if she was going to say anything and she simply said, “I can’t.”
I left the house Thursday when she was coming back from her trip to give her the alone time she was wanting. I didn’t hear from her. I tried calling her on Saturday and she declined my calls before finally texting me. She was offended I left without telling her. It turns out this was BS because I found out she was telling friends how happy she was I was gone and enjoying her freedom. She was still saying she wanted more alone time and that she put herself 2nd for so long that she needs to figure out what she wants. I told her if she thought alone time meant seeing someone else that she needed to tell me because the relationship wasn’t going to work. She said, “Being alone just means being alone.” I went no contact for the next 6 days before I went back home. She was completely mean and hateful as soon as I walked in the door. We talked for a couple of hours and everything she said was so spiteful, like I was an enemy. She told me I needed to get more stuff and leave. I calmly told her I wasn’t leaving, that if she decided she didn’t want to be with me, she could leave. She said she didn’t have anywhere to go so if I stayed I wasn’t going to like it. That she wasn’t going to speak to me, buy anything for me, or tell me where she was going or who she was with. I didn’t know who this person was.
I did kick her out of the MBR and into the guest bedroom, which she was irate over. I told her that was our marital bed and if she didn’t want to be married then she could sleep elsewhere. We didn’t speak much, the tension was very thick. It was during this time I started to analyze and investigate more. I was able to find out who the OM was. A guy from work. In the city she had just gone on her work trip to. She had even told me about this guy previously. I remembered the restaurant we were at when she told me because the story was so bizarre. It was on 9/29. She told me how he had attempted suicide by shooting himself in the head but had survived. This was a guy she’d interacted with some in the past because of her job and she said he was always so happy and positive. A couple weeks later she talked about having to call him to discuss some issues related to him being on medical leave and how he was still so happy and positive. This was around the middle of October.
So now I knew who it was. It turns out he had been in a rehab facility in my city for a bit. So that’s how she was meeting him for lunch. My W is very standoffish but doesn’t have strong boundaries. I suspect this guy is just a talker and thought he had a sympathetic ear and kept calling her and she was too polite to not answer the calls or texts. They have work-issued iPhones and she kept the communication there so I didn’t see it on our joint cell phone account. I’d use her work phone occasionally for things and it suddenly had a password on it when it never did before. So I think she eventually started sharing her own stories and the EA developed from there. PA is all but confirmed during her work trip but I didn’t find out until much later, thinking at worst they met for lunch because this is still my devoted wife who always prided herself on her self-respect and values. This guy is married and has 2 kids. I learned he has drug and alcohol problems and has done almost nothing but lie to her and be untrustworthy, yet she was still smitten. She agonized over all the lying he did to her while she lied to me constantly.
I would try talking to her at times over the next week. She was cold but maintained she didn’t want to file for divorce. Christmas was spent apart with our respective families. I’d gathered by then that she was telling her family and friends that she was abused and painting me as an awful person. She’s always been the type to deny any responsibility for anything and blameshift, a constant problem throughout our relationship. I think she gets to a point where she even starts to believe her own lies and revised history. Here it was again, being played out on a grand scale.
On 12/29 I came home from work and initiated a serious discussion. She finally seemed a little open, a little empathetic. She even shared some details about her day. She offered to make me dinner while we talked. I shared with her some leftover Christmas dessert I had brought home. It seemed like small steps in the right direction, though she did mention she was planning on spending a few days away over New Years weekend. Eventually, I went to the MBR to go to bed. Something urged me to check her nightstand, where we kept condoms. I opened the drawer and 2 boxes and a vibrator were missing. A bag of lingerie kept in the closet had been rummaged through. I had taken photos of each previously to see if anything changed. My brain still tried to rationalize it somehow. The OM was in a different city. This was my rational, devoted wife. I went to bed confused.
The next day, as expected, she was gone before I came home early from work. Various other things in the house were taken, too. Gift cards we had collected, house and car titles, other stuff. I came upon some more information that confirmed she was with OM. Took our own condoms to go meet him in a hotel over New Years weekend. Couldn’t even hide her tracks enough to go buy some at the store. This was particularly hurtful because she’s always been LD, all 14 years together. It’s something I’ve had to deal with, has led to some resentment, and yet I never considered cheating. Then suddenly she is lying to me, friends and family in order to go meet this scumbag at a hotel. Later that night she texted me “Going to be gone for a couple days”. I wasn’t going to respond at first but decided she should know that I knew what she was doing. So I said, “2 boxes of condoms should keep you gone longer than that.” No reply.
She came home on New Years day and tried to walk in nonchalant like nothing was going on. I immediately told her to pack her things and leave. She instantly got angry and said she wasn’t going anywhere. I asked her what she did with the condoms. She sarcastically said, “I donated them, fine, OK. Is that what you want to hear?” She went into the guest bedroom and got in bed, said she was taking a nap. Pulled the covers over her face to not see me. Ignored most of what I said except for a few “I don’t know what you’re talking about” comments. I texted my mom to call her mom and tell her about the affair in an effort to get her out of the house. Her mom started angrily telling my mom about emotional abuse, citing an example of me turning the TV on in the MBR and it caused my W to not be able to sleep. Her mom has her own issues and doesn’t really process anything, just takes everything at face value. So she bought into the whole emotional abuse thing completely and even thought that was an example of it. My mom finally got a word in and told her about the OM. Her mom said, “Oh. Well I didn’t know that.” She called my W and she angrily left the house.
About 2 hours later my W, her mom and her stepfather showed up at the house to pack her stuff. My W and MIL were beyond pissed. MIL was cussing and agitating things. I heard them in the MBR, my W pointing out the nightstand drawer of condoms saying she should take some more, that’d really piss me off. Her mom laughed. W was saying something like, “See, look how many are in here”. It was clear my W had convinced her she actually did donate the condoms and was making a point to show how many boxes we had as proof for why she donated some.
She came back to the house a week later to get some things. She was beyond angry that I kicked her out and filed for divorce. She said things that implied the marriage was only ending because I did those things, as if I just randomly decided to do that and everything she had said and done never even happened. Again, all my fault. When asked about the condoms, she again said she donated them. This time she said it genuinely. She had convinced herself that was a plausible explanation. I asked if that’s what she told her mom, she said “Yep” and almost sounded proud of herself. I said she might believe that but I don’t. She said she didn’t answer my text about the condoms because I wouldn’t have believed her explanation so there wasn’t any point. I brought up her affair and she was quick to say “I never said I had an affair”. I mentioned our conversation in December where she admitted she was seeing someone else. She said, “I don’t recall saying I had an affair, I’d remember that.” I can’t tell if she was playing semantics or flat out lying. Her whole tone was angry just as it had been since she got back from her work trip. As if it was me who had an affair.
We texted back and forth a bit a week or so later. Randomly she dropped a “If I tell you to stop and you don’t, that’s emotional abuse”. It didn’t mesh with the conversation at all and was the first time she brought up emotional abuse to me. It felt completely like her dropping a breadcrumb of evidence to show her lawyer. The last thing she said to me was, “We both know you’re going to make me the bad guy so what’s the point”.
Current sitch is I’ve gone NC since then and she hasn’t been by the house or called or texted, not even to see or ask about the dog. She’s filed a counterpetition for divorce assigning fault in the breakup of the marriage on me. Even with her having an affair and that clearly being the motivator for her drastic changes, she’s going to go down swinging by trying to blame me for everything. I’m in IC and have been to a support group. I’m on anti-depressants. I haven’t slept more than 5 hours in almost 2 months. I still love her. Trust and faithfulness are big deals for me and she’s violated them completely. I despise the current version of her but I miss the one I knew for 14 years tremendously. I can’t understand how she can shut her emotions off and cast me aside so easily. All over ~6 weeks of BS being fed to her. I’ve reached out several times to her during all of this and I’m not even the guilty person. I’m just very confused and conflicted.
