My Wife and I
We have been having some trouble lately. Specifically trust issues. She recently developed a relationship with a man online. Just a friendship she has so adamantly explains when questioned about it. She’s been keeping things from me and guarding her phone like a bear. I’ve caught her in lies and she just lies more when exposed. She has done nothing wrong and still wants to be married to me. But she won’t stop protecting and lying about the friendship even though she said she ended the friendship after he told her he developed feelings. I’m lost and confused in all this. I feel like a bystander in my own marriage. It’s given me terrible anxiety and I don’t know what to do. Thanks.
@turquoiseDrum4587
It's important that she hears you out, and doesn't try to dismiss your feelings and understands how you feel.
Trust is key.
And it's important that she puts in the work with you to get things back on track and perhaps spend quality time together as a start 💛
Thank you Amanda. It’s hard when they don’t want to admit they did something wrong and won’t try and see things from your point of view. I trust her, but she makes herself vulnerable to people who may not have her best interests at heart. I understand why it’s so hard for her to open up to me. I’m really caught off guard by her new friendship. Since I was completely unaware of it while it was happening.
*Don’t understand lol
@turquoiseDrum4587
Sometimes it's easier to open up to a stranger and for whatever reason, online , we can put on a personna, and pretend we are someone else, it's important to continue trying to just be there while also knowing your feelings are valid 💛
@turquoiseDrum4587
Being totally honest on this might be hard for her. Why because she was up until a point getting something out of the friendship.
She may not want to recognize what this friendship meant to her. How do you tell someone that trying to hold conversations with a person who feels like work like walking on eggshells to talk. how would you feel if she told you that you may not have wanted to have discussions she wanted to have.
How does a person tell the person you are married to that something was or is missing regarding friendship. They do not feel they can share things with spouse and begin to share with someone else. It often ends up in an argument about fault. my spouse plays "it is all my fault" playing the victim instead of seeing we had and STILL have communication issues. so, I will continue having a friend to talk to.
Sometimes small lies save bigger issues. IF you ask for total honesty are you ready for it?
For each situation it is different.
Yeah I want the truth. I don’t care how much it hurts. I think some things are not as devastating as you might think they are. Holding onto something that doesn’t matter can create anxiety and force the other person into making rash decisions not based on facts. And if the secrets are so bad that the relationship can’t be saved, moving on is best for both parties in the long run. A lot people waste precious time chasing someone who just wont give what you give them.
@turquoiseDrum4587
I agree with you too many waste time trying to make things work.
It is not that a secret is so bad to point of not being able to save...
I told my partner the why ... the ball is in their court, but they are acting as if just airing the truth fixed things it did not ..... The truth and discussion of issues require action.... that is often the problem IMO. follow up and action people end up back into the place it all started. it is like a boat that drifts back to shore because no one is rowing.
@turquoiseDrum4587
It kinda sounds like an emotional affair to me. That can hurt a lot even if it's not strictly cheating.
I agree, but that isnt something I can’t forgive. I know she needs more emotional attention than I give sometimes. I’m working it and she acknowledges that. It’s the lying about it that bothers me. I hate thinking that she did something terrible, bc I know she’s hiding something. She forgets I know her inside and out and know when she’s unbalanced.
@turquoiseDrum4587
My husband and I went through a very difficult time earlier this summer and nearly divorced. One of the ways I coped was to read everything I could about affairs, infidelity, and betrayal trauma. Now I am a know it all on the subject.😂🥺😢
One of the things I learned is that it's completely normal for the betrayal partner to have trouble trusting afterwards and it's harder if the straying partner isn't completely open and honest. Your feelings are not unreasonable. Your relationship will heal the fastest if your wife lets you see phone, email, social media - all of it. And it takes time to rebuild trust.
One of the things I have realized is that the cheating partner truly doesn't understand the impact of their behavior. It can cause real emotional trauma in their partner.
Have you considered couples counseling? If your wife is committed to your marriage, it may help. We left couples therapy (long story) and found a few other things that have helped. I can share them if you like.
Yes please share and thank you for posting. That helps a lot.
@turquoiseDrum4587
One of the things was suggested by Google's AI called a "temperature check." For ten minutes, the first person gets to talk, uninterrupted, about four things, in this order:
1. Affirmation. This is an appreciation for something specific the other person did, sometimes big, sometimes small.
2. Logistics. Details of something coming up in the next few days.
3. "Puzzle." This is something in your relationship that is bothering you. We call it a puzzle to try to defuse the tension a bit. We came do close to divorce that right now we are sticking to small things, like "you keep pulling the blankets off" or "I am worried about your mom's visit" in a few months we'll move up to larger problems.
4. Hopes and dreams for the future. Something you are looking forward to doing with your spouse, or a hope for the future.
After the first person finishes, they switch roles and the second person has ten minutes to talk, uninterrupted, about these four things.
After about half an hour, if one person is upset about something the other said, they can bring it up.
Takes a long time to explain but it's not hard to do.
@turquoiseDrum4587
Another thing we did is a card game called The { } And for couples, healing edition. Each card has a question on it. Each partner draws 12 cards, and you take turns asking the questions. This was very helpful too.
The card game looks like fun. We’ve played a similar game before in the past and it just ended up being a long chat session that lead to some good loving. So I know that works. She loves to talk, but opening up is hard for her. Whereas I hate talking, but I don’t mind talking about the hard stuff. So the ten minute thing might work for us. She has a habit of talking louder and getting emotional over things that want to know about that she doesn’t want to explain. So she’ll go the long way around explaining something else loosely related skipping over important details about the subject at hand. It’s like she’s at her birthday party and she’s describing all the decorations, who came and brought gifts, but hiding how good the cake was. A structured conversation with clear rules might be a good idea for us. Thanks.
Well we had that talk. She was keeping something big from me like I thought. I hope I’m explaining this right. My wife in the past took sexy photos for me, not hustler, but playboy tasteful pics lol. She said she had taken some photos for me but never sent them to me. When her phone was on its last leg back in April and she didn’t want to lose them or for me to see them yet, she sent them to an email that I wasn’t aware of. Mind, she had sent photos to me in the past, but it’s been years since she sent me one. She said it was an email she had created for *** content and wasn’t using it anymore. However, she was using this email to communicate with her online friend I didn’t know about. She said she never sent those pictures to anyone and they were meant just for me. I asked her how many pictures she had sent this guy and she said just the one selfie she had taken when she joined the therapy group where she met him. So when she ended the friendship with this guy after he pressured her to meet, he threatened her. She had told me that he threatened her, but never explained why. Just that he was hurt and was desperate to hold onto to her. So I was stunned to find out that she said he hacked into her email and was threatening to send me those sexy photos and say she had sent them to him. WTF?! All the lying and hiding *** from me for months was over some sexy photos meant for me? Looking back over the last few months, I remember she sent me some sexy photos on a couple of occasions. I thought this is nice. She hadn’t done this in awhile. Although, i am yet to see the photos in question, bc she has lost the password to the hidden email and says there’s no way to retrieve it. So am I wrong that her behavior and the lying is still protecting something larger? She’s been desperate for me to believe the narrative as she tells and not to question it any further, but when I do push I discover something else she never said. When do I drop it and move on? If this blackmail scenario is true, this guy was dangerous and was willing to commit a felony over just a online friend. She kept that from me. So how am I supposed to just let her keep leading me along? Times are way better right now. I can feel the love. So should I keep pushing? She says she no longer wants to talk about any of this and gets really upset when I even hint the conversation is going that way. What do I do now? Thanks.
@turquoiseDrum4587
That's a very complicated story, and every time the two of you talk about it, more information comes out - important stuff, not minor details. As a result you still don't have a clear picture of what exactly happened, and your mind is probably running through all sorts of scenarios, from a full blown affair, to an emotional affair where nothing physical happened, to your wife being the innocent victim of a scam artist. It is no wonder you can't "just let it go." You still don't fully understand what "it" is.
When I learned about my husband's infidelity, one of the things I did was go online and read everything I could find. I found affairrecovery.com (affair recovery) very helpful. We didn't take any of their courses, but I read a lot of their essays and found them very level headed and helpful. Your situation is complicated because you're not sure what exactly happened, but I think a lot of the relationship dynamics the authors discuss will sound familiar to you.
There's a lot more I could say but I think the authors at Affair Recovery do a good job .. I hope it helps!
Thank you careful…I will definitely check that out. You said your husband cheated on you, I’m assuming you’re still together, how did your relationship survive that? Did do all the necessary work to regain your trust? Was it you who accepted the situation for the sake of the relationship? Or was it a combined effort? I’m afraid I’m eventually just going to have to accept the lies she told and imagine how the pieces really fit together. And I don’t want that.
*did he
@turquoiseDrum4587
We've been together for 30 years. For me, it wasn't so much the affair but how he behaved after it came out that was deeply traumatic. He had convinced himself that I didn't love him anymore, that we were "just friends" and I wouldn't care (!) if he had an affair or left me. I didn't think ANY of those things and was very traumatized by the possibility that our marriage might be ending.
He's been very willing to work on our relationship and that has helped a lot. To be honest fully regaining trust is going to take time - from what I have read and other people have told me, it takes a couple years. It's not what they say but what they do that matters, and *showing* that they are committed to the recovery and rebuilding the marriage takes time.
I sense that you feel pressured to just "forgive and forget," without your partner putting in any effort to rebuild your trust. I think that's not fair and won't lead to genuine healing. What's hard is that ultimately, it has to come from them, and they have to get past a wall of guilt, shame and defensiveness before they can make constructive contributions to rebuilding your marriage. As the betrayed partner who wants to rebuild the marriage, it's not simply "forgive and forget", swallow your hurt and act as if nothing ever happened. You have to walk a kind of tightrope, where you give your partner enough grace that they can get through that wall of shame and defensiveness, but not so much that they can just sweep everything under the rug, pretend nothing ever happened, and basically treat you like a doormat.
Wow CarefulEast6708…just wow! You have a finger directly on the pulse of my situation. Thank you, thank you thank you. You have made me feel validated in my feelings towards this situation. I really appreciate you for taking the time to comment and share. I’m sorry you went through that with your husband and I’m happy you guys have found a path forward.
My wife was convinced that I was looking for a way out of our marriage. She was hiding that an old girlfriend of mine last year contacted her and said some terrible things about my fidelity to her. So instead of confronting me after, she held onto it hoping to catch me red handed. That never happened, bc I am and have always been hers for the entire 17 years that we’ve been together. But we were having a rough patch for awhile and she thought I must have been doing something that I shouldn’t have. So she was convinced I was on my way out. Just like your husband was convinced you didn’t love him anymore which I’m sure was the furthest thing from the truth. She was in a difficult head space. She admitted to signing up for dating apps, but according to her never pursued anyone. I guess this was why she started seeking out therapy. It was in those therapy groups that she met a guy who told her everything she wanted and needed to hear. The whole time keeping it together with me enough for me to feel oblivious to what she was going through.
This has been an ongoing struggle since the end of last year that I didn’t know about until the middle of May when she confessed about that guy threatening her. She must of thought the threat was real, bc why would she have told me anything unless this guy was capable? So I’ve been pressing for further information calmly and sometimes aggressively ever since. When I play her game and remain calm, she only gives me the surface story denies any wrongdoing. However, she has since deleted and destroyed anything that would corroborate her tale. When I become emotional and threaten to leave bc I feel the lies in my heart, she confesses to a part of the story she never told me before. All along, she’s been asking if I believe her and still trust her. If I say I don’t, she gets emotional and angry as if I don’t love her anymore. It seems I have to believe everything she says or I dont love her anymore. The lies to this point have mounted up. After every conversation, she proclaims with a full face of tears that there is nothing else left to tell and that I should just move on so we can move forward. I feel so gaslighted right now in my head. She’s even started swearing to God that there is nothing else left. It all seems desperate and like a last ditch effort for me to drop it, but I can’t. She’s showed me a side of herself that scares me. I still love her with all my heart and I just want to protect her. But I can’t man the gate to the city if she’s leaving windows open. She wants me to forgive and forget, but doesn’t want to tell me everything so I can fully forgive. What’s interesting is that I have forgiven her, but I can’t forget. You have to know what is wrong in order to know what needs to be fixed. Trust doesn’t stand without understanding.
We’ve been having some really heated conversations lately. She denies any wrongdoing or anymore hidden details and she seems to be sticking with her story. I’m being as calm as I can be. I’m not the one raising the voice or getting overly emotional. I might be a little repetitive, but I’m not being confrontational. She’s almost out of control. She’s leaving the room and slamming things. She’s leaving the house and going for long walks to clear her head. She’s threatening to hurt herself. She’s slapping me when I say anything that she perceives as offensive. Am I crossing the line for wanting to talk about this bc I don’t feel she’s told me everything or am i just being a bully and beating a dead horse like she says? My anxiety over all this is through the roof. I might just stop and let it go for the sake of peace. Bc I still love her very much. Am I wrong? Thanks.
@turquoiseDrum4587
I'm sorry I haven't responded sooner.. it sounds like you guys have been through a lot.
It doesn't sound like pushing your wife for more details is helping now. You feel frustrated because you feel like there's more to the story, and your wife is becoming increasingly upset. It's especially difficult because there may not be anything more to the story, and your wife has no way to prove that to you.
That’s true. I think remaining calm is important. Although I am preparing for an ultimate explosion from her. I think she’s hurting just as much as I am, but she is threatened by my questions. So if I don’t drop it, she’s probably going to do something stupid. My hands are tied, but it definitely hurts.