All of the sudden my wife has changed into someone else. Just 3 months ago she was calling me her "soul mate" and telling me how lucky she was to have me as her husband. Now she acts like she is done. We have been together for 12 years. Married almost 10. 2 biological kids and a stepson. I love them all very much.
My stepson is 18 and just moved back in with us a few months ago. Ever since then my wife has been hateful. He and I are on good terms now, but he stole $400 from me a few years back. Took him a year to admit it. About a year ago he and my wife got into it and he moved in with his dad. He came in our house in the middle of the night a few months back. When I got home from work I was informed that he got kicked out of his dads and moved back in with us. I explained that I would have said "yes" but she should have included me in this decision so that I could have set some ground rules up. He went back to being a PITA. I said he needs to find his own place ASAP being that he graduated, has a job, and has enough money saved up. My wife has been so grouchy ever since.
A few weeks ago she snapped at me over something minor and I asked her "why do you keep treating me like this lately". After some digging she admits something feels different. Something is in the way she says. She cant or wont explain it anymore. I asked if she wants this to work out between us and she says she does not know. I ask her to go see councelling but she wont answer either way.
She has been out of work for almost 3 years and found a job a week or 2 before. In her freetime (all day) she has been playing a Hold Em App on her phone. She was on it hours and hours a day. I know she chats with people on there. I asked if she talks to guys on there. She says just casual stuff.
For some reason a few days after her revelation she explains that her girl friend on the game wired her $150 to buy an I Touch so they can sit at the same table....red flags!!! Doesnt make good sense to me either. I got up for my morning constitutional and took her phone with me to play on one morning. I opened the poker app and saw her friends and that the chat was saved. She was telling some guy on there about her changed feelings for me etc dated a few days before she told me. I felt so betrayed. I should be the one to know these things first. I broke her I Touch and told her if I see her playing this game again we are done. She deleted the game on her phone (I broke her new I touch). I lost almost all of my trust for her that morning. We didnt really speak for a few days. My mind started to go all over the place.
A few days later our pphone bill comes in. I look through it and notice there is an out of state number she texted nearly 100 times over a few hours one night. I remember that night well. She said she went to lay down for a few minutes and stayed up there for awhile. I test called and it was a dude. This is the first time I have ever snooped on anyone. I felt guilty for doing it but not sorry. I ask who the guy is and she wont tell me anything. She just keeps pointing out unrelated things I did to divert the train of thought.
SO here I am, wanting to find out what is up, and she wont speak about any of it. It looks so fishy. I love her very much, and want it to work, but she doesnt seam to be willing to talk. I am not abusive, have never cheated, I compliment her very often and try to treat her well. These past few weeks are an exception. It is not like her to lie. She told me she has been feeling different for maybe 4 months, but she told my stepson 3 years. More lies....I feel so many negative emotions right now.
It feels like she want to take off but has not worked out an exit strategy yet. Could be she is just biding time.
I hate that things have turned out this way between us. We use to be so happy together.
Part of me thinks it is perimenopause kicking in, but that does not explain the lieing. She has most all of the symptoms (hot flashes, waking up in the middle of the night, having trouble sleeping, headaches, moodiness, tingling feet, lots of hair in the shower drain etc).
The difficult part is her unwilliingness to try. I think she is just done. I probably overreacted, but I was shocked and hurt. No excuse really.
This is getting too long for a first post.....arrrgh
The bad news is that it sounds like your wife is having some combination of mid-life crisis, walk away spouse, addiction, and emotional affair. The good news is that you two may well be able to salvage your relationship.
Can you talk to your wife without getting angry at her? I ask because you need to be clear and unemotional. If you can sit down and say "I need to talk to you about the phone bill because it shows that you texted one number 100x in one night." then you need to set boundaries -- no more playing games on line, no more contacting on-line friends/ EA partners, etc.
It may be REALLY hard for you to have these conversations, so it would be helpful if you and she would do a combination of marriage counseling and individual counseling.
I wanted to add that I would recommend the book Divorce Remedy by Michele Weiner Davis. She has another book "Divorce Busting" which gets lots of recommendations on this site (because she outlines something called the 180 in it), but in your situation it seems like Divorce Remedy might be better. (Just my $0.02)
Also... before you invest a lot of time in either MC or in working on your relationship on your own -- you must determine if your wife is having an EA with the man she is texting (she is), and get her to stop all contact with that man. IF not, you will be simply beating your head against a wall trying to fix things.
Thank you for the thoughtful comments. I believe you are dead on. I believe she is having an EA. It seams to be at an early stage based on what I read, but only she knows. There was no talk about feelings towards eachother, but her sharing something so personal with a dude who lives on the other side of the country is some sort of emotional affair. I understand how guys are often (horny opportunists). If you open up to them like that you are providing the opportunity for it to develop further. She says "its not like that, he was talking about his marriage problems and I felt that I needed to open up to someone". Sounds like some sort of EA. The text # was on the bill just that one night so far...I'll know more when the next bill comes in. The number is not based in the same area that she says the poker dude lives in. May be another poker dude. Mauybe she will open up. I have apporoached her about all of this....its hard not to get angry. I do have some degree of an anger problem at times. No violence or anything, but I have to go for lots of cool down walks with this going on. Its hard not to get mad about the fact that she was not working, or cleaning the house much, I was solely supporting us on a variable income, and she was spending her time getting close to these mystery people online. Regardless of how far along it is, the damage is done. For us to repair she needs to open up to me and come clean. She has a difficult time admitting she is wrong and has been that way for most of our time together. My thing I often say is "I am definately not always right, and I am just as much so not always wrong". After some soul searching I realized that at one point I started to get too close to someone at a part time job. I quit the job as soon as I realized I was becoming attracted to her. I think it is understandable how this can happen even unintentionally and am trying to use this basis to forgive her. The way I see it, if I want to be forgiven for my mistakes then I must also be capable of forgiving. With her unwillingness to talk about any of this now, I keep having to forgive her in my heart over and over each day...Maybe one day it will stick.
MC may help, but I feel she wouldnt own up to anything in that setting right now either. Money is tight. If she starts opening up then I will try harder to get her to go. Right now it would be tossing the MC$ out the window.
She probably is angry that I am keeping her from spending time with these friends (what a joke). I do not believe that my ultimatum is wrong. SO far she is complying, but the resentment is definately there.
I'll check the Divorce Remedy book out and see what is up. Ive read about 180 and am working in that direction. It is kind of against my nature though. I try to be transparent. For now, I will just give her her space, spend some extra time with my pals ,try to get in better shape, and foremost provide the most stable environment possible for my kids.
Update: things got kind of better. I did a subdude 180 and that is for now doing the trick. Told her about the girl from work last year that ak started to connect with and that I can forgive her because I want to be forgiven. She has agreed to go to MC. Got an apt next Wed. we are talking through stuff. llyAdmitted the texts were to the guy from the poker game and that she had spoken to him on the phone a few times as well. I think I caught it before it got very deep. Apparently there has been no PA. She swears that the guy and his wife are her game buddies and that he needed to talk about their problems and that this is how she opened uP to him. Might be a lie, but I don't think so. At first she said she didn't do anything wrong and that it was an inapPropriatebrelationship. I explained that a relationship that can potentially damage a marriage is what makes it wrong. She tad utter she was hiding it from me because she knew I would not like it. Typing this on my phone. Sorry for misspelling.
Says she 65% wants to split up. 1 out of 3 odds are far from impossible. Hope is alive. had some good sex. Had a good series of talks. Looking like I am making progress. Hooray for 180. Posted via Mobile Device
Had our first MC session today. We both feel comfortable with the guy. Hard to say how much help he will be, but her willingness to go by itself means much to me.
Says she 50% wants to leave me now. Making done progress. Got some trust back. Fingers are tossed. Definitely much clearer air around here than 2 weeks ago. Posted via Mobile Device
He definitely played her. He used the pity act and she could be his savior, how they were so much alike. A real pick up artist. Think about informing his wife of the situation. He's probably got more fish on the hook too.
The longer she stays out of contact with the OM the more she will think clearly. He was diverting her thoughts and affections from you and the marriage. She turned on you in order to give him her attentions.
Michele Weiner Davis' book is very good, stick with it.
Read 'Not Just Freinds' by Shirley Glass too, it can explain much about why this happened and how to remedy it. Good luck, wish you success.
Thank you for your comments. Guys are often opportunists. I have been afraid of a similar situatuation as you described. Started calmly talking to her about this about a week ago. Asked what kind of things he would give her for advice when talking about her changed feelings towards me with him. All she said was "if you think yo can make it work then try". That was not in what I read. That let me know that she was lying about how much she had talked to him about us. I said "what would you tell me if i had all the texts?". I didn't really have them. She admitted to talking with him about us three times with him. She then went on to say that she had spOken with him 2 times since I told her to stop playing the game. Beforehand she just said she texted him once to say she couldn't talk to him anymore. These lies are killing me. Fast forward to tonight. I started feeling really down and asked if we could talk. Says ok. I ask if was hitting on her. She says no. I ask if he told her she is pretty. She says yes. I tell her that this hitting on her. She acts like she does not see it that way and starts getting mad. We change subjects and things are going better for half an hour or so. Then she starts yelling at the kids several times. I tell her I am losing my patience with her and take the kids for a walk. On the walk my 7 year old son says "mommy makes me sad when she is mean to me" with tears in his eyes. This really hurt. My job is to protect my children and I start to realize she has to stop treating them and me like this. By the time we get back for the walk I am more Pissed than before.
I yelled at her. Too much probably. I tell her it is not ok to treat us like this and that she is hurting her family with these daily outbursts of anger and rage. We get into it. I told her to get the F out 3 times or so. She has been looking at 1 bedroom aPartments. To me it seams like she is really done, but still biding her time while putting the exit strategy together still. I tell her this. She says "it you feel that way then we don't need to be together. she says she won't go to MC tomorrow. I say fine because I could use the time for IC. I need it.
I go upstairs to make sure the kids are ready for bed. They are sobbing in my daughters room. I wish they didn't hear us fighting. My daughter tells the wife that she is being mean to them. More crying. My heart is breaking again and again. Wife says she will to to the doctor and try to get some medicine so she won't act like that anymore. I hope she does.
My patience is gone. I want time apart. Just a few weeks, but I'm not leaving the Kids and she won't go stay with her parents. I don't how to do this right now. I want the whole truth. She won't give it except when busted. Even then she tries to. Lame it on me. Says things like "I didnt want you to know because you don't think men and women can have platonic relationship" . I don't see this as platonic. revealing you innermost feelings about me to him before telling me is just way over the boarder. I get no respect and I feel taken for granted.
My forgiveness has gone away. The lies keep brining the anger and mistrust out. I want this to stop. Posted via Mobile Device
The OM bought her the Ipad. She addicted to him. Your interfering with her getting her fix, so she is getting angry going through withdraws. You must keep her away from contacting him or them. Consider taking her phone. You should tell her parents what's going on too. Did you read Dr. Glass's link or book?
Confused about the future of my family 
