Need Your Thoughts (Amended)
Let me start this again as I did leave information out in my previous post. So let's start from the beginning.
I've been married for 13 years. We've built a great life together, great house, a fantastic son, 3 dogs and 3 cats. Five years ago the company I worked for sold. The new owner made more than many mistakes and ended up closing. The economy was down and my 16 year career turned into a dead end because of it. I was out of work for 8 months but I was working doing something and making money for 6 of those 8 months. Money did get tight and long story short, my wife blamed me. She said about my company closing that "I should've seen it coming". She's seemed to have animosity towards me since. After 8 months I finally got a job in my field again and I felt things would go back to normal. Things between us didn't improve but they didn't get any worse. My industry had taken a major turn around that time and wasn't what it used to be. A year later I made the decision to switch fields and start a new career. My wife was already established in her career and was going full force. I supported every move see made and was by her side through it all. Sadly it didn't feel she was behind me. I went to work for a large company yet very family oriented, a large majority of the staff have been there for 20 plus years. The money was much better and the company is great, but it is more demanding.
So now fast forward to about two and a half years ago. I was focusing on my new career and she was advancing in hers. We would have arguments about time because she would need to work late or go to functions and I would want to spend time with her. Her work started flowing over to nights and weekends as well. It drove me crazy. She was constantly on the phone, taking calls in the middle of our time or texting. She felt I didn't care about her career because I would get upset about how much time she dedicated to work vs. how much she dedicated towards us. She kept moving in her direction of always putting work first, and I started slipping into a depression because of it. Knowing that any time I mentioned it would only start a fight, I never said anything about it. The disconnect grew larger. Our day to day around the house wasn't bad but it was no where near a marriage. By this point we both pretty much shut each other out. About 8 months or so after this happened we got in an argument about work again, and it turned into an argument about us drifting apart. I explained my views on it again and said how of course we disconnected, we never talk anymore. She still continued that it was more about work and my view on her career that caused it and the disconnect grew more. Any time I brought it up she would turn it on me that it was my fault. Yes I took blame but I also said how it was both of us that caused it.
I had a void. I lived with a woman I loved that seemed to not want to pay any attention to me. I started to suffer from insomnia and spent many late nights on the couch. During that time I also looked for things to do, let's face it tv at 3:00am is not existent, lol. I started playing an online game to fill the time. During this time I started chatting with the same woman a lot. We talked about everyday things and our lives. She had been in a similar situation years earlier and ended up splitting. There were other similarities in our relationships as well and things just kind of clicked. Mostly we talked about my marriage and it's problems, and she would give me advice and things to try that may help. I looked at her more as counseling then as an affair. Yes we spoke about sex, but sex in general, not sex with each other. She made me feel wanted again, she filled that void I was missing. Apparently my wife became suspicious of something and started snooping without my knowledge. She somehow was able to hack my account and she found out about this other woman. She saw most of our conversations and read what we wrote to each other. She confronted me on it and I denied it, why I still don't really know. Then she showed me that she saw the conversations and knew all about it. At that point I came clean, I told her everything she wanted to know. How it happened, why it happened, everything. I apologized every way I knew how. I showed her my phone, my email, everything. There was no reason to hide anything. From that point I made a conscious effort to work on every thing she ever told me I did that bothered her. I listened to her instead of just hearing her, and I acted on that in a positive way. Her friends made comments to me and to her about how I seemed happy again and how I seemed like a different person, they were impressed. Everyone saw a difference, everyone but her. Things did improve a little but she still seemed very withdrawn. I didn't let that stop me and I just kept on doing what I was doing, hoping that I would eventually see a change.
As time went on things stayed the same, no better but no worse. She was still withdrawn but there were some slight changes I noticed in behavior. She always had her phone in her hands, always texting and much more then usual. Conversation also become much shorter and she never seemed to leave her phone unattended. Growing suspicious of this I decided to log into our account and take a look at her text log. Looking over a few weeks I noticed the same number over and over again, it wasn't a number i knew so I became even more suspicious. As time went on, the frequency of the texts with that number increased to the point that they started at 6:30am (usually the other number texting first) and going until the time she went to sleep, literally sometimes hundreds of texts per day. I did some investigating and found out who the other number was. It was another attorney that she knew, but didn't work with. He actually practiced an entirely different field of law. But he was a good friend of one of her bosses and would sometimes attend the same functions. So one day I asked her about it. I told her I happened to be looking at the account and I saw a lot of texts with the same number. She asked what the number was and I told her. She said, oh that's M, you know, I've told you about him. Then she went on about how they talk about law things and how he's kind of like a mentor. I thought that to be a little odd since they don't practice the same thing but whatever, I let it go. I keep checking the log from time to time and I notice that the texts now are all weekend as well, New Years Eve until 1am and most of the day on Valentine's Day too. I don't say anything because I have no real proof of anything other then the frequency of the texts. Then I decide to throw her a surprise party for her birthday. I have everything set, all our friends are meeting at a restaurant and I'm going to text one of her friends when we get close. Right before we leave the house her friends texts me from her husbands phone because she left hers at home. Driving to the restaurant my wife is texting away, so I ask her who she's texting. She tells me C. And I think well that's funny since C just told me her phone is at the house, so busted, she lied. I don't say anything to her and we have a great night. The next morning I confront her on it. She says it's nothing and they've just become close friends and talk a lot. So I ask to she her phone and see the texts, she refuses. It turns into a big fight, a lot of things were said including me breaking his legs, but she still refuses to let me see the phone. She told me that they spoke about things in his personal life as well and they were none of my business. She tells him what I said and he decides to cut all ties completely. Being that she said he was such a good friend, I found that very shady. I told her that if it really is all innocent then let me talk to him and explain why I feel the way I do and we'll straighten it out. She tells me that he won't do it, that he wants nothing to do with her or me. At this point I know communication with him is over, and I know it was never a physical affair (I've seen what he looks like and definitely not even close to her type), so I let it drop. Over the next few months things improved a lot, almost to the point of a normal marriage, not so much a loving marriage, but a normal one.
About 8 months later I noticed that she had become more withdrawn again and couldn't think of why. Things had been good, a couple little bumps but nothing major. This goes on for about a month (this February) and I still couldn't figure out why. Then one night I went up to bed and saw her out cold with her phone in her hand with the screen on. I go to move it to the nightstand and look at the screen. There's a message there for a guy that we play volleyball with in the summer (not the same team, just in our league) and he's asking how I'm being. Not how I am but how I'm being. I find this odd, why would she talk to this guy about our relationship, so i start to scroll back in the conversation. I go back not too far and see a text from him being extremely sexually explicit about what he wants to do to her and tells her to dream about all the things he'll be doing to her. The next morning she replied saying how her dreams had pleasurable experiences. At that point she started to roll around in bed, I was in shock and I put the phone down and the screen locked. The next morning I confronted her about it. She told me that sometimes he sends things that are a little inappropriate. So I show her a picture on my phone of that text and ask "you thing that's just inappropriate?" We go back and forth about it with her apologizing and I once again ask to see her phone. Same as last time she refuses, this time she says how her privacy is important to her and she won't show me the phone. So I call her out again right there that she's having an affair. She swears up and down that it never went further than the text and how that was the first time he ever sent something like that. I kept asking her what would even give him the idea that sending something like that would be ok and she had no answer. At one point she even accused me of creating a situation that doesn't exist over a stupid silly text. The one thing that bothered me still was that there was a lot that said there is an affair and there's equally the same that says it didn't go further than the texts So as the days went on the arguments about it just kept happening so I decided to stop talking to her all together other than important household type things. I still said goodbye when I left for work and hello when I got home but that was it.
That was a few days ago. Since then, conversation has resumed but no mention of the text or our problems. Being that our conversations all tun into arguments lately, I decided to write her a letter. I outlined all of our problems and what we need to do to try and fix them, but that it would take a conscious effort on both parts this time if we had any chance. I also did talk about the text, why it bothered me and why I felt the way I did. I left the letter as read this, seriously think about it and we'll talk. But we do need to talk because neither one of us can go on living like this.
My biggest issue here is that I don't want to get divorced, there's a young child involved. I may be able to swallow some of my pride so that my child grows up with me around all the time, but I can't keep living without a decision of how or what we're going to do to move forward or if we're going to move forward at all. Mentally I'm ok if we get divorced, other than missing my kid. But a decision needs to be made, I can't go on with her telling me that she's not sure what she wants to do. It's getting ridiculous.