# Have I ruined my marriage before it started?



## greenfrog2 (Apr 20, 2012)

For starters, my wife is my world, and I really do feel nothing but love for her. We have a beautiful 9 month old baby boy whom I would do anything for, and picturing my life with either of them missing from it is near impossible. But I have a lingering fear that my actions from the past have irreparably damaged our relationship.

When we met, I was active duty in the Marine Corps, and just coming off of a series of train-wrecks for relationships. We had been friends for quite some time, however I never saw it as anything serious, just someone to bs with who would actually hold conversations on a level plane with me. I was still stationed in Japan at the time, and it was right before I left that the latest in my string of failed attempts at romance came crashing down. About a year later, I found myself in North Carolina, coincidentally about an hour from where she lived. Months went by and we got closer by the week... eventually I found us in a relationship together which neither of us had seen coming, or knew who started. The chemistry was wonderful, our interests and ideals were near identical, and we found for the first time in either of our lives a partner who was wholly supportive and caring in the other. Eventually we moved in together, and I asked her (although it was some time before this actually happened) to marry me.

All this was over the course of about a year and a half, and at some point we decided we wanted to have a child together. She was 5 months pregnant with our son when I separated from active duty and moved with her to Kansas, where although we had small issues before, the real problems seemed to arrive. Although I attribute a large portion of it to her pregnancy, we seemed to grow more distant by the day. We barely touched each other with any kind of intimacy anymore. We fought over everything. My family didn't help matters, encouraging our fights and spreading a solid base of dishonesty and resentment between us. I found myself talking to other women, both old flames and random women on the internet, as I felt nothing but neglect and awkwardness between us. I tried over and over again to talk to her about it, but was met with anger and more mistrust, with her alternately accusing me of putting too much importance on our sex life (which had dwindled to almost nonexistent), told me she wouldn't touch me because I went behind her back, and blaming it on my family and her pregnancy.

After the birth of my son, things finally came to a head. I grabbed myself by the bootstraps and tried to overcome my insecurities, which I know are plentiful. I poured myself into my work, and taking care of my son and her. I stopped talking to other women (at no point did I ever touch anyone aside from her, although I know that what I had done wasn't much better, I still beat myself up about it), put all of my effort into making her comfortable and regaining the trust I had so foolishly destroyed. We cut the members of my family that seemed hell-bent on our failure out of our life as best as we could manage, and I did all I could to see her happy. Her self-image was rather low on account of both past relationships, and the toll the pregnancy took on her, and I went out of my way to let her know how beautiful I still found her, and how proud of her I was, not only for being a wonderful mother, but for taking such good care of me. Although our sex life didn't then, nor now is much better, I finally felt like we were more at ease with each other, and felt some of that trust and a bit of the spark we used to have returning. Things had been going well for months, and we got married in September of last year, at long last.

With the exception of a few small fights here and there, which fall well into the realm of normal couples spats, things were great and improving all the time. Our main obstacle was finding time for each other. Between my son, and my work schedule I was rarely home, and when I was almost all of our effort was spent maintaining our home and taking care of our son. I worked an average of 75 hours a week, sometimes more, and on several occasions held more than one job. I worked seven days a week almost constantly. When I did have time off, she was so exhausted she said she didn't want to go out. We eventually found out that she had hyperinsulinemia, a large contributor to both her recent weight issue and her lack of energy. The lack of a sex life she blamed on the after-effects of childbirth. I offered to do everything from go see concerts, to catching a few drinks at a bar, to taking her out and having a picnic with her and my son, to getting a night alone and cooking her dinner and spoiling her, and was shut down time after time after time. It's been about 9 months, and I find myself not even offering anymore.

I had pretty much accepted all of this, but lately she started acting strange towards me. Never since I have known her does she delete text-messages, e-mail, or anything else. But over the last few months I find her talking to more and more 'guy friends', which I assumed were just old Army buddies of hers from when she was in. But she always deleted the texts. Her e-mail, which we both use, she all of a sudden became very paranoid when the issue of me checking it came up. It was always harmless, and I didn't have any suspicion of anything until this behavior started. Now she deletes every message she sends or receives that doesn't come from her sister or mother, and changed the password, asking me to make a new one and not use hers. I put all of these in the back of my mind, and didn't let it affect my actions or feelings towards her, but that small nagging doubt was lurking in the shadows this whole time.

Then in the last few months she started a new job, requiring her and her co-workers to travel almost daily. It's local, but she is gone for 12-15 hours a day, usually, with them. She immediately told me that her supervisor was hitting on her, asking inappropriate questions and prying about our marriage. As time goes on, she calls and texts him more and more often... I tell her I still trust her, and she assures me over and over again that she wouldn't cheat on me, and that it's all harmless. But tonight, she went to the bar with him, calling me and telling me after the fact. She came home buzzed after I'd been taking care of our son for the entire night, which is common with her new hours... and the second she called me when she was on the way home, she let me know that he was calling her and got right back off the phone. I know I should just take her at her word, but I just can't help but wonder, is all of the pain I caused her and the shady things I did leave her resentful? Is she looking for a way to return the favor, and make me feel the way I'm sure she did? Or did she really write me off and only stay with me for the sake of our son? I want to trust her, and I love her more than anything, but the longer we continue, the stranger her behavior gets. Part of the jealousy stems from the fact that she goes out with someone she's barely known a month, who obviously is interested in her despite our marriage, without really asking me beforehand, and part from the fact that after all the time I spent trying to get her to do ANYthing to try to recover a bit of that glow we had before, she chooses to go out for the first time in months with someone other than me. Am I right to be worried, or is it just my own fears playing havoc on my mind because of the horrible way I treated her before leaving me with so much guilt?


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

No, really, you should not just trust her. She's venturing into behavior that indicates her having an affair.

Any marriage would suffer from the number of hours you work. I have to work hours like that sometimes and when I do there is little to no time for a personal life. Now your wife is working 12-15 hours a day. You two don't even really have a life together.

The first thing you need to do is to determine if she's having an affair. i'll bet that she is. Look into an keystroke monitor to put on the computer.. don't tell her you are doing it. It will give you the passwords to any online account she has. It will also capture anything else she types. Some keystroke monitors also take screen shots so you can see what is typed and what she is doing.

There are also ways to find out what the texts are on her cell.

She is not giving you any reason to trust her. You have the right to protect yourself.


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## Will_Kane (Feb 26, 2012)

It's not OK for her to tolerate her supervisor hitting on her. She has to tell him to stop. If he doesn't, she has to report him for sexual harassment.

It's not OK for her to go out socially with a man who is hitting on her.

There is no way he is continuing to hit on her unless she is encouraging it. If she emphatically told him she was not interested, and reinforced it, he would stop hitting on her very quickly.

She deletes texts, changed her password, is in contact with a lot of guy friends, goes out with her supervisor who is hitting on her but won't go out with you.

Regardless of whether or not she has been unfaithful to you (although you don't have definitive proof, I guarantee she has), you have to sit down and have a talk with her. You have to tell her that all of these behaviors must stop immediately. Tell her you refuse to continue in the marriage this way. Tell her you will not let her disrespect you by encouraging her supervisor to hit on her and by going out socially with other men but not with you. Tell her if she refuses to stop, you must consider divorce. Tell her you love her and want to work on the marriage. Ask her what is wrong. But tell her you will not continue this way for even one more day.


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## Will_Kane (Feb 26, 2012)

Tell her also that from now on you don't want her to delete any texts, you want to see them, and you want her password. 

Explain all of the details you posted here, about the supervisor hitting on her, the increased contact with other guys, the changing of the password, and ask her if she doesn't think that gives you reason to be suspicious. 

Any normal person would agree that these are signs of possible infidelity. If she doesn't agree with that, that is a red flag in and of itself. 

Any normal person would comply with their spouse's request when presented that way. They might be d troubled that their spouse doesn't trust them unconditionally, but they would understand the reason for it and, if they had nothing to hide, they would comply with it in order to quell their spouse's fears and save the marriage.

A normal response to such a request given the circumstances you presented would be to acknowledge how bad it looks, but to comfort the spouse and say that there is nothing going on, of course you can look at my texts from now on so I can prove to you it's all just innocent stuff. An abnormal response would be to blow up, scream, accuse the spouse of being controlling, refuse to give any access to the phone, and refuse to do anything whatsoever to acknowledge the spouse's reasonable concerns and comfort the spouse's fears.

Prepare yourself for the worst. She probably is involved in an emotional affair at least, most likely a physical affair, and she will refuse to change her behavior in any way to try to save your marriage.


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