Wife hiding an affair and pushing divorce

[Kev]

Hey. So it's been a pretty painful 4 months, as my wife has been hiding an affair and is moving towards divorce like a bullet train. I'm currently on the road to 26 and she's just turned 30. We've been married 5, almost 6, years, and known each other for a little over 7. Up until January of this year I never had a reason to doubt my wife. She has always been incredibly honest with me about everything, including weird feelings. She approached me November of 2022 with the concern that a guy she had been gaming with in her brothers discord server was starting to make her feel emotional towards him. She said she found herself constantly thinking about playing games and talking with him, but asked me to help her get out of this mindset. I stopped working as hard and spent more time with her, and things were great and she had actually left their group. Until the middle of January, where I thought she had become insanely depressed. She wasn't eating, sleeping, working, or exercising, she just spent most of the day trying to play games with her group or just this guy. She started pushing me to leave the house more, go out with friends, get more "alone relaxation time". At first I thought it was a kind gesture, but soon realized something more was happening. Now I know where my fault lies here, I was becoming a complacent and lazy husband in our marriage, but didn't see it until it was far too late. I did something I had never done before, snuck onto her messages, and found out she was talking to a friend about how much she thought about this guy, how great he is, and that she doesn't know if she EVER had this "spark" with me. Not to mention leaving me for him to "see where it goes" and that the only reason to stay with me was money. I confronted her later that day about what I read, and very quickly it became about me being controlling, aggressive, manipulative, intrusive, unjustly-jealous, and untrustworthy for doing that. She turned discovering her emotional affair into me being this horrible person, going so far as to calling me a stalker.

It's been 4 months now, and she's getting worse and worse. I had a great relationship with her family, but now they talk to me with disdain when I reach out, and they NEVER contact me. I'm trying my best to ONLY focus on positive talking points and good things, but she spins everything to being horrible and I'm using it to "manipulate" her. I told her I was concerned for her going down this path, hiding an affair, and it seems like she's only angry, bitter, and resentful now, but she told me (and her family) that I was calling her disrespectful names and demeaning her. She shows NO signs of letting up, and she has run home (with our new car and the dog 2 states over), and her family firmly believes that this guy is, as she told them, is "just a good friend"... which, hurts to see them spun a tale and fall into such an oblivious state when the guy literally flew to her town to hang out with his OTHER friend, but conveniently my wife was in town. She's changed her entire personality, her likes and dislikes, everything. It feels like I'm married to a stranger.

Let me be very clear, I have NO intention on divorcing my wife, but when she came home for 3 weeks in March she said we HAD to separate because being with me was toxic. I'll admit, that was a horrible 3 weeks, we only fought and argued, and I was in no mental state to have proper conversations as she would just sit around all day doing nothing, and play games all night with her group, or more often, just this guy. For nearly 5-6 hours a night. I have been fighting for this marriage, went out and found a counsellor to help me see things I was blinded to, I even went so far as to do all the paperwork for the legal family notice required, and split everything equally... but nothing was good enough for her. She went ballistic when she found out I made our separation legal, she just wanted a SPOKEN separation, so she countered the equal division and hasn't talked about marriage problems since that started. I even just laid out a legal response letter stating very clearly that I seek reconciliation, and if she agrees to try and make meaningful effort towards reconciliation, ALL of the paperwork and legal stuff pauses. Well, all that did was make it clear as day she would rather pursue a path of divorce then even work on our marriage for a second. And let me be honest, we haven't even tried yet. We hashed out what the problems are, but our current resolution count is 0. And her parents are freaking out that I'm the one pushing everything too quickly and I'm the one pushing divorce. The web of lies is quite extensive.

Sorry for the book here. I've been beside myself for months now, wondering how she went from being so in love around Christmas time, to engaging in an affair and leaving me within 2 weeks. I'm STILL second guessing myself this is limerence, but with all the gaslighting, accusations, unreasonable conversations, and complete lack of desire to even TRY to work on our marriage before pushing straight to divorce, it's got me looking for answers. I love my wife, I never stopped loving her nor stopped pursuing her. It's breaking my heart that I feel like I don't even know her anymore.

[David]

Kev - ill be honest as no point in bullshitting with you.

The more I work with couples, the more I am realise most affairs (im not talking about one night stands) have limerence at their core, and from what you describe this reads likely to be the case with your wife.

Once someone is caught in the vortex of limerence, its rare for them to listen to any other viewpoint - its hard to break the fantasy unless that person has an inkling of self awareness and again, in my experience few people do seem to have this when they believe they have met their "soul mate" . they rewrite history to demonise their partner and further justify their behaviour and you have described this well.

Unless your wife wakes up from her fantasy and does some self development work, the odds are against you for the relationship to work longer term. Without children to bind you together (you don't mention children) i'm not sure what's going to make your wife do any introspection. And even if you win her back, without her understanding wny this happened (I believe affairs start in childhood) what's stopping it happen again?

If you are determined to to try and make this work, the best shot is doing an affair recovery 180 - you can google this. Again, the men i coach through doing a 180 find it nigh impossible to stick to it as most of them are "nice guys" and don't know how to set and more importantly keep to boundaries.

Good luck wherever things end up and im sorry to not be able to paint a rosier picture - limerence sucks all around.

[L-F]

I like the 'no bullshitting' approach David, something I'm known for, lol

Okay, you probably won't like what I've got to say... If I were you Kev, and given what I now know, I would let her go. Letting go, to me, demonstrates love, but this fighting tooth & nail to hang in there and to prove you are the better partner, can sometimes be about ego. But love? Not always.

Loving someone can be about giving them space to be who they are in the moment and like what David mentioned, it's near impossible to get them to listen whilst in the thick of the limerent fog.

I'll paint a typical picture of this limerent affair thing. She/he/them go off to be with him/her/them and live in a complete fantasy that "s/he is perfect" and have her/his family believe this, until... And THERE IS ALWAYS AN UNTIL the cracks appear. The Limerent comes running back but in the meantime, the SO has done some heavy lifting of their own and gets to decide if they want their ex back because they've come to realize their worth.

The SO may find a healthier relationship with someone else which will upset the limerent one and again, end up being about an ego battle of trying to win back their ex-SO.

My input? Work on yourself and then see where you're at relationship-wise, whether with her or anyone else.

Sorry to hear you are in pain and welcome to the forum.

[L-F]

Work on yourself and then see where you're at relationship-wise, whether with her or anyone else.

To flesh that out a bit, the most attractive people are the ones who are happy within, with their accomplishments, their status, their health, their mindset, and so forth. When someone reaches this place, they are in a wealthier situation to be the best partner, lover, parent, and so forth. Plus they are likely to attract someone who has worked on themselves, thus an overall healthier happier relationship.

As David has always mentioned "sick attracts sick", and I like to say that 'healthy attracts healthy'. So aim for healthy, on your own for yourself, and then consider if you want/need a partner and who/what that ideal partner should look like. It may well be your wife, who knows? The point is, be the best version of yourself for yourself and the rest will fall into place.

And pay no mind what she tells your inlaws and how they treat you. Goes to show their narrow-mindedness and sick (trauma-based) family traits.

[JupiterTaco]

I have nothing to add that hasn't already been said but yeah you are being mistreated. I hope you guys can come to a conclusion but I think that leaving her at this point is the right thing or making steps toward it.

[L-F]

She went ballistic when she found out I made our separation legal, she just wanted a SPOKEN separation, so she countered the equal division and hasn't talked about marriage problems since that started. I even just laid out a legal response letter stating very clearly that I seek reconciliation, and if she agrees to try and make meaningful effort towards reconciliation, ALL of the paperwork and legal stuff pauses.

ummm... This legal stuff. Is it being used as a form of manipulation or punishment by any chance? Just curious due to the wording that if she goes along with what you want then "ALL of the paperwork and legal stuff pauses"

Kind of sounds like an ultimatum to me

[Zsababy]

I've never been married, just an LTR for 13 years (but we don't live together), just to put my comments in context.

To me, the fact that she turned it around and made it about you & did not admit that she's confused doesn't bode well to me. Reading someone's private journals or correspondence is a violation of privacy, but I've done it with another BF. It's bad, but I don't really regret it. I found out the truth. That's the case here, you found out the truth, even if it came about in a bad way. What's done is done. From your comments, she gave you reason to be suspicious and it's just common to go that next step of snooping.

My second thought is that she's being manipulative about turning her family against you and giving them misinformation.

My third thought is that maybe both of you weren't really ready for marriage. 21 is pretty young to get married in this era. Just a thought.

I'm with David; this doesn't sound very promising.

[Zsababy]

Also, this is super judgemental of me, but having an affair over video games just seems immature to me. It doesn't seem like much of a foundation for a relationship. She may be older, but this seems like maybe she was a bit immature for marriage.

[Zsababy]

ummm... This legal stuff. Is it being used as a form of manipulation or punishment by any chance? Just curious due to the wording that if she goes along with what you want then "ALL of the paperwork and legal stuff pauses"

Kind of sounds like an ultimatum to me

Maybe an ultimatum is called for. At this point, if it were me, I'd have a shit-or-get-off-the-pot attitude. I mean, you're going to work on it or not, right? It can't be one-sided. It takes two. And this is after she expressed some feelings to the OP early on but then followed them and didn't tell him. I mean, which direction does she want to go in? Why waste time and emotional effort otherwise?

[Zsababy]

Also, she told her she was staying with him for the money...methinks she wants to go but has no financial exit strategy. Have her cake & eat it, too scenario. If I saw that, I'd be incredibly hurt and yet I'd take it seriously.