AIO that my (34M) wife (31F) has "cuddles" and friend dates with a guy from the gym.
I [M34] have been with my wife Lily [F31] for 9 years. We do not have kids together (yet) but share a house and are otherwise very tangibly connected. Over the last year or two, Lily has been going through a lot, she was kicked out of several friend groups in the last year due to her toxicity and how she treats people (allegedly). As a result she started SSRIs, anxiety meds, and ADHD meds; we are working through her - though I am sure it is difficult and I'm certainly ill equipped as a human to be the best at-home therapist.
Lily met a guy named Jay at her volleyball gym about six months ago. She said he was recently single and looking to make friends. I had seen him from afar before, but I’d never actually spoken to him (and still haven't to this day). Lily makes a lot of guy friends, so I don't bat an eye, and I'm generally very trusting of her. For example, a couple years ago she wanted to go on a multi-day bush-camping trip with no reception with a bunch of guys she had just met couple months prior, and I didn't really say much besides the general "okay, just be safe!".
Anyway. After they met, I noticed she became increasingly reclusive from me, we messaged during the day noticeably a lot less, and in some ways, I did feel her time and words to me have become low-effort and short. In person, she constantly made random comments about Jay, how kind he is, how relatable, how good Jay was at volleyball, etc. which I mean I guess is fine.
Additionally, she started spending money on Steam games to play with him deep into the night, often coming to bed around 3 or 4AM. I had previously asked her to play games with me, but she told me she wasn't interested.
Couple months into this, I went out of town for several days. Whenever either of us is away, we always call each other to say goodnight and that we love each other, etc. Lily had told me she was going to a birthday party that evening, a commitment she had made weeks prior and wanted to keep. I texted her a couple of times starting around 4:00 PM to let her know where I was, ask how her day was going, and check on the party. I received a couple of one-word responses but otherwise didn't get any responses.
At 11:40 PM, I finally got a text back. She said she had bailed on the party at the last minute. She typically follows through on her commitments, but when I asked why she cancelled, she just said, "idk."
After that, I tried to call and message her a couple more times, but my calls went to voicemail. Lily later claimed she just didn't see my phone calls. I will say, Lily is religious about wearing her Garmin smartwatch at all hours, even for sleep tracking, and even when charging, it vibrates quite loudly on the nightstand, so I do find this a bit suspect. To me, it was fairly apparent the calls were being ignored and that she was otherwise preoccupied.
In the morning, I found out Jay had come over to our home at 2:00 PM and stayed overnight until 6:00 AM - a full 16 hours. However, our door camera had been deactivated, leaving no record of his arrival or departure.
When I expressed that I was uneasy and felt a line had been crossed - especially given that she had not been open to me about having cancelled her plans to spend the night with someone who was a complete stranger to me, and in our home - she agreed, but otherwise simply said, "Yep, those are facts, thanks for sharing how you feel."
On April 22nd, my sports team was playing for the season championship. It's not really that big a deal as it is essentially a beer league, but this was something I was semi-excited about since it's rare to win anything these days. I asked if she could come support me, and she said she might drop by quickly, but would leave early because she would rather hang out with Jay. To her credit, she did show up for about 15 minutes (we ended up losing lol).
Throughout May and June, my Find My location tracking on Lily was revoked and then reactivated hours later on several occasions. (The app will send a notification when location sharing is removed or added, I'm not just checking constantly like a loon lol). I do not know where she was or who she was with during those times.
Things came to a head on June 29th. Lily said she would be home after work by 7:00 PM at the latest, though she later edited the iMessage to 7:45 PM. Her Find My location was revoked at this time. I made a whole dinner for us as I wanted to spend some real time and reconnect with her. She didn't arrive home until 8:54 PM, at which point her Find My location was reactivated. When I asked where she had been, she said she was at Jay's house which is over 30 minutes from her work and nearly an hour from our home.
On July 1st, we were invited to attend a Canada Day party and watch fireworks near midnight. Lily went to play volleyball with Jay at 9:00 PM while I went to the party around 7PM. I checked her location around 11:30 PM to make sure she would make it for the fireworks, intending to ask my friend to delay them if needed, but she was sitting in an empty parking lot. I did think this was weird but kind of brushed it off. But by 12:20 AM, she still hadn't moved. At this point I was concerned for her safety, cause why would someone be in an empty lot in an industrial area late at night, so I called her. She picked up on the first ring, said she lost track of time, and was heading out. She later admitted she was just sitting in her car spending time with Jay.
On July 3rd, Lily and I went on a pre-arranged weekend trip with another couple. She was constantly messaging someone, in the car, at dinner, during movies, and even when as a group we did table games she did not partake and stayed on the couch texting. I could see from afar that the profile picture belonged to Jay. More so, on several occasions, she made a conscious effort to tilt her phone away from me if we were sitting side by side on the couch or in the car.
On the last day, I tried to use her phone to pay for breakfast (we pay with her 4% restaurant cashback card when dining out) and realized my Face ID had been revoked and her password had been changed. Not that I've ever looked at her phone, but like, it's just one of those things we've never had to question our openness with each other and it's just useful to be able to pay with either phone, change songs, or quickly open to look at something being referenced, etc. So it's just a bit out of place to change it after all these years.
On Monday, July 6th, when she finally came home late, I confronted her about how disconnected from her I felt the whole weekend. She told me that she just shares everything with Jay, about her life and difficulties, but also he's a person she can share every single detail of our relationship with who is outside the relationship. I said this was really painful to hear as I didn't realize she was just telling this random person deeply private things I had told her in confidence. I asked her to consider how hurtful that was to me, and if she could not share things like that with people. She said she was tired and needed to sleep and walked away. She then moved all her stuff from our master bathroom and bedroom, to the guest bed & bath where she now stays.
On Thursday, July 9th, I felt I was getting eaten alive from the inside so I tried to approach her and continue the conversation. She insisted she wasn’t cheating emotionally or physically. I asked if she give me anything for reassurance, and we agreed she could show me a quick scroll of their messages.
First of all, she had to pull it up from a hidden folder where the chat was hidden and muted, so she clearly knew what she was doing. And second, every photo had been sent using the "view once then deleted" setting.
She scrolled ridiculously fast - probably 30 or more times - and despite the massive volume of messages the date stamps showed only a matter of days. They were clearly exchanging hundreds of messages a day, including throughout our weekend trip.
Even with the fast scrolling, a few messages stood out and are now seared into my mind:
- Lily: You smelled so good yesterday. Jay: You smelled so good too. I miss you so fucking much.
- Jay: I miss you so much. I wish I could cuddle the shit out of you right now.
These two instances pretty much immediately broke me on the spot.
That is nothing to say about all the other shit talking about me Jay partakes in, which is pretty wild in itself.
Further, I also saw that on Tuesday - less than ten hours after I cried my heart out to her and told her how deeply it hurt that she was sharing our intimate relationship details with him - she had literally done the EXACT thing and told him all about my break down like I was a freak show. This is honestly, lowkey funny as hell like the complete brazen disregard for what I opened up to her about and begged her not to.
Additionally, they had gone to a park, cuddled, and taken selfies together, with her commenting that looking at the photos made her feel "warm and fuzzy inside." When I asked her about that, she claimed they had just gone to the park and laid “really close to each other”. I honestly have no idea when this would have even happened, during the workday?
I can’t even imagine what else has gone on over the last six months if these kinds of messages between a single dude and a married woman are considered acceptable to her.
I told her I really can't do this anymore and that we should just separate if she just simply wants to be with him. When I said that, she kind of freaked out at me, and started saying she was going to cut him off entirely. I told her no I don't want that because, that's not the kind of relationship I want to be in, and she should be able to be friends with whomever she choses. But she insisted she wanted to do it for herself, for us, to work on saving our relationship.
Anyway. It's been a month now, and she’s still texting him daily. I'm not stupid, I can literally see her texting lol.
I asked her about it. And she said she’s thought about it and she realized she hasn't done anything wrong. In her exact words, “there is nothing wrong with seeking comfort in the arms of another if I was not around.” So really in fact, it’s my fault.
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For full context, her defences are:
- she lost track of time that 2pm-6am night
- she doesn't know why the doorbell camera was deactivated (tbf the wifi connection does goes wonky sometimes)
- she turned off Find My for everyone not just me, because lately she just doesn't want people knowing where she is at times
- she lost track of time in the car on Canada Day
- she turned the phone away because she was telling him things about me
- her Face ID and password changed because iOS forced a change from the 4-pin to 6-pin
- she hides and mutes his chat to prevent herself from spending all day messaging him
- she sends photos as a "view 1-time" to manage the phone memory storage
- he literally did just smell good
- he's just always available for her (he's unemployed)
- therefore, again, that there is nothing wrong with seeking solace in his arms if I'm not as available
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TL;DR I'm trying really really hard to move on, and I don't know, suppress? heal? from this...but I if I can summarize where my jumbled up brain is:
Lily keeps saying "the baseline is you don't trust me, and that's something you need to decide yourself if you can get over it.".
But...what I need is for her to say "I recognize your trust has been broken, what can we do to repair it together?"
Thus the crux of where we're at. Her stance is simply that she hasn't done anything wrong and that I'm ballooning this into being hurt over.
So I guess, AIO over a nothing burger?
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Edit: Thanks guys. I've read most of the comments. I'm not really sure what to feel right now. Sorry.
I wish it were fake, I wish so hard it was fake.
And to those that think it's AI because of the dashes, I don't know what to tell you. Some of us type with dashes especially when I'm just rambling while I typed it all in the iphone notes. Pretty sure those aren't even em-dashes, they're just normal dashes. And yea obviously it's a throwaway account, I'm not posting this on my main wtf. There is MORE than enough details in this to doxx me if on my main - the names were barely changed.
Thanks anyway all.