u/Gotham2002

Me 23m and my fiance 26f (soon to be wife in November) have been together around 3.5 years.

We met through a mutual hobby on instagram and we lived 2.5 hours apart in a car.

She was my first kiss, girlfriend first everything.

I was the first man she had been with who wasn't abusive.

Some context:

She lived with her narcissistic mother who she would constantly fight with. My Fiance was her carer as she broke her back was pretty much independant by the time I met her. I lived with my narcissistic mother who I would always bite my tongue with. I would travel to her in the car (she doesn't drive) almost every other week, sometimes multiple times in one week. She would often come back with me and spend a couple days with me if I only had a couple of shifts at work and then I would drive back, she got the train to me once in the over 2 years we lived apart. We were madly in love. We have so much in common. We did everything together. We were intimate all the time and it was incredible. We both declared love pretty early. We both saw a long future ahead with marriage and we both had the same stance on kids.

November 2025 I asked her to marry me. I recently had got promoted at work and was working full time. So I had less time to see her. We was always on the same page with moving. She wanted to move to me as she had no family besides her mother who she hates in her town and I do have some family I like and live in a nice area. One day her mother sent her over the edge and a job opportunity at the same company as me came up so she moved into my mothers house for a few months while we both worked our arses off to save for a house deposit.

My mother is a terrible person. She has done awful things, given me a lot of childhood trauma and treat my dad awfully but it was our best option. My mother treat my Fiance like dirt. She would constantly make "jokes" about her not being a hard worker despite her doing sometimes over 60 hours a week while my mother was a benefits claimer with no desire to get a job. She would make jokes about her weight (knowing my fiance used to be anorexic and had managed to get to a healthy body weight, my mother was morbidly obese. She would tell people my fiance is a gold digger when she never asked for a penny from me. She would tell all sorts of lies about her knowing full well living in a bungalow my fiance could hear her in the next room. This lead to my fiance being too scared to leave my bedroom when I wasn't home, pulling her hair out and getting water infections being too scared to go to the toilet.

This is where the resentment stems from, I didn't stand up for her. I made comment here and there to her "jokes" disagreeing with her jokes i.e. saying she has done 60 hours this week when she would make out she doesn't work. However, a lot of the awful things she would say would be when I wasn't around. I know my mother and I have dealt with her for many years. I knew if I came home and tried to call her out for her lies she would just deny it and then probably go around telling people my fiance is trying to turn me against her and then make things much worse and increase her terrible behaviour. My Fiance had a cat who we both love very much. Shes an exotic persian and has no survival instincs or agility so shes a house cat. I couldn't risk my mother doing anything to her or all our stuff we had. So I really didn't want to make things worse. We were both so stressed and thiught once we are in our house together everything would be back to normal. We were intimate maybe 4 times in the 6 months we was at my mothers, my fiance was extra snappy with me but of course I understood she was extra stressed so I understood and had the upmost sympathy.

We moved into our house November 1st 2025 and things were a bit better. We was definitely less stressed. We figured out our bills and income vs expenses and decided to book the wedding unaware of the resentment. We were intimate a few times over Nov-Dec. She wasn't as affectionate as before but I knew this is all new and moving is stressful.

I bought my mother a Christmas present. Very cheap £10, and told my fiance I had done it. My mother got us a couple of things for Christmas so I felt like I had to and because we was spending Christmas at my dads house who lived on the same street as my mother and I didn't want her coming round kicking off ruining our first proper Christmas together. This is when the feelings of resentment deepend. Again she understood why I did what I did but naturally feels betrayed which I completely understrand. Since December she has been somewhat cold and distant. Extremely minimal affection, extremely snappy and harsh towards me. She became very hypocritical in what should argue with me over, she stopped wanting to do things with me and picking fights all the time. All while I upped my game. Since January have done the majority of the chores, cook dinner for her every night, clean up after, fetch whatever she wants, does whatever she asks even when shes being mean. Also worth noting we haven't been intimate since December.

The last month has been really hard. She has got new friends who she messages and sees constantly. She goes for sleepovers, trips away, days out and there is an extreme lack of communication. For example she said she was going for a coffee and wouldn't be long. I message asking for updates throughout the day to no reply. I was waiting to make lunch for us, then dinner as I didn't know when she was returning and was told she wouldn't be long when she left at 10:30am. She returns at 7pm having eaten and been to a zoo all day that was almost an hour away. Another, there was an event we both wanted to go to. I found a hotel, booked it and we both paid half each for it. Then she a couple weeks later she wants to go by herself. I say that I want to go and she says basically either I go by myself and she will hate me for it or I let her go by herself. She is being picked up by another man. Hes in his late 50s. They are friends from the charity club were in. I know shes not cheating on me but all the evidence points to it and it's making me paranoid but she doesn't care. Shes extremely secretive of her phone which never used to be. Goes on private phone calls every day. She then goes out with this man who picks her up from work. I was told they were going out for "a drink" she returns after no communication at 9pm after going out to a restaurant in the next town over. Also worth noting it is the first time in a while she had done a full face of make up and put her hair down. She says the privacy and the dinner only because it's all to do with the higher rankings of the charity club were in. Coincidently, the event I'm not aloud to go to this weekend hes also in attendance. She denies they are even that good friends but hes picking her up and dropping her off which would mean going hours out of his way each time.

She shows me no reasurance or sympathy around why I feel the way I feel and simply responds with anger and the phrase "you just don't want me to have friends" whenever I try and bring any feelings up.

Were getting married in November, all the money has been sank into it. Everything we have is jointly owned, I don't want this to end, she was my everything but I can't keep feeling depressed and stressed over her behaviour all the time. I don't know what to do.

tl;dr:

My fiance moved in with me as I lived with my awful mother who treat her like dirt and I didn't stick up for her due to fear of making our living situation worse. She now resents me and has recently started treating me extremely poorly and refuses to have any sympathy or provide me any reassurance even though I have been extremely symptathetic and understanding this whole time.

Me 23m and my fiance 26f (soon to be wife in November) have been together around 3.5 years.

We met through a mutual hobby on instagram and we lived 2.5 hours apart in a car.

She was my first kiss, girlfriend and took my virginity.

I was the first man she had been with who wasn't abusive.

Some context:

She lived with her narcissistic mother who she would constantly fight with. My Fiance was her carer as she broke her back was pretty much independant by the time I met her. I lived with my narcissistic mother who I would always bite my tongue with. I would travel to her in the car (she doesn't drive) almost every other week, sometimes multiple times in one week. She would often come back with me and spend a couple days with me if I only had a couple of shifts at work and then I would drive back, she got the train to me once in the over 2 years we lived apart. We were madly in love. We have so much in common. We did everything together. We were intimate all the time and it was incredible. We both declared love pretty early. We both saw a long future ahead with marriage and we both had the same stance on kids.

November 2025 I asked her to marry me. I recently had got promoted at work and was working full time. So I had less time to see her. We was always on the same page with moving. She wanted to move to me as she had no family besides her mother who she hates in her town and I do have some family I like and live in a nice area. One day her mother sent her over the edge and a job opportunity at the same company as me came up so she moved into my mothers house for a few months while we both worked our arses off to save for a house deposit.

My mother is a terrible person. She has done awful things, given me a lot of childhood trauma and treat my dad awfully but it was our best option. My mother treat my Fiance like dirt. She would constantly make "jokes" about her not being a hard worker despite her doing sometimes over 60 hours a week while my mother was a benefits claimer with no desire to get a job. She would make jokes about her weight (knowing my fiance used to be anorexic and had managed to get to a healthy body weight, my mother was morbidly obese. She would tell people my fiance is a gold digger when she never asked for a penny from me. She would tell all sorts of lies about her knowing full well living in a bungalow my fiance could hear her in the next room. This lead to my fiance being too scared to leave my bedroom when I wasn't home, pulling her hair out and getting water infections being too scared to go to the toilet.

This is where the resentment stems from, I didn't stand up for her. I made comment here and there to her "jokes" disagreeing with her jokes i.e. saying she has done 60 hours this week when she would make out she doesn't work. However, a lot of the awful things she would say would be when I wasn't around. I know my mother and I have dealt with her for many years. I knew if I came home and tried to call her out for her lies she would just deny it and then probably go around telling people my fiance is trying to turn me against her and then make things much worse and increase her terrible behaviour. My Fiance had a cat who we both love very much. Shes an exotic persian and has no survival instincs or agility so shes a house cat. I couldn't risk my mother doing anything to her or all our stuff we had. So I really didn't want to make things worse. We were both so stressed and thiught once we are in our house together everything would be back to normal. We were intimate maybe 4 times in the 6 months we was at my mothers, my fiance was extra snappy with me but of course I understood she was extra stressed so I understood and had the upmost sympathy.

We moved into our house November 1st 2025 and things were a bit better. We was definitely less stressed. We figured out our bills and income vs expenses and decided to book the wedding unaware of the resentment. We were intimate a few times over Nov-Dec. She wasn't as affectionate as before but I knew this is all new and moving is stressful.

I bought my mother a Christmas present. Very cheap £10, and told my fiance I had done it. My mother got us a couple of things for Christmas so I felt like I had to and because we was spending Christmas at my dads house who lived on the same street as my mother and I didn't want her coming round kicking off ruining our first proper Christmas together. This is when the feelings of resentment deepend. Again she understood why I did what I did but naturally feels betrayed which I completely understrand. Since December she has been somewhat cold and distant. Extremely minimal affection, extremely snappy and harsh towards me. She became very hypocritical in what should argue with me over, she stopped wanting to do things with me and picking fights all the time. All while I upped my game. Since January have done the majority of the chores, cook dinner for her every night, clean up after, fetch whatever she wants, does whatever she asks even when shes being mean. Also worth noting we haven't been intimate since December.

The last month has been really hard. She has got new friends who she messages and sees constantly. She goes for sleepovers, trips away, days out and there is an extreme lack of communication. For example she said she was going out to Costa and wouldn't be long. I message asking for updates throughout the day to no reply. I was waiting to make lunch for us, then dinner as I didn't know when she was returning and was told she wouldn't be long when she left at 10:30am. She returns at 7pm having eaten and been to a zoo all day that was almost an hour away. There was an event we both wanted to go to. I found a hotel, booked it and we both paid half each for it. Then she a couple weeks later she wants to go by herself. I say that I want to go and she says basically either I go myself and she will hate me for it or I let her go by herself. She is being picked up by anothe rman. Hes in his late 50s. They are friends from the club were in. I know shes not cheating on me but all the evidence points to it and it's making me paranoid but she doesn't care. Shes extremely secretive of her phone which never used to be. Goes on private phone calls every day. She then goes out with this man who picks her up from work. I was told they were going out for "a drink" she returns after no communication at 9pm after going out to a restaurant in the next town over. Also worth noting it is the first time in a while she had done a full face of make up and put her hair down. She says the privacy and the dinner only because it's all to do with the higher rankings of the charity club were in. Coincidently, the event I'm not aloud to go to this weekend hes also in attendance. She denies they are even that good friends but hes picking her up and dropping her off which would mean going hours out of his way each time.

She shows me no reasurance or sympathy around why I feel the way I feel and simply responds with anger and the phrase "you just don't want me to have friends" whenever I try and bring any feelings up.

Were getting married in November, all the money has been sank into it. Everything we have is jointly owned, I don't want this to end, she was my everything but I can't keep feeling depressed and stressed over her behaviour all the time. I don't know what to do.

tl;dr:

My fiance moved in with me as I lived with my awful mother who treat her like dirt and I didn't stick up for her due to fear of making our living situation worse. She now resents me and has recently started treating me extremely poorly and refuses to have any sympathy or provide me any reassurance even though I have been extremely symptathetic and understanding this whole time.