My wife had an emotional affair w/ a guy from Reddit
My wife (29F) and I (29M) have been going through a rocky patch in the last few months and has spiralled to a place I never would have imagined in our four years of marriage.
I have ran a 7 figure business since 2021, which has been quite demanding at times and had caused a lot of tension in our marriage from year one.
We’ve had ups and downs but ultimately throughout our marriage, my wife says she feels lonely due to my focus on business and she feels second place.
Last year February, we welcomed our beautiful baby girl but since then things in our marriage has got worse.
She says more than ever I’m not attentive to her, she’s exhausted, I’m not present mentally at home, I don’t take care of her etc - all these things which I have actively tried to work on but I keep falling short of her standards.
She has experienced abandonment from her dad, who wanted no part of her in his life, from a very young age so I’m not sure if this is why there is additional pressure on me.
Long story short, recently, I’ve been watching a show on YouTube called JackTV and the aim is to test couple’s loyalty to see if the participants partner will cheat with a decoy.
After binging hours of episodes, I noticed that my wife’s demeanour (cold, distant, not wanting to be physical, etc) was reminiscent of those that have been cheating on their partner, so I decided to check her Reddit page.
As I went through her account and I saw a post she created on a subreddit (about a month ago), venting about a short emotional affair she had but she deleted it so I don’t know the extent of what was posted.
All I saw were people in her comments saying:
“Hopefully your husband finds out”
“Why are you looking for comfort/understanding from another man as a married woman”
“Your husband deserves better” etc.
As you can imagine, I was in complete shock and I confronted her, to which she admitted to having a “one month” emotional affair with another man with a wife and kids on Reddit.
She said she was asking for “advice” on our marriage, this man popped up and then things “spiralled” from there.
She said that no pictures or anything were exchanged, but she “enjoyed” speaking with him everyday and there were light flirting involved.
After a “month” she cut it off, deleted her Reddit account (basically ghosted him) but felt bad, so she opened a new one and sent an apology text to him.
Right now, emotionally I’m all over the place
I blame myself for not doing better as a husband, which led my wife to seek an emotional connection with another man but also, I’m very angry/hurt at her that she allowed this boundary to be crossed regardless.
Should I be angry with her if the conversation was just on Reddit?
But also, as the chat no longer exists, I would never know the full nature of the conversations that were had over the course of the month.
She said she liked talking to him about our marriage and other things because of the anonymity and didn’t want to share our business to people we know IRL.
When I did confront her, she did seem remorseful, took accountability and recognised that she has a self control issue.
She’s also been drinking & watching porn to cope/escape from the loneliness she feels in the marriage.
We’ve been in therapy already prior to this but now this feels like an all time low and I don’t know if we can handle this.
I’m deeply concerned. I feel like if she can open up to a random man on Reddit, who’s to say she can’t do the same with a coworker or someone from the gym in the future.
Any constructive advice would be helpful, this is my first ever post so please be kind ❤️
Thanks in advance
Update: I managed to retrieve the deleted post she made.
She said the conversation became flirtatious, she panicked then deleted her account.
24 hours later she made a new account to reach out to him and apologise but he didn’t respond.
She said “he won’t be back” and now feels “stupid”.