u/LeeFromLeeTown_225

previous post: Update: Is my Wife Cheating on Me : r/Infidelity

About a month ago I went to a group hang out that my wife was having with her friend group. I told her that I would not be able to make it because of work, but I actually went and planned to be there to crash it at around 8:30pm. I never posted an update though because when I arrived there wasn't much going on. My wife and her friends were playing monopoly and other board games with her friends around a table together. They were surprised I was there but they all greeted me and I joined them.

On July 4th we went to a cook-out picnic to watch fireworks and stuff with her friend group and others. This gathering was much larger, with probably about 70 to 90 people. The guy (I'll just call him John so it is not confusing whenever I say "the guy"). I saw John was there too. Even before when I first met him while dating my wife all those years ago, I never really liked his vibe, plus with what has recently been happening, I just chose to not really acknowledge him. Everything was quite normal for most of the night. I endured some social interactions with John here and there and everything was quite normal for the most part.

The weird part began when the fireworks started. Basically my wife and her girlfriends were dancing in the grass field and cheering and just kind of goofing off with music from an amplifier playing loudly. Some of us were buzzed others were drunk, and then I saw John suddenly appear as my wife was cheering and dancing next to her friends with her arms up and John holds her arms from behind her. One of John's friends (at least I am assuming his friend) does the same with a girl who was dancing/cheering next to my wife, and I thought to myself are these people crazy? because I know that girl is married too, to an acquaintance of mine (one of the only guys I would call "friend" in my wife's group). I froze up sitting in my chair by the food and waited to see if he would let go and then I can confront my wife about it. But he never did and I got antsy, so I got up and started speed walking toward them. I naturally don't have a loud voice but I yelled out "hey" as loud as I could but even I had a hard time hearing myself with the fireworks and the music playing. When I got closer to them, I can hear my wife saying "duuude" at John. I put my hand on John's shoulder and I grabbed my wife's hand and after a few seconds John lets go and dances backwards into the group. Me and my wife sat together by the food where I was previously sitting and I asked her why he keeps touching her. She responds by basically saying she's sorry and that she wasn't aware who was touching her at first and that John is just a moron. At this point I was a bit glassy eyed and probably filled with a decent amount of adrenaline. A random guy who was sitting close by heard and kind of chimed in saying how some random guy was grinding with his wife and they are "acting a fool" but that this kind of thing can just happen on dance floors and at the end of the day his girl always comes home with him. The rest of the night went without any problems.

When we got home, we talked a long while about everything. But the conclusion we came to is she agreed on my request not to go to hang outs with her friend group if John is there. I will still attend at random times as I have been doing but so far this is the resolution that I am content with after our long conversation. My mind is a little scattered right now so sorry if I didn't explain very well, but I even have half a mind to text the husband of the other girl I saw being held to let him know but I am also aware that this all could just sound so weird for him and there could be an off chance that I just start making straight up direct enemies with some people from my wife's group if I start sticking my neck out.

previous update post: Small Update: Is my wife cheating on me? : r/Infidelity

I've been reading some comments and there seems to be this wild theory being crafted. While I hope it is not true, I very much highly doubt something as deep as that is going on. My wife and I have had a long-standing daily routine and hang out together almost 24/7 unless we're at work. We have free access to each other's phone and we share each other's location. I also know the guy, like I said, who was holding her at the party. If he was that involved in my wife's life I would know. Which means for this theory to be true it would probably require that my wife has a burner phone and that they are some how fooling around at my wife's work which is highly unlikely as the nature of my wife's work is very public. We have a good relationship other than the odd things this update will be about. But in terms of how she treats me and how we treat each other, we are practically each other's best friend. With that being said we stick to each other's hip pretty much and my wife goes to hang out with her friend group maybe once a month or once every two months usually throughout the year and I join her on occasion.

As a side note many were asking if they were alone in the basement room: it was them and one other guy, the other guy at the time was sitting in front of them on the floor playing a video game on a tv set.

Update:

I called up my own friends to hang out and talk about this last night. They thought I was joking at first but we talked about it seriously after I explained to them what I experienced and how I felt. My friends have all met her friends before on occasion but one friend of mine in particular I valued his perspective most because after my wife and I got married he was the one guy who integrated with her friend group more directly than any of my other friends.

1. He agrees that's definitely odd what I saw. But he went on to tell me that it wasn't the first time he's seen what I described. He explained to me that he has seen the same guy do the same thing to another woman in my wife's friend group on two separate occasions. He told me he's never seen him do it to my wife though.

2. We all agreed, the guy in question was a little bit of a weirdo. Just someone who seems like they either don't understand social cues fully or the type who just doesn't care. (possibly not really important but we did agree on that)

3. The most concerning to me is my friend's explanation of what he saw a while back ago. I am taking everything here with a grain of salt since he and I talked about this only in hindsight now.

- During a camp-out trip hosted at a borrowed airbnb in the woods, I guess like a retreat. My friend told me they arrived around 8pm and the parking spots right next to the airbnb were taken by their group and then everyone else in the group had to park at a private designated parking area. It took maybe a 6 minute walk he says from the parking area to the airbnb. Supposedly my wife forgot her phone in her car and the guy (same guy who was holding her at the pool party) volunteered to walk with her because it was getting dark. My friend told me two of my wife's girl friends tagged along and one other dude also joined them saying that they saw a vending machine at the parking area and wanted candy. My friend told me at the time he thought nothing of it and said everyone was just having a good time. From his recollection he said my wife's girl friends and the guy returned to the airbnb about 40ish minutes later while my wife and the guy from the pool party didn't return until a little bit after them, about 45ish minutes later. (he did admit he has no idea the exact times but it was his best guess and also mentioned in general he felt like it was quite a long time before they returned possibly even an hour later)

There was more that we talked about but I will update later as currently I don't have the time to write all of it down. I'm still keeping my eyes and ears open. I did, most importantly, look into if this guy is actually a chiro or massage therapist or whatever. From what I looked into it and from what I asked through text the closest person I'm with in my wife's friend group other than my wife, he confirmed to me that this guy "was" a licensed massage therapist but he didn't renew the license and ceased to be one professionally about two years ago.

Making a small update because some in the comments were getting antsy or something idk. Original post: is my wife cheating on me? : r/Infidelity

There isn't all too much that I learned yet. However, I have been going based on her behavior ever since that day. But just to clarify some of the things some people have been saying in comments:

1. This was not some spring break party bash where there is a bunch of strangers everywhere. What I mean by having "separate social groups" is that I am not personally best friends or close friends with anyone in her social circle other than my wife. I hung out with them and seen them around at family events and occasional double dates, but I would not call any of them "a close friend of mine" that I would personally call up to hang out with just me alone. The same way how my wife is not personally close friends with any of my social circle friends that I am close with my entire life. So I do know all of them, I just don't regularly hang out with them all too often the way my wife does. Same way how my wife often doesn't come out with me to hang out with my friends from college.
2. Within that context, I do know the guy who was holding her. Again, I just wouldn't consider him a personal friend of mine. He is a friend of hers for almost a decade now. I have seen and talked with him often enough as we usually go together in a group to concerts and cosplay events, stuff like that maybe like three times a year or something. I didn't know his job or anything else about who he is outside of small talk at conventions and events we go to together as a group of 15-20 people. That's just me. I'm not a super talkative person. I usually just ride group conversations if there are a lot of us.
3. My wife didn't ignore me when she finally did come back out. She came out straight towards me and we hung out together the rest of the day. Although it was a crappy day for me because I was just feeling overwhelmed and a bit yucky inside, angry too at myself. There were no words spoken about it, but I could tell she also felt a little awkward too.

which goes on to her behavior when we got back home. My instinct at the time was that I was on hyper alert for anything weird, or any type of love bombing behavior. She didn't treat me poorly or neglect me, and she also didn't overly shower me with more affection than she normally would. But I can tell there was an awkward energy between us. I didn't say anything at the party or in the car but when we got home I did take a moment to ask about her shoulder and what I "saw" in the basement room. She immediately answered with, "yeah that was weird right?" and she gave me space to sort of rant about it. She did wholeheartedly agree that it was strange after I told her my side but she told me the guy friend is a chiropractor/massage therapist or something. We went back and forth about that whole situation. She didn't say any words that I thought would be red flags? like overreacting, me being controlling, etc. However the conversation ended with the theme of "it's fine, he's a chiro/massage therapist and it only looked weird from the outside". I'm still letting this cook in my mind, so to speak. To be honest I'm not sure what kind of take on that I should have. But as of the time of this writing I chose not to pursue or argue anything back just yet until I have more solid evidence and I plan to see what goes on in her friend group more closely.

I am still keeping my eyes and ears open. Doing my own things to find out more. One thing that currently irks me is that she did ice her shoulder area a couple times but there was no real way to "prove" any shoulder issue and simultaneously no way to disprove it either.

I have been married 5 years now. My wife and I always had separate friend groups, I hang out with my people and she hang out with hers. I never minded that during our entire relationship. We know of each other's friends obviously from meeting them and hanging out with them occasionally for big family and friend events like birthdays and such. However when one day I went to surprise my wife and kind of crash her pool party with her friends at one of her girl friend's house I saw something that just kind of.. really rubbed me the wrong way. Everyone was surprised when I arrived but we all said our hello's and stuff. So I get kind of socially settled and most people are downstairs in the living room or outside at the pool and when I ask where my wife is, she was in the basement room hanging out. I didn't think too much of it.. yet, cause it was almost like a small house party there was quite a few people everywhere, all of them I've seen before though so no strangers. Some dudes were hanging out upstairs, downstairs, you get the gist.

So I go downstairs and "visually" what I see first is my wife, and a guy holding her arms behind her head while sitting next to each other. And when I mean holding her arms, I mean like that BDSM pose elbows high to the ceiling, hands on the back of her neck.. it didn't visually look casual at all. My brain immediately processes "hm..weird." I greet my wife and she hugs me and stuff. They both tell me she strained her shoulder bad and he was helping her like stretch it out. I understand it was a pool party but with her in a bikini and him holding her like that.. it just felt all very.. strange to say the least. And again I know it's a pool party, but at the same time I swear.. like to be fair, no I would not bet my life on it, but I swear it "looked" more like saliva than water on certain parts of her body, and for a lack of a better term, the room honestly kind of smelled like my wife's "natural" scent, but I really don't know if that was just me spiraling into a dangerous delusion that my brain made up. What I "do" know is that I could see my wife's chest was erect through the bikini. However I know my wife better than anyone else, I know this happens when she goes swimming sometimes for her.

I seriously didn't want to come off as like a crazy jealous husband so even though I felt weird I didn't really say anything. I made small talk with the guys there and stuff. Now.. I'm like not well known around these people, some of them have no idea who I am, and others only know me as my wife's husband. So needless to say, starting confrontation was kind of on the bottom of my list. My wife's close girl friend who was throwing the pool party comes down and asks for me and some other guy in the room to come help her set up some tent outside. My brain was overloaded on so much stimulus happening right now that I just kind of said "yeah for sure" and just auto-pilot'ed my way with this other dude to go help. That's when I see the guy who was holding my wife start holding her again. My wife had like a surprised expression but not like a "peril" expression like all she said was "oh". My head is like trailing behind my body as I move toward the stairs and I ask my wife "are you good?" and she nods at me with a big smile and says "yeah for sure, we're gonna go up to the pool again now." To be honest I think I let myself leave in that moment because my fight or flight system kicked in when I saw that and I instinctively chose flight. (call me weak idc.. but same thing happens when some driver road rages at me and I choose to pretend like I don't see him driving up next to me)

I go upstairs, I've never built a tent before. I'm fumbling around like a moron with these random dudes like idiots fucking around trying to build this stupid thing and I don't see my wife come up for a long while. I only see her come out to the pool towards me after I almost make the decision to just screw the tent and go back downstairs.