My wife [48f] and I [39f] are struggling. Long post please be patient.
My wife [48f] and I [39f] are struggling. We we’ve been together a total of 10 yrs now official on August 5th. But we had a 10 month separation from sept 2024 to July 2025 because I basically had a mental breakdown. I’d told her 2 yrs prior that I was struggling mentally and she told me to deal with it myself and from there it just went even more down hill. I am not perfect I was having struggles of my own with being a better person I am highly ADHD and have emotional issues when I feel things I can get passionate in response to them by just getting louder and just trying to explain it till I’ve gone blue in the face basically (don’t worry I’m working on it) but Ike never violent.
Well my wife’s niece [now 26f] was causing a lot of issues and instead of my wife having my back she would lie a lot and do the complete opposite of what her and I had talked about and just not tell me till I discovered it. Including when we bought our house moving her into a room I told my wife I wanted for either a baby room or my plant room till the baby comes and even tho I told her no I didn’t want the niece moving into that room she still did it with her.
Well when we got back together everything was going good until the same issues started creeping back up with the niece. She was coming in between my wife she was coming into our room like it was hers and she was always around even when it was the only time my wife and I had together. Then came the phone issue. The niece told my wife that I had read her messages and without my wife even talking to me she took me off the Face ID, when my wife later asked me to do something on her phone I asked her why she’d taken me off and she said it was because she thought her password was to long. Then a week or two goes by and I help her again and I once again ask why she took me off her Face ID that I knew she didn’t have to change the Face ID to change her password what’s going on. She finally told me the truth and asked if I’d gone on it which I didn’t because I believe everyone has a right to talk crap on their phone if they want to and if I go looking for it then I’m just looking for issues. Well apparently the niece told her there’s proof with a receipt which neither of them knew what they were talking about because when you look if someone sent money to you it doesn’t make a receipt of you looking at it (the niece was suppose to be sending me the money for rent and instead as a way of defiance sent it to my wife’s, which I’d only pulled down the notifications to make sure she’d actually sent the money but did not open my wife’s phone). So that happens and then just a bunch of other things along the same lines.
So when my wife and I got back together she informed me she felt she was poly and I was fine with it, it actually intrigued me because I’d never thought about it. I was a bit shocked at first not going to lie but unfortunately my wife if someone mentions something to her she generally wants to try it out and a month before we’d gotten back together she met someone on a dating app that was poly.
So with everything happening with the niece including her blaming me for her being bulimic which then she informed me my wife told her to do it. And the other niece that lives with us having her own struggles. Plus I do school and two jobs it was just to much and I was overwhelmed and I told her that. I told her I didn’t know if I could handle everything and thought maybe if we pause the poly and she were to focus on us and try to fix the lying and saying one thing and doing another we could restart it once we’re back on more stable turf because I was feeling extremely unsafe in the situation. She had a hard time with it but I laid it out easily for her that I know I can’t do all this so I’m just letting you know we may have to discuss us separating if we can’t fix things.
So ultimately she told me she would pause the poly which she wanted to stay in contact with the other person who’d she only met maybe 3-4 times and text 2-3 times a day with them (it was a long distance thing). Which I said if you stay in contact how is that a pause and how would that not be unfair to you and the other person by being able to talk but not be able to see each other. Now when we did the pause I never expected them to break up I thought I’d be a small pause (unsure of when it would actually be back because that depended on her and her working on us).
So next couples counseling she said she completely agreed and that the talking was going to stop as well but that she just wanted to be able to get updates about a health scare which I completely agreed to. And our therapist suggested her telling me when the other partner messaged since there is trust issues. Which she also agreed to. She tried to get into Facebook and all that but the therapist and I agreed that it was being way to nitpicking.
Well a month later we’re driving home from my parents and I see she got a message on the car screen from the other partner so I wait like 15 mins to see if she’s going to say anything and then I calmly say babe I saw she messaged and I’m a little disappointed you didn’t say anything. She said I’m sorry I kinda panicked and hoped you hadn’t seen it.
Now I’m confused. So I’m like but we had this talk and I just wish you’d of done what you said because it would have helped our trust issues a lot.
Well something doesn’t seem right so I’m like is that the only time. And she proceeds to tell me that she’s messaged 3 times today and it’s only because she misses her (my wife) and that she didn’t check it it’s just happened and again she panicked.
Once again my spidey senses are saying hmmmm and I said okay I get that I’m just super disappointed. But can I see your phone for a sec please I won’t look at your messages they are private and I respect that. So she hands me her phone and I got to recently deleted and she’d deleted 2000 text from their chat and a few was from that day.
Come to find out she never stopped talking to her and she’s been lying to us both the entire time.
She said she still wants to be with me but does want to still be with the other person I said okay well you have to tell her and she’s like no no no and I’m like this is not a negotiation. So I message the other person after she told me she had told her to double check and just found out more lies.
So I’m concerned about my wife like the lying is not out of character in small things but this is insane. Like I don’t know how she thought this was going to go.
So I’m wondering if it’s menopause or what the hell is it. She said she doesn’t know her “authentic self”.
I’m like wtf does that mean we’ve been together 10 yrs and you are 48 yrs old wtf.
Then the next day she’s like hey got invited to go hang out with my friends you want to go.
wtf……
I’m like you know you just hurt two people you claim to care about and you now just want to go hang out with your friends like nothing has happened like you need to figure your shit out not hang out with your damn friends.
Soooooo wtf people help me out here any suggestions, comments or wtf for me! tl;dr
I do not know what to do to help her or even help myself any suggestions would be very appreciated.