u/dtpearce03

Long post but I’ll try to include all the relevant information. I have been attending school out of state since Jan of this year. I (35m) and my wife (35f) agreed to this in order for me to get credentials for a higher paying job. It is a year long program and Mon-Friday I live out of state and commute home on the weekends. We have 5 children together, ages 8, 5, 3, and twin 1 year olds. We moved in with my In-laws to lower living costs and help with the children.

My wife met two friends a year or so before I started this program. Both women are single with no kids. They started helping quite a bit especially after I left for the program. They would hang out, help with dinners/bed times, etc. For privacy we will call them A and B. Often, about once or twice a month, before I started school, my wife would go out with them on the weekend, usually for a dinner and some hang time and usually only 4-5 hours or so. I was supportive of this because I knew how much she did with the kids and I wanted her to have breaks kid free.

Some further context that is relevant to the story: my wife and friend A have both been in previous marriages with a female partner (not each other.)

After I started school we still continued the 1-2 times a month of hangout time with A and B. Again, I was supportive of this, but it was hard for me since I was already gone during the week. I started struggling with depression, the pressure of school and needing to succeed. I know I should’ve sought help for it but I didn’t. I was hard on myself but convinced myself the only path forward was to finish the school. My wife said the same thing. So I hyper focused on it. It was wrong and I know it but it’s what happened.

As the year went on, my wife started doing these weekend hangouts more often, even after her time with the friends increased during the week. And the time she would be gone also increased. My MIL and my mom both came to me separately at different times telling me they didn’t like how often she was gone while I was home. I defended my wife, telling them it was fine, she deserved a break, etc. I did notice the increase as well and it did bother me. But I let my guilt of not being there during the week and my fear of failing the program convince me it was ok. I was wrong for that, I should’ve communicated what I was feeling.

Things started coming to a head in the beginning of June. The first weekend of June we planned a date on Saturday, we would hire a babysitter (in-laws were out of town on vacation) and go out. That Saturday she went to hang out with A and B. Told me she would leave by 4 to be home and get ready. I had the kids by myself until then. 4 comes and she’s not there, she texts a few minutes after 4 saying she’s just leaving from her friends and she “lost track of time”. Again, this greatly upset me. But I did not communicate that. That is my fault. When she did get there and we left I was so angry at this and it was obvious I was upset. We fought over where to go (I had already suggested a place days earlier) and it culminated when she asked me a two part question (something she frequently does). “Do me and the kids make you happy, can I do anything to make you happy”. I said no there is nothing you can do to make me happy. I again let my guilt keep me from expressing how upset I was. My answer was mostly that I felt the problems were all on me, so that there wasn’t anything my family did to cause them so there wasn’t anything they could do to solve them.

It has been downhill since then. The next weekend she went on a pre-planned beach trip with A and B from Friday until Sunday evening. I had been gone all week after the date night fight and didn’t see her until Sunday. We again had an argument and she asked me to go back to my apartment out of state.

By Father’s Day weekend she asked for space for 24 hours on the weekend to “think and process things” I agreed but asked that she tell me who she would be with, where she would be, and when she would come back. She said she would be with A and B, at A’s house, and home Saturday evening. So on Friday I come home, she wouldn’t hug me or kiss me, she bought a bunch of new dresses, which she took with her, she left without her wedding ring, and a bottle of tequila. We didn’t communicate much over that time, other than I sent her some pics of the kids and us eating out together.

When she came home that Saturday we put the kids to bed and had a long conversation. She was very upset and telling me she felt disconnected from me and tired of the doom and gloom and that I hadn’t pursued her for a long time. I told her I felt like she had been replacing me with her friend group and that we needed counseling. She refused. She went to bed that night with her phone hidden under pillow, something she has never done in our time of being married (we each have the others phone passwords). Since all this had been happening, I have had insomnia and not sleeping, so around 2 in the morning I was able to get her phone. I found pics of her and friend A out at a fancy restaurant. Texts from friend B confirming she would be at work over that weekend and would not be home. And her text thread with friend A had been deleted, except for one goodnight with a heart emoji that came in after she had went to bed. There were also pics of her trying on dresses that she hadn’t sent to me. I also found a screenshot of a FB thread talking about how to get maximum child support. I also confirmed friend A paid for my wife’s meal they didn’t split the bill.

I confronted her in the morning (on Father’s Day) about all these things. She told me she had the post because she thought it was “interesting”. And that she just forgot to tell me that friend B wasn’t home this weekend.

All these things point to at least an emotional affair. I know I have my issues to work on but she refuses to go to counseling together. We are currently separated, she has moved into A’s house.

So is this an emotional affair?

Let’s draw out a hypothetical: say your spouse asked for space. You agree but ask to know where they are, who they’re with and when they are coming back. They tell you they are going to their friends house (which is actually two of their friends who live there) and they’ll be home the evening of the next day. The day they leave for this, you observe your spouse has no wedding ring, has bought new dresses which they take with them, and a bottle of tequila. They say they are going to dinner with the two friends.
They come home the next evening and you guys fight. They go to bed and hide their phone under the pillow. You get the phone and find pictures of last night that show 1) it was just one of them with them at dinner 2) friend 2 wasn’t even home that weekend 3) your spouse wore the new dress 4) the friend paid for the meal 5) your spouse didn’t have their ring 6) the night your spouse is home they try on and send pics to the friend they were just with of the dresses they bought 7) they deleted the text message thread from their phone with the person they went out with. Is this cheating?

Tl;dr if a spouse lies about who they went out with and hides the fact they did is it cheating?

So I (35m) and my wife (34f) have been together for 9 years. We have 5 children. I have been working while she stayed home with the kids, which she has always wanted to do and I wanted for her. None of my jobs have paid particularly well, but some allowed us to live comfortably enough. I have access to the GI bill and wanted to use it to try and go back to school to get a better paying job but I could never figure out the time for it. I found a program that was an accelerated year long course to earn your A&P license (aviation maintenance certification basically). The lease on the house we were renting at the time was going to end in Mar of this year, and we talked about it and decided that since it was only a year, and it would give us the chance of a better paying job, I could do the program (which started in Jan of this year) and when the lease ran out she and the kids could move in with my MIL/FIL. The school was one state away, and was too long to commute for the 5 days a week I had to be there. So I would rent an apartment near the school (took a loan from my mom to do it) and on weekends I would come home. So this has been the arrangement since then. The issues started to appear for me. It was very lonely going from a house full of kids to coming back at the end of each day to quiet. I started missing her and the kids a lot. But the program is very packed, most A&P programs take 2 years to complete. So I really had no choice but to delve into studying (I haven’t been in school for years and found it harder than i remember to retain information). I started finding myself thinking about them when I was at school and thinking about school when I was with them. Then the doubts set in on whether I could even pass this program or not. Admittedly I let fears start consuming me. I got depressed over the situation I found myself in, there is a lot on the line, we had basically given up everything for this and what happens if I fail? My wife did try to encourage me, she would tell me I could do it and celebrated every win. But my depression had an impact on her. She would text me and sometimes I wouldn’t answer for hours. To be fair, sometimes I was just really busy studying, sometimes I just went to sleep to try and “skip” the day, and sometimes I just didn’t know what to say. She has two close friends that she started spending a lot of time with. Both of her friends are single, so they have a lot of free time. They were super helpful while I was gone, and loved on our kids well. On some weekends when I would come home, my wife would ask to go spend some time with her friends kid free. Of course I said yes because I wanted her to get to have a break (she was with them 5 days alone after all) and I knew it was good for her to get to have some time off. At first it was only 1-2 a month and usually only 5-6 hours or so away. But then it slowly started becoming more. More weekends in a row and longer times. Our actual fights started about 3 weeks ago. We had planned to go on a date since we hadn’t had a lot of time with everything going on. She went out with her friends during the day before the break. She was supposed to be back by 4 but ended up being late. I was upset by this but admittedly I didn’t say anything which was a mistake. It’s not good to let things fester and I did. Then we couldn’t agree on where to go. It ended when she finally asked me “if there was anything I can do to make you happy”. I said no. It wasn’t her fault I had been feeling depressed so I didn’t think there was anything she could do. She asked me to take her back home. She took the kids and went to her friends place. Asked me to go back to school. The following weekend, she went on a planned beached trip with the same friends, I had the kids while she went. Our communication over the past week had been pretty scarce, she usually texted me multiple times a day, was always quick to respond when I texted, but that didn’t really happen. And during her trip, I didn’t try to talk much and she checked in sparingly. Sunday night when she got back we had a big fight. TBH I don’t even remember what started it but we went to bed late that night. In the morning, she asked me again to go back to school (I didn’t have class until Tuesday afternoon). I said I was going to stay, but she told me she was taking the kids and staying at her friends place for the night. She started telling me that she didn’t want the kids to see us fight and that anytime we had a disagreement the kids always felt it. That was last Tuesday. This whole week has been back and forth over texts very similar conversations basically ending in she doesn’t want to talk to me on account of how it affects the kids that she has to guard them from me. I told her i could live somewhere else on the weekends so she wouldn’t have to guard them and she said yes. All the while this has been happening I’ve had 3 exams to take plus homework’s and projects. I suggested marriage counseling but she said she won’t until I go to counseling for me first. She told me that there is no chance for us if I don’t finish the school. I really don’t know where to go from here. I have not ate hardly at all this week, I’m not sleeping, I’m terrified that I’m losing my family and all the while I keep having to show up for this course. Any advice would be appreciated.

Tl;dr wife and I gave up a lot for school and now it’s effecting our marriage.