r/marriageadvice

My spouse is currently off work on a leave of absence due to health complications from long covid. He recently told me he’s not fulfilled with his current job (insurance). I told him to spend his LOA looking for a new job but he said he’s not going to be satisfied with any job that equals his current compensation and that he wants to paint for a living. He said when my son graduates HS (in 3 years) he’s going to quit to pursue this. I told him it’s unrealistic to think he’s going to survive off of painting (I even laid out the math on that). Is that cold of me to say? I don’t see why he can’t keep his job and paint on the side for fulfillment. Isn’t that what most people do?

TL;dr spouse wants to quit his job to paint and I don’t support that

I think my husband is addicted to sex and it’s been showing up as an issue the past five years or so as our lives have gotten more busy. A few reasons why I think this:
-he is always touching me in a sexual way and rarely in simply gentle or loving ways. It’s always grabbing my body suggestively or whispering things in my ear. I’ve told him many times can today just be a gentle loving day. He says I’m sorry I can’t help it you just look so good or if I didn’t you’d worry I don’t want you.
-he wants to have sex basically every night. If we don’t have sex I can tell he is jerking off in the middle of the night in bed next to me, sometimes I think it’s even in his sleep.
-he used to try to have sex with me even when I’m sleeping or wake me in the middle of the night. I’d complain about how it affects my sleep but he’d still do it. He hasn’t the last week because I finally was very harsh and said it feels almost like I’m being raped because I go to bed with a firm no but then he’s trying to finger me or something else while im asleep. I’m sorry if me saying that was offensive to true raps victims, but I snapped because in that moment it felt like that’s what he was doing. He says he doesn’t realize he is doing it, so maybe he’s doing a lot of that in his sleep? Hence the sex addiction?
-he often pouts if we don’t have sex. If I say no he will turn over and act like he’s this horrible person.

Is this a sex addiction? What can I do to help him? What can I do to fix this? It has made me hate sex!

TLDR
I love my husband very much but I think he’s addicted to sex and it has caused me to hate sex, a very important part of our marriage. I need help learning not to dread bedtime and how to help my Husband not be addicted to sex.

So my wife works as a bank manager, and one of her customers is a restaurant. The manager came in and she asked him to give our kid a job. He says he would, and did. This was two months ago. Well after that they started talking more. It started about how he was doing,(son) to gossip how he is with friends, to just friendly talk, and being managers working with young people. All three of us are 50.She would come home and tell me. On her lunch, she walks the shopping center they are both located in.The first time I met him I got creepy vibes. Being a father of three girls I can pick up on that. I told her about it, and she said yeah he's a little much. You don't have anything to worry about. One night we were out and ran into him. He was drunk, and hit on her in front of me. That night I told her I wanted all the conversation to stop, but I'm fine if it's work. If you have to wait on him I get it. Well she argued at first just friends, she's never cheated, her ex cheated on her and she wouldn't wish that pain in anyone blah blah. The next day she comes home and says you were right. He asked me to go get a drink with him. She said she told him no she is happily married which I believe. We are connected by phones so we always know where the other is. Well this was on the fifth. Well she didn't run into him anymore that week. She was off for three days. Well last week he came in to make a deposit that Monday. She didn't wait on him. When he left he waved to her and said I'll see you around. Well Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. While walking he stopped her while she was walking on lunch. She said she exchanged pleasantries made it short and continued her walk. Well I told her I wanted it all to stop, because he isn't giving up. At first she was like it's no big deal. He can hit on me all he wants. I'm not going anywhere blah blah. I said just tell him no and don't talk to him at all. Walk past him. She said it isn't in her nature to be like that, and who cares if they say hi, good morning, how you been etc. I said it does to me we are married. Well she said you just need to get over it. Well about that time I started packing a bag. I said I can't do this if I know you are going to be talking to a guy that is trying to get in your pants. She said fine I'll cut off all communication. We'll she was off Friday. Went back this week, and now she isn't walking or anything. I asked her why she want walking. She tells me she can't say anything to him. It's not in her nature to be mean, and just cut someone out like that. If she walks she will talk to him, if he talks to her. I want to confront the guy but she is afraid for her job. I just can't figure out if nothing happened why can't you just not talk to him. Why even after all this if he talks to her, she has to talk back to him. I told her if nothing happened you're almost leading him on. As each day goes by I'm not feeling better about the situation.

About us married ten years. We've always been very happy, and close. Sex life is amazing, dates amazing raising my biological kids and now they are hers. Both second marriage, and both our marriages ended with our spouses leaving us for a work affair.

TL;DR

WHERE SHOULD WE GO FROM HERE? AM I BEING UNREASONABLE

Long story short. Well, as much as I can. Need advice with sex life.

This is half brag—half concern. Me (late 40s), Her (early 40s), married, with a child. Absolute love of my life. Both of them.

We’ve always had a pretty fantastic sex life. She’s shy on the outside but an absolute firecracker in bed. Inexperienced when we met, but she just seemed to have this natural earthy, sexual energy which was, for me, literally mind-blowing. I couldn’t quite understand what was happening, and because at the time I feared there’d be no long-term future in it, I started filming Her sometimes (with Her permission and face hidden) to simply capture that magic and crystallize those moments with Her.

Fast forward a few years. Married, in love, fantastic sex, home videos and photos.
In the years preceding, I never shared images or videos of Her as she requested, but I still edited the films and photos—creating a massive library of Her and some short films which, to this day, are probably the things I am the most proud of creating (working professionally as a creative with little excitement for my day job).

After our first kid, my attraction to Her continued to increase. I was filming Her almost every night. What was once an annoyance to Her had become something She really liked—being the star, making eye contact with the camera, and just being the incredible sexual creature She is.

I convinced her to let me post some photos of Her online (anonymously), which again She didn’t like or understand at first—but She understood how much I needed to share Her with others, and She saw the effort and craft put into the photos.

I can’t recall exactly when, but I had also convinced Her to regularly wear lingerie every time we were together (which, given our jobs and kid, was only 1 or 2 days a week, but the production value and intensity of our sessions more than made up for the relatively modest amount of sex each week).

Fast forward again. Hundreds of followers, some new chat friends who were equally into wife sharing (both fantasized and real), and sex was better than ever.

She knows I have a slightly unhealthy attraction to females (my past—before Her), and part of the reason She’d become such an open and giving sexual being and even let me share her images was also because She knew it kept me on the straight and narrow. It honestly felt, at times, like I was dating my favourite AV star sometimes. She’s all I think about.

OK. So. Here’s my issue. It’s fading out. No photos or videos for months now. She just hit 40 and She’s stopped going to the gym (She works a lot and incredibly hard), and lingerie barely makes an appearance now. I know given our age and fading physicality that slowing down might be normal—but I must fight it. I must maintain. This sudden lull of sexual effort proves I was clever to capture all I did so I can watch Her forever, but I still don’t want things to fade out. However, I also don’t want to control Her or pressure Her, as it’s both unfair and largely unsuccessful, even when I try to broach the issue in subtle ways.
Even I struggle sometimes to find the energy now too.

I miss showing Her off. I don’t want to stop losing myself in a heady mix of music, intense sex, lighting, and magic when we are together. I worry that without Her incredible sexual energy and performance, my attention might turn, or our passion will fade faster.

I feel like I’ve done such a great job (yes ok selfishly) of unlocking Her sexuality and confidence—as well as enjoying a sex life that is so great it had to be shared—that now I worry life will become dull and ‘normal,’ and I don’t know if my ADHD and anxiety issues can handle the loss.

I understand some might read this and think I am selfish, controlling, and ‘forcing’ Her to be the version of Her I want. You might be right, partly. But it’s not like I haven’t also grown into someone She wanted me to become too in other areas of our marriage.

Can anyone relate? Am I just being selfish? I read about other relationship issues and listen to podcasts and videos about marriage struggles, and they remind me of how good I’ve got it—but—it’s not enough, and now I feel like it’s the beginning of the end of our beautiful sex life.

Can anyone relate?

tl;dr Sex life is amazing. Scared it is fading away. How can I prevent the fade out without being selfish?

Not sure how I’m supposed to react - my wife teaches high school and they take 60 kids to the mountains for a two night camping trip. Three female teachers , two male - one of the whom brought his spouse along . Tonight while in the phone with my wife, I did ask what the sleeping arrangements were - to which she she kind of sheepishly told me that she will need to share a private cabin with the lone remaining male teacher - a colleague of hers - also married with two kids etc. It felt weird - basically I took her transparency about the situation as a good sign - and I really do wonder when she was going to tell me - I sort of get it - they had three units reserved for staff - abs one was taken by the couple, so somebody had to share with the male teacher. I’m not super suspicious here - just wanted to check how other people would have reacted to find this out like I did - would have been different if this was discussed before the trip. Like my first question was asking if his wife was ok with this arrangement ahead of time. To me, it just felt kind of weird

TLDR. Wife on a school trip, informed me this evening that she will need to share sleeping accommodations with a male colleague. How would others feel about such a scenario ?

I (30F) have been married to my husband (34M) for 5 years, together for 8. We have had a very solid, happy relationship for the most part. I’m currently 8 months pregnant, and since I was 4 months pregnant, I’ve had this nagging paranoia that something was wrong. I’ve never mistrusted him. He’s very open with finances, location sharing, phone sharing, doesn’t hang out with friends without me, and we generally spend alot of time together. We laugh and have a ton of fun. I pushed this suspicion away because I thought I was crazy and the pregnancy hormones were getting to me.

Some background: Last year was hands down the worst year of my life. We started the year with a tragic miscarriage, followed by placing my dad in hospice, another miscarriage, and then my dad passing away. It was a lot on my body and mind. We were not having sex regularly and there were definitely gaps. However, that was not top of mind for me tbh. I was just trying to survive each day. Our sex live, in general, has had a lot of ebbs and flows, which I thought was normal. My husband has never made a big deal out of it and I really thought he was being incredibly kind and understanding last year. I felt so lucky to be with someone who took care of me and was never pressuring me. We found out we were pregnant again end of 2025, right around my dad’s death. My first trimester was spent equal parts nauseous and depressed. I rarely got out of bed. I was like that until month 4 of my pregnancy.

Fast forward to now, 8 months pregnant…this week, that suspicion just felt soo strong. In the last few months, my libido is back and his seems to have vanished. He keeps saying he’s tired and stressed, which is partly true but he never initiates sex and when he does it all seems boring to him. It’s just been so odd. We barely had sex last year into this year and for him to be this disinterested had me so suspicious. I went through his phone a few times at night. I felt horrible doing this because he’s been so open with me on most things. The first few times, I never found anything and was relieved but the feeling never left. This last time, I decided to go to an app I never open on his phone—Reddit. First off, it was password protected, which was odd to me. Idk much about Reddit, but my app is def not password protected. Luckily, it was easy to guess the password and immediately I saw why. Secondly, it was all basically porn. I’m ok with porn. I think it’s harmful and annoying but I understand why ppl turn to porn. 90% of the subreddits he was on were porn porn porn. All women who look nothing like me, which stung, but also I could rationalize that. Finally, I went to his inbox and that’s where I got a jolt to my system. I saw tons of messages between him and random girls. I thought this would be a recent pregnancy thing but no..he’s been messaging women explicit sexual messages for at least 4 years, the majority of our marriage. The messages included stuff about their body parts, cumming, sexual fantasies, asking for “custom content”, where do they do more content (OF or other platforms), etc. there were also messages of him just complimenting their bodies, outfits, makeup, etc. —as though he was trying to get to know them/talk to some of them. The most recent messages are from a few days ago and the furthest back are 4 years ago. I also cross checked dates of messages—he messaged about cumming to someone’s outfit days after my first miscarriage. As I was getting fetal tissue removed and working on my dad’s hospice paperwork, he was messaging women about their bodies and how he wanted to fuck them. The list goes on. He also had a tendency to message them first thing when he woke up. Last year, during the hardest year for us, he was messaging so many crazy things to women.

If I had known last year, I would have divorced him. This is a clear boundary that I’ve communicated to him in the past. A few years ago, I noticed he was following naked models on IG, and asked him to stop and explained how that would escalate to something like this. He unfollowed all the IG women and moved it to Reddit and clearly went a step further.

I confronted him immediately. He was so defensive and said he did nothing wrong at first. I couldn’t believe it. He’s justified this so much in his brain. Then, I started quoting his exact words to him with time stamps, that seemed to really snap him back to reality. He’s promised to go to porn addiction counseling. I’m just so checked out and trying to survive the rest of my pregnancy and this year. I won’t leave right now. Should I give him a chance with therapy? I’m not sure how to navigate the next few weeks and months with him.

Tl;dr my husband has been sending sexually explicit messages to Reddit girls for years

I’ve been with my husband for 8 years (4 married). He has been offered a new position that he wants to accept, but it means that we’ll be in separate hemispheres with me (F,31) in Australia and him (M,38) in Germany. We’ll be apart for 16 months and will probably be able to see each other 2-3 times for a couple of weeks each during that time. I can’t go with him because of my job here and because we have a dog who I don’t want to risk traumatising with international travel. 

Other relevant info- he does have some close family in Europe so would get to see them. This role would not be a career advancement or more money than his current role but some of the guys he started his career with have been given the same opportunity and he wants to go with them.

My question is- am I naïve to believe that he could be faithful for this length of time or to believe that he really loves me? Is it a red flag that he would choose this time apart? He has a good job here and could also take the same job on a shorter contact (he is looking to specifically choose the longer one), so it’s not like there are no options.

Or, if you have been in this situation before, did it work out ok?

TLDR my husband wants to live apart for 16 months for an overseas job. Can a marriage survive this?

My husband 22(M) wants a divorce. We've been married for almost two years and he is the love of my life and I don't see myself moving on with anyone else ever.
He wants to divorce because he feels betrayed about my sexual past that I had lied about when we started dating because 1. I was ashamed and it was a very low point in my life, and 2. i didn't want to hurt him, i thought it was best if i kept it all to myself and just lived with it and moved on with it that it would be better for us and our relationship. Well... that did not go as planned and I should have just been honest from the start, I know, a big fuck up. He went through my phone a few months back and found out about an additional sexual encounter i had with a partner i had been sleeping with off and on that I didn't orginally tell him about and he wanted to leave me then, we worked past it and decided to stay together and that it wasn't a super big deal, well current day, a few weeks ago he went through my dead ipad that we DO NOT USE, he went and found the ipad, charged it and started to go through and try and find messages back from before we started dating about two guys that I was with before him and had encounters with. It was awful, we talked a lot, i owned up to all mistakes, we kinda decided to work on stuff and stay together and he told me he wants to talk and work on stuff and be together, but now present day, he erupts on me when he gets home from work on how he doesn't want to be with me anymore and all his anger is pent up and he thinks about what he saw and found out daily that he just erupted and couldn't handle it anymore. we genuinely do love eachother a lot and had an awesome life so far, we've built amazing memories together, planned a life, have a house together, literally everything and now he's telling me he's beginning to hate me and doesn't want to be with me anymore and does not want to try and work on anything anymore even though we were already trying. i'm tired, i'm sad, i love him and i know i fucked up, i just miss my best friend and i love him and i want to be with him forever. i suggested maybe we separate for a little bit and see if we can build a longing for eachother that maybe that'll help, but idk. i just want my best friend back and i want to make him feel as loved as i wish he did. please be kind, this is super hard for me and I really just want some advice on how to talk to him and what to do, because in my heart i believe he's just being mean to me because he doesn't know what else to do, he keeps saying he loves me and wants to be with me but doesn't know how to work past this.

TL;DR: Husband and wife are fighting about her sexual past and husband now doesn't want to work past it even though he said he would. She wants advice because she loves him and she's owned up to lying and her mistakes.

I am so beyond heartbroken. My husband (28m) and I (25f) have been married for maybe two months and I think we’ve talked about divorce more than going on a honeymoon.

Things have been rough. We’ve had a lot of little issues completely blow over due to just plain lack of understanding or care for the other persons feelings. I’ve been struggling with resentment…trying to talk to my husband about this has not gone well. I don’t know how to express hurt by his behavior in a way that is not taken as an attack. He jumps to defending himself first, getting dismissive, shutting down, or flipping the issue on me and that the way I feel is my fault. You can only have an argument flipped on you so many times before you start feeling like there’s just no point anymore.

I would vent to my sister after our interactions. Typical, blowing off steam and saying things I 100% don’t mean. Everyone’s done it. I stopped talking to my husband because I saw no point. I didn’t feel seen and I didn’t feel heard. The only time in our whole relationship I went to bed first, he went through my texts with my sister. I woke up to him laying beside me filing out our divorce papers.

My husband has acknowledged that I did try to talk to him, and that I wouldn’t have said the things I said to my sister if they were received by him. I don’t know how to fix this. I already felt like my husband hated me and now everything is just 100x worse. I feel like I ruined my marriage and it hasn’t even started yet. Every time we try to talk it just makes it worse. I want my best friend back. I want to feel like he cares but I genuinely don’t think we can give each other what we need and its actually ruining me.

TLDR; I felt emotionally abandoned by my husband for months. I vented to my sister, said I hated my husband in the heat of the moment. my husband read my texts and now I don’t know what to do.

Hi, I’m a 38 female married for 14 years with two kids, 13 & 7. For the last year I’ve been really struggling with my own conflicting feelings on if I want to be married to my husband anymore. Just a few reasons why:

our sex life is awful, we had great sexual chemistry in the beginning but after we had kids he never seems interested & I am a very sexual person so I am always initiating & when he shoots me down that destroys my confidence & even when we do have sex, me finishing is never a priority to him. I have mentioned this & he has said he is open to using toys but he has never mentioned it again after that one conversation.

Things like my birthday & Mother’s Day are also never a priority to him. He will get me gifts but they are always last minute & the gifts he picks make me feel like he doesn’t know me at all. I have put so much time & effort into making his birthdays special but it’s never reciprocated even after I have voiced my feelings.

When he’s angry with me he always resorts to yelling, which I have repeatedly asked him not to do because there’s no situation in which screaming at me is necessary & he does it in front of our children at times.

He puts more time & energy into his job & hobbies & none of it into our home. There’s several projects around the house I have wanted to get done & he never takes the initiative to do any of it. So I have to do literally everything.

Ok so I know after all of that it seems very obvious I should leave BUT I want to add that he is a great dad who really loves his kids, I know he loves me & I’ve never worried about him cheating on me & know he never will, he’s not abusive in any way, but honestly the biggest reason I stay are for my kids. If I left him I would have to move my kids & I into my dad’s house, & while I love my dad I do think I would go absolutely crazy living with him. Also though after my C-section I have saggy skin on my belly & a shelf. I’m not overweight in anyway but I’m super self conscious about that & honestly don’t know if I would ever be able to be naked in front of someone new, not that being with someone new is even a factor to me because I don’t currently have any desire to date BUT also on that hand I have a very pretty face, like my face card never declines which sounds conceited & forgive me for that but I’m also worried that I’m giving my best looking years to someone who doesn’t deserve it. He never compliments me ever but when we are doing “good” we are friends & have fun together.

My overall question is: is staying for my kids in a non abusive marriage worth it for them? I would do anything for them & if it’s better for them in any way then I’ll stick it out till my youngest is older.

TL;DR my husband is lazy, not sexual, & inconsiderate but not abusive, is it worth it to stick it out so that I don’t uproot my children’s lives?

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.

A little back story,
We got married young at 23. We have 4 children: 15, 12, 11 and 6. We will be 15 years married this year.

We had our first child right away, and I can honestly say I was not ready. I was so immature and self centered. Embarrassed by alot of my actions. I was not a good helping partner, I did not help much at all with my first daughter in the beginning. As long as I was ok, that’s all that mattered to me because I was working and she was a stay at home mom so I thought that was enough.

Throughout the years we have had our ups and downs feels like it’s always been a roller coaster or good and bad moments. We had had our bickering and arguing.
A little over a year ago was probably when we were just not happy. We were not communicating effectively and letting our emotions and temper run the conversations.
I know I have come a long way, especially with helping with the children. I do all the drop off and pick ups with schools (3 different schools). I make dinner everyday and do house chores of course. I would say I’m a really involved father to be honest. I can honestly say I know I was feeling under appreciated and she was feeling neglected. Especially looking back now I can own what I did wrong and learn and grow from it.
There was a moment she just wanted to talk about work and I was focused on something I was doing and once she finished talking I said: ok are you done so I can get back to what I was doing. Instead of being genuinely interested in what she wanted to share. Which I regret.

There was a moment that she asked if we could go to married counseling. I told her no, that I didn’t want to go talk to someone about our problems. Which honestly looking back now was probably a cry for help and attempt to help our marriage.

After that last moment, we started getting into our ups. Camping, family events and activities, fishing. There was one night that I woke up in the middle of the night, put my phone on the charger and I had this weird gut feeling that told me to check her phone. I’ve never been a jealous or not trusting type so this feeling was just weird to me but I listening. I browsed through her phone and in her deleted messages I found lots of text messages with her co worker.
I confronted her and she denied it. Until I showed her what I found and she told me the truth.
That she had emotionally detached from me and she was contemplating leaving me to be with him. I know it was more emotional than physical but she did tell me they kissed a few times and would hug and hold each other. They never had sex and I can honestly say I do believe her on that.
It went on for about 3 months and by the time I looked through her phone and found out she told me she had broke it all off a week prior. That’s why his number was no longer saved in her phone. She mentioned she told him that she couldn’t do this and that I didn’t deserve any of this so she wanted to stop and focus on her marriage. That it for some reason it really didn’t work out that maybe then they can reconnect.

I know in my marriage what I have done and put her through. She stuck by my side, especially in the beginning when she could have left. It makes me want to give her grace. Also the flags/cry for help for wanting counseling and me just shutting it down. I can honestly see how she could detach from me.

But part of me is just not sure, the level of trust that was broken hurts. It’s been 8-9 months since i found out and we have been working on us. Things have been good. I can honestly say we are in a spot that I wish we had been the entire time. Communication is great. I can tell she is emotionally and physically attached to me. We have fun together and it’s back to like how we dated.

The thing is, I know and I’m taking ownership for what I have done and it allows me to give her grace and try to stick it out with her but it’s hard. I constantly have moments where I’m second guessing myself. Sometimes I feel like just an idiot for staying when she was planing on leaving me and starting a life with someone else.

I’m not sure if what I’m doing is right or I should be doing something else. I still love her, I don’t know if it’s too late. I also don’t want to mess up my children, I grew up with divorced parents and I know first hand what trauma it can cause.

tl;dr
I hope someone can provide some wisdom or insight. M
Thank you

Need advice on what you think. Am I over thinking or am I onto something?

I never check my husband’s phone because he hardly has anything there like he will have a few pictures of our children and mostly if his work. Like tools and work he has done. So I don’t care much to check. One night while he was asleep and I had stayed up to clean up a bit I noticed he left his cellphone on the couch. I looked at it and honestly something was telling me to check it. I looked through it with this odd feeling like I knew there was something there. I found selfies of him (weird he because he never takes selfies, only when we were dating. And he hardly lets me take him pics of him because he says he is fat) he is medium build btw. I thought it was odd because he never sent me any pictures. Then I looked into his trash folder and there they were. Pics of his manly tool, and a video clips of him touching himself. I felt my blood boiling and I just kept on saying to myself. These weren’t for me. I chose to keep the information to myself to look for more evidence since I didn’t find anything else. A week after I decided I couldn’t take it anymore and faced him with what I had found. He looked shook and said those were done for himself and he didn’t share them with me and deleted them because he was embarrassed. This is my husband of 12 years, embarrassed. At the end I told him I didn’t believe him but I was going to give him the benefit of a doubt because I felt like I was going to pass out I couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t control myself. So I just prayed for God to help me control my self and health because my kids needed me. I had just had a baby and I was not going to have a health scare because of his ass. Fast forward to now. We are still together because I didn’t find anything else other evidence he had sent it to someone .

My question is, is it possible he tooked them just for himself? There were other things that were happening during that time but nothing big. WHAT WOULD YOU THINK ABOUT IT? This is my 1st time posting I’m sorry if I missed anything

Tl;dr thanks
Possible cheater selfie

I have been married for almost a year. My husband and I are both teachers and are very busy. He does a lot of coaching and I do an after school activity for multiple days throughout our school year, so we don’t see each other nearly as much as we see our students and coworkers. I struggle with depression and anxiety and have been on many different antidepressants to manage it. My newest one, I’ve noticed, has created a low libido for me. The older I’ve gotten and the more stressed I am, I also notice my libido is lower. Honestly, the last time I had a high libido is probably in 2022, and it wasn’t even that high. My husband’s libido is pretty high like he wants sex almost 4-5 days out of a week. Me, on the other hand, am fine with once a week or even less. It is very hard for me to get into the mood especially after a long day. When we both finally get home, we eat dinner, watch a show, check our phones, and that’s basically it. I feel like we are already lacking the connection that we once had and it makes me feel really scared and sad. We’ve talked about it multiple times, but it seems to always creep back up. Whenever he initiates sex, I have a hard time always wanting to since my libido is low and sometimes I just straight up don’t want to have sex. He claims he doesn’t get mad, but I can tell he does. He’s given me the silent treatment multiple times afterwards and the next day, always says things like, “It makes me feel like you don’t like me when you always reject me,” and “Sorry that I just want to have sex with my wife.” To an extent, I get where he is coming from, but I also feel like him not just accepting a simple “No,” from me, makes me feel uncomfortable almost. I don’t want to have to feel guilty for saying no. I have explained to him over and over my feelings too about it, and I feel like my feelings are more dismissed than his. Maybe I am overreacting, but I’m not sure how to get over this. It happens at least once a month. I just don’t want this to continue to take a toll on our marriage.

tldr: Husband wants sex, and I am not in the mood. Gives me the silent treatment and makes me feel guilty. How do I navigate this after explaining to him multiple times that my libido is low and that sometimes I just don’t want to have sex.

​

Due to the medication I was on for a long long time, I have no desire for my other half. Now that I am off the medication.. no desire for him has returned. It's the opposite to be honest. And due to him bothering me daily about desiring him... It has causes any kind of desire that may surface to disappear. I have told him these conversations and any kind of pressure stops the desire to come back. Yet he keeps bringing it up... Almost daily. The Councilor has told him that it isn't helping... I've told him it isn't helping. Yet he still does it. Idk what I'm suppose to do anymore. I feel like I am a failure. No matter what I do.. isn't good enough... Yet my friends and mental health worker have told me I'm not failing.. I am good enough. That he needs to be patient. Which he has to a point... But it isn't enough... These conversations about the desire/sex/intimacy need to stop. Period. But it won't.....it's destroying me on the inside...I've had thoughts of ending my life because there is no end in sight. Idk what to do anymore. I dread going home... But have to for the dogs.

TL;DR: Partner keeps pressuring talks about desire/sex/intimacy and it’s making me shut down more.

The last two years have been hard on me and my spouse. We got married. We bought a house. My wife, who has a PhD, lost their job when the new administration came in and has been trying to pivot to independent research. We lost our house due to lack of income (my job pays okay, but not great) and we had to move coasts to live with their parents until my wife can get a job in our new state.

My wife’s mother just underwent foot surgery, and can’t walk for some months. Their parents have an extensive garden and some of that work has fallen on my wife’s shoulders, along with their own independent research. I work from 6am to 2pm in a stressful job that my wife hates (but I don’t, and that’s a different argument). In the afternoon my wife wants to hike, or go places in town, or do other activities - they try to fill all of my free time with “fun” stuff, no matter if I’m too tired to enjoy it.

The issues is that I’m drowning in housework and they don’t care. We JUST finished unpacking our moving storage unit and the house still looks like a disaster. They won’t do dishes. They don’t do consistent cat care. They don’t want to clean at all unless people are coming over, and then it usually ends up with me spending several hours rushing around and trying to clean while they cook or disappear. When I ask them to do things I get snapped at, and when I just let it go and don’t bother they either never get to it or snap at me to do it because it’s gross. When they handle things, half the time they ask me to do part of whatever task they’ve chosen.

They think my job is stressing me, but I’ve told them over and over again that I can’t relax when the house is dirty. I’ve tried to get them to clean a little bit daily, but they won’t. I’m exhausted by trying to convince them to care about my needs.

They’re on a research trip and honestly not having to clean up after them is a relief. The only dishes in the sink are mine, and they take a minute to do. There’s no one leaving tissues or food on the table or mugs around the house. I can work on getting the rest of the house in order.

I also miss them. When we’re not in the house it’s great - we chat and do things and it’s fun. Working in the garden or going for hikes is fun! And then we walk back into the house and see the dishes in the sink that they never bothered with and I want to just cry. They remark on the trash needing to go out and don’t do it and I want to scream. They ask me to clean the cat bowl, again, and I just … give up. They weren’t always like this, but every time I step up when they falter it’s like they just mentally foist the task on me forever.

Fights about this lead to them crying and saying they’re worthless, and overwhelmed, and depressed, and nothing changes. Asking them to do more leads nowhere, because they’re time blind and just forget the last time they did it, insisting something that happened a week ago was yesterday. Offering strategies gets me snapped at.

I just… don’t know if I’m asking too much. The house is less than 1000sq ft, with a bedroom, office, living room, and dining room/kitchen. We both cook. My wife washes and dries the laundry, and we both fold our own clothes (I also usually fold the towels etc because I’m faster), does the grocery shopping, and arranges vet visits. Sometimes they’ll vacuum or do a partial fridge clean out, and when they feel like it (usually about twice a week) do dishes or empty the drying rack. They’re also in charge of some garden stuff while their mom is laid up, mostly watering, and sometimes if their father is out of the house prepping lunch for their mom or doing small tasks. They work a few (maximum six) hours a day, and almost never after 2pm or before 9am.

I wash floors, do dishes, clean the kitchen, empty the dish drying rack, clean cat boxes, feed and water cats, brush cat teeth (this is a new task, admittedly, recommended by the vet), pill cats, vacuum, sweep, do general pick up, take out the trash, clean the bathrooms, and do whatever other house upkeep thing I see needs done (like cleaning out the fridge, finishing up tasks they started before the waiting ruins something, ant poison treat the windows, deal with moving clutter) on top of an eight hour workday. Generally if I space it out or stay on top of it most things will take between five to ten minutes, but if I don’t and we have visitors it can take hours. If I leave any part of it to them, they procrastinate until they feel overwhelmed and I take something back.

My goal is just a house that isn’t dirty. You should be able to walk in socks in the kitchen and not worry about sticking to the floor, or be embarrassed if a friend drops by. My other goal is a wife who sees a mess and doesn’t go “someone should do that”, because then that someone is me and I’m tired.

Am I asking too much? Are my standards too high? Or am I just fighting against an entropic force, and should give in to the idea that my wife doesn’t care about my needs and I just need to learn to handle the household upkeep by myself?

Tl;dr Two queer people in a chore war regarding a small house are fighting over division of labor. I need advise on approaching this without them dissolving into tearful self hatred or biting my head off.

I am an American woman married to a Pakistani man. He comes from a culture where men tend to be a bit more possessive and I find myself enjoying that side of him. I identify myself as a feminist and when we got married, he assured me that he will always respect my views and my freedom. He has stayed true to that but deep down inside he can not change who he is and I find myself intentionally teasing him.

I am quite modestly dressed but sometimes, I will intentionally wear a low neck line. He does not like it when people stare at my bust and though he never mentions anything to respect my choice, I can sense that he does not like another man staring at them. His suppressed aggression is never towards me but towards others who hold their gaze a bit too long.

He gets that "dont even DARE look" body language which is purely unintentional but quite intimidating but I find it to be sooooo cute! In all these four years that we have been married, he has held his promise and never told me how to dress. Though I know his unstated preference and he would want a bit more modesty in the chest area in those occasions.

I ask myself why do I enjoy doing this to him? Firstly, he is very attractive and we could be standing next to each other and people will not realize that we are together. Bi!tches act out and compete for his gaze but if I have a low neckline, I know he will notice any of that theater. He would either look at my curves, or scan protectively who is looking at his treasures. I find it cute to see him like that.

Secondly, he will always bring me home and make love to me in the most possessive way. It makes me feel secure though he can be rough.

My ex-husband was a swinger. He would enjoy passing me around and I felt pressured to be in those situations. I had to get drunk to not feel those moments and just go along to please him. I felt like I did not mean anything to him. It led to domestic abuse in my past marriage.

This man is the exact opposite. To have someone act jealous and possessive is very "sexy" to me and I find myself orgasming like four to five times when he loves me like he "owns" me. I know it sounds bad but I feel like I belong to him and my ex never made me feel like that.

Sometimes, teasing can be sadistic and I do not want to be the abuser. It makes me wonder if this is innocent teasing or abuse? It is a form of control over your spouse.

tl;dr I intentionally expose myself to make my husband jealous

Disclaimer: This is very much real unfortunately, but I used AI to help recap the whole situation and make this post. If she’s not gonna listen to us, maybe she will listen to a bunch of people on the internet. Please blow this up. Please talk some sense into her. Get her to understand the gravity of this situation. Thank you.

I am writing this because I am desperately trying to save someone I care about from an incredibly dangerous, life-altering mistake, and I need objective outside perspectives to show her how severe this situation is.

My friend (20s F) has been suffering from severe, crippling depression and a deep feeling of loneliness. The terrifying part is she hid it perfectly. To me and her other best friends, she was always joyous, happy, and smiling. Nobody had any idea she was drowning.

Because she felt isolated and desperately wanted to feel chosen, she met a guy in the military (Navy) and completely fast-forwarded her entire life on a split-second impulse.

The timeline of this relationship is absolutely terrifying. They met less than two months ago, and he proposed to her on their third time ever seeing each other in person. Think about that. They are literal strangers. You cannot possibly know a single thing about a person's character, history, or temper in three meetings. Desperate for stability and an escape from her depression, she agreed and legally married him anyway. They are currently in Florida, and the plan is for her to move across the world with him to Spain. She said that she has been exhausted and liked that he “chose her instantly”. She wants the “safety” and “stability”.

Here are the facts she has admitted to me:

1 The proposal timing is a massive red flag: Proposing to someone the third time you lay eyes on them is not a "fairytale" or "devotion." It is a calculated tactic used by unstable or controlling people to lock a person down legally before the mask slips and they show their true colors.

2 He is dangerous and armed: When he was helping her move out of her apartment recently, someone honked their horn at them. This guy’s immediate reaction was to pull a gun out of his car.

3. He completely ignores her boundaries: Yesterday, she built up the courage to tell him she wanted to go back home to Louisiana. His response? He went dead silent, completely iced her out, ignored her pain, and just kept physically moving her things into the apartment to trap her. He is pretending the conversation never happened, hoping she’ll just submit.

4. She is scared of his reaction: He keeps firearms in the house they are currently at. She explicitly told me she is actively afraid to tell him again that she wants to go home because she doesn't know how he will react, and thinks he might kill her. She says she doesn’t think he would, but also doesn’t know him well enough to know for sure.

I told her on the phone today that this is classic military isolation. He is on his best behavior right now to get her across the ocean. Once she is legally trapped in Spain, she will have no leverage, no friends, no family, and no support system, while he gets deployed and leaves her alone in a foreign country. He handles conflicts with silence and weapons. This is a domestic abuse tragedy waiting to happen.

I have offered to put my keys in the ignition right now, drive 9 hours to Jacksonville, pick her up in a public place, and bring her straight back to her apartment and her support system in Louisiana. Her other best friends are screaming at her to leave too.

She keeps saying, "Give me until the end of the week to make a decision," and says she is going to read our texts to decide. She is treating her own life like a movie she’s just watching happen instead of saving herself. She is afraid of hurting his feelings now. She doesn’t want to have an uncomfortable conversation. I am trying to explain to her that this is her life.

Reddit, please don't hold back. I need you to tell her the unvarnished truth so I can show her this post. What happens to women who move across the world with an armed stranger they are already afraid of? How do I force her to see the severity of this before she gets on that plane?

TLDR: My friend (20s F) married an active-duty Navy sailor on impulse after knowing him less than 2 months (he proposed on their 3rd time seeing each other). She did it during a severe depressive episode.
The Danger: They are in Florida, moving to Spain on military orders very soon. He keeps guns in the house, has pulled a firearm on someone in traffic, and she explicitly admitted she is terrified he will kill her if she tries to leave. When she asked to go home yesterday, he completely iced her out and kept moving her stuff into the apartment to trap her.
The Goal: We are ready to drive 9 hours to rescue her from Jacksonville today, but she is paralyzed by fear and asking for "until the end of the week." I am sending her the link to this post.
The Question: Please tell her the brutal truth. What happens to women who isolate themselves in a foreign country with an armed stranger they are already terrified of? How dangerous is this?

Advice request: This is starting to look like addiction to me. Has anyone else dealt with this before? How can I walk the line between being supportive of him when things are tough and enforcing strict boundaries? Is there any way to keep an eye on his activity that I haven’t tried?

TW: p*Rn, addiction, mention of past ab*se, cheating

I’m going to try to keep this as brief as possible. After a long ab*sive relationship, I found the perfect person for me who is truly a cinnamon roll of a man. we’ve been together 7 years and married for two and a half, and we have a little boy. Best friends, always able to talk about everything without some childish fight. Several months back, I caught him paying a cam girl for a nude photo, and this was during a time when we were struggling financially and I was covering a lot of expenses. He said it was a one time thing and would never happen again, but he was lying - I later found out this had been going on for years, with one cam girl in particular but also many others, lots of payments for pictures, lots of items purchased from their wish lists, you get the idea. In my book, this is cheating. He would count it as cheating if it were me.

I won’t try to describe how betrayed I felt, I’m sure that’s obvious. I also have major body image issues - weight and scarring and age and trauma from my bad relationship - and seeing my husband contacting younger and prettier and thinner and physically perfect girls was shattering. To me, the lies are the worst part. I told him, if he had come to me to say he had slipped or he had trouble letting go of bad habits, we could talk about it, but he hid it, and that showed me he cared more about protecting his secret than protecting our relationship. As I told him, I don’t care about regular p*rn - but I have to draw the line at interacting with and paying another woman. To say nothing of what a horribly sexist act that is to begin with, controlling a woman with money, which is not who I thought I married.

He made all sorts of promises, seemed as devastated as I was, said he would be totally transparent, but even after that it has been one confrontation after another to get him to take down the cam girl pinup photos he’d put all over his home office, to prove to me he had deleted his OF account, to give up his device passwords so I can be sure he’s not playing me for a fool again. Weeks passed and I saw him looking at nude pictures and commenting on posts from nsfw Reddit accounts IN OUR ACTUAL CITY. Another confrontation, this one I got pissed. He had no good excuse.

Only a week later, I saw him looking up girls’ wishlists again, even if he wasn’t buying anything - he promised he was only looking out of morbid curiosity, more apologies, more promises. I’m being SO understanding, SO patient, checking in, trying to understand, but it always feels like he is just hiding more. He confessed that ”just p*rn” isn’t ever quite enough and he needs to get a level of intimacy that kinda goes beyond that, and I fully believe everyone should have an outlet that’s personal to them and their partner might not be a part of, but he HAS to leave other humans out of it. I’m not at all fond of AI either and he says he hates it too but I know he’s toyed with it.

Today I decided to look again at one of his devices and he had deleted his search history. No one would do that unless they had something to hide. I’m so exhausted and on the verge of taking our boy and leaving but I can’t tell if it’s an overreaction. He promised me transparency and it just keeps feeling like I’m the only one who cares about that. At the same time, he is my best friend, a great father, so loving and so good.

TL;DR: Perfect husband EXCEPT he has a long history of paying cam girls and despite promises, keeps hiding his online activity.

My wife of 4 years (been together over 10 years) with 2 girls, 1 and 3 years old, works in purchasing for a construction company. We are both in our late 30s. I work from home full time, she works from home 3 days a week. She got a new teammate who is about 30 years old. This guy has only worked there less than 3 weeks.

Whenever I go into the room that she works in, I would notice that she’s chatting on Teams with this guy. At first I figured it was just normal training him or answering questions about the job since he’s new. Well everyday I would go in the office to see what she wants for lunch, she would have their conversation pulled up. I asked her what all they talk about and apparently a lot of it started out as talking about another co worker that he has a crush on. So her and him, working with each other for just a few days are talking about out how he has a crush on this girl and he is talking to my wife about her like everyday he would say she’s so pretty, etc. really immature stuff, reminded me of 6th grader behavior. He wanted my wife to help him get with her. My wife tried and the girl was not interested.
Since then, he doesn’t talk about the girl he had a crush on anymore, and he just chats with my wife all day, from 7:30am to 4:30 pm. Once I realized they were chatting all day, everyday I asked my wife if I could see some of the conversations. He’s worked there less than 3 weeks and there are thousands of messages back and forth. Very few of the messages are work related. The rest are all just chatting and getting to know one another. She has send him pictures of our 2 girls and 3 cats, getting to know each other really well.

Yesterday, she left work early to take my daughter to a dr appointment. He messaged her to make sure she got home ok. In one message they were talking about middle names and he asked what my name was, she answered and his response is “that’s not very good, you should rename him.” She only responded with I like it and they went back on about their conversation. She thanked him for giving her a piece of gum and he says ANYTHING FOR YOU! And she did the blush reaction on it. She’s hearted some of his other messages. She talks to him in a way that she doesn’t with me like giddy middle schoolers I don’t even read through all the messages either, this was just all I saw. I told her that I think it’s inappropriate and she disagrees. I said if hr was to see these messages, would they think this is normal workplace behavior or appropriate. After that she deleted all the messages, but still stands on the grounds that this is normal.

In all our years together, I’ve never seen her act like this with someone before. She has always been very loyal to me. To be fair, she doesn’t initiate the conversations much, he does, but then she will ask follow up questions and kind of encourage it to keep going. This is even after I asked her to please try to keep things professional and work related with him. The one that really bugs me is when she was checking on her to make sure she made it home from work ok. I can’t imagine me doing something like this with my female co workers. Does not compute.

Am I wrong to feel that this could be something brewing here? Thousands of non work related messages with a new co worker in just a few weeks, where some of them seem to be borderline inappropriate. She says she has no feelings for him and not attracted to him as well. How do I navigate this

TLDR; wife has new co worker and they have already exchanged thousands of chats together (not about work). Started off about him being attracted to another girl in the office, but after being rejected by her, all his focus is now on chatting with my wife. Some of the chats feel inappropriate to me. Trying to figure out if I am overreacting or how to navigate this.

Thank you for any responses.