Is she depressed or is she having an affair? UPDATED

[grabby_tortilla]

Hello LS. 

I used to be a member here more than 14 years ago! Different account, obviously.

Then I got married, had kids, life happened, bla bla bla.

Now I'm going through a very rough time with my wife and I feel lost. I remember how LS helped me in the past, so ya, here I am, crawling back.

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I married a young woman I met in [Europe 12 and a half years ago. I brought her home to Canada, where she has thrived. Got citizenship, landed a high-paying federal government job where her salary has just exploded. She now makes more than me! That will change, as you'll see further on. 

She's built a circle of friends and integrated with my family. We have two young children (5 and 7). She's fluent in [multiple languages]

I went back to college last year to finish a degree I got lazy on when I was young and dumb. I'm one semester away from graduating and have a government job all lined up. Then I'll be making big bucks too.

This past year (2022) has been stressful with school, kids, her career, etc. 

We started arguing a lot. I tend to clam up when I get yelled at and become defensive. She was yelling at me a lot. It started about six months ago. It seemed the more she was angry with me, the more I pulled away and dove hard into my studies. This made her even angrier with me. Which made me even more avoidant. We had a complete DB by this point. 

In early December she came and said she wants to leave. She said she doesn't want a divorce, she just wants to live separately. She dreams of not having kids or anyone around for a week at a time. She was planning on moving out.

I was shocked and tend to think things through before making any decisions. I spent a couple of nights at a hotel, just to absorb. I made some decisions about what I want.

I came back and we talked and I told her I didn't want us to break up and wanted to fix our marriage. I told her I loved her. She started crying and said she was so relieved. Turns out in my absence she had called up my sister-in-law in tears (they're kinda close, but she's married to my brother so I know everything). She was so upset and confused about her life. She told me her mom back in Ukraine said she shouldn't leave me. She has a streak of traditional Orthodox culture in her blood.

Anyways, Christmas season rolls around and suddenly we're holding hands and cuddling. We start having sex like we're making up for lost time. I'm talking two, three times a day. I tell her I love her every day and at first she never responded but now she's saying "I love you too" back to me, although never just "I love you" out of the blue. We started going on dates, and cuddling a lot, and being affectionate to each other. I'm trying hard to handle my half of the household chores and just be there in her life.

Truth be told, I'm completely head over heels in love with her again, like I was for the first half of our marriage. But now she's not so affectionate.

Then on New Year's day I discovered her sexting with some schmuck from a different city. They both work for the same government department but he lives 1500 km away. It wasn't just sexting, it was emotional. He was even mentioning his kids by name. 

I didn't snoop too deep. I confronted her and she said it was just for fun and it started after she had broken up with me. However, it was still going on after our attempt at reconciliation.

She said she deleted the chat threat and unfriended him on Facebook. I don't want to go snooping through her phone, but that thing is with her all the time. She's constantly on it. She sleeps with it and opens it up first thing in the morning.

Last night she told me she still wasn't sure if she loved me or not. I said I can't control you, but just know I love you and I'm committed to fixing things. She continued to hold my hand and kiss me, and we even made very passionate love in the morning.

She told me she just feels so exhausted with everything, with life. She doesn't even know if she loves our children. She said she just doesn't seem to care about anything but being by herself and having no one bug her. I immediately recognized the signs of depression. I'm encouraging her to seek therapy.

We also have couple's therapy coming up next week.

But my heart is breaking. I can't stop thinking about that guy she was sexting. And wondering if she's simply taken it further underground. I keep imagining they've met (he came to our city in November...his social media was easy to track down...but she claims this stuff didn't happen until December) and she wants to leave me for him. He's separated from his wife with two little girls in his home town, far far away. 

I worry she's continuing the affair. I worry I'm looking too much into it. She's committed to the marriage counselling. She's affectionate to me. Is it depression? Or are my worst fears coming true?

Edited January 17, 2023 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
removed locations

[BrinnM]

22 minutes ago, grabby_tortilla said:

I worry she's continuing the affair. I worry I'm looking too much into it. She's committed to the marriage counselling. She's affectionate to me. Is it depression?

No, it’s not depression, it’s obviously an affair. Sure, she might feel “depressed” on top of it (she’s overwhelmed, juggling two guys is stressful, that wears you out; plus the guilt and the anxiety about possible future decisions & changes), but she’s clearly hiding an affair from you. All signs are there. Separated guy, working for the same org, he’s in town (don’t even think for a minute that they didn’t meet up), she withdraws, DB, suddenly she doesn’t know if she loves you, isn’t “sure” about the way her life is going, wants to be left alone, the list goes on. I get it: you don’t want to dig, because the truth is sometimes scary. 
 

But you’re just delaying the unavoidable. If you want to save this marriage, the more you know the better; if you want to divorce, the more you know the better. Gather all the facts, because only if you have those will you be able to make an informed decision. 

[JTSW]

20 hours ago, grabby_tortilla said:

She told me she just feels so exhausted with everything, with life. She doesn't even know if she loves our children. She said she just doesn't seem to care about anything but being by herself and having no one bug her.

All parents are exhausted with everything from time to time and would love a little down time.

She's not the exception and she can't just have a week off when she feels like it.

I agree it's not depression.

This other guy has turned her head and influenced her in some way because she was totally with you before he reared his head.

You need to tell her that if she wants time off from you and the kids then it'll be permanent. 

She will lose you and the kids forever.

No going back. 

She cant pick and chose. Either she's with you and the kids or she's not.

[mark clemson]

She cheated on you with the sexting. It sounds probable that nothing physical happened with they guy, but clearly it's cheating to you (which is what counts most) nonetheless.

Address it when you go to marriage counseling and ensure it stops completely as best you can. If it was me, I'm not sure I'd want to reconcile, but if I did want to, I'd make clear there would be very strong consequences for a repeat.

[glows]

This reads to me as that tenuous ground a couple treads when trying to rebuild trust. You will have to find out for yourself whether your own feelings for her have changed. It’s very common for couples to be trapped in a push/pull dynamic when trust is shattered through infidelity. 

It doesn’t matter what she does or what she tells you in the end - those marital vows were already broken when she went outside the marriage however which way we chose to see it, cheating or emotional cheating. 

If you can’t trust her any longer or her being faithful, you might want to put yourselves out of this misery and go your separate ways.

Tracking her social media is just one way that this chaos is seeping into the life you’ve built together. You have no peace of mind and are taking a gamble waiting to see if it ever returns.

 

[pepperbird2]

Just a heads up…as one Canadian fed employee to another…your spouse is in shaky ground if she’s sexting  some other civil servant , even one thousands of km away. There’s a push on to reduce the number of fed employees ( all departments ) and she should watch her step.

 

That being said, she’s acting like a jackass. It’s bad enough that she’s jerking you around- she’s also saying she doesn’t even care about her kids? 
 

what do you even see in her? 

 

 

[grabby_tortilla]

Short version: wife came to me in early December with "Love you/not in love" and wanted a separation. I said I didn't and lets work on it. She said ok. 

[ ]  I spent all Christmas season trying to woo her all over again. We have two little kids. I wanted to save our family. I love her, and I love them. 

At first, it was going well. She was totally into it. We made love constantly. [ ]  Okay, so I did that. She loved it.

Holding hands, cuddling, etc. She even began to say "I love you too" when I said "I love you." She's sending me sexy pics of her in a bikini. We go on dates. We do family things and our kids love it.

I start dieting and working out and drop 20 pounds in a month. I'm helping out around the house a ton. We do projects together. We start MC. She said she's so relieved we're working on things. 

But my gut one day just started screaming. Something is up. Her phone. It's always going off. She's always on it. She never lets it get too far and hides it from me. Some days she's totally distracted and cold. I notice she has developed a nervous twitch in her hands. She's constantly grinding her teeth.

This morning, while she was sleeping, I grab her phone and finally snoop. More than a thousand messages. Some guy far away in a city on the other side of the country (we live in Canada). She had gone to that city for work back in October. 

They met there. He came to our city in November. The month my best friend and his family were killed in a head-on collision and I was devastated. She had been vague and distant then. No wonder.

[ ] 

Those sexy pics? Ya, she was sending them to him too. 

He's separated with two little kids back in his hometown.

I wake my wife up. Hand her the phone. "There are some messages for you." I tell her. 

Oh s***. The look on her face. She flips. "I want a divorce!" she says. I tell her I'm not leaving this home. She has to go. I take the kids to school. She's gone when I get back.

Left a note. She says she'll help me with finances until I'm on my feet (I'm just in my last term of college after going back --- which she agreed to two years ago and would support us while I did so). I have a good paying job lined up in May thanks to my college degree I'm about to get.

I'm devastated right now. I'm a mess. Kids are home. My son is playing Minecraft and my daughter is happily splashing in a bubble bath. They're asking where mommy is. I tell them she took a little vacation. I know she's actually at her friend's house.

For starters, I absolutely am going to get tested for STDs. Second, I'm going to see a lawyer, and soon. As a broke student who is now a single father, I qualify for legal aid, which means the government will pay for the lawyers. There's a process and some bureaucracy, but I'm getting on that tomorrow morning.

My WW is an immigrant to Canada from Europe. [ ] I taught English there a long time ago and met her there, we fell in love, dated for a couple of years, married, and then I brought her to my home here in Canada. She's since thrived here, got citizenship (which my brother paid for because it's ridiculously expensive) and a big cushy job with the federal government.

But she has nobody here. No family. Her social network is tenuous at best. Most of her friends are married couples with kids who don't have time to invest in a real friendship. The AP lives on the other side of the North American continent. He has kids of his own and is separated (I snooped his socials). [ ] . She's not going to be able to move there with the kids, because she'll get arrested for kidnapping. 

She left the marital home, and left the kids here. She had promised to support me while I went back to college full time. She has broken that promise. She has nowhere to live, no one to help her [ ] 

I seriously underestimated the extent of mental illness. The affair fog is playing havoc with her. She is seriously in trouble and as someone who was her husband for 12 years until today, my heart is actually breaking not only for me, but for her. She's going to be in a world of hurt and doesn't even realize it yet. I hate that this is happening.

Edited January 17, 2023 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
language/content inappropriate for this forum/

[JTSW]

5 hours ago, grabby_tortilla said:

She is seriously in trouble and as someone who was her husband for 12 years until today, my heart is actually breaking not only for me, but for her. She's going to be in a world of hurt

Honestly, this is all her doing so don't feel bad for her.

She had a loving family and husband and threw it all away.

Her actions have consequences and she has to deal with that.

She will majorly regret it and won't have any help from the AP because she has no way to get to him.

She will likely try and come crawling back when she has no other options, but don't ever take her back.

She will never change.

[Wiseman2]

On 1/8/2023 at 12:09 PM, grabby_tortilla said:

In early December she came and said she wants to leave. She said she doesn't want a divorce, she just wants to live separately. She dreams of not having kids or anyone around for a week at a time. She was planning on moving out.

Sorry this is happening. Even if she follows her dream of leaving you, she still needs to follow through on divorce and severing the marriage. Since she's the sole breadwinner, she'll have to pay child support. She doesn't have to put you through college, but there are financial obligations until you're legally divorced. Is she paying the bills at this time? Be the best dad you can be and see what an attorney advises.