I have, for 20+ years, been blessed with the easiest marriage I know of. My wife and I are best buddies, never fail to make each other laugh, keep life in proportion, and look out for each other. But in the pandemic my mental health slowly degraded, my wife's work stress went to hell, and I not only wasn't there for her, I added my anxiety to her life. Now I'm in the darkest point of my life. Help.
I became anxious that my wife was having a minor work-husband relationship during the pandemic times. I don't think she really did. I have zero suspicion that anything like an affair, emotional or physical, happened. She mentored a young new professional in the high-stress workplace she owns, both in his technically demanding job and through his depression and isolation from his fiancee, who is overseas. I don't mean that my wife counseled extensively, just gave some support and friendship while he seemed near-suicidal. He has quit (which puts my wife's business in jeopardy, as it is a labor-scarce profession) but she is staying in touch. It's a profession in which the professionals should be supporting each other but are too often isolated, so she's living according to her values.
But he's young, quite handsome and athletic, and very sweet-natured. My wife was a true lifeline to him; for all I know, she saved his life. And she is the most profoundly straightforward and trustworthy person I have ever known. I shared my sensitivity (and my surprise at my sensitivity) about this guy, and she assured me it's all on the level, no attraction at all. That was fine.
During the pandemic I had no work. My son, a senior in high school, and I were isolated together, while my wife was working her ass off to keep her business going. I still made meals and nominally cleaned the house, but I was gone in many ways, doomscrolling and lonesome. Still, I felt our marriage was good. I found my way back to my former profession and eventually fought my way back to a better job than I've ever had before.
Still. I snooped. She shared her passcode with me ages ago, in case she ever needed me to get some information off her devices. And I freaked out a little over what I saw, which was … not much. Some text bantering and sharing funny videos now and then. A little talk about how he could stay in our guest house if he ever wants to visit our small community again. Still, my thoughts became steadily more fixated and self-reinforcing. I reunited with my old therapist (I had a deeply fucked-up childhood) and she made it my goal not to create a self-fulfilling prophecy of ruining my wonderful marriage with this kind of obsession.
Still, the signs. There were flowers on his car on his last day at work. They went to a local bar for his exit interview. I started to have night sweats, panic attacks — all firsts. They were as much about my dread of fucking this situation up as they were about her and this guy. I started to feel the profound depression that had kicked in months ago.
Without going into details, I blew up over a set of messages that could be read ambiguously. I read them in the most terrifying way and begged her not to leave me. It was awful. She cried that I would read things this way. We cried a lot together. She feels the pain I'm in. She's not mad, just terribly sad that I'm in this pain.
We've had some very good days in the 9 days since. But now I'm starting to get lost in my shame and self-hatred over all this. And yes, I'm still going over every last detail of every interaction between my wife and this guy, in search of god knows what. Some answer. I'm being my own Iago.
Last night I held my wife and felt the physical pain of losing her — even though I haven't. She's 100% committed to our marriage and so am I, but I feel as if I've killed everything good.
My wife is facing more pressures from her work than I can imagine. Our son is starting college in a month. I have the best new job I will ever have starting in a few weeks, a wonderful opportunity that I need to be 100% present for to do well. But I've become a black hole. And my therapist is off for a month.
In the position I'm in I need some comfort and reassurance and stability to keep from imploding. But going to my wife for that comfort and reassurance is starting to put some poison in our marriage, because it gets back to me trying to explain why I freaked out, why I was wrong, can she forgive me … all emotionally taxing work for her.
So where do I create that comfort? How do I restore myself so I can be my wife's husband again?
They are like this on reddit too, they act like "snooping" (i.e. looking at something your partner gave you access to, or looking at something published freely on the internet) is the ultimate sin and forget everything else the other person was doing that was suspicious.
But this question is probably fake anyway. I bet they post dumb questions like this to draw in readers.
there doesn't seem to be anything here