u/This_Book7431

Assuming she has done nothing wrong for all the years you’ve been married (think minimum 7 years). Active sexual life (she also initiates it sometimes).

Would you still do the things that made you two together? If not, maybe your answer is you act like an improved version of yourself?

Or

Would you just be happy that your wife is around and be content with it and not do much anymore since she is and always will be yours?

I know men arent all the same. Curious to see different answers and angles.

Asking coz Im from a different culture.

Whats the norm here?

This is regarding your spouse’s friend being too close to your spouse.

Anyone can chip in.

For example:

Your spouse’s friend of the opposite gender cant seem to get the memo that your spouse is married. Wants to chat until late at night about personal things.

Your spouse is going home, their friend rushes to put away their own stuff to go home together with them. Your spouse tells them to go home first, the friend says “I can wait”.

Personally, it’s beyond my comfort and boundaries and I believe this person is not respecting my boundaries at all as a wife.

Edit:

My spouse is stopping the personal chats now. But his friend is still glue-ed on him when they end work. They dont have the same work (i mean she has diff responsibilities and he has diff responsibilities, but same office) but the girl will see if he’s done or not and either wait or rush to catch up with him.

Not really an angry rant. Just wanna share.

My hubby has a colleague who can't seem to get the memo that he's a married man and she shouldn't get too glued to him. I have a LOT of issues with her (proven issues but I won't go into detail on that). I don't care if she's just a friend. Bottom line, Im not comfortable with this.

I've told my hubby not to walk with her to the bus, but he says sometimes he can't help it coz they ride the same bus. And it's true, he's not lying.

The problem lies whenever my husband says for her to go first, she will wait. Or if he rushes out, she rushes to follow too, like a parasite.

So I decided to go meet my husband. I waited on the bus stop before the actual stop. There, I saw her standing close to him. My husband saw me, greeted me with a smile and I immediately hugged him and kissed him in the lips and we talked about a lot of sweet things in front of her while gigging and everything.

Meanwhile she didnt acknowledge my presence and went straight to looking at her phone the moment we started kissing.

Not really sure why she cant even say hi. All his other colleagues do. It’s really sus.

But anyway, whether or not my hubby is cheating with her or if she has a crush, that’s a possible rant for another time. Right now, I just wanna share that Im glad to be at least able to show that I exist and Im the wife and I can be super sweet to him in front of her and there’s nothing she can do about that.

If you're replying as a man or a woman, please let me know so I can know which gender that insight came from. I'm also not native English speaker so please bear with me.

I (F35) left my home country and my loved ones to be with him (M34). My dad didn't like him but I went anyway.

7 years in the marriage, I had no issues with any of his female colleagues. They could chat or joke around on the phone, that didnt bother me. Except for this one colleague who messaged him something that made me feel uncomfortable on 2024. I asked him to please not get close to her. He promised he wouldnt.

Fast forward to 2025, I felt lonely a lot and had to tell him that I was lonely. He would then come to me and comfort me. (This is important later)

2026, me and the hubby went to have a date. We were happy but I noticed that there was something odd about him but I brushed it off.

That evening, I checked the photos on his phone. I was shocked...

At first I saw nude AI pictures of that girl I asked him not to get too close to.

Then I saw pictures of our FOOD from our date. It was being shared to her! I also checked, he even sent pictures of our food from my birthday, our anniversary, and even when he was out with MIL. I also saw evidence of her talking about personal life stuff with him and evidence of him deleting his responses.

I confronted him about it. He said the AI pics were not his doing (even though his card paid for more credit). And I gave him the benefit of the doubt about that.

But I was legit betrayed. He used his cozy words that used to make me feel warm and fuzzy and safe to repeatedly promise me that he is not messaging that girl personally. HE DID THAT FOR MONTHS.

Because of that betrayal, it took me a week of constantly getting angry at him. Then he got angry and said that my anger is taking too long to go away and that his love was starting to wane. He said he would ask his cousins for their advise. His cousins scolded him and he told me that. But after I checked his phone that night, I discovered that 4 minutes after he said they scolded him, he created a whatsapp locked chat with that girl. I confronted him again and he said he didnt remember and didnt remember why he updated her that he was still out drinking.

I was angry of course coz he promised that he would never secretly private message her again. And guess what? Another week after that, he messages the girl that he's thinking of divorcing me. He told me he said that to her because his work was getting bad and at least the girl (again, they are colleagues) would understand why he was doing badly at work.

We went for marriage counselling.

I asked him why would he message her so much when I felt like I lacked attention back in 2025. He said "But whenever you would say that, I would stop messaging her and come to you though." Like what the heck? So that was the reason why I felt so lonely. Coz he was busy messaging her in secret.

When I finally decided to check the contents of their messages, I saw him being veryyyyy enthusiastic while talking with her. They would talk til the late hours of the night.

Before I found out about all this, he used to tell me that "If ever she gets sick, I wouldn't even care. I wouldn't even tell her to get well soon."

But what I found in their messages was her saying she had a headache, and him messaging her all through that day about how she is feeling and did she want him to deliver her some medicine.

In contrast with me, when I was at work and told him I had a terrible headache, he would reply with "aww poor love", and later ask me to buy McDonald's for him. Which I found a bit inconsiderate but in the end I didnt mind it and I loved that I was able to buy food for him. But now that I read those messages, of course I'm hurt again!

So now since I know that they constantly go home together and walk to the bus together after work, I didn't want to tolerate that anymore. I asked him to give excuses to get her to go home first and not wait for you. And I asked him to take a 360 angle video to prove to me that they're not walking together.

He said it was weird to request the 360 video because he would feel weird for the strangers who pass by.

1. There is hardly anyone on that stretch of path for a loooooong time. There is a lot of chances to take the video without anyone ever knowing.
2. Why was it okay to send her photos of our food willingly WITHOUT MY CONSENT and suddenly he's shy taking videos of surroundings?

I told him that I needed this for my peace of mind until he could rebuild the trust again.

He got angry. He was annoyed that I needed this for my peace of mind. He was annoyed that I told him to tell her to go home first because he was waiting for his wife. He said he is unwilling to do this. He said that he's annoyed at me wanting to be the priority. And he said he didn't want to talk about all this because now he wants to focus on his studies.

And because of today, he doesnt want to look at me. He doesnt want to talk to me. He walks faster than me. I wanted to talk to him and he said "Even if I talk to you, your mind wouldnt get it." And "Just think what you want to think. Whatever I say doesnt matter."

Now he's just busy watching netflix by himself.

To add:

We both think he has some kind of ADHD. We both have a rule that if he feels like he's getting overwhelmed, he says stop, and I straight away stop. Today, when he said "enough", I stopped.

Recently,

I have also been so into his interest like his studies and got into it myself. He even said that he messages her less now especially we have more to talk about together etc. I also play his favorite video games with him. I'm VERY available for him for everything that he needs so it's not about me being absent or what.

Any advice? He's stonewalling. And I dont really know what to do anymore. Isn't it normally if he knows he did something wrong, he'd try to fix it himself? Am I wrong to ask for him to show me proof at least until he rebuilds trust?

edit: To add before he started stonewalling me, he would keep saying he cant cut off contact with her because she keeps helping him at work (like very significantly helps his sanity kind). And that me limiting interaction with her makes their interactions at work weird. And that every office off, the reason why they always walk home together is because the bus they ride is the same way.

So he gets irritated im limited him coz its making him awkward with her at work.

If you're replying as a man or a woman, please let me know so I can know which gender that insight came from. I'm also not native English speaker so please bear with me.

I (F35) left my home country and my loved ones to be with him (M34). My dad didn't like him but I went anyway.

7 years in the marriage, I had no issues with any of his female colleagues. They could chat or joke around on the phone, that didnt bother me. Except for this one colleague who messaged him something that made me feel uncomfortable on 2024. I asked him to please not get close to her. He promised he wouldnt.

Fast forward to 2025, I felt lonely a lot and had to tell him that I was lonely. He would then come to me and comfort me. (This is important later)

2026, me and the hubby went to have a date. We were happy but I noticed that there was something odd about him but I brushed it off.

That evening, I checked the photos on his phone. I was shocked...

At first I saw nude AI pictures of that girl I asked him not to get too close to.
Then I saw pictures of our FOOD from our date. It was being shared to her! I also checked, he even sent pictures of our food from my birthday, our anniversary, and even when he was out with MIL. I also saw evidence of her talking about personal life stuff with him and evidence of him deleting his responses.

I confronted him about it. He said the AI pics were not his doing (even though his card paid for more credit). And I gave him the benefit of the doubt about that.

But I was legit betrayed. He used his cozy words that used to make me feel warm and fuzzy and safe to repeatedly promise me that he is not messaging that girl personally. HE DID THAT FOR MONTHS.

Because of that betrayal, it took me a week of constantly getting angry at him. Then he got angry and said that my anger is taking too long to go away and that his love was starting to wane. He said he would ask his cousins for their advise. His cousins scolded him and he told me that. But after I checked his phone that night, I discovered that 4 minutes after he said they scolded him, he created a whatsapp locked chat with that girl. I confronted him again and he said he didnt remember and didnt remember why he updated her that he was still out drinking.

I was angry of course coz he promised that he would never secretly private message her again. And guess what? Another week after that, he messages the girl that he's thinking of divorcing me. He told me he said that to her because his work was getting bad and at least the girl (again, they are colleagues) would understand why he was doing badly at work.

We went for marriage counselling.

I asked him why would he message her so much when I felt like I lacked attention back in 2025. He said "But whenever you would say that, I would stop messaging her and come to you though." Like what the heck? So that was the reason why I felt so lonely. Coz he was busy messaging her in secret.

When I finally decided to check the contents of their messages, I saw him being veryyyyy enthusiastic while talking with her. They would talk til the late hours of the night.

Before I found out about all this, he used to tell me that "If ever she gets sick, I wouldn't even care. I wouldn't even tell her to get well soon."

But what I found in their messages was her saying she had a headache, and him messaging her all through that day about how she is feeling and did she want him to deliver her some medicine.

In contrast with me, when I was at work and told him I had a terrible headache, he would reply with "aww poor love", and later ask me to buy McDonald's for him. Which I found a bit inconsiderate but in the end I didnt mind it and I loved that I was able to buy food for him. But now that I read those messages, of course I'm hurt again!

So now since I know that they constantly go home together and walk to the bus together after work, I didn't want to tolerate that anymore. I asked him to give excuses to get her to go home first and not wait for you. And I asked him to take a 360 angle video to prove to me that they're not walking together.

He said it was weird to request the 360 video because he would feel weird for the strangers who pass by.

1. There is hardly anyone on that stretch of path for a loooooong time. There is a lot of chances to take the video without anyone ever knowing.

2. Why was it okay to send her photos of our food willingly WITHOUT MY CONSENT and suddenly he's shy taking videos of surroundings?

I told him that I needed this for my peace of mind until he could rebuild the trust again.

He got angry. He was annoyed that I needed this for my peace of mind. He was annoyed that I told him to tell her to go home first because he was waiting for his wife. He said he is unwilling to do this. He said that he's annoyed at me wanting to be the priority. And he said he didn't want to talk about all this because now he wants to focus on his studies.

And because of today, he doesnt want to look at me. He doesnt want to talk to me. He walks faster than me. I wanted to talk to him and he said "Even if I talk to you, your mind wouldnt get it." And "Just think what you want to think. Whatever I say doesnt matter."

Now he's just busy watching netflix by himself.

To add:
We both think he has some kind of ADHD. We both have a rule that if he feels like he's getting overwhelmed, he says stop, and I straight away stop. Today, when he said "enough", I stopped.

Recently,

I have also been so into his interest like his studies and got into it myself. He even said that he messages her less now especially we have more to talk about together etc. I also play his favorite video games with him. I'm VERY available for him for everything that he needs so it's not about me being absent or what.

Any advice? He's stonewalling. And I dont really know what to do anymore. Isn't it normally if he knows he did something wrong, he'd try to fix it himself? Am I wrong to ask for him to show me proof at least until he rebuilds trust?