I have been married for five years. We met online and got married fast and then had our beautiful baby girl. She turns four in a few weeks. Over the past year we have been separated but living in the same house. We got separated because after we had our baby girl my wife got postpartum and basically stayed in the house for 3 years and didn't go out except for going to the store and little errand. A little after we had our baby girl she told me she wanted to go away for the weekend with her girlfriends to the casino to get out of the house. After she got back she was acting a little weird so I started thinking, what's going on. While I was checking the bank records I saw that she used the card in a different town, no where close to where she said she was, and I confronted her about it. She had gone to a guy's place that she used to talk to because he was having drug issues, and she wanted to help.

After that she went back to staying in the house again. We have only been on two dates in the past 4 years and we get along fine if we don't talk about us. We have not kissed, or had sex, or slept in the same room for over a year. We got separated because I was not feeling her. I thought something was up again and looked at her face book saw something and confronted her about it. She said that it was wrong and she wanted to get a job and have her own independence and that's when we got separated. She said she was coming out of post partum and need "me" time. Since that time she spent the first three month over at some guy's place on the weekends, and different times threw out the week and swears up and down that there was nothing going on, but I kept telling her it was wrong to do this, and she should be spending time with girlfriends instead of with some guy, but none of her friends live close and she didn't want to be to far from home because of our daughter, and if something happened she could get right back.

Around Christmas and New Years she stopped talking to this guy and said she was sorry it was wrong and she felt bad, but still said nothing was going on. She put her ring back on and then said we were going to work it out and that lasted for about three months. Then she started going out with girlfriends from work who are single and have no kids and are in there early twenties and started taking her ring off. And now she is talking to some guy again. All day texting and then talking on the phone and won't tell me what they talk about or show me any of their text and still says she has never cheated on me.

I love her very much and want to work things out but I am going crazy. Is it not right for me to look at phone records and question? I think anyone would she says she doesn't like me when she is mad but then always talked to me when it's not about us, or someone at work is treating her bad, or when she needs me. I don't know what to do, give her space, and don't talk about us at all, and just sit and wonder. Please help. I know on some levels it was wrong to look at the phone records, and her Facebook, but I need to know was I wrong.

Punctuation, Paragraphs, Sentences, Periods, and comas are your friend.

Wow...I wanted to help, I did....but without any punctuation at all, I couldn't make any sense out of this. It's just too messed up. Can you maybe edit it?

Amen!

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Originally Posted by smoothy

Punctuation, Paragraphs, Sentences, Periods, and comas are your friend.

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Gee, it didn't occur to you to get medical help for her postpartum depression?
You do have a long string of events.
But your question is about snooping. Snooping is wrong. Happening to see something a spouse is doing right out in the open is different, and there are shades of different. So TALK about your marriage, NOT about this guy or that guy, or her wedding ring, or how young the women are she hangs out with! Tell her you love her and want it to work, and want your daughter to have a good life. ASK her what is missing, and what needs to be talked about and sorted out and compromised on to keep together.

How did you do that, Joy? I got a headache trying to make sense out of that!

I gave up reading at the second line of uninterrupted words. My eyes went crossed my head started hurting.

I had just had a refreshing nap and then some equally refreshing coffee.
Otherwise I'd be in the same camp.

Depression is no excuse for bad behavior and unless some boundaries could be agreed upon I would be the one leaving to be honest. You snooped because you were too cowardly to express your concerns and be responded to, and lets be clear while space and privacy are great in there place, secrecy and deception is NOT!

Partners must talk, be able to talk, but blatant and repeated breaches of trust is totally intolerable as are having secret friends YOU don't know on some level. Takes more than a sorry, I was wrong to forgive that, but the lack of willingness to talk and listen is disturbing. Don't let love make you blind and stupid,get facts and make a decision to work together or work apart.

No it's not okay to visit strange guy friends 4 times a week (or anytime for that matter), instead of putting your heads together to find better clean adult couple fun. The only acceptable way to deal with her depression is with a doctor. No need to snoop, just stop the BS from her. No communications, then someone has to go.

I'm having more sympathy for her than talaniman is... you don't sound like you were much help when your daughter was an infant and your wife was in deep depression. It isn't just the way you write; it's what you say. It's all concrete, just one event after another, with no mention at all of attempts to communicate. You jumped right to snooping instead.

I'm not so sure your wife suffered severe post partum for years, and wasn't diagnosed, or received treatment of some kind.

I suspect that her pattern of lying and cheating was interrupted with marrying you and have a baby. In other words, her behavior before you married her belongs to the same person after you married her.

Being married doesn't change who a person is.

Your expectations were obviously at odds with hers, in that neither of you were ready to marry, after such a short time knowing each other, and to add to that, a baby came along when the relationship was still new.

The child should be the only priority now. What is in the best interests of this child the two of you decided to bring into the world. Depressed, miserable, confused, immature parents who are distracted with their self-messed up lives, is not a good environment for any child to be raised in.

The two of you still haven't figured out if you are still in a marriage!

I don't know what kind of advice you are expecting. You have made a huge mess of your life, and added a child into the mix, and you sound like a scorned boyfriend crying in his soup.

Do what you need to do to provide a secure, loving environment for your child. To me it sounds like the two of you should go your separate ways.

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Originally Posted by Irieman8

I don't know what to do, give her space, and don't talk about us at all, and just sit and wonder. Please help. I know on some levels it was wrong to look at the phone records, and her Facebook, but I need to know was I wrong.

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Yes, on some level it was wrong to check things out, but it is also pretty natural to want to know what is going on, given all secretive, and not so secretive, behavior.

Instead of giving her space and not talking about "us", or just sitting and wondering, how about a third option?

Schedule a time when you won't have any interruptions and point blank ask her what she wants to do about the marriage. If you love her, and want to work on rebuilding the relationship, tell her so. But also tell her that you won't continue the marriage if it means she will continue the running around and acting single. Either she is in or she's not. As you have seen, a marriage doesn't work when both parties are not involved in keeping it going... and that takes talking about it when necessary; like it or not. It can be scary to talk about negative feelings... some people would rather ignore or put up with situations that cause them pain simply because the alternative (getting it out in the open and talking about it) is too uncomfortable.

It sounds as though you often took the approach to just put up with it, wonder, and look for evidence to support your suspicisions, and she chose to check out and venture elsewhere instead of facing the difficulties of communicating.

To do nothing will only get you more of the same. If you take the chance, and push for change (counseling for both of you might be a good place to start), then you will either be relieved to find your marriage gets back on track, or you will find that it just isn't going to work out. It that happens, at least you will know that you truly put forth the effort to foster change.

If you won't talk about what's wrong in your relationship, you can't fix it. It seems that both of you have your heads in the sand and refuse to deal with the issues in your marriage. You ignore her behavior, and she goes out with other guys because you ignore her. That's my take on this.

Couples counseling is where I'd start. If both of you want to make this marriage work, you need to fight for it.

Instead of snooping on her, talk to her. If you can't talk to her, who can you talk to? You're supposed to be life mates, that's what marriage is. I can talk to my husband about everything and anything, and if we don't agree, we talk about it, and yes, sometimes we fight. But the fact that we do talk to each other is what keeps our marriage together, 19 years now, two kids. I don't snoop on him, he doesn't snoop on me, because there's no reason to. We talk about everything, good and bad.

There seems to be a huge lack in communication between the two of you. Ignoring it, and the issues, is ignoring her. It's not unusual for someone that's being ignored, to seek out someone else that won't ignore her.

I disagree that snooping is wrong, if someone's actions dictate it. To say that if she does it in public is also a bit ridiculous, because if you are not with her when she goes out with her friends how would you know, unless you snooped (ie. Followed her). Doing it chronically can be an issue though.

Most issues should be able to be resolved with a lot of talking and some counseling if both parties agree they want to work things out.

Postpartum is a serious illness, that can lead to suicide and other very bad situations. In some cases it is similar to schizophrenia, so going untreated can cause someone's personality to change, she may need help.