I had no plan after that. I was just sitting and stewing, with all kinds of thoughts racing through my head.
So she wakes up from sleeping on the couch to see me sitting on the stairs thinking. She asks me what's wrong and, at first I don't want to say anything, but she insists. So I ask if there's anything she wants to tell me. She says no and looks confused. I say "anything about a certain individual you that you may have had a lot more contact with than you previously let on? ... Like a lot more?". She says no and asks what I'm talking about. I tell her that I saw a text in her phone from one of her friends so I wanted to see what she wanted. I then scrolled up the convo and saw the two of them talking about another guy. She immediately cuts me off and says "so you went through my phone?". I just say yea. She says "so?" in an indifferent tone. I tell her that I read the thread with her and OM. Then I go over all the crazy texts and just keep saying "WHAT THE FUCK?!?". I didn't tell her about the journal yet because I want to see how forthcoming she is with me.
First she assures me that they're just friends. She says she didn't want to tell me any of the details about him the last time we spoke because she was "so taken aback" by the question in the first place that she panicked and didn't tell me because she "didn't want me to think anything". Then she starts saying that she started talking to him and confiding in him a lot more because I was "unavailable" and he was there to listen. I might be a lot of things in this relationship, but one thing I'm definitely not is "unavailable" in any way, especially if she has anything important to talk about. If anything I feel like I've been the one trying to get HER to talk more recently.
She then repeatedly reassures me that "nothing happened" between them. I eventually tell her that I believe her, which I actually do (physically at least) for reasons I've stated in my last few posts. But I still tell her that, in all the 17 years we've been together, I've never had this kind of a weird feeling about her and one of her male friends, of which she's had many. But I insisted that something felt "different" about this.
She says that she kind of knows what I mean. I then ask her what she would think if she found a text convo in my phone between me and another girl like that. She says "yea... I would spazz" (of which I have no doubt). She then admits to me that OM confessed that he had feelings for her, but that she "shut it down". I ask why she kept talking to him after she "shut it down" and she said that it was no big deal because "it's not the first time one of her guy friends has told her that he likes her" I told her that was true, but that this was the first time she didn't tell me about it after, and that she really didn't seem to be shutting anything down in this case.
She started reassuring me that nothing happened again, and that she only loves me and I'm the only one for her. It makes me want to puke because I know she's lying through her teeth at me. She tries to come over and comfort me, and my body almost leaned into it out of habit, but I didn't.
Then she starts yelling at me for going through her phone while I was asleep. She says "I offered to go through it with you right in front of me the last time we talked about this". She did say that, but it was obviously something she didn't really mean or want me to do. So I say "you said you had nothing to hide and I could look" She says "yea but you didn't trust me, so you looked at it while I was asleep" as if that makes a difference. Then she says that we could have gone through it together and she could have given me context (which I'm sure just means she could have made up a bullshit excuse for everything). So I say "it's right here, lets do it right now". Then she snatches the phone and says "no, permission revoked".
The conversation then goes around in circles for a little while until she says that she has to go to the office, but first she's gonna stop by the bar to get "fucked up", clearly implying that it was my fault she was doing so, adding "you've got me so fucked up right now".
She texts me a bunch of time from the bar, with a mixture of I'm sorries and "I can't believe you don't trust me" and "how do you think I can do something like that" type statements. The texts get more belligerent as she gets drunker and she starts reminding me of every shortcoming I have in the relationship. She also keeps pressing me on what prompted me to look in her phone, saying that she talked to her other friend who said she didn't say anything that would prompt me to look in the phone. She accuses me of lying (me? are you fucking serious right now?). I don't tell her anything.
She calls me from the office later, telling me that she's mad that I made her have to get drunk and look like a wreck in front of a client (pretty sure that was her choice). She then presses me again about what made me look in her phone because she says she knows I'm lying (which I am, but it's obv meant to uncover her lies). Then she asks me what else I've been snooping in since I felt like playing "Scooby Doo Detective". Then she asks "did you go through my journals?", then pauses and says "because all you'll find in there are things about how excited I am to grow and get into our next phase" It was all I could do to stop myself from rolling on the floor laughing at this point. We end the conversation there and promise to revisit it later.
That brings us up to date folks, and in case you ever wondered what gaslighting from a WS who is ALSO an alcoholic looks like, well, there you have it 
. And yes, I am definitely comfortable using the WS term now, even though I might not have been before. Not exactly sure where I go from here, I'm thinking of giving her one last chance to confess fully before I spring the journal on her. I'm still processing wtf just happened so I really have no idea what to do after any of that. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
