Crushed

I found out today that my wife has started an affair. She is huge into the gym and in phenomenal shape. Unfortunately, I'm not. The last few weeks, she's been acting very different and I've had some suspicions that things were out of whack. I asked her about it and she told me that everything was fine. However, in my heart, I truly believed something was going on. She was acting different, more distant, dressing different, going out more, etc. I was hardly sleeping and she made me believe that all was fine. The thing that she said that calmed my nerves when I told her how I was feeling was "Put your trust in me".

Still, in the pit of my stomach, I knew something was off. I looked at the deleted texts in her phone - and boom - there it was. 1800 texts with some guy from the gym over the last few weeks. Some very sexual stuff. It also said that they were supposed to have sex last night. That ended up not happening because he couldn't make it...he's also married. I confronted her about it this morning and she admitted it. She went away for a few hours and we just had a long talk. She basically told me she doesn't know why she's doing this and doesn't have answers for me. She said she still loves me, is still in-love with me and that I'm the perfect husband and father. But, she said, obviously something is off with her since she chose to do this.

I didn't know my mind could work as hard as it has today. I am completely crushed. She said she wants time and space, but we obviously both live in our house with our son. That was incredibly hard as well - I found out before he went to school and asked her to talk to me outside. He knew something was wrong and had a very rough morning before my wife took him to school separately than how he normally goes (middle school carpool).

My wife then went to go workout and then talked about this with another friend she has from the gym. She got home and we talked and she said she just doesn't have any answers for me. She doesn't know why she is doing this and she wants some time and space to process and think. She doesn't want to talk to anyone else or do any marriage counseling at the moment because she wants to figure it out in her head first. She was very honest with me during this conversation and I told her I just don't understand how what we've built and our family isn't the number one priority for her. How can a different outcome even be an option?

And now, here I am with nothing but questions. I don't know what to do. I feel like there's a knife in my chest that I can't take out. I know I'm far from the only person this has happened to - but how do I move on when my bright future is now so unbelievably murky?

26 comments posted: Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026