Man thinks wife is trying to 'trick & gaslight him,' 'She won't accept my divorce papers.' AITA? ONGOING UPDATES.
When this man feels like his soon to be ex wife is trapping him, he asks Reddit:
"My wife refuses to accept our divorce and I think she's trying to trick me. AITA? What do I do?"
My wife (29f) and I (34m) have been married for 4 years, and up until a year and a half ago, things were fantastic.
Our marriage began to deteriorate after there was a significant drop in sex between us, not intimacy, just the actual sex part of the relationship. We would still cuddle and have deep intimate moments talking and just being around each other but she kept rejecting my attempts at taking things further past kissing.
Now we have had no problem communicating so I made sure to address it early, and we talked and made adjustments.
We both made sure to stay in shape, we tried being more adventurous, we went to couples therapy/counseling, and even tested both of our hormone levels(everything was normal).
Each "solution" would work for a little while and then we'd be back to having sex maybe once a month. I asked her several times if she was no longer attracted to me, to which she denied every time. I asked her if I was falling short in the relationship in any other way, to which she said no.
Well about a month ago, she gets back from her therapy session and tells me that she believes that she's asexual and that's the reason for her libido being non-existent as of late.
I was definitely confused because we had such great sex for a while in the beginning of our relationship but her telling me that she's now asexual was heartbreaking because everything else is great.
Obviously I'm not going to force her to have sex, so we had a long conversation about our relationship and I came to the conclusion that we should get a divorce. I say "I" because she immediately rejected the idea and said we would figure something out and wouldn't talk to me about it anymore.
I didn't know what to say so I dropped it. Well three weeks go by (without sex) and I decided that I have to do this for my own mental well-being so I filed for divorce and had her served with the papers.
Last week when I got home from work, she was going about the day like nothing was wrong. I asked her if she signed the papers and she flat out said "we are not getting a divorce" and changed the subject and acted like things were normal.
Obviously I thought this was crazy so I stopped her and said I couldn't be in a marriage devoid of sex, and I mentioned that I was being incredibly fair with our divorce.
She can keep the house that we bought and paid for with cash ( she paid 1/3 I paid 2/3), I'd take all of the debt which isn't much, we'd split our savings and investments in half, and she can keep 2 of our 3 paid off cars (I only wanted to keep my sports car).
Thankfully we don't have kids. I love her and wanted her to be comfortable and I have no problem starting over since I make a good income. But she won't budge or talk about the divorce.
This brings us to two days ago. I get home and go to our bedroom and find my wife's friend (27f) in our bed naked. I immediately shut the door, said sorry, and went looking for my wife.
I found her in the kitchen and asked what her friend was doing here, and she said that she was here for me. I put two and two together and said that I'm not having sex with other women in place of the woman I chose to marry.
She was adamant on saying that I could sleep with her whenever I wanted and that her friend agreed to it. I couldn't believe things would get this far so I went back to our bedroom and asked her friend to leave. I packed a bag and I've been staying in a hotel nearby since that night.
My wife, her mother, and her sister keeps calling me but I'm just not interested in hearing what they have to say. This feels like a trick. I just want this whole thing to be over.
Does anyone have advice? Is this some kind of ploy for alimony (we do have a prenup)? Should I just contact my lawyer and try and force the divorce? I'm really uncomfortable with this entire situation. Like...why was there a random woman in our bedroom?
Before we give you OP's updates, let's see what readers thought:
liveindirect writes:
I feel kind of bad for her, it seems like she's having a really difficult time under the surface and she's really struggling to communicate and come to terms. All of this seems like it's happened quite quickly and she's been unable to adequately process each new thing that's happened.
I'm inclined to give her at least some points for encouraging an open relationship, I've seen this type of story often online, but far more often than not the ace partner refuses the idea of an open relationship which always comes across as controlling and somewhat malicious to me.
The part with her friend is wild though, but maybe your wife thought that it'd be like a nice surprise for you that you'd appreciate, and she didn't really think through how you would react. She definitely should have talked to you about that beforehand, though.
Based off of your post and some of your comments, I don't see any reason to believe she's trying to trick you to gain any sort of financial or material advantage. Or even that she's trying to really trick you at all. It sounds like she respects your physical needs and is trying to do what she can to facilitate that.
I can understand not wanting to remain in the marriage even if it's opened though, since I'd assume that could compromise the potential for new relationships to flourish.
But I'd hope that you can talk to her and try to be emotionally supportive since really she hasn't done anything wrong, and maybe go get some couple's counseling even if you intend to go full steam with the divorce, just so you two can go through the process amicably and with as little unnecessary suffering as possible for both of you.
krin7 writes:
I'm sorry your wife is acting like this. It's wonderful that she is learning about herself. I imagine the idea of divorce didn't even cross her mind based on the way she is reacting. I wonder if she just thought you would be there in her life as her support even tho the way her journey is going is taking her away from you.
You might sit down and talk about what happens after divorce. You could perhaps stay in each other's lives as friends, but not as partners. You could perhaps offer to get her help to figure out some things she doesn't normally handle, if that's something that's scaring her. NTA.
onesmallplant writes:
Your wife clearly has zero consideration for your feelings here. What's clear is that she 1, doesn't want to have sex with you anymore, but 2, she doesn't want her marriage to you to end (without knowing the two of you...
it's hard to say whether that's because she really enjoys her life with you and the two of you are great friends if no longer romantic partners, or if it's because she is just complacent and doesn't want to have to deal with the difficulties of moving, etc)
I, too, was married to someone who no longer wanted to have sex with me. He, too, tried telling me that he believed the reason was that he was probably asexual. He, too, just wanted us to stay married so his life could continue being the same.
But it turns out that he wasn't asexual. He just wasn't that into me anymore. Like you, our early relationship was full of tons of enthusiastic sex. What we were too inexperienced to realize was that new relationship energy doesn't require sex to be particularly good in order for it to be exciting and engaging.
Once the excitement and tension of a new relationship wears off, people's natural libidos reassert themselves, and sometimes, if people have gotten into a pattern of having sex that isn't actually what they enjoy (which is super common for women), their motivation to have sex pretty much goes to zero.
There's no exciting new energy to promote it, and when they think about having sex the way they've been having it, it just doesn't sound appealing.
My (now ex) husband had a pretty naturally low libido, that was disguised by his excitement over being in a new relationship when we were in our 20s. As things settled down and we became more familiar with each other...
he became less and less interested in sex (unaddressed resentment over things like professional success also came into play), and he knew that this affected me badly, and so he developed a ton of anxiety around sex.
That, of course, just made things worse, until he became totally avoidant. It still took a decade to finally decide to end it, and despite that we hadn't had any sexual contact in over 2 years, he still wanted us to just stay together, like roommates.
By that point, I didn't even really want us to work on our sex issues anymore. I wasn't really able to see him as a sexual person at that point, and since he was the only person I'd ever been with...
I hated the thought that I was going to die without ever having sex again if I stayed with him. Leaving that marriage was absolutely the correct choice.
And for what it's worth, this guy who once thought he was asexual has a new girlfriend, with whom I assume he has a lot of sex (she certainly talks to mutual friends as though they do).
I'm telling you all of this because while yes your wife might actually be a sexual, it might also be one of these other issues, and something that she simply doesn't want to go through the trouble of addressing. Someone who isn't willing to work on issues that are important to you doesn't make a very good long-term partner.
Your wife's solution of just handing you her friend is so thoughtless it's shocking. Is this a friend you've expressed interest in? Does she think that you make no connection between sex and love? Does she think there's a chance you might fall in love with her friend? Does she care?
It's just so gross and patronizing that she would make this decision for you, as though she believes getting to put your dick in anything available is the only problem. It's insulting, and it's distressing that she doesn't see that it's insulting.
If she is truly asexual, or even if she just isn't that into you anymore, the right thing to do is end the marriage. You didn't sign up for a sexless marriage, and you shouldn't have to stay in one.
And now, OP's first update (after talking to his wife):
Here's the update if anyone's interested. I'll try to keep this as concise as possible. I feel overwhelmed so I probably wont bother with another update after this one, I don't know. My wife came to my hotel last night and we talked about everything. She told me the full truth and what's going on in her mind.
A few of you commented this in the last post so you were right. She has always been asexual, she and her whole family has known this since she was 16. Apparently this is the reason why her last long term relationship of 3 years ended.
He broke up with her after the sex between them diminished to being non-existent after the first year. She told me that sex is easier for her in the beginning when emotions are running high but she still needs to force herself to have it.
I knew they broke up due to irresolvable differences but I didn't ask for details nor did she tell me. After a lot of apologies and crying she told me that I was the first person she was able to "tolerate" sex with for so long and that she did enjoy it a handful of times; but after a while she still felt like she "was being raped".
I broke down after hearing this and started kicking myself for not catching on to any of this. She said she tried her best to please me as much as she could.
2. She still doesn't want a divorce and she doesn't want the house, cars, or the savings; she just wants me and is ready to do whatever it takes to keep me. She even said that she would sign a postnup stating this.
3. As for her friend, she was there during her last breakup and helped to support her though it. My wife went to her after I brought up divorce and talked things out.
Her friend suggested that she open the relationship for me but she said she didn't want me sleeping with strange women so her friend volunteered herself to be the one that sleeps with me; my wife thought this was a great idea which led to the fiasco at our house. I won't comment on her appearance because it doesn't matter, and I don't blame the friend.
4. My lawyer got back to me, you were all right. I don't need to her permission but I will have to wait if I want to push it through.
5. I aske her why she lied to me to me this entire time and she said she was tired of being rejected after revealing she was asexual so she convinced herself that she would be able to force herself to have sex during the relationship.
The hormone testing, the sessions in couples therapy , and all of our "solutions" was just her buying time to find another way around sex or give herself enough time to build up the strength to start regularly having sex with me again.
6. Our conversation ended with us holding each other in bed crying for a couple of hours. No we didn't have sex. She pleaded with me to hold off on the divorce to look for a solution together and left my hotel room.
7. I'm now sitting alone typing this fg post. I guess I found out that we don't share everything with each other.
8. Thank you to everyone who has messaged me directly, I'm still trying to get to all of them.
9. I don't know what I'm going to do.
Readers had a lot of questions after this first update:
reverie writes:
How long has the wife knew about the divorce?
OP responded:
We lightly touched on the subject 4 months prior to getting served. The final push was when she discovered that she was asexual, I brought up divorce at that time but she didn't want to talk about it and said she won't consider a divorce.
I was stonewalled from that specific conversation. I filed anyway, it was the first time she refused to talk to me about any subject. I was surprised since we share literally everything with each other.
OP66 writes:
Is it a medical issue?
OP responds:
If it was a medical issue I wouldn't have made this post and I'd be by my wife's side right now. But it isn't the case, and sex is how I show and feel my love. We only get to do this being a human thing once and sex is important to me.
setenea writes:
Is she depressed?
OP responds:
I don't think she's depressed, I'm sure her therapist would have caught it or she would have told me, but I can't be sure now. Other than sex, things have been normal.
I can't imagine that we missed anything, she really did put in a ton of effort. We both did/do. But thank you, I know we'll both be fine, but I figure it's better to do this now before we accidentally have children.
And now, OP's second update, about a month later:
I don't think I can link my previous post so just go to my profile I guess if you care to read the op. I've tried to read every comment/message and take to heart what most of you had to say. Also please stop messaging me, I can't respond to everyone; it's too much. I'll make this as short as possible.
After my last update, my wife asked me to meet with her about a week later to discuss things with her. I've been staying at an extended stay since that night with her friend.
We met at our house and talked for a few hours. She started off with a ton of apologies for how she acted, her lying about her sexuality, and not taking my sexual needs more seriously.
Before I could say anything she presented a signed postnup agreement she had drafted with a lawyer stating that she doesn't want anything, the house, the cars, savings, everything.
I felt like the biggest asshole for thinking that she was tricking me for more money. I asked her if she was serious and she told me to take the postnup with me and sign it when I'm ready. (I still haven't signed it, it's in my backpack).
I told her that I still think divorce is our best course of action and that we both deserve to find someone who matches our needs. She still refused and borderline begged me to reconsider, she started crying and so did I.
Seeing her like this was devastating. I told her that her finding other women to sleep with me wasn't going to work. What if I develop feelings for them? What if I get one of them pregnant?
Do we expect her to get an abortion? She said we'll "figure it out as we go along" and to please give her more time to work on other solutions. She's set up appointments for sex and hormone therapy, and it's seeing a sex guru.
I said that it sounds like we're going through the same things again but she was adamant and pleaded with me to wait. There were more apologies on both sides and we kissed for a while before ending the conversation, then I went back to my hotel that night.
A few days later I tried texting her but she didn't respond, so I called her dad (I'm avoiding her mother and sister since they are saying the same things as my wife).
Her dad told me that she moved back home and has been holed up in her room since our talk, she called out of work. He told me that she's barely eating, bathing, or talking to him or her mom. He asked me what I was going to do but I didn't have an answer for him.
He just said he understands and said he would be here to talk anytime I wanted to. So I went back to our house and a good portion of her stuff was gone, the whole place feels empty. I've been sleeping in one of the spare rooms.
I'm planning on flying to my mother's house in a couple weeks to spend time with my family to decompress from this entire situation. I'm still on the divorce side of the fence but I guess there's no rush.
Thank you to everyone for your insight and concern, seriously, I know we're all strangers but most of you have been a huge help to my mental health. Seriously, thank you.
Also my cousin uses reddit and reached out after he found my last post and asked me to shout him out if I made an update. Love you Virgil, thank you for being there for me. I think I'll just make a quick edit to this post once we reach a resolution for anyone that cares.