'My wife kissed another man on a night out. I wasn’t bothered, now she’s causing issues.' UPDATED 3X'

People who are too cowardly to end a relationship will sometimes actively sabotage it, as a kind of "dare you" to their partner. When this doesn't work, issues can balloon.

"My (41m) wife (41f) kissed another man on a night out. I wasn’t bothered and now she’s causing issues over it."

Bit of context. We’ve been together since we were 18. Never had a great s*x life after the first year. Maybe once or twice a year at most since then but at the minute it’s going on three years and although it bothers me, I love her and I love our kids so I’m not going to make a big deal out of it. I know plenty of friends in the same situation.

Another bit of context is that I’ve always been mildly overweight but always fit as I played a lot of sports until about ten years ago when I got really ill and a mixtures of meds and comfort eating made me balloon up to nearly 300 pounds.

Well, two years ago I decided to do something about, I’m now around 200 which at 6’2 is the lightest I’ve been as an adult and I’ve actually enjoyed using weights and for the first time in my life have a bit of abs and some muscle.

My wife, having always been far hotter, is pretty obvious insecure about the fact that for the first time we’ve been together women are starting to look at me and message me on my baking pages on social media. For the record, I’ve never even looked at another woman in that way. On to the night in question. My wife went out with some friends, a mix of single and in a relationship.

She looked stunning and I told her so, I even updated my phone homescreen to that picture of her lol. One of the friends she was out with messaged me about three months and the gist was she knows I get no s*x, my wife doesn’t realise how lucky she is and basically do I want to hook up. I obviously instantly take a screenshot and send it to my wife.

Around 4am my wife gets home and she wakes me up as she gets in to bed. I’m half awake but can tell something is wrong and ask what the matter is. She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds and as I go to grab her hand she pulls away. I ask if she wants me to get her a drink and she says no.

Then she just blurts it out and says “I met a guy tonight he kissed me. I didn’t kiss back at first then I did. Then for the next half hour we were dancing and constantly kissing”. She kept saying sorry and begging me not to leave her. My honest first reaction was “so what it’s only kissing and dancing” I didn’t say that I just hugged her and tried to calm her down.

An hour or so later once I got the right words in my head I said “I know you feel really guilty but please don’t, "’m not going to leave you and break up our family over some kissing and dancing. I don’t love you any less than I did yesterday, and this isn’t something that’s going to grow and cause and resentment.”

More or less right on cue my phone goes off and it’s that friend of hers with a picture and a video of what my wife was doing. This set my wife off again but my feelings still haven’t changed and a month later that remains the case.

In that month since then my wife has accused me of not loving her because I didn’t care, she’s accused me of kissing other people and more which is why I didn’t care as I was covering up my own indiscretions and she’s accused me of being gay multiple times which doesn’t make sense.

She keeps asking me why I haven’t initiated anything with her even though in the past she’s told me she hates being touched and not to ever try it on with her which I have respected. She’s basically projecting and it’s annoying me as it’s putting a strain on us which she is 100% causing. How do I get through to her that she needs to stop feeling guilty and just move on because I have as it’s not a big deal?

I was genuinely more annoyed when she broke my baking bowl and tried to blame it on the cat lol.

TL;DR: wife kissed another man. I don’t care and now she’s causing problems because she’s guilty and projecting. How do I stop this?

Not long after posting, OP jumped on with a few updates.

Edit: Hi all just wanted to say thank you all so much for taking the time to respond to me I really do appreciate it and I’m overwhelmed you all took the time. I keep getting asked a few questions so thought I’d address them here.

Over the years we have been to a few different couples counsellors and s*x therapist the latest being last September for both. My wife always feels like she’s being victimised by them and we stop going.

Nearly all have said though they think she is as*xual and two even saying she is displaying a lot of signs of being a closeted lesbian which I have brought up to her before and she is adamant she’s not. On that note I’ve had a lot of messages saying she wants to feel wanted and for me to be more forward with her.

This is not true. In all our sessions she said she doesn’t want me trying it on with her she doesn’t even want me to initiate hugs and just bringing up s*x makes her feel under pressure. She let me, and our therapists, know that if she ever has s*x without her initiating, it will be no more than pity sex. As for people saying I don’t love her.

I buy her flowers every Friday on the way home from work, I bake her her favourite cookies or cupcakes every weekend, I send her voice notes of songs I’m listening to that remind me of her, I tell her I love her everyday, I run her a bath every night. This isn’t me showing off, this is how I was brought up to show love for those saying I must’ve been brought up in an unloving home.

People have said that if I don’t get jealous I don’t love her. If she told me she was having an emotional affair, she spent hours on the phone with someone else laughing and joking, she snuggled on a sofa eating chocolates and watching TV with someone, etc I’d be devastated. A dance and a kiss isn’t a big deal to me and not even close to divorce. Thank you all again for reading xx

SECOND EDIT: It’s 7am in the morning here now the day after I posted this. Been talking to my wife since 6 and said she’s got a week to agree to go back to couples counselling and she’s got to stick it out this time and not just accuse them of taking sides and refuse to go back. She said no. She said they all b*lly her and make her out to be the bad guy.

She said I went back on my word that I forgive her and won’t resent her. I said this isn’t about the kiss it’s about her reaction since the kiss and that it feels like she’s purposely trying to drive me away and make me leave her. She just got up and stormed out the room. She then got dressed and said she’s going out until I go to work.

The comments came rolling in.

leye-zuh wrote:

She's trying to sabotage the relationship and she's getting mad that you won't let her.

OP responded:

That’s the conclusions I’m heartbreakingly coming to. This hurts infinitely more than seeing her kiss someone else.

thrilliam_19 wrote:

This is my immediate thought too. I had a relationship end this way. Was with a woman for over a year and it was one of the best relationships I had ever been in. We were great together and one day she asked me to move in with her. I was more than happy to.

Then after about a month she realized she regretted her decision but instead of telling me she just became a completely different person and totally sabotaged our relationship to force me to be the one that ended it.

We went from having s*x daily to not at all. She went grocery shopping while I was at work but only for herself. She went out with friends almost every night and never invited me along. Whenever I tried to talk to her about her behaviour she would say I wasn’t trying hard enough and if I didn’t like it I should just leave.

I figured out what she was doing when she purposely left a bottle of cologne she had bought on our dresser. It was the same kind she bought for me, but I had a lot left still. When I asked her about it she said it was for a friend. I left the next day. The kicker: she still got mad at me when I left because she couldn’t afford rent on her own. She was mad that she would also have to move.

tinysheen wrote:

Brother I say this with love. Just get a divorce. If it’s not this issue, she’ll create another one further down the line.

OP responded:

This is a thoughts that’s been creeping in to my head, is she trying to blow up the relationship but make me be the one who leaves?

plastic_venus wrote:

She’s insecure about you getting more attention so thought if she did this you’d realise that she’s also wanted by others, thus making you panic and ignore those other women who now notice you. When she didn’t get that reaction her initial panic spiralled. She basically played a stupid game and in return won a stupid prize.

OkEstablishment1119 wrote:

She told you because her friends had the evidence that a great guy was being screwed behind his back. You have a roommate not a wife.

OP responded:

I think that’s the only reason she told me too. She knew she’d been filmed. At the end of the video she looks at the camera and then darts towards it and the video ends.

anivarcam wrote:

She doesn’t want to be with you but doesn’t want to be the bad guy and initiate the separation, so she is putting you in a “no win” situation. No matter what you do she’ll always be upset and claim she wanted the opposite thing. If you initiate s*x she would feel disrespected and pressured; if you don’t initiate s*x she would claim she feels abandoned and not wanted.

She kissed someone else, confessed and begged for forgiveness but the minute you forgave her she is mad you cave. She knows she doesn’t love you anymore and will make your life miserable until you leave.

OP responded:

This is the conclusion that is horrifically dawning on me.

Twelve days later, OP shared another update.

It’s been nearly two weeks since I made the post and the short update is that we are getting divorced. I said in my last post I told her I wanted us to go back to couples counselling and s*x therapy. She said no to both as we went before and she felt b*llied.

She said at s*x therapy that unless she initiates touching, not just s*x any touching like hugs or hand holding, it will be against her will and will be forced/pity affection from her. The s*x therapist said that’s very unreasonable and that’s why she felt b*llied there. I tried to ask her a few questions too:

Are you a lesbian or at least bi? Don’t be stupid.

Are you asexual? I’m not a teenager with a stupid label

What did he have I don’t? Nothing I just wanted to do it.

Why don’t you ever want to do that with me? Don’t know

What can I do to make you want to do that to me? Don’t know

Do you want me to take the initiative and try it on with you more?

F#$k no I’ll tell you when I want it don’t guess.

So she refused the therapy and gave me no straight answers, she has also said I’ve gone back on my word about not letting the kiss split us up because now it is. I said it’s not the kiss it’s your behaviour since then that has caused me to want to divorce.

She said as it’s my decision to divorce and it’s all my fault then I should be the one to tell out kids and she will have no part of it. That was hard. As soon as they were told my wife left for her sisters and in the three days since I haven’t heard anything from her. I’ve tried speaking to her about the kids as they miss her but she reads my messages and ignores me.

A lot of people asked about the friend and why they still talk after she tried it on with me. How I understand it is my wife tried to get the friend group to cut the friend out but they all pretty much refused and so my wife just chose to ignore her in group settings. On the night in question the friend approached my wife and told her if she didn’t tell me she would send me the video.

So my wife didn’t tell me because she felt guilty but because she was forced. I’ve also spoke to a couple of other friends in the group and asked what’s been going on I’m not privy too. Apparently my wife was s*xting her friends boyfriend a couple of years ago. My wife has also been boasting about how she has me under the thumb and she gets away with giving me nothing and I’m too scared to ask.

The friend apparently saw me out shopping one day and decided I was now “more f**kable” and thought she’d try and exact some revenge on my wife. So she didn’t really want me I was just a pawn in this weird friend groups one of many internal beefs with each other which I’ve found out about in the last few days.

Basically they all seem to hate each other and mess with each other’s partners. I’ll be honest now and I feel incredibly guilty about it but when she left my body and soul seemed to take a massive sigh of relief. It was like a black cloud that was dripping eggshells on the floor for me to constantly avoid has gone.

I feel terrible for feeling this way but I feel like I’m my 6’2 height now rather a brow beaten 3 foot who was scared to even say anything for fear of being told I’m wrong or insulted or ridiculed. It’s like the blinkers have been taken off. Spent the day today baking with my kids, eating easter eggs and watching cartoons and I haven’t stopped smiling all day.

I haven’t winced or broke out in a sweat worrying I’m about to be told off about being too noisy or watching the wrong thing on tv or there’s a wrapper on the floor etc. Thank you everyone for your support on my last post. I appreciate you all xx

T;DR: we are divorcing.

The internet was super supportive of OP.

mak_zaddy wrote:

You didn’t go back on your word friend. Her actions after the fact…and lack thereof is the reason.

OP responded:

Yep I’m still not bothered about the kiss!

Fightingkielbasa_13 wrote:

She doesn’t want to take responsibility and is trying to manipulate you into the bad guy. You want to improve the situation and improve yourself from outside help. She wants the status quo to remain and is blaming the medical professionals for making her confront the way she treats you.

Covert narcissists. Look it up so you don’t fall into that trap again. It may suck now, but your sanity should come back to you. You’ve been living in her mind games for a long time.

OP responded:

She is 100% making me the bad guy. I’m not on social media but keep hearing about posts saying things like “you give your life to someone only for them to drop you when your halo slips a bit” whatever lol.

Fightingkielbasa_13 responded:

Dude. Look up covert narcissistic. She caused all the problems, you tried to fix them but it was never enough or correct for her. Now that you forced her hand at attending therapy to make a change she discarded you & is blaming everything on you. Her fragile ego can’t take that it’s her fault and she has to project it back onto you. She can never accept responsibility.

A hallmark of this phase is her badmouthing you to all of your friends and family to make it seem you are responsible. Remember your version of what occurred. ( id suggest writing as much down as you can for reference) There is going to be a ton of revisionist history as she is going to warp everything to her reality. Remember, Nothing can ever be her fault or her facade will crumble to pieces.

OP responded:

That’s what I’ve been thinking about the last few days, that everything wrong in her life has been traced back to me and is my fault. From big things like I don’t earn enough money for her to live in the house she wants to little things like. She knocked her glass over and it’s my fault as I talked to her while she was watching something.

wannabeextrovertanon wrote:

Ask the friend for that video and post it and voila,

Caption it beneath her post " not perfect is an understatement."

OP responded:

I’ve got that video and all the screenshots of her sexting her friends boyfriends and also there some screenshot of a WhatsApp group chat where she has been posting pics for strangers to comment on but it’s blatantly her as she has a tattoo under her boob which is unique to her. There also some other videos and pics of nights out which her friend group have sent me.

OK_Kangaroo_1873 wrote:

OP, Best of luck! No matter what happens, you’ll survive! I’ve been on my 2nd marriage for 22 years now and, while it’s had its ups and downs, I’ve been very happy with #2! Just give yourself time to recover before moving on with your life.

OP responded:

Thank you for the kind words mate.

HealthBox5 wrote:

She sounds pretty awful, and was looking for a reason man.

OP responded:

I think you were right or she was testing me. Either way play stupid games win stupid prizes.

HeroORDevil8 wrote:

Her and that friend group all deserve each other ffs. She's desperately trying to make you the bad guy when all roads are leading to her and her s#$tty actions.

OP responded:

I’ve been talking to a few of them as they have screenshots and videos and photos of other stuff but they sound like some horrible sitcom. They all seem to hit on each other’s girlfriends and boyfriends and just be a very messy group.

It sounds like OP is off to greener pastures after enduring this mess.