Things can get complicated when your spouse has to live in a different city for work or travels frequently for it. Not having them at home often can lead to doubts and questions. That’s exactly the situation one woman found herself in after having a new baby and admitting to feeling “insecure.”
Her husband is only home one day a week because of his job. That insecurity led her to look at his phone and email, and she saw some things she didn’t like very much. Her husband assured her nothing was going on, so now she’s left to wonder if she’s overreacting by considering leaving him.
“My husband and I have been married for seven years,” she said in a Reddit post. “He works five hours from home and he’s only off one day and he comes home that day. We have three kids, the smallest one 10 [months], so I have been feeling insecure after delivery.”
If her husband was trying to pull off living some kind of double life, as she suspected he might be, he wasn’t very good at it. “He told me about his older co-worker, that she was nice, and I was okay with it,” she continued. “But I started feeling insecure when he started deleting conversations with her and [his] other friend. He says he only does it because I get mad at everything.”
Ekateryna Zubal | Shutterstock
One visit led to a pretty dramatic fight between the couple. “When we went to visit him for a couple of days, I went through his email and found a message about his flowers being delivered to her,” she said. “I went nuts and asked for a divorce. He stated he did it [because] she was sad a family member died and that I was overreacting.”
Interestingly, though, her husband admitted to wrongdoing. “He says he now knows he did wrong and that he will stop the friendship,” she stated. “Am I overreacting by asking for a divorce?”
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Commenters tried to offer support to the woman while simultaneously admitting that divorce was not unreasonable given the evidence. “He’s cheating,” one person said bluntly. “As for the flowers … no one hides or lies about flowers sent due to a death. They really don’t claim it’s wrong when it’s an innocent reason either.”
Another person said, “If it was truly just a friendship then he wouldn’t need to delete their conversations. Why would you get mad if there was nothing to get mad about? He told on himself with that move.” Other commenters suggested consulting with a lawyer or even talking to a private investigator.
As for the wife, she provided a bit more context on her situation in the comments section. She explained that her husband has to work so far away for financial reasons while they “recover from a failed business.” She works as well, but his job allows her to be very flexible with hers. She said that his job can be unstable, so it’s best not to uproot their entire family and relocate to where he is.
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“For some people, being away from home feels like another reality,” psychotherapist Jordanne Sculler noted. “An out-of-sight-out-of-mind complex is a way to soothe yourself into thinking actions are justifiable.” So, being away from home could be emboldening him.
Andrea Piacquadio | Pexels
While it’s not clear if this woman’s husband is actually cheating, he certainly has some questionable behavior he needs to explain. Deleting texts with one specific person, who you also happen to send flowers to, sounds incredibly suspicious. And, she should certainly not be made to feel like she’s overreacting.
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Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
