This is going to be a long first post, please bear with me. I'm hoping to get a female perspective on this but men can feel free to chip in.
Background first. I'm male, we are in our 40's, married since '96. 11yo & 10yo kids. Great relationship till kids came along/work & life stresses ramped up. Mismatch of sex drives......the usual stuff. I am not the easiest to live with as I'm slightly Aspergers, have a terrible memory and probably have self esteem issues due to a very controlled upbringing (mother)that my wife has to put up with as well (though that problem is mostly better now). There is a lot of water under the bridge in our relationship (my stubbornness and inability to listen/remember issues etc.)which causes my wife deep resentment. We live in the UK.
I love my wife deeply and am very loyal.
The problem du jour:
A year ago my wife asked me if I minded her contacting an old boyfriend and another male friend on facebook (you can see whats coming).
I agreed, nice of her to ask.
A couple of months later she left her laptop open on a facebook conversation she was having with the male friend (married, doctor, USA)
She had written that she had seen a hunky cyclist that day and that had made her think of him. Oh dear, I thought. Best keep an eye on this......which I did from time to time till a few months later she changed her password.
I agonised over this and eventually installed a keylogger on her lappy. The password change coincided with her telling him that she would really like to "cuddle up to with him next top an open fire, mmmmm, what a lovely dream that would be". My heart sank.
Over the next months there were various other comments of a less worrying nature, her telling him how great her bottom looks (it does).....him telling her what great foot massages he gives......her telling him how all the nurses must fancy him.
They were messaging each other pretty much every day. After a few other flirty comments I finally decided to confront her in early December 2010.
She denied that her comments were any more than harmless banter and that she has no feelings for him and he "doesn't do anything for her" (sexually)
I pointed out that her statement didn't make sense given what she had written and how often they were in communication.
Eventually she admitted that she felt that she had "overstepped the mark" and that she enjoyed the attention from him.
She said that I had been right to spy on her and that she would have done the same.
I explained that in light of what they had been saying I was unhappy with her continuing to communicate with him but that I also felt guilty for wanting her to stop the communication.
She volunteered to communicate less frequently, stop flirting and eventually peter out the conversation.
I removed the keylogger but continued to monitor facebook (she said she was happy for me to do so and that I could bring up the subject whenever I wanted to as I was very upset about it and would need to talk)
A month later she deleted the conversation as well as all the facebook emails sent to her email addy (permanently from the 'deleted items' folder in outlook).
The new thread in facebook started mid conversation...
I asked her why she had deleted it ( I hadn't looked at it for a week) and she said that it had been accidental and that she had deleted the emails from him so that I wouldn't get upset if I noticed that they were there. Hmmmm.....
I pointed out that I had no way of knowing what they had discussed in the last week and that it made me suspicious of what had been said during that time.
She said that nothing untoward had been said and to put my mind at ease in the future, promised to never delete his emails from outlook or the facebook conversations again.
I quietly reinstalled the keylogger.
Yesterday I noticed that a new conversation had been started and that the first few posts had been deleted!! She had also deleted his emails!
I confronted her with this.
At first she denied deleting anything, then she "remembered" that she had written to him to tell him that I was aware of her being a little too "friendly" with him.
The keylogger also showed that she had expressed her dismay that she could no longer carry on the conversations like she used to with him. (she denies that's about the flirting, merely that she now feels awkward when she writes to him)
In addition she finally admitted that she had also deleted his reply to her (I had to drag all this out of her).
She is now upset with me for being suspicious of her and feels that since (she claims) nothing untoward was said in what was deleted I should draw a line under this. I pointed out that if nothing untoward was said that there was no need to delete anythin....
In addition I am now "being controlling", it's my problem and I have got to "deal with it" myself.
I replied that I want her to stop the correspondence immediately. She refused, saying that its her life and talking to him makes her happy. I pointed out that it makes me very unhappy. Her response was that its my problem since she is now doing nothing wrong in her conversations with him and that I should trust her(again).
Am I overreacting? Should I trust her? I don't know what to do. I love her deeply but I feel she has deceived me three times now.
She is steaming angry with me now btw....I think our marriage is on the rocks.