For the sake of brevity (lol, not sure how this is going to happen). I'm going to lay down the facts via bullet points to provide full context around the complexities of this situation.
- Married Dec. 2009. I was 26, she was 22.
- Our living situation is pretty unique. In the country we are, the idea of having "joint living situations" with family is extremely commonplace - hence we moved into my family home where it was four of us under the same roof in a 3-bedroom apartment.
- I cheated on her in our first year of marriage - spent 2 hours with my ex one night. Purely physical, nothing emotional. My f**k-up, full accountability, she didn't deserve it. Confessed my wrong-doing to her within the same week it happened.
- We worked through the above. Ended up getting back on track. Happy, I suppose. We travelled, and got along with each other generally.
- Had our daughter late-2014. She is today 8 years old.
- Started a business together in 2015.
- Got an offer from my previous employer in 2017 where they wanted me back. I joined back while mutually agreeing with my partner that she will run the show for the business. My involvement in the business became 0 as expected.
- Lost my job early 2019 (COVID times) where my industry was left in shambles.
- No income. Still living with my parents at this point in time.
- Wife lost her dad to COVID in 2019. A few months later, she got COVID herself (2 back-to-back extremely challenging situations the same year) where she had to self isolate in a separate room with a lot of symptomatic trouble.
- Post recovery, the time we spent together became minimal. Her interests changed, she veered towards spirituality / mental freedom / gurus / and becoming disassociated with "meaningless" things we one enjoyed together... TV Shows, movies, music... her entire range of interests completely changed because of these two life-transformative experiences she went through, which I completely understand and respect.
- During her bout with COVID, I eventually learned about an older guy in a Spiritual group she is in, who became her "rock" for emotional needs. Support, advice, positivity and everything feel-good from an emotional POV from her. Let's call him Ivan.
- Her talks with Ivan graduated to meetings for coffee. To him giving her a gift once or twice. To her giving him a ride across town once. Never physical I believe, but never "just friends". I spied on her via WhatsApp Web which was active on her laptop 2-3 times. Took screenshots of her conversations and when I compared them to the next time I checked, many of the messages were deleted.
- Straw that broke the camel's back - she went out with some of her girlfriends and the day after, I checked her message history. Sent him 4-5 photos of them partying and his message singled her out, telling her how she was the prettiest one there and generally complimenting her. Few hours later that next day? Yep, messages deleted.
- Confronted her and told her I felt this was emotional cheating. She seemed flabbergasted that a concept like this even exists, ie: that cheating could only be "physical" whereas for me, emotional cheating is like a black hole swallowing up emotion that's supposed to be going into a marriage, to another void source.
- She isn't solely responsible for isolating herself. I've battled addiction with alcohol for 2 years in between which I strongly do believe contributed to the growing distance between us. Even despite this, before the 1-2 punch of losing her dad / her getting COVID, we were still caring and considerate towards each other and spent time doing things and watching things together happily. This big change in her personality, interests and spending time together I feel came after that pivotal year for her.
Fast forward to today.
- A major family conflict happened late 2022. Our marriage was already on the rocks, and she was clear she wanted to keep things together "for the sake of not wanting our daughter affected" by splitting.
- The conflict that happened in our joint living situation (with my parents), in ways forced our hand to move out ASAP. In a matter of a month, the three of us moved to a new rented place.
- This was the first time I was living with her alone. Naturally, there's a teething period for so many things and systems that need to be organized. These led to disagreements and fights which felt escalated because of all the underlying situations and differences.
- I was fed up. Effectively and clear-as-crystal asked her what we are. Are we roommates? She replied, fine, if I wanted to look at it that way, we were. She has openly told me i'm free to explore other options because the state of where we are, and i've openly told her the same (few months ago).
- I installed Hinge in Nov 2022. Met someone. Saw her for a month. Things didn't work out.
- I continue seeking out genuine connections on Hinge. The way I look at it, i'm 39. I don't want to subject the rest of my life to an awkward living situation.
- On a side note, (now) her business is failing. I'm taking on 90% all the expenses we have. Rent, domestic help, our daughter's expensive school fees, etc etc. Have had conversations with her to start pitching in but with the business failing, it's a catch-22 situation at the moment. Convinced her to shut it down and start looking for work but she doesn't look driven to even want to work right now.
Basically in a situation today where I feel unappreciated, paying the rent for both of us, paying my daughter's school fees + other house expenses, our communication is bare-bones and mostly revolves around parenting our daughter + arrangements for her, and I have this innate need to find someone I actually want to spend my life happily with.
We continue living under the same roof. I sleep in a different room, happily. My current "partner" and I currently have literally nothing in common anymore be it emotional, physical or even conversational; except the desire to give our daughter a comfortable environment to live in, learn and grow. We try not to argue / disagree / fight as much as possible in front of our daughter. Sometimes we can manage this other times we can't.
I want out. She doesn't know i'm on Hinge or that I saw someone back in Nov 2022 but the way I see it, I did so after reaching a mutual agreement with her and hence she has no right or privy to any more details in my personal life; and i'm absolutely fine reciprocating the same. Live and let live.
Am I an a-hole for feeling this way? We've started couples' counseling sessions 2 weeks ago. But the thoughts I have above somehow block me from fully committing to the process.
I'm sorry this became much longer than I intended. To anyone brave enough to read through it all... thank you in advance. I'm just looking for perspective more than anything else. I can't consolidate 14 years of experiences within 1000 words so i'll continue to add context within replies.