Am I being paranoid, or does this sound like something is going on?
My husband and I have been married for 14 years and have two children (8 and 3).
Like most couples, we've had our ups and downs, but I'd have described our marriage as fairly stable until last winter.
He started working closely with a woman on his team, and almost immediately he was mentioning her constantly after work. I jokingly referred to her as his "work wife" and assumed it was just because she was new and they'd become friends.
Then in January he suddenly decided to start going to the gym every morning before work. This was completely out of character because he's never been interested in the gym before, but I thought maybe he'd just decided to get fitter.
In March my whole world fell apart. I developed health problems, my father died unexpectedly abroad, and there was a huge amount of family drama afterwards. I was completely consumed by everything that was happening and honestly wasn't paying much attention to anything else.
Looking back now, I've started noticing things that make me uncomfortable.
Around the middle of June I thought his perfume smelled different. I have ongoing nose and throat problems, so I wasn't sure if I was imagining it.
At the beginning of July I discovered he'd secretly started smoking. He admitted it when I asked and now smokes openly at home.
What's strange is that he's also gone from constantly talking positively about this female colleague to suddenly saying only negative things about her, which almost feels forced.
Over the last couple of weeks I've noticed other changes too. He keeps going upstairs for no obvious reason. He's become very protective of his phone. One day I walked into the kitchen without him hearing me and when he realised I was there, his hands actually shook as if I'd caught him doing something.
Yesterday he randomly announced, "I'm not going to the gym tomorrow." I hadn't asked, so I replied, "Why are you telling me? It doesn't affect me." It just felt like a strange thing to say out of nowhere.
He then spent the whole evening on his phone playing games and barely spoke to me.
Our sex life has changed as well. He used to have a very high sex drive, but now he often struggles to get or maintain an erection, and sex takes much longer than it used to.
Individually, I know none of these things prove anything. Together, though, they have left me wondering whether I'm missing something.
Does this sound like normal midlife changes and I'm reading too much into it, or would these changes make you suspicious too?