Hi Reddit

Please let me know if I am the asshole here.

Over the past year, my wife, a stay at home mom, has become very close to our backyard neighbor, a stay at home dad. It started as getting to know each other through neighborhood child care and play dates. They started talking about parenting and then family of origin and mental health stuff. They walk dogs together. They text all the time. He's constantly texting to check in our her emotional well being and follow up on things shared in there conversations. It feels like he's always present and always probing deeper into our life. She is very defensive and secretive about the friendship. The friendship developed for three to six months under my nose before I realized how intimate it had become.

I want to be supportive and happy about this friendship but it just feels wrong to me. It's overlapped with hard time our relationship, compounded by major life transitions (a big move and new job, covid, major illness in extended family). It's brought out the worst in me. I have made two huge mistakes: (1) I read her cellphone messages and got caught; (2) I reached out to this guy, against her wishes, to tell him that I am uncomfortable with how close he is with my wife. Reading her messages was straight up wrong but reaching out him I feel more mixed about. My therapist and our couple's therapist both encouraged me to do so. My wife wouldn't agree and one day, when she agreed to go out of her way to help him in such a way that put more stress and childcare on my plate, I lost my self control and contacted him. I have also done a lot to support the friendship. I always cover childcare when she wants to go for a walk with him. I invited his family over to join a dinner party where having with the family of one my friends and did all the cooking. I've apologized to my wife many times and am doing all sorts of things to take care of myself, learn from this experience, and grow (therapy, journaling, acupuncture, spending more time with my friends, and a lot of other stuff.)

There are three things that make this situation feel so hard for me.

One, this is an unprecedented friendship for my wife and it feels like she has become a different person for him. The 20 years I have known her, she never lets in people the way she has let this guy in. She made a major decision about her healthcare/mental health in consultation with him and held me at arm's length during the process. She is constantly initiating contact with him and opening up to him: texting him and asking him to go for walks, where they talk about very personal matters. The only relationship in my wife's life that compares to this friendship is the period of friendship that she and I shared before we became intimate partners.

Two, this first point is especially hard because my wife has a hard time showing up for me and us. She tells me she has a hard time opening up emotionally and physically with me because she avoids emotional intimacy in general. That's the main attachment trauma from her family origin. Knowing her family, it makes sense to me and I have been trying not to take it personally. However, she barely acknowledged some major professional milestones for me that I wanted to celebrate with her. I am always leaving her notes of encouragement and surprising her with thoughtful and sometimes extravagant gifts (and not just for holidays; sometimes, it's just because I adore her!). To me, it rarely feels like she reciprocates the energy, enthusiasm, and thoughtfulness that I show to her. This dynamic was hard before but, now that she is initiating emotional intimacy with another man, it has become absolutely unbearable.

Three, I am afraid that we just want different things from each other. I want to have the most intensely close emotional and physical connection with her. I want to share passion projects with her. I want to live intentional lives dedicated by our values and I want to reflect on what that means. I want to have deep and meaningful conversations about all aspects of our life: parenting, what we eat and how we live, politics and current events, spirituality and the deeper meaning of life. She wants some of all of that but not nearly as intensely as I do. She wants a lot more space. I want us to always be striving to be as close as we possible can. I want our friends to be further removed and I want us to be intentional about who we let in and how far. She wants us to be good partners with the freedom to define our friendships on our terms and let in whomever we want as far as we want.

The last year has been really hard. I made those two major mistakes I mentioned. I often get angry and upset when she spends time with him. She has been extremely defensive and avoidant. She has been late for family dinner several times because she is out walking with him and turns off the ringer on her phone when she does. She has broken and/or "forgotten" several agreements with me that she has made in the context of couple's therapy. That said, we have made some major progress and the fights about her friendship have also gotten other issues moving. I feel grateful for the progress but I am worried that we don't have the same goals. I am worried that ongoing tension about this friendship is going to be the end of us.

I feel like she takes advantage of me and takes me for granted. She feels like I don't trust her. I feel like she avoidant. She feels like I am controlling. I feel like she doesn't make me a priority. She feels like I am smothering and co-dependent. I feel like she has betrayed our marriage and is having an emotional affair. She feels like I can't handle that she is growing on her terms with help of another man and without me. I feel like this is the most urgent period of our relationship and we need to focus on our marriage or it is going to collapse. She doesn't think it is so urgent. I am thinking of trial separation and divorce. She doesn't think I am serious.

Who is the asshole?