Category: Advice Column

My wife texts male coworkers about non-work things late into the night. She talks about our marriage with them, confides in them, and sometimes meets up with them without telling me. Their messages include things like “xoxo,” kissing emojis, saying they miss each other, and she even calls one of them “hubs.”

When I confront her, she denies anything is going on and avoids even saying their names. She says they’re like annoying brothers, but that doesn’t line up with how she talks to them. I don’t buy the idea of “work spouses.” It feels disrespectful and like something that starts small and turns into flirting without labels.

Does anyone else feel totally demoralized when scrolling through Reddit or FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) forums and seeing 30-year-olds with $500k+ net worths? It’s like everywhere I look, someone my age (or younger!) is either a high-earning software engineer or a genius investor who bought Amazon at $3 and has been maxing out every retirement account since birth. Meanwhile, I’m here just trying to make sure I don’t accidentally pay my electric bill late again.

I’ve been with my husband since junior high, almost 20 years, and we have kids together.

I had a rough childhood and very low self-esteem. When I was younger, that came out as controlling behavior and anger. I don’t even know why he stayed with me back then.

As I got older, I changed a lot, but he never really showed me much romantic attention. I started looking for validation elsewhere. Before we got married, I had a sexual situation with a coworker and told my husband. He stayed, we got married, and I got pregnant.

I’m 31 and I’ve never had a girlfriend. I’ve never had sex, never kissed anyone, and never even been on a date. I don’t think I’m attractive enough for a woman to approach me, so the only way anything would happen is if I made the first move.

But I won’t. I have social anxiety, and the thought of being judged or making someone uncomfortable feels unbearable. I don’t think I’ll ever get past that.

I don’t know what to do anymore. I can’t even seem to make friends online. People I talk to just forget about me. It makes me feel invisible.

At this point, I just hate myself.

I’ve been with my wife for nine years and married for six. She’s kind, loyal, sweet, and smart. She loves me deeply and believes we were meant to find each other. I treat her well. I’ve never cheated. We laugh together, and on paper, we look like a perfect couple.

But if I’m honest, I’ve never been in love with her.

I care about her, but when we met, I was heartbroken. She came into my life when I needed stability and comfort, and I confused that with love. I kept telling myself my feelings would grow, but they never did.

I’m a 37 year old man and my wife is 33. We just had our youngest son about 4 months ago, and things have been overwhelming with four kids.

My wife asked if she could go out with her friends to get a break from the responsibility, and I said yes. I think it’s important for both of us to have a life outside of parenting. I’ve gone out with friends too.

She’s gone out about four times since then, and I didn’t think anything of it until recently. After her last night out, a friend told me he’s seen her out the past two weekends grinding and dancing on other men.

My husband and I (40f) have been together since high school. Everything was great, but around year 8 I cheated. I got really drunk one night with coworkers and cheated. I felt horrible about it and lost a lot of weight from the guilt while hiding it. A couple months later he found out. He chose to forgive me and we worked through it.

We got married and I truly believed I would never put myself in that position again. But this year he found out I was having an affair. There was a lot going on in my personal family life, and instead of coping properly I looked for validation outside my marriage. I regret it deeply.