Am I A Jealous Wife Or Is My Husband Cheating?
About a year and a half ago, my husband re-contacted his first girlfriend, who broke up with him 26 years ago. (We have been together for 11 years.) She lives in a very small town, a 30-minute bus ride from the nearest store of any kind. I was a little leery of them talking so often at first and became even more so when I heard him confide to her that he was getting burned out hearing me cry about the fact that I had just received an MS diagnosis. I didn't like him telling a stranger personal details about my struggles.
Fast forward 6 months, the husband is about to graduate law school and is terrified that his mediocre marks will not land him a job. The ex-girlfriend sets him up with an interview at a law firm in her tiny, remote town. I tell him I am extremely leery about us living in a town of 1,500 people with the ex as our only contact, especially given that the situation between me and her has been fraught. He tells me this is his only hope for employment so I agree to move up there with him and give it a try. We hang out with the ex and get along well. I tell him I like her, but am still a little wary.
Then I get a summer job in the Arctic, two months before we're set to move. Now I'm extremely leery about him exploring the town, settling into our new life with her. I tell him that and say I'm really not comfortable with the situation unless she keeps a bit of a distance from our life. I asked him, for one thing, not to move our stuff in/unpack the house with her. He agreed, and I left. Later on, I found an email (yes, much later on, I read his emails. This is part of why I want to know if I'm crazy jealous) where he wrote to her a few days before the move, saying he wanted to see her and that he would pay for her to come down and drive up with him. Then the first weekend he was up there, she asked him to go in on a cabin rental with her (her boyfriend at the time was also planning to go in on it). He told me the cabin would cost $40 a month but I later found out it cost $400 a month. He says the price went up. When he told me about the cabin, I flipped out and told him he was crazy to think I would be okay with that. I called her his "slutty ex-girlfriend" and that really upset him. He said he wouldn't go up there again for the rest of the summer, "but it would mean not seeing Nora for the rest of the summer." I told him I didn't care if he didn't see her again, that they'd gotten too close and he had completely disregarded my concerns.
Over the summer he took 700 photos of her and kept them in a separate file on his desktop (I saw those too in the great snoop). He was gone every weekend adventuring with her and her kids, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone. When I got back from the arctic, I sensed his emotional detachment immediately. He called her about twice a week when he got hom from work and talked to her for about an hour at a time. We fought a lot, mostly about the ex and the cabin business and sometimes our fights got physical. He wrote emails to her that transcribed our fights and in which he implied I was faking my MS symptoms for sympathy. Once, while he was talking on the phone to her, she asked him if he could come over on the weekend and help her clean her apartment, I heard him say, "I'll get in trouble, but I don't care."
Apparently, at this point, they made a "pact" to stop talking and texting each other for a week, to see if I'd become "more friendly." Apparently, I did become more friendly, and then they went back to talking and texting, just while he was at work, so I wouldn't see.
About a week ago, he told me he wants a separation. I can still live in the apartment but he'll move out. Thing is, I know absolutely no one here, there are no job prospects (I don't have a car, which is a bit of a necessity up here) and it's pretty lonely walking around a ghost town all day.
Do I trust my instincts and leave him or have I been too harsh?
Fast forward 6 months, the husband is about to graduate law school and is terrified that his mediocre marks will not land him a job. The ex-girlfriend sets him up with an interview at a law firm in her tiny, remote town. I tell him I am extremely leery about us living in a town of 1,500 people with the ex as our only contact, especially given that the situation between me and her has been fraught. He tells me this is his only hope for employment so I agree to move up there with him and give it a try. We hang out with the ex and get along well. I tell him I like her, but am still a little wary.
Then I get a summer job in the Arctic, two months before we're set to move. Now I'm extremely leery about him exploring the town, settling into our new life with her. I tell him that and say I'm really not comfortable with the situation unless she keeps a bit of a distance from our life. I asked him, for one thing, not to move our stuff in/unpack the house with her. He agreed, and I left. Later on, I found an email (yes, much later on, I read his emails. This is part of why I want to know if I'm crazy jealous) where he wrote to her a few days before the move, saying he wanted to see her and that he would pay for her to come down and drive up with him. Then the first weekend he was up there, she asked him to go in on a cabin rental with her (her boyfriend at the time was also planning to go in on it). He told me the cabin would cost $40 a month but I later found out it cost $400 a month. He says the price went up. When he told me about the cabin, I flipped out and told him he was crazy to think I would be okay with that. I called her his "slutty ex-girlfriend" and that really upset him. He said he wouldn't go up there again for the rest of the summer, "but it would mean not seeing Nora for the rest of the summer." I told him I didn't care if he didn't see her again, that they'd gotten too close and he had completely disregarded my concerns.
Over the summer he took 700 photos of her and kept them in a separate file on his desktop (I saw those too in the great snoop). He was gone every weekend adventuring with her and her kids, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone. When I got back from the arctic, I sensed his emotional detachment immediately. He called her about twice a week when he got hom from work and talked to her for about an hour at a time. We fought a lot, mostly about the ex and the cabin business and sometimes our fights got physical. He wrote emails to her that transcribed our fights and in which he implied I was faking my MS symptoms for sympathy. Once, while he was talking on the phone to her, she asked him if he could come over on the weekend and help her clean her apartment, I heard him say, "I'll get in trouble, but I don't care."
Apparently, at this point, they made a "pact" to stop talking and texting each other for a week, to see if I'd become "more friendly." Apparently, I did become more friendly, and then they went back to talking and texting, just while he was at work, so I wouldn't see.
About a week ago, he told me he wants a separation. I can still live in the apartment but he'll move out. Thing is, I know absolutely no one here, there are no job prospects (I don't have a car, which is a bit of a necessity up here) and it's pretty lonely walking around a ghost town all day.
Do I trust my instincts and leave him or have I been too harsh?
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