Yeah, you could take it that way Trippin. I can see how that could ruffle some feathers.

But the truth is there are always two sides of the story, and we only have one side of the story.

I think this woman got married the first time at a very young age, that did not work out for whatever reason and she met Dad and got married to him, and she was still young. I don't see this woman having any time figuring out who "she" is in this picture, and that does happen. She was a wife and then a mother and that was her life. And then that life became that of "just basically being room mates".

Sometimes what can happen is a woman's life becomes all about giving/servicing her children and her husband and as time passes she just goes through the motions and it just becomes expected of her and she begins to lose her sense of identity. It can get like clockwork, get up, make the lunches, get the little one's off to school, clean the house, woops he is home and he wants his meal cooked and then he is going to do his part where what he knows as "physical" where he thinks everything is great when SEX happens and sometimes I don't feel like it and often he is selfish that way, but let's not get into that, I am tired, it's been a long day. The days pass, the weeks pass and so do the years and then in this case, he is gone for a while, and I have to deal with that too.

Then one day I catch him texting this other woman, I read what he says to her and I think about how he never talks to me that way, no, for a while now it's more like we just exist like room mates. The more I think about what I read, the angrier I get.

This feeling and anger comes out with, "I gave YOU ten years of my life". Often the anger and resentment comes from "here I am being a devoted wife and cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, taking care of his needs including the sex that's gotten like everything else, predictable and boring and yet here I see him being "nice" to a woman who did NONE of that and for SO MANY YEARS.

I can hear in the statement made, "This other man came over and cooked for us, did I F him?, ha that's just SEX". Now, why would someone say something that way? Why would she want to emphasize how little value the SEX had? Hmm, could it be that was something that NEVER had all that much value to her? Maybe that's something that was considered a "plus" when it really wasn't? Was that just something that was on her "to do list" in being a devoted dutiful wife?

So, you were deployed before and she was dutiful, after all, that was what she committed to. But, just because one commits to that doesn't mean it isn't lonely and that one can end up losing a husband that way, then what? And women don't realize how lonely that can get either. Maybe one doesn't think about that so much when busy with two little ones. And the years tick by and it's lonely when he is gone, and lonely when he is home too, basically strangers, room mates and up every morning doing the same ole routine. Until I see something that tells me something IMPORTANT and it hits me like a ton of bricks, he is sweet talking to some woman behind my back. And he NEVER shows that kind of interest in me.

That alone can be worse then "sex" cheating. That alone can injure one's self esteem to the point where it feels like a MAJOR injury. Plus a realization that not only might he be gone via deployment, but also another woman. So, she gets a "I am sorry" and then he is gone for 9 months leaving her alone to "stew" on how deeply hurt her ego really is. That is a long time to be alone and stew in "anger". Anger is a funny emotion in that anger creates a desire to "act" and often one can "act on anger" in unhealthy ways and there if fear and hurt in the mix too. A realization of "self worth" and what one has were they can self sustain and have a sense of personal value.

So she spends time with friends and gets "validated" and they probably told her to NOW make it a point to do things for herself for a change. It sounds to me like she decided to see about going to nursing school instead of sending packages and sitting in devotion that has been blown apart. She probably thinks, "well, if I had not caught him, he would STILL be doing it too". I am also pretty sure that her friends encouraged her to think this way too. And gradually, she feels so hurt and angry and violated that she wants "you" to hurt the way she is hurting, hence she doesn't send you more than one package.

Then she ends up meeting this other man and he probably tells her how special she is, how attractive she is, and he listens to her and talks to her in a way she had NOT been talked to in Years, maybe never. Well, when someone's ego is hurting badly, having someone present some positives and self esteem builders can be something VERY desirable. I guess so much so that she did not care that he was married.

I have a feeling those nine months you were gone she was getting attention and slowly realizing what was missing in her life. Maybe this guy did come over and offered to make dinner, maybe that's something you never did and something that she always did.
It's possible she didn't even have sex with this other guy, and yet he talked to her and listened to her and cooked for her and she started to say to herself, "gee this is nice when a man does this for me".

When others talk about how she must be planning on using you until she can be on her own? Truth is that's what a lot of people do, they use whatever sustains them until they can be self sufficient. And she has enrolled in nursing school, and just because she has done that doesn't mean she is going to finish and get her nursing degree. As I mentioned, it can be hard to get into learning and studying and nursing gets harder and harder and sometimes all the person gets to is learning how to be a nurses assistant. Also, even if she managed to get that degree, it's not a 9 to 5 kinda job.

So, for nine months she has been interacting with others, trying to learn and manage her children and that can pass by rather quickly being so busy like that. To you, that may be a long time, to her, it probably was not long enough and here you are asking her to return to who she was before all this blew up in her face.

Well, maybe nursing school is hard and is stressing her, and maybe this other guy was more supportive and cooked while she studied. Maybe he even helped her study and maybe he saw the value in it and was very supportive when she got frustrated with it thinking "ugh, this is hard don't know if I can do this". Then you come home with your card and flowers and you want "answers" and she doesn't have answers, but only that when you come around you ask questions and demand answers she has no answers for.

And maybe with you around this other guy got cold feet and this other guy has learned some things too and decided to stay in "his" marriage where his wife is self sufficient and makes a good buck and not to feel so bad when she goes away on business. After all, he may have realized how he should appreciate that his wife is self assured and self sufficient while spending time with your wife who is very insecure right now. Perhaps he dumped your wife and that made her even more confused. There you were on the bed and she was distant hurting, yet did not want you to comfort her either and you felt that. Probably at that point she was even more confused and no where near being able to give you an answer to the question you keep asking.

So far when she tried to invite you in, it turns into arguments. Your focus has been on this other guy and how wrong that was, and her focus has been how angry she is for all her insecure feelings from that very first moment she read the texts where you were sweet talking some other woman that clearly hit her in a profound way. Perhaps she already struggled with low self esteem and was not happy, but that was a huge wake up call for her in a lot of ways you don't even see. And you did not see it because for a long time you were "just room mates".

When you came with this problem, truth is you will get a lot of different opinions, which you have and these opinions are often based on what different posters know via their own life experiences and observations. However, at best it's just speculation because the one thing that's missing is "your wife's version and feelings from her side of this challenge". That being said, you have admitted that you are not good with the language and that you communicate in "physical ways". What does that mean? With a lot of men, they think that is "sex" when that is simply not enough. I think that was what your wife meant when she said, "he came and made dinner for us and did I F him, huh, that's just "sex". She should not have said that like that, she spoke that in an angry resentful way toward you. I think what she was saying is "you are just physical, that's all you think about, I need more than that". But, she is failing to communicate that to you and instead is tossing out anger which only pushes you away. That texting that I am pretty sure she read was NOT physical, she saw something else in it that made it even more hurtful to her.

It's the communication that's missing in your marriage, not the physical. She is constantly distancing from you in the physical sense and is waiting for the communication and that part is you telling her what you won't accept and it's ok to do this or that and I will not allow this or that. Oh, and make up your mind if you want a divorce or not. I think this other man showed her how nice it is when "communication" does take place. I think that's what he brought into her life and filled the room with that was missing before in her life that she did not realize was missing until it was present. And I think she doesn't want to "go back" to how she lived where that was missing in her life and she doesn't know how to explain that to you. So, when you get together, things end up in an argument.