Thanks for your feedback everybody. I think that the some of the responses showed me that I have not provided enough detail about my situation. This is a post about all the junk (“evidence”) behind me thinking my wife has an obsession with Toby Keith.

As you read you'll quickly see that I’ve changed the all roles for the purpose of my “little story” below. I know it seem odd for a forum like this but not only was this to help you to “be in my shoes” but it was more to help me to write it all down as it was, quite frankly, very painful to write this about my wife. I feel like the betrayer.

But thanks in advance for reading.

What would you think if you were in this situation?

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Your husband works with special needs folks. He has just returned from an internship in another state. He's been gone a month. He comes in the door sporting new duds, a "$3.00” (his words) cowboy hat (an odd look in big city suburbia) and he has bought a couple of Shania Twain CDs.

You think nothing of it, though oddly enough, he never plays the CD's in the house.

One day he offhandedly suggests that you change your hair-style and color and wear a little more, and darker, makeup. What’s the harm? You oblige him and he seems very happy with the results.

Months pass. One day you have your daughter with you in hubby’s car. As your daughter presses through the 6 CD changer, she's frustrated that every CD is Shania Twain. She opens the glove box and a pile more of Shania’s CD's fall out. "Dad has such an obsession with her" she says, exasperated. "Even his clothes...come on...his clothes".

Back at home you decide to check those clothes...hmmm… "Lucky Brand and Diesel brand" jeans and shirts? You go online: and it's there - both are Twain endorsed and the name brand clothes Shania wears. You check that “$3.00” cowboy hat placed carefully on the top shelf in his closet: "S.T. Brand".

Still, no big deal. He likes Shania. He’s a fan and it’s all good.
You also suddenly realize though, passing the mirror that, with your new hairstyle and make-up, you perhaps look more like Shania than you once did.
On a hunch you decide to check the master bedroom computer.
You're blown away: the search history is crammed with basically “everything Shania”.
“Well, hubby seems to have something of a crush", you say out loud, “perhaps I’ll have to razz him about this.”

But before you can dig any deeper, the kids have to be picked up from school. When you get back home hubby is there and the next time you check...the computer's entire search history is cleared. Gone. Vanished.
“So this is something he doesn’t want me to know”, you think, “I’d better hold off on the teasing.”

But, having a bit of a geek-streak, you know how to get around hurdles like erased web searches and since your curiosity is rather piqued as to how far this "crush" goes, you decide that you’re going to look into it. So once the coast is clear, you hit the keyboard.

Every aspect of Shania's existence is there. Hundreds of pictures and video clips looked at, her whole history including full and thorough research into each aspect of that history: where she was born, her elementary school, her high school, her favorite college and high-school teams, her favorite horses, her clothing line (here you realize his "$3.00" cowboy hat was closer to a "$100.00" cowboy hat and the jeans were $130.00). He's found out Shania’s favorite vacation spots and researched those places as well. Oh, and the new shampoo he's been using - yep...the one Shania uses.

"Okay" you think, "this is a little over the top. Seems there's a little untruth-telling going on too.”

Over the following days and weeks you find many interesting things:

You find a lot of people's names in hubby’s web searches...names that you research yourself trying to figure out who these people are: turns out they’re Shania's kids, parents, brother's and sisters.

There is extensive...and I mean EXTENSIVE research into Shania's husband. "Why him?" you ask yourself, "Why is my hubby wanting to learn about her husband so much?" You head reels a bit at the possibilities.

You also realize a lot of web searches are based around a certain town in...say...Oklahoma. It doesn't take too long to realize this is where Shania lives.
Many pictures of the town have been looked at. Shania's church has been found, researched and map-quested to get it’s location. The cemetery where her grand dad was buried has been researched and map-quested. Demographics of the town have been researched as well as programs and athletics the local high school. The local newspaper articles on Shania have been researched.

You choke a bit when you realize too that he's been looking at real estate in her town. You choke more when you notice he's been looking for work for himself there too. And he's found the local Starbucks….his favorite coffee.
A real zinger hits you when you realize that hubby seems to have found out Shania's home address. It's been map-quested.

Furthermore there are many, many other towns/cities across the continent that pop up in his web searches as well. A quick look tells you they are all Shania concert venues. Emails and such reveal that, for some of these shows, he's been trying to use his work with Special Needs people to gain access to front row Shania concerts.

As the days go on, it's painfully obvious that each time your hubby logs on the computer...when he gets off - his search history is cleared. Empty. A lot of what hurts, you realize, comes from knowing that he wants his “little crush” to be a secret.

Somewhere along the line you remember commenting to him about how “into Shania” he was.
“You like Frank Sinatra, I like Shania’s music”, was all he said.
Now you just shake you head in disappointment at that
under-statement of the year.

The clincher comes when hubby asks if you want to go on a holiday with him to visit his old friend from high-school - the first trip to visit this friend ever. It's a very busy time for you with work and a trip couldn't come at a worse time. There's no way you can go.

But he still really wants to go...so you let him...fighting back the tears as you know this high school friend of his lives just across the border, in the next state, from Shania Twain.

Part of you feels like saying, "Hon, just go...go and do what you need to do...take as much time as you want...figure it all out, but when you come back, I need you come back to be with just me."
But for some stupid reason you bite your tongue.

So he does go on the trip. He's incommunicado for most of a week. It's a dagger to the heart when you get back home from the airport where you dropped him off to find that before he left he map-quested directions from his buddy's town to several "spots of interest" in Shania's town. At night you toss and turn on your bed. In the confusion and unreality of sleepless nights you start asking yourself: “Is it over?”

When he does finally phone you subtly ask about any "sidetrips". "Nope there were none", he says. You have to believe him, or it might as well be over.

When he returns sporting a second "$3.00" cowboy hat (same brand - different color) and more Shania duds...you’ve convinced yourself that he must still be fondling thoughts of her in his head, and it's time to bring all this out in the open.

You realize though that you’re too close to the problem. You want to find someone to give you advice on how to bring this up with him or whether you should even bring it up at all. Problem is...all your close friends are mutual.

So you go online...here...Psych central and you're told that secret daddy crushes are fine. They are harmless. You are told to tease him about Shania. You are told that you've been breaking trust with hubby. You are told you need to let him feel free and "intoxicated" with his secret crush.
You sigh and realize that perhaps they don’t really understand and you need to make things clearer…so you begin writing this post.

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So there it is in a nutshell.

No, I don't think my wife is a danger to Toby. I know this sounds like she may be a stalker and maybe she is. Depends what happened on that trip she took. I don’t know.

It may come as a surprise but my wife and I generally have a great, friendly and happy relationship...other that this secret. She’s hiding the secret and I’m hiding the fact that I know the secret and the last few months have indeed had some underlining tension in our relationship.
We have worked out some tough times in the past. We have good communication skills and are generally able to express what we are feeling with accuracy and very little finger pointing.

This is a biggy for me though and I don’t want to drive a wedge between my wife and I. Suggesting a marriage counselor is a bit of a no-no as I don’t want to blindside her with something that serious. And yes she would see an invite to a marriage counselor as the last step before the big “D”. Probably too big of a leap right now.

She and I, we need to discuss this first - the two of us. Or maybe I just need to vent a bit because I’m not so sure she’s ready to have her “obsession” brought into the light. Maybe I should just ride this out with a smile on my face. Or perhaps wait for an opportune moment. Perhaps ask her what she would think if I had a secret celebrity obsession that has a lot of the same characteristics as her obsession.

I do want to clear the air though. I think it's wrong she has this obsession. But I know it'll hurt her, and me, and us, if I bring it up.

I honestly do not know what to do.

I do know one of the biggest questions that I’m dying to know the answer to, is what event, what moment, what thing or series of things was it that, during her internship away from home, made her decide “Toby Keith”?