She's fed up, what do I do?

I have been with my wife for almost 8 years, married for 3, and have a amlost 3-year old daughter together. We work together (own a fish & chip shop).

I’m a quite laid by guy who hasn’t done much around the house, she normally tells me to do things and I always say ‘later’. I suppose you couls say that she wears the pants. And that is totally my fault.

She has told me before that she was fed up before but still decided to stay with me, but about 2 weeks ago, she suddenly said that shes had enough, and she doesn’t like me anymore. And she means it. She also mentioned to give her some space.

In the meantime she has started WhatsApping one of my best friend (who is a guy) everyday (first thing in the morning until last thing at night and that really ticks me off. I also constantly check if they are both online together and they are, which makes me suspicious.
I’m trying to give her some space with No Contact but I think its not helping as she is getting attention from my best friend.
I’ve sneakily checked her messages about what they talk about, generally its just normal stuff, but they send each other so many 'xxxxxxx’s and kiss/love emojis at each other. She has also mentioned to him that ‘shes fed up, if only he knew’, whatever that is implying towards him… :S
I know that they are constantly messaging each other and every time I walk into a room where she is in, she puts her phone down and pretends not to be doing anything. And when I walk out she uses it again on WhatsApp as I check again, and they are both online chatting again.
I dont know why she would hide it though…
A couple days later I got really annoyed that I confronted her about it. Then she got really defensive, saying ‘I cant believe you would think that’, and ‘you’re crazy’ and ‘i cant believe you are like that’.
But i’ve gone through it so many times in my head and it seems like she is starting to be emotionally attached to him.
In the meantime, I’ve told my (boy)friend that my wife and i need to sort some things out, and I asked him if he could stop messaging her (i said to him that i always see her messaging him on whatsapp) for a week or two (i sent him a whatsapp message and told him not to say anything about this to her).
He agreed to this, then the next few days he is still messaging her constantly. What i mean by this is first thing in the morning (about 9am) during the day when hes at work (he works in an office job now) and texts her all the way from about 8pm until about 2AM sometimes.
And as i said i confronted my wife earlier, she said i was crazy, and said whats wrong with that. Then i mentioned to her that isnt it a bit extreme to message all day long, not just that but probably send about 200 messages a day together (although its about general stuff). I still think shes infatuated with him even though she says shes not.
A few days later, I call my friend and have a general chat, and then i brought up the situation about my wife. And i asked him again could he stop messaging her for a week or 2 so she can ‘concentrate’. He said okay, that he’ll say that his work has been busy or whatever. And i thought he would do it.
Then… again he’s now still constantly messaging her!!! That really annoys me and makes my blood boil!!
I want to confront him and ask what part of not messaging her does he not understand??? but i dont know if that would make things worse for any of us.

Im trying to change myself with No Contact by giving my wife space, doing things without having her to ask me etc. but now the problem is that she is always messaging my friend, and i think that is a big distraction!!!.

Im stuck now and i dont know what to do!!

Can someone please enlighten me… please…

(sorry for the long message, lol)

She’s having an emotional relationship with your friend and he’s having one with her. And they aren’t stopping. And because of that, she’s disconnecting from you.

This is only going to get worse, not better. She needs to make a decision, it is you or him and honestly at this point, it sounds like she is infatuated with him and she might take the option of going with him because when you have an emotional, remote relationship with someone else, it always seems great because you don’t have to face any actual issues with each other.

I know she wears the pants but things are just going to go downhill from here until a decision is made where she is going to go. No contact doesn’t work for this situation as you are married and have a kid among other things.

I’d talk to her about… if you both divorced, who the kid would stay with (for how long, etc.) and where you both would live and how you would work together. This is to force her to confront what is going on and how serious it and what will happen because of it in the end. I wouldn’t start blaming her or arguing with her about her behavior and wouldn’t say you want a divorce right now.

I would just talk about the fact that this is where things seem like they are going to end up (divorce) given what is going on and if it does, you want to have an agreed on plan so your daughter is taken care of, things aren’t a mess financially, everyone knows who will be living where, etc. A painful conversation but probably the best option at this point.

Thanks for replying to my problem.
That really wasn’t what I was hoping of hearing but I suppose it’s kind of true…

I’m going to be going down near where my friend lives in a couple of days. Should I talk to him about what he’s doing?
I blatently told him not to message her. I asked him for a favour, and he said ‘yeah man, sure’. They are both online on whatsapp now as we speak.
I told him that my wife and I need to sort things out. He agreed and is still doing it!
I’ve been thinking whether to end our friendship because of this. We have been friends for over 12 years.

But by doing this I’m pretty sure my wife will know and think that I’m the idiot doing that to my friend and she’ll probably say again that our situation has got nothing to do him.

If she says she’s had enough of me but isn’t messaging him then that’s fine. I can take that, but because she is messaging him, I don’t think that it’s quite acceptable…???

Even if it’s her way of coping, would you say that what she’s doing is acceptable? Or classed as an affair?!?!

Or maybe it’s a rebound relationship?!?

Please reply… in need all the help I can.

Thanks

Your friend didn’t marry you. He shouldn’t be messaging your wife constantly but he never made any statements about being together “in sickness and in health” and all the rest. I don’t expect he is going to stop messaging. He may want to but she’ll probably keep messaging him and he will reply and say “what am I supposed to do, she keeps messaging me”

What she is doing isn’t acceptable and in my opinion, it is just going to go downhill from here. A rebound relationship generally happens after a couple breaks up. This is an emotional relationship. They are addictive and very hard to break and generally progress as time goes on. And they make someone more distant to their current partner.

I don’t know anyone involved and I can only make guesses based on what you’ve said. I don’t know all the personalities involved. I can only base my opinion on previous experiences, people I’ve met, etc. This will likely continue until there is some reason for it not to.