We moved to a new city. I work full time (from home) as a SWE. She is a stay at home mom. She met new people on IG in our new city, made friends. I thought it was great.
My wife has a hole deep inside her from years of childhood abuse. She has no career, is early 20s like myself, and has yet to figure herself out.
As the months went by, she filled that hole more and more with her connections on IG and less with our family/relationship. Her follower count grew from a few hundred to 10,000. She started spending more and more time taking videos for her followers.
It got to the point where I would come home from work, ask how her day was, she’d say “fine.” And then about an hour later or later that night, there would be a multi paragraph long post of hers about her day. She put more effort into her relationship with IG than she did with us. It makes sense, I mean shit, every single post she would get hundreds of comments saying all sorts of nice things. I tried to keep up. But IG filled that hole in her heart much faster than I could.
Keep in mind we weren’t just some random marriage. We were best friends for a year before we even started dating.
She decided she is “pansexual” and “polyamorous” and no longer wanted to be “tied down”. She refused to leave me because I pay all the bills. So I suffered for a few months while she brought home different people. Eventually I got my own apartment and walked out.
Even though I technically walked out at the end, she left me mentally long ago. She now spends all her free time with her IG cliques instead of getting a job or going to school...or anything worthwhile really. Just more photoshoots. More posting. More spending.
She doesn’t have an remorse or regret to her. She thinks she is on the path to her greatness, blah blah blah, monogamy is ownership, all these things she just keeps repeating from memes she reads from “woke” accounts. Fake facts and stats from “sources” that are just anonymous accounts posting bullshit. Millenials (my generation) browse this shit, read it, and believe it without any doubt in their heads. Meanwhile I’m paying about ~$4k a month in just rent and car bills for her. Not including anything else.
OH and did I mention - the main girls she hangs out with from IG, 4 of them, are ALL going through divorces in the past two months. 4 of them. And they don’t see any connection between them. Either they are lying to my face and have some sort of secret pact going on to be single...or that’s some seriously strong groupthink right there.
Social media echo chambers are real.
Edit - I left out this private details because I originally deemed it unnecessary to share, but I think it might explain why I’m being so “nice”. She thinks she’s lesbian, or bi. She’s been bringing home women. She has a girlfriend now. If it was guys then yeah I think it would be easier to just be all pissed off. But the fact that it’s women, rational or not, for some reason makes it more confusing for me to deal with. Sorry for leaving this out.
Thank you for all the feedback and advice. All if it is extremely helpful.