Marriage of 15 years on the rocks after 38-year-old wife starts bashing husband to her 3 divorced friends, he sees the messages and demands she end the friendship: 'I cannot live with a wife who doesn't respect me'

Author image for Briana Viser
Briana Viser • Writer and Editor
Oct 11, 2025 12:00 PM EDT

Marriage is never a straight and narrow path. There's a natural pendulum swing of love, emotions, frustrations, as well as external life factors. It's never easy to manage, which is why it takes two mature and devoted people to really make it work. In the story here, it's unclear whether they'll get through this specific rough patch. The protagonist is the husband, a 39-year-old who's been with his wife for 15 years. He seems happily married, until she starts making friends with the wrong crowd. 

Who knew that our friends can influence us to this level even 15 years into marriage? The wife is close friends with three different women who started married when they first became friends, and ultimately all got a divorce in the past few years. They might be projecting their disdain for men, or even their frustration in love, because now the wife is bashing her husband in the same way. She takes any opportunity to make a small jab at him, until he finds out. 

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    AITAH for asking my wife to ditch her divorced friends?

    A married couple having issues
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    So I (39M) and my wife (38F) have been married for 10 years together for 15 and have two children (9M and 7F). My wife has
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    been going out with a group of 3 of her friends from work once a month for years. When it first started all her friends were
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    married, but in the last couple of years her 3 friends have all had very messy divorces.
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    Now the problem when my wife goes out with them she comes home and is suddenly hyper critical of everything I do or do
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    not do. So I do work from home and have worked with my company so that everyday I can take my breaks in order to do kid
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    drop off and pick up, walk the dog, cook supper and try to do other things around the house if my work day allows it. My wife
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    who works out of the house used to be super appreciative of this always say thank you or do other little things like if she had to stop
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    and fill up the car she would pick me a bag of chips or some other token of thank you.
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    When she now goes out with her friends who have gotten divorced (none of them were easy) She comes home and now instead of
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    thanks, I get "well you didn't do the laundry" or the laundry didn't get folded and put away. Even my cooking which she used to love now is picked apart with
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    everything that could be improved or changed. Also suddenly all intimacy is gone not a even kiss good bye or good morning and if I try anything else
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    I just get shut down hard. This usually last for about a week or two (but it is starting to get longer) before she starts saying
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    thank you and appreciating what I do around the house.
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    The other day my wife left her personal cell phone at home and called me from work asking her to bring it to her and to charge it
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    on the way. I don't think she realized that plugging her phone into my truck for the drive would bring up her text messages. Well as I was driving this group of
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    friends started texting her phone and it was nothing but bashing me. With things like "What didn't he do today", "he sounds like he
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    just makes more work for you" and "hope he likes the cold". So I pulled over and read the conversation and everything she
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    was saying about how I was making her life difficult. Honestly it nearly broke me but I didn't want to over react. I brought the
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    phone to her and she grabbed it and went back in the building no thank you or anything.
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    That night I arranged for my dad to pick up the kids so we could talk in private when she got home I told her I saw the text messages
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  • It must be heartbreaking to read those kinds of messages from your wife of so many years. I really feel for this guy. It's kind of a betrayal to be talking behind his back like that, and painting him like he's a bad husband when he obviously cares about being a good one. 

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    and she snapped at me for reading the messages (yes I realize it was wrong of me to do). I told her well apparently according to you and your friends
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    I am a dog **** husband. My outburst took her by surprise I am generally pretty soft spoken and I went a rage about all the stuff I
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    do around the house daily that apparently count for nothing and if it was a big problem she could step up and do more. I asked her
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    if she still loved me and she did say yes and she said she just gets caught up talking with this group and feels the need to join in, so I
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    told her she needs to cut it off with this group because I cannot live with a wife that doesn't respect or appreciate me, and we
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    Divorce papers
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    need to go counselling as well. She said I was being unreasonable for asking her to cut out her friends of over 10 years so AMITAH?
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    • tea... 9h ago • Edited 1h ago NTA, and she doesn't respect you. If she is easily influenced by those people to the point where she tells them very terrible stuff
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    about you, they can influence her to eventually do something worse. She pretty much trusts the friends she meets up with once a month and not her
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    husband. Meet up with marriage counselor and explain the situation to them. They can probably explain why you aren't being unreasonable. Good luck OP, you seem very sweet to your wife!
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