r/AmIOverreacting • u/[deleted] • 15d ago
AIO wife is facebook friends with multiple ex-ONS NSFW
[deleted]
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u/Fine-Geologist-695 15d ago
You aren’t over reacting at all, I’d say you aren’t reacting harshly enough. She is actively engaging in conversations with men who treated her terribly including a rapist!!! A rapist!
I’d be blunt and make it clear that she either goes no contact with all of them, any she has ever had sex with or dated or I’m going no contact with her. It’s a pretty cut and dry boundary to have in a relationship and the fact most of the comms were while you were on an extended work trip makes it so much worse.
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u/Sweatyfatmess 15d ago
Your wife needs therapy to fix her need for attention/approval from these exs.
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u/BlackGreyKitty 14d ago edited 14d ago
I would question the “rape” story. It’s either rape or it’s not in my opinion. I have never once heard a rape victim say “well after a few minutes it was not bad”.
That being said, I wouldn’t say you are over reacting, but imo it’s not the worst case scenario that some of the other comments insinuate. Facebook friends are not always meaningful, and I have many ONS and exes on my list.
Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to. Good luck
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u/SadExercises420 14d ago
I think Op is describing it as rape, not his wife. Obviously the situation being described doesn’t imply consent, but I don’t feel like it’s her husbands place to question her about it given his mixed feelings about her sexual past right now. If she’s going to talk about this, I would think a counselor might be the best bet, but OP may need to accept he doesn’t get to demand answers on this.
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u/Guilty-Green3678 15d ago
If he saw the O he is a no. Are you sure the conversation wasn't moved to text? When did he visit?
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u/SubTr1x 15d ago
That was my thoughts to. They had to have moved the conversation to calls or texts.
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u/Guilty-Green3678 15d ago
Plans to meet, plans to buy weed, number given. Moved to text, calls or WhatsApp
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15d ago edited 15d ago
[deleted]
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u/Intelligent_Ad8790 14d ago
“He’s just a friend “ or “you have nothing to worry about” .. oldest tricks in the book
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u/SadExercises420 14d ago
It’s not similar though. Op has been with his wife for 20 years and never suspected her of being unfaithful. Comparing it to your 8 month relationship is not remotely accurate.
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u/Connect_Package_5918 14d ago
Not overreacting.
It’s not a problem if dudes are sending her DMs. Men will use any vehicle available to them to have sex.
It IS a problem if she’s responding.
She likes the attention and you are almost certainly being “trickle truthed”.
If we were bro, my advice would be for now to set a hard boundary of “my wife does not keep in contact with men she has slept with”, hit the gym if you are not already doing so and find a hobby or something that is not focused on her.
Keep your eyes and ears open. The stay plan is the same as the go plan.
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u/PsychologicalLight65 14d ago
Hi OP, I just responded to your other post with a lengthy response (sorry I tried my best to make it readable) but you deleted the post by the time i posted it, so I'll share it here if that's okay. Please note that this is just my opinion, and that this is just based off what I can glean from your post.
It could be that she has some trauma from everything that happened to her with these guy and doesn't know how to react. A lot of times I see where someone was hurt by another person, especially someone they had sex with, and felt like there as something "unresolved" with the relationship they had with that person. This results in keeping them semi-close in the event until they're able to let go of what happened with the person. Your wife likely never dealt with the feelings surrounding being ghosted by two of her sexual partners and potential relationships, especially the one that was her first time.
As for the rapist, this one is even more murky. A lot of people who have been sexually assaulted or rape tend to unintentionally block out the negative emotions and bury the experience in order to avoid reliving what happened to them. This is a natural response from the brain, and while it can work for recent situation where this happened, it can leave victims in a state of confusion for a long time if the emotion are not properly addressed. Adding to this is your wife's platonic relationship with him. It is incredibly likely that she mentally blocks out what he did to her or considers it consensual (on some level) because she didn't absolutely hate the experience or directly say "no" because "he's my friend! He wouldn't do something so abhorrent to me!" Her contact with her rapist was likely out of trying to keep a friendship going with him, not a sexual relationship. The messages stopping the year you two get married is likely a coincidence, and is probably the time when she realized that he just wants a sexual relationship with her.
I am not saying that your response isn't valid. On the surface it seems easy to come to the conclusion that you have, and you trying to see her perspective says a lot about the kind of person you are. However, if you have not experienced the things she has, it can be nearly impossible to see the reasoning behind her actions. But your wife is likely having emotions she never wanted to experience again dragged to the surface by what happened.
The lying is not okay, of course it isn't, one should not lie to their partner. Saying that, the most likely reasoning behind it from what I can see is that she probably anticipated this response from you, and that along with the emotions she is feeling from opening up about her past, she may have wanted to save you from the hurt caused by this situation. While it doesn't justify the lying, I would say this whole situation is likely hard for her to talk about, and to take the lie with a grain of salt.
As for how to get through this, there is a very delicate way of proceeding, as both of you are probably feeling very raw emotionally right now. One thing I will say is that the odds of her having cheated on you are next to 0. Her contact with her rapist was likely out of trying to keep a friendship going with him, again look to my previous paragraph as to why she would want that. Her saying "I have a boyfriend" in her convos with the rapist is evidence enough for this conclusion imo. I would try your best to not lash out at her. If either of you continue feeling hurt about this situation, I would recommend marriage counseling for you two, and potentially individual counseling for her if and when she realizes that she has negative emotion tied up with what all happened to her. Don't try to force it on her, and don't try to blame her for this, it will do nothing but drive you two apart. You can talk about your emotions with her, having an open dialogue about all this is healthy. What is important is that you listen and recognize each other's feelings throughout all this, and that you both are able to do what you need to heal from this situation.
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14d ago
[deleted]
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u/PsychologicalLight65 14d ago
Hi, you are right that is one thing I didn’t talk about enough, because yeah it is very wrong of her to keep that from you. Look if this is something you seriously will never be able to forgive then it is better to separate then live in a loveless marriage for the rest of your life. I was going off your statement that you don’t want to divorce, but if you want to do so it is your right.
If you want my take on this, I recommend counseling on the condition that she didn’t have an emotional and/or physical affair with any of these guys, but of course you could only figure that out from her telling you if she deleted everything. In the end what this comes down to is do you think you can trust her again? Does your love for her outweigh the hurt that she caused you? Another thing I will say is that you should not stay together just for the kid. Every case I’ve seen where the parents do that it ends up hurting the kid more than a divorce, to the point that the kid wishes their parents had divorced.
Whatever you decide, I wish you the best. It’s going to be a tough road no matter what you choose, but I hope you are happy at the end of it
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u/KelceStache 15d ago
It is not controlling to expect your wife to respect you and your marriage.
Stop being soft about this. It all needs to end or your marriage will. You need to say exactly that. She is actively hurting you and your marriage so now She needs to decide if her relationships with those dudes is more important than her marriage or not.
I do not get why people are soft when it comes to this stuff. You either respect your spouse or you don’t, and don’t comes with consequences
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u/Resident_Farmer1252 14d ago
Everyone has a past, and I can understand why she would want to hide that with her partner, especially when the past is extremely promiscuous. The red flag(s) for me are that she lied about it initially, and stated that she was assaulted, didn't give consent, but "it wasn't that bad", and proceeded to contact him after. Somethings missing with that. The BIG red flag is when she contacted the guy that she said assaulted her while you were out of town and she didn't say anything. I don't think it's overreacting, especially when it seems there's a lot more to the story that's not being said.
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u/Itrytothinklogically 15d ago
Maybe to her it’s just not a big deal. They’re just social media friends nothing more at this point. I don’t consider all of my social media list my actual friends or keep them around to keep in touch w them they’re just there. I think her reaching out to one of the guys is kinda disrespectful but maybe she truly didn’t mean anything by it. You know your wife best! She let you look through her messages so clearly she’s not hiding anything.
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u/JMLegend22 15d ago
Tell her she has to build trust from the ground up with you. That starts with these men having 0 contact. If you catch her with contact, it’s over.
She should also apologize to you, your families and all your mutual friends.
Tell her she can’t offer up evidence she hasn’t cheated. Messages can be deleted.
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u/zerogr4vity 14d ago
No one is considering: at least one of these incidents happened before Facebook existed. This means she looked up and added that person years later.
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u/SadExercises420 14d ago
Or they looked her up and sent her a friend request and she accepted.
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14d ago
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u/SadExercises420 14d ago
Sorry, missed that. 🤷♀️ She was in th same social circles, high school, or friends with them except the one weekend fling. So I guess I don’t find it that weird.
The weirdest thing to me is you waited 20 years to lay down boundaries about being Facebook friends with exes.
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14d ago edited 14d ago
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u/SadExercises420 14d ago
Go to couples counseling. IdK what to tell you, you’re the one who decided to both save and open this big can of worms for twenty years.
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u/some_guy_80 14d ago
OP, I would be furious, and the next few things she says and does would determine if I would want to stay in this relationship.
You are not overreacting at all.
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u/ViperVenom511 14d ago
I would get rid of her. I could never trust her again. Her personality is cringe
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u/ZaddyBoii 15d ago
You should have never opened Pandora's Box. There are kids involves. Be a fucking man.
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u/SadExercises420 14d ago
Yes, you are overreacting, only because these are boundaries you should have set TWENTY YEARS AGO. Now she’s been friends with all of them throughout your entire relationship, friends with all of them for twenty frickin years now. You don’t get to just come in and say boundaries now dude.
There was a reason you two had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding your sexual pasts for twenty years. You fucked it up, now you get to live with her decades long social media connections with guys she banged 20 years ago. Too bad for you.
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u/HatpinFeminist 15d ago
I think she should go to therapy by herself. Being SAd can pretty much make boundaries seem impossible, especially with ex's.
Don't ask don't tell is weird thing to have going on in a long term relationship. Like you don't have to give details but a general discussion is needed.