My Wife Has Suddenly "Friendzoned" Me And I'm Unsure How To Proceed r/Relationships

[00:00:01] Hey Waffle Gang, I do hope you're well. My name is Mark and today we're checking out some more Reddit Stories. And if you do love a Reddit Story, why not consider hitting that like, subscribe, maybe that notification bell too. And let's crack on with today's first story. Much love guys.

[00:00:18] Now today's first story comes from Sodomonster01 from the Relationships subreddit, has a couple of updates with it as well. It's titled, I, male 35, have been friendzoned by my wife, female 34. Married for 6 years, together for 8. Overall we've had a happy marriage. I've had common goals for what we want to do in life and we even started working together a year or so into our relationship. But something happened at the start of this year.

[00:00:46] I got a promotion which required me to work long and wonky hours, which left us less time together. Maybe one day a week that we could go out and do things. I felt like we were making a converted effort to spend time together and I called her on my breaks and when I was on the way home. Stuff like that.

[00:01:03] Fast forward to two months ago. I noticed she was very invested in her online friend group that she games with and had been spending long hours with them, even on days that we were supposed to spend time together. Sex had mostly dried up, save for a lone, isolated incident when she became overwhelmed by horniness while at work and felt like she wanted to tackle the nearest guy. She rushed home and we had great sex, but something lurked in the back of my mind about this incident.

[00:01:30] We haven't had any sort of sexual intimacy since this event, which was maybe three months ago. Anyway, two months ago we ended up having a fight where I, in essence, say that she doesn't really want to be in this relationship. And that's when she drops the bombshell that she had fallen out of love with me over the last month or so. The timetable for falling out of love is nebulous at this time, but it's most certainly this year.

[00:01:55] I was devastated because I knew something funky was happening, but we'd been so close and so in sync for years that I didn't even consider that she had lost feelings for me. She said she still cares for me dearly, but sees me as sort of like a neighbor or roommate or something. I spiraled into depression and decided to devote every waking hour to saving our relationship. We took a week off work and went on many dates and I tried everything I knew to reconnect.

[00:02:22] At our zenith, she said she loved me like a family member, but that she just wasn't in love or romantic love. So a couple of days ago, I'm like, okay, maybe you should get your own place for a while. I'm still very much in love and attracted and care so much for her. But the sting of rejection every time I look in her eyes is extremely painful. She had said at various points over the last couple of months that she had a longing for something new. Somewhere new. An adventure. That's the key reason for me to ask her to leave.

[00:02:51] I'm not going to trap her in a marriage where she knows she can't fulfill her end of things and she knows I'm unhappy. My question is this. My family and friends have been disagreeing with our plans moving forward and said we should exhaust all efforts before moving into a break or separation territory. I feel like I'm smothering her with my needs and desires while she lives here. Do I have my head up my behind? Or is this just kind of how marriages go after a time? My parents had long years of lovelessness and eventually divorced.

[00:03:21] Maybe things can eventually morph into a friendship over time and I'm the strange one for still wanting intimacy. The first commenter said on this one,

[00:04:04] Opie says thank you so much for your kindness. I agree that staying in a relationship where I'm not being reciprocated will lead to all sorts of bad things. Absolutely don't want to search extramaritally for solutions to my needs. I hope you have found what you need as well. Endemonium says bro, you're missing the point here. She's checked out. Game over. Pack it up and move on. You're clinging to a sinking ship my dude. Sure, try to save it if you want but it sounds like she's already gone one foot out the door. You're not being dumb for wanting intimacy.

[00:04:34] That's normal. But you are being dumb if you think you can force her to stay in love with you. Let her go and focus on yourself. You deserve someone who actually wants to be with you and seriously, stop trying so hard to say something that's already dead. Life's too short for that nonsense. Opie says it's just so hard to accept that something is dead when it feels so goddamn sudden. Months is all it takes to entirely lose love. I don't understand. Did she not see this was happening? Did she not even care to say anything? It's just so hard to understand.

[00:05:04] A couple of months later, Opie added their update and said read my post if you're interested in what's going on. Anyway, wife and I are separating. She fell out of love. Six years of marriage. She moved to an apartment half an hour away. We don't talk much anymore. We're civil when we do talk and neither of us have the intention to hurt each other. She doesn't want me. I've mostly made peace with that but I do want a partner. Someone to share a life with.

[00:05:31] But I don't know if I should wait until I'm done mourning my relationship or try to find someone new. Absolutely do not want to hurt anyone by potentially rebounding but I very much want to fill this gnawing void within me. Maybe my wife will refine within herself the reason we were together in the first place. And at the time maybe she will try to get back together. Lots of ifs and buts. But I also know what I need in life. I need someone else. What do I do? A top commenter said to Opie on this one.

[00:06:00] I mean, look at what you wrote. I very much want to fill this gnawing void within me. Another person doesn't deserve to be a plug. Something you use to relieve your pain. Most people dating are looking for a partner. And you're not ready to be that for anyone right now. And Cora says she moved away. You're good to go except you'll very quickly want a rebound. It happens and there are women in your age group who are becoming aware of their biological clock and want children. How do I know that? I was in your shoes.

[00:06:31] It's entirely fine to start a family but wait to do so until you settle down mentally. Which is likely to take a year or two. As for your ex-wife. Yes, that's what she is and you have to start thinking of her like that. She'll be fine. Or she won't. Anyway, she's on her own and wants to be. Move on. Three months later, Opie came in again and said, The long and short of it is she has a new boyfriend after having moved out a couple of months ago. He's someone she's been talking to since the beginning of the year.

[00:07:00] Only recently has escalated, supposedly. I only learned of this due to a mutual co-worker like fifth hand knowledge. I called my soon-to-be ex-wife to get confirmation. I said to her, Some news has gotten back to me. Do you have anything you'd like to get off your chest? After a long pause, she says, I went on a date. I knew this already so I said, And? And it went well. And? And there was a fainting incident in the hot tub. And? And what?

[00:07:29] And yours got freaky, right? Well, we tried some things. Girl, don't lie to me. Yes, we were intimate. Opie then says, Okay, bye. My 2% hope that maybe eventually we'll get back together is officially gone. We haven't even filed any paperwork and she's already done nasty with an online dude. I get it. I see. I'm aware. Now, I'm going back through our relationship and really looking at things. She really isn't a good friend or family member or person.

[00:07:59] She was a good wife until she wasn't. Thank you all for your feedback and support during this time. It's been a huge, huge eye-opener as far as how much emotional capacity I was giving her on a daily basis. I didn't have anything left for anyone else. Now I'm spending tons of time with friends and family trying to form and keep connections. There's always good with the bad and that's what I've noticed so far. My brother moved in with me and honestly, he's been a godsend.

[00:08:26] Bucky says she's probably going to come back once the new thrills wear off with the current guy. Do not take her back. Scary quotes Opie saying she really isn't a good friend or family member or person. She was a good wife until she wasn't and then says, Hopefully this line sticks. My girlfriend did this to me and it took a while to recognize this. I don't want the person who I love to treat me the way she treated me, nor do I really think her values line up to mine anymore.

[00:08:53] Once I came to that realization that she was no longer the same person I fell in love with, nor was she someone I'd want as a friend if I'd randomly met her today, it became much easier to move on. Gee whiz. And I kind of feel like that last comment that, you know, once that honeymoon period is over for her, that she may potentially try to come back. But if I'm being honest for myself and like I always say, you know, I'm sat behind the microphone. This is very easy for me to say. I'm reading a very small part of someone's life.

[00:09:22] I don't know what their marriage was like beforehand. There's so many little, you know, intricacies of marriage, you know, their dates, their love life, everything in between, their breakfast together, all this sort of stuff. So whatever I say is very easy for me to say. But I was sort of like checked out in that first part of the story when she come up to you and she says she just sees you as a family member. I'll be like, yeah, ain't got no time for this shit, you know. But what are your thoughts on this situation?

[00:09:50] Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below. And let's move on to another story. Now our next story is from, look at this username, used my penis from the day I messed up subreddit. And it says today I fucked up allowing my girlfriend to drive my car. I allowed my girlfriend to drive my car yesterday. She recently got a driver's license and she really wanted to drive. I was reluctant to give her my car keys because I've never actually seen her drive before.

[00:10:17] But I did that thing where I was like, what's the worst that could happen? Oh dear. As soon as my girlfriend got behind the wheel of my car, she prayed. Literally like eyes closed and talking to an invisible force. It was a bit ominous since my girlfriend never prayed in my presence before. But I said nothing. I just low-key made sure that my seatbelt was fastened and secured. Cut to my girlfriend driving. She was fucking honking at a hearse that was driving in front of us.

[00:10:47] She eventually managed to switch lanes and pass the hearse, but she didn't drive away quietly. She rolled down her window and yelled at the driver. I can't remember exactly what she said, but it was something along the lines of, Just because you drive dead people doesn't mean you have to drive like a fucking dead person. Next was parallel parking, which did nothing to diffuse her road rage. For the record, there was no need to squeeze my car between two other cars because there was more than enough parking space everywhere else.

[00:11:14] But my girlfriend wanted to prove that she could parallel park. If parallel parking was a boss fight, then my girlfriend would have died enough times for the game to be like, Switch to easy mode, bro. My girlfriend struggled to get the angle right and repeatedly moved in and out of the parking space, only to end up making the same mistake again and again. I had to bite my tongue because every time I opened my mouth to give her directions, she would look at me like I was the hearse guy.

[00:11:40] My girlfriend accepted defeat after several attempts and proceeded to park somewhere else. And by somewhere else, I mean another solar system because she got flustered as fuck and decided to park as far from our destination as possible. I never heard the end of it for the rest of the evening. My car was too big. The parking space was too small. The pressure was too much, etc. When it was time for us to leave, I said I didn't mind driving, which seemed to offend my girlfriend because she was like, Excuse me?

[00:12:09] I chose peace and shut the fuck up. Little did I know that less than 10 minutes later, my girlfriend would take her eyes off the road for a split second and end up driving into another car. Thankfully, no one was hurt. I'm currently without a car because it's going to take some time to repair the damage. I'm also without a girlfriend because I broke up with her this morning when she attempted to gaslight me. She made me feel like I imagined her flirting with another driver in my face.

[00:12:35] She was clearly trying to manipulate the situation since it was obvious that she was to blame for the accident. It looked like she was one fake cry away from sucking his dick. I'm glad no one died, but I'm fucking over the moon that my relationship did. My car unexpectedly brought out the worst in my now ex-girlfriend. Like, what the fuck? Ob True Crime, Comedy oder News. Hör, was du willst, so viel du willst.

[00:13:02] Mit Aldi Talk streamst du jetzt endlich unendlich. Denn du kannst so oft du willst Daten kostenlos nachbuchen. Und das ohne Vertragsbindung. Hol dir die neuen Aldi Talk Tarife schon ab 9,99 mit bis zu 50, 100 oder 150 Mbit und 5G. Aber nur bis zum 30.06. Jetzt in deiner Aldi Filiale oder in der Aldi Talk App. Aldi. Gutes für alle. That first paragraph had me...

[00:13:32] Although, you know, it's a worrying situation. It had me chuckling to myself. The vivid image OP gave me in my mind about when they first got in the car. What's the worst that could happen, right? As soon as I saw that, I thought, yeah, you're about to find out. And then her suddenly praying behind the wheel. Like, like something's going to happen here. OP struggling to get a seatbelt on. Like, fuck it out, help me quick. And off they take into the great terrifying yonder. She sounds terrifying, mate. Be quite honest.

[00:14:01] It just sounds like one of those bullet dodged situations. But Holiday Wallaby says, what country is your girlfriend in? So I can avoid... So I can avoid being on the road wherever she is. Northwest says, avoid dead or alive. Mary Bone says, no offense, bud, but your girlfriend sounds horrible. I think you're better off without her. At least you found out now and not further into the relationship. OP says, we're both better off without each other. If switching seats in a car was enough to push our relationship to its limits,

[00:14:31] then I think we were never going to work. So OP came in with an update. And it starts off with saying, sigh. Which, you know, is concerning in itself, right? Here we go then. My ex-girlfriend showed up at my apartment to collect her belongings. I already packed her thing, so all she had to do was literally grab and go. Well, she grabbed, but she didn't go. And what she grabbed was not her belongings. It was me. She asked if she was allowed to hug me one last time. I said yes.

[00:15:00] Mid hug, she grabbed my crutch and kissed my neck. I knew what she was doing. And I would have loved for this to have been the part where I tell you that I pulled away and made her leave. But in the heat of the moment, I was thinking with the head between my legs and not the head between my ears. My ex and I ended up having sex. When we were done, she said she was sorry for all the drama she caused when she was driving my car and that she took full responsibility. I thanked her for her apology.

[00:15:26] Ann said I would keep her updated if there's any costs involved with my insurance. She asked if I still wanted her to leave with her belongings or if I wanted to work things out between us. I said I was willing to restore peace and explore the possibility of moving on as friends. She said if that was the case, then how come I didn't stop her from fucking me? I said I was following her lead. She said she had no interest in being friends with someone she fucked, especially if that person was not even good at fucking. Oh dear.

[00:15:54] I got up and dressed without saying anything. My ex, who didn't bother getting dressed, followed me out of the bedroom and continued saying nothing but bad things about me. I never made her come. I must think making love means fucking in slow-mo because apparently snails fuck faster than me. I always get random boners whenever I'm playing online games with my friends, which left her more and more confused every time. I downgraded from handsome hippie to homeless skinhead when I decided to lose the long hair.

[00:16:22] She should have gone with her gut and dated my wingman instead of me because it's become clear to her that my wingman, aka my friend, was low-key describing himself when he was telling her what made me the perfect guy. I put on my headphones at that point and proceeded to play online games. I didn't get any random boners. What the hell? I didn't get any random boners. But I did manage to get distracted long enough for my ex to finish roasting me and eventually leave without me realizing she was gone until I died enough times in dead by daylight.

[00:16:51] I think it's safe to say we're done. Wish I never had sex with her again because she fucking cooked me afterwards. But at least it can't get any worse. Who needs self-esteem anyway? As the moaner says, if you were so terrible, why did she work so hard to get you back? Good job escaping. And another commenter says, so basically she was trying to buy you with sex and it didn't work as she hoped. I was just thinking through that. OP was braver than I was to turn his back on her playing video games with his headphones on.

[00:17:20] There's no way I'd be able to concentrate in that kind of situation, just playing games with this crazy arsehole behind you. But now I'm going to turn this one to you guys. What do you guys make of this situation? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below. And let's have one more story from the Am I the Arsehole subreddit from FueNeedleWorker who says, am I the arsehole for refusing to buy my son a cosmetic in a video game for $300?

[00:17:47] So my 40 female son, 10 male, likes to play a very popular video game. I've never had any issues with it as he has not shown any concern so far. Yesterday he asked me if I could buy him something from the game. Normally I'm not a fan of buying things in video games, but since Christmas is coming up, I was willing to make an exception. I was thinking it'd be around $25, maybe $50 at the most and I could deal with that. But no, it was $300.

[00:18:15] It was some skin or whatever they call it these days, essentially to look cool in game. My issue is not that I cannot afford it, because I easily could. My issue is he wants something in a video game, something that is essentially useless for that amount of money. For that much money, I could buy something physical that he could actually use. His father, 52 male, is calling me selfish and unreasonable for not buying this, telling me to lighten up because it's Christmas. We fought over this a lot.

[00:18:43] Forgot to add, I tried to explain to him calmly that with $300 we could buy him so many bigger and better things. He blew up on me, said the same thing to my son, and seemed to be receptive. He was much more upset than my son was. My son literally could not care less and said it was chill and went back to playing like nothing happened. Now, if he threw a fit over wanting this skin badly, I would understand my husband's frustration. That's not the case here. Seemed he could not care less either way.

[00:19:13] I told him about his reaction, but he still insisted that we buy this thing. Am I in the wrong for not wanting to spend so much money on this skin in a literal video game? Edit to address some of the comments. One, as many of you guessed it, is from League of Legends and it's the Jinx skin. I think that's what it's called. I searched it up and in fact it's $250, though my son had shown me a picture and told me it's pretty much $300. His words, not mine. Two, we're an upper middle class family.

[00:19:42] We both work jobs with around the same income. We're not crazy rich, but live comfortably. We try to be mindful and aware of spending money on non-essential items, though I have been trying to teach my son with this value. Three, yes I'm married to my husband. I will not be revealing more information about our relationship in the slightest chance he finds his post. Four, I'm sorry if I sounded dismissive of the value a video games have. I also played video games when I was a kid, so I 100% understand the enjoyment it can bring to people.

[00:20:11] I'm willing to spend a bit, perhaps up to $50, just for one time, even if it's for temporary enjoyment. If it makes him happy as a Christmas gift. But I just personally think that $300, or now I know it's $250, is a bit much for that. I would be more happy to spend that amount of money on other games he could play instead of this one thing for this one game. I'm going to talk to him again and tell him that he can choose between this $250 skin or

[00:20:38] the other physical things he wants, which are in total up to $300. And it's his decision in the end. Thank you to those that offered this solution. And there was a mix of comments on this one. Some people saying, like the edit said, about letting him make his own choice about just having the skin or other things. Some people saying, make this a teachable moment about spending the money responsibly. Others saying, absolutely just no way that would be happening.

[00:21:07] And for me, I play video games. I like some skins as well, but there's no way I'd be paying $300 for a skin. And I just did a quick Google of this skin just to see what it's all about. And there's just so many complaints about the price, about, you know, the pants on the skin is the same across all the other alternatives of that skin as well. You know, I don't know the ins and outs of it, but it just sounds like it's taking the piss. And like I said, I will buy skins. I like skins.

[00:21:34] I like my character to look good in games, et cetera, et cetera. To a point at $250 for a skin. It's just relying on people having this fear of missing out. And quite frankly, just comes across as a bit predatory to me and should be used as teaching them about the responsibility of this sort of stuff that goes on within games, et cetera, et cetera. But what do you guys make of this situation? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below.

[00:22:01] Now, just a huge thank you for being here today, getting involved in the stories, your love, your support, your time. It always means the absolute world to me. So thank you so, so much for being here and hopefully I'll see you in the next one. Take care and much love.