Will try to make this clear, and concise, unfortunately not a short story! Be prepared to read deep
Background info: Married for about 7 months, only 1.5 of those months were before her basic training. I saw her graduate, she came home on leave for about a month as well. She's active duty in England, I'm in the states on the waiting list to join.
We have been totally in love in every way. Though I have let my emotions and instincts and some past baggage guide me into chipping away at her love bank. It's like that analogy of the slow drip from a bucket over a fire. Anything from her not allowed to converse with guys, have their numbers, add them on Facebook, you get the idea. The tricky part is she falsely agreed to this lifestyle even stating she prefers it bc guys are scum. Turns out she was just trying to make me happy and in turn sacrifice her own individuality. So we are going along for months like everything is A-ok while she slowly dies and perhaps resents me inside. she has had male friends in the past and totally kept it at that, I was just wrong to keep nagging about it bc my mistrust.
So anyway she gets overseas, and things slowly change. She states how hard it is to get around and accomplish normal things without a car, and doesn't want to buy a car til I get there. (Mind you it could be 6 months before I'm even there). She states how she has no friends and her female roommate is kind of a you know what and is just plain old lonely and sad. We talked about being strong and overcoming the distance and time, and still were in love, real strong as always. Well she tells me of stories of guys trying to ask her to do things like go eat or go for drives around the base area. She denied them at first and me being controlling I'm like yeah good job! Keep it up! And she's falsely going along with that ideal.
Soon enough she either gets fed up or something, and starts hanging out with these two guys, they are single and 18-19. Of course my wife is hot and I'm freaking out, like obviously there has to be an alt. motive for these young military guys to be taking a married girl out for fun, this cannot be a just friends or neighborly good deed kind of scenario. After a couple hangouts she sees my sadness and promises not to see them again bc she does not want to hurt me. Next week, she says hey I have to tell you I was leaving breakfast and I ran into the one guy, he said he was dog sitting and asked if I wanted to see the puppy, so I went. I lost my cool,bc the whole promise she made to not see them, even if the promise felt forced for her, to please me. I got over it kind of. She states that they are normal respectful and know the boundaries. I'm like yeah until they catch you in a vulnerable moment and move in. She's getting fed up with me saying these littles snotty things. I act like I'm ok and then I treat her like she can't handle herself.
Next thing you know, it went from little food trips and shopping here and there, to the promise, to the puppy, and then she says well this weekend I heard there's a good place to meet girl friends by my dorm and I'm gonna go hangout and make friends. I'm like ok sounds good! Turns out she really just hung out with those guys, and did in turn meet a girl. Which made it that double date type guy girl guy girl. I flipped out bc of that. Especially because they drank til midnight and when she got home she halfway said goodnight of our nightly routine and passed out, apologized in the morning, but said she was going on a long trip with them to a nearing city, the whole gang. Me being controlling I'm thinking damnit.. But wished her a good time. She came back saying hey we are all gonna hang out again like last night but I prob won't drink. Well... She was out til 3am and did in fact drink, she explained to me where she was the whole time. At a lounge/food area for a while, and then at a bar where they had karaoke on base. She said it was most,y co workers, those guys, and tons of people. Wasn't like she was in one room with one guy for hours. I still lost my mind and basic gave an ultimatum. I said if this is the kind of behavior you are going to defend and fight for your right for, then idk how long we are going to last. She (buzzed still) said I was coming at her totally wrong, was being insane, controlling, obsessive and manipulative and said she was so pissed she didn't want to talk to me, and I said something snotty about like yeah we will figure out how to end this all tomorrow like a hint at divorce,and she agreed. Well God must have graced me with knowledge over night...
I woke up realizing how absolutely insane I was, and that if we are truly in love, and I supported her, why not trust her to go out and have fun? Be happy for her she found friends when she expressed her lack of friends before. She would control any inappropriate situation and deal with it. My fear now is...has my previous fear of her getting around actually pushed her closer into doing so? I came clean with about 100 things I recognized I did wrong, ESP after reading about the love bank and everything. I wasn't being there for her emotional needs. She says if I had continued acting that way, we would not be together, so at least we know now, and we have each other still.
However, she has become what feels like an emotional divorce, she has withdrawn so much that any compliment or memory I bring up she says "yeah" or something very neutral no emotion. She states she will agree to try to fix it with me, but cannot guarantee it will actually work bc so much emotional distancing and damage has been done to her. She says it's not as simple as you just changing your jealous ways, it's that everything feels so different now and I am just unsure of everything at this point, I need time and space to decide what I want to do. Now we had such huge plans for a military life together and children soon, even talked about the kinds of meals we would be preparing together!
How do I get her to remember that feeling and passion she once had, just not too long ago? How do I remind her from across the ocean that we made our vows for a reason on our wedding day and that I can really change and be there for her?
I fear that since I've depleted her love bank so much that any positive deposit by these new guys is all it takes to steer her away. Say this weekend, she goes and drinks with them again, has a roaring good time with no heavy feelings, no arguing no jealously.. And then she has me all the way in the states like please love me again ill promise ill be good.. Cards are not in my favor as they say. She has unfriended me on some social networking, and changed all her infos from being "in love" to something depressing about "change is the only constant" her profile pictures went from pictures of us, to her posing alone in England. Still saying she's willing to work with me, she says I'm just letting you know im changing my Facebook password because you stalked my guy friends (I did) and that I'm going to add them, and also they now have my phone #. She didn't give it to them bc I didn't want her to before. Willing to do anything it takes to trust her and support her emotional needs I said ok no problem. I'm glad you have friends there. I am now being 100% genuine and supportive.
This whole business with the "yeah we can try but I can't guarantee i will actually be happy with you again" stuff is getting to me I guess is the bottom line.. And how can I be of emotional support while im so far away, I KNOW if I flew there tomorrow, we would embrace and cry together and be ok as we learned we can trust each other not to hurt each other anymore, but do I stand greater chances to lose if I choose to wait out here for basic training? Leaving her alone and vulnerable during this period of hurt and change. Any advice on how I can prove myself to her again? To get her to remember why we fell in love and that I would be a good life partner for her... Bc I feel that the happiness she feels from these guys can be all it takes to keep us distant, can be the deciding factor whether or not she comes back around to intimacy with me. Note she hasn't cheated. To my knowledge but I pretty much 99.9% doubt it. If anything it's an emotional cheat, or divorce, she couldn't confide in me anymore, can I get her to again?
Sorry this was so freakin long but it's been a horrible month because of all of this. And I want any advice or knowledge on how to do my best for this. Thanks so much for anyone reading or trying to help!