My marriage has run into a problem. I have come here hoping that telling someone the details will help. I don't feel comfortable sharing with friends or family yet in detail, although the closest know bits. I'm not sure if I'm looking for advice, but I need to let it out.

I started seeing her about 5 years ago. I'm 33 and my wife is 26. We had been going out for about 2 years when I popped the question while on holiday in Turkey. There followed 2 years of planning and saving, and we were married last February. I have been spectacularly happy throughout.

Then, a week ago, I found out that my wife wasn't happy. She had been off with me for a few weeks, and she told me that she was bored, and not sure of she wanted the marriage to continue. She said she was sorry, that she didn't want to hurt me, but she had to be honest. She needed some time to think, and some space.

I was devastated, of course. I have always known we are very different. She likes to go out, party till the early hours, meet new people. I like to stay in, or go for a few drinks at a nice, quiet pub. She is interested in people, I'm interested in technology and science. I am also tired most of the time, and have a high pressure job, so I tend to end up coming home from nights out at the 10-11 o'clock mark, while she will stay out (I never had a problem with her doing her own thing). But it is the differences I love about her.

She has also said that she felt this way before we got engaged, but then got swept away in the� excitement of planning the wedding. That hurt. I can't understand why she said yes if she felt that way.

The kicker to it all was that she told me she thinks she loves me "More like a friend or brother". I'm madly, passionately in love with her, and to hear that was a knife through the heart.

We have talked today, and just about decided to try to make things work. We have discussed marriage counselling, trying to find some fun activities to do together, and even starting dating again. Nothing is set in stone, but at least it's a start.

I feel I'm hanging on by a thread, clinging to a seemingly tiny possibility that my marriage may not be over, that my life might not be ripped to shreds.

Sorry to be a burden, but I'm hoping this will make it a little easier.

I am sorry to tell you this, but she is having an affair. The reason is because she stays out partying by herself without you. You developed separate lifestyles and this is always the result. If you do save your marriage, hopefully you learn that it is not "loving" for a spouse to go catting around at night.

I would not ask her if she is having an affair. I would quietly hire a PI to follow her for a couple of days. When you get the evidence come back here and we will help you with next steps.

The I love you but not in love with you speech means she has found a new point of comparison.

Going out to have other people meet her emotional needs of recreation, conversation and admiration is almost a guaranteed path to an affair. I'm not saying she planned it, but her quality time is not spent with you but with others and one of them is male!

When affairs happen, people rewrite history. Nobody gets married for the excitement of a wedding. However her new man is so compelling a fraud she thinks she's never felt this way before.

If you separate she thinks she can consider more clearly who to choose by having a trial run with this guy.

Only losers target married women and if you care for her then snoop and expose this snake.

If not, cut your losses and start over. It's a young childless marriage and affair recovery takes a number of years.

I agree with ML and IG please hire a PI so you can find out quickly what's going on.

Do not tell her about MB.

Welcome to MB.

Having researched this myself, there is another possibility, which seems to fit the circumstances more closely. She is going through some sort of "midlife crisis".

Before we started seeing each other, she was quite a wild girl. Her previous relationship was on-off for many years, with fights and abuse on both sides. She was taking lots of time off work, including a long period for stress, going out most nights. (I knew her since she was 14, when she was a friend of one of my good friends, and she was completely off the rails as a teen.)

She calmed down before we started seeing each other, and a lot more since. She has settled into a career, is organised and responsible. However, I believe she is looking back at the excitement of her previous life and trying to decide whether she wants the calmer life we have together.

The other thing that points me away from this is that I can see now the exact point where she started having these feelings. We were on holiday in Goa. I have had a very stressful time at work recently, and for various reasons was absolutely shattered. I was having a nap in the afternoon, and still needing to call it a night at 10pm.

It was her birthday about halfway through the holiday. On that night, I strained to stay awake but had to hit the hay by 11pm. She stayed out with some people we had met, older Brits at the same hotel. After the hotel bar closed, she was invited out by the waiters to a bar. I believe this is when she started, although I didn't see it at the time. I knew she was upset that I hadn't taken her out, and she was very cool with me since, although I also thought it had something to do with the fact that her step mum had broken her leg (we were on holiday with them) and was in hospital. She saw the same excitement she used to have in her life, and began to question her future.

Since we returned, she has been going out partying and blowing off events with my side of the family. She upset and worried me on Christmas Eve, when my family have their do. She had said she was going to her dad's to help with her step mum, and to prepare things for Christmas day, and then when I got home from work told me that she was going out with friends instead. She then proceeded to plaster it all over facebook, making it look like I had lied to my family, and stumbled in at 8am. I had been trying to contact her for hours, worried sick, but her phone had been dead.

I really do not suspect an affair. I think she is questioning her entire life. I know it seems early for such a "mid-life crisis", but that's about the age when I had mine. I was not in a relationship at the time, but I had settled into a routine which I realised bored me to tears. I got my motorcycle license, and did several other things. I am glad I did them, but they were highly irrational. A good friend helped me get back on track.


I genuinely cannot understand the idea of hiring a PI to save a relationship. If I thought she was cheating, I would ask. If I did not believe her answer, then the trust is gone, and I do not see much of a way back from that. I have always believed that a relationship must have absolute trust.

She has been so brutally honest with me that I do not suspect she would lie.

I'm afraid her cheating is so very very blatant that even you will see it in time.

Being invited out by the waiters? Good God man, there really is none so blind as those who wont see. No woman who was faithful would behave in such a way towards her fiance. Those men were laughing at you.

If my boyfriend was OK with me doing that I'd have to conclude he didn't care about me very much.

You'd be an idiot to trust behaviour like this.

You are one of those people who think you are supposed to trust people no matter how they behave. That's nonsense. You should be trusting her when she stops choosing the company of other men over you.

Is her mobile phone lying around, unlocked, free for you to see or use if you needed to?

Or does she keep it away from you so you can't see how she speaks to other men?

Trustworthy people act one way. Untrustworthy people act another.

Midlife crisis, she is 26. She is out partying and flirting, or worse, with men. No woman is going to ditch her husband constantly for the girls. She calls you a brother because she is getting male thrills elsewhere.

Wakeup! Yes, I am a woman her age, BTW.

Midlife crises are a myth according to Dr Bill Harley. We get fifty year old women behaving the same way. As soon as the spouse snoops, yep it's an affair.

Midlife crises are an explanation dreamed up by those in denial.

Besides she has always behaved this way!

Why don't you do some snooping a d prove us all wrong?

Snooping: Is it wrong? Or, is it the right thing to do in marriage?

The "crisis" is that she is having an affair. "Mid life crisis" is a form of denial used by spouses of cheaters. Your wife is behaving just like any person who is having an affair. Her behavior is like every cheater, aged 21 to 81. Mid life crisis is a myth.

You are in denial. Cheaters always lie about their affairs. And no relationships have "absolute trust." That is a cultural myth that belongs in the same category as "soul-mates" and "mid-life crisis" and Sasquatch. It is not a lack of trust that ruins marriages, but a lack of boundaries. Too much trust ruins marriages.

Asking her if she is having an affair is a stupid strategy because she will only deny it. She will go to greater lengths to hide it and it will be harder for you to get the truth.

The reason you should hire a PI is because you cannot fix a problem if you don't have the facts. If you have the facts about her affair, we can help you kill the affair by running the OM off. If the affair is removed, you will have a small chance. That is your only chance.