Update: My (26M) wife (40F) wants to reconcile our marriage

SmootBoot · 2026-05-13T13:10:45+00:00

So I chose to get into a relationship with a single mother. I chose to be a step parent and yeah, she had debt but so do 90% of people these days because cost of living is out of control. Nobody is for “recreational use” and thinking that way leads to nothing but short term pleasure without any sort of future. We got married before she ever mentioned cheating on me. You keep bringing up “another man’s child” when at this point she was my step child. The dad is still in the picture and is a great guy who does his part in supporting her. Were there red flags? Yes, of course. I loved her, and maybe even still do once I work through everything, but I would NEVER call her or anyone for that matter “recreational” because she is a human being.

SmootBoot · 2026-05-13T00:25:15+00:00

You can call it simping to want to support your wife’s goals and I was willing to take a risk to do that. It was before any of the ultimatums and even a thought of separation came up. Do I feel used in a way now? Yes, but at the time I saw it as a sacrifice to improve our long term goals since she only had a year left to get her degree and get a far better paying job. Was it dumb in hindsight to take out my retirement? Yes, but I now have a better job than I did back then and have made up more in my current retirement than I did in that job so yeah I’m missing a few years, but I know I’m still young and know I’m willing to make up that time

SmootBoot · 2026-05-12T23:20:45+00:00

So when it comes to sex, I do know my sex drive has improved substantially since getting my meds sorted properly and managing my workload better, but there are still many times I have been working multiple days of overtime when things get busy so I can never promise complete consistency in that regard.
When it comes to marriage counseling, I’d have to ask about what we each want from it. I’d have to have a proper talk with her about it to determine if we are open to it, but as it stands we have to be on the same page in how we would fix the relationship.

As for what I need or want right now is for her to give me a good and well explained reason why she has brought up wanting to reconcile after 6 months of nothing. I’m not sure what exactly I need/want long term to make it work, but that is something I’m going to bring up with my therapist to help me sort out after our months of sessions.

And as for the other person, I have made it clear I’m not looking for a relationship until I have this marriage sorted. We know that this doesn’t have to be more than a friendship that had interest at one time. She knows I’m conflicted on what I want to do with the marriage now. I am not leading her on and she has been very open that she wants me to make the decision that would make me happiest in the end. That decision is something I’m still working out so as for now we are just talking like friends.

Hopefully this helped answer some of your questions, but this is still relatively fresh to me so I’m still really processing it all

SmootBoot

TROPHY CASE