Dear Steve and Shirley, I'm a thirty-six-year-old married woman and my husband is thirty-three. We've been married for almost eight years, and he has told me that he regrets getting married so young. I asked him if he needed a break from the marriage, and he said no.
He told me we could find ways to make our marriage work. So we planned a trip back to our hometown and it didn't work out as planned. We went for Thanksgiving and there was a big game in town, so we barely saw each other. I was busy with my parents and he was out late every night. He came into my parents' home late and I noticed on the third night that his cell phone was off while he slept. I asked him about it the next morning, and he said it must have died, but it wasn't dead because I turned it on and back off that same night.
After we spent the time in our hometown, his attitude changed. He started posting more pictures on Instagram, and he was constantly on his phone scrolling through social media posts. He also started to get phone calls late in the evening, and he would ignore them. I would check the phone when he wasn't around, and I could see that he'd always delete the incoming call log.
Then, over the holidays, a few calls came in and he had to step away to take them. It happened when we had company or we were out, so I couldn't question him or cause a scene. On New Year's Eve, we decided to stay in and have champagne at home. He was distant and he played with his phone all night. At the stroke of midnight, his phone rang and he stepped outside to take the call. He told me he was going to see the fireworks.
Should I have confronted him at that moment and ruined the beginning of a new year? What's my husband up to?