This 47-year-old man is a relatively shy person.

He doesn’t talk to people a lot, and it’s a struggle for him to converse with others, and he assumes this is related to his autism.

His Wife, Becca, 48, also has autism, but she is much more communicative than he is.

“She needs a lot of talking to feel seen, understood, and experienced. Until recently, we’ve had an extremely verbal daughter at home, and Becca has had many friends, all of whom have helped fill the conversational gap I leave, and none of them I’ve ever been jealous of,” he said.

Not long ago, their daughter moved away to attend college, and due to a lot of different reasons, Becca unfortunately no longer has connections with most of her friends anymore.

Then, her wife became friends with Nick, 31, who is straight.

Becca helped get Nick a position at her workplace, and they now work together in a small office environment.

She has lunch with Nick throughout most of the work week, and they text each other before they come into the office in the morning, after they’re done with work and have gone home, and into the night.

“They go out at least once a week, and it’s usually something like this (example from a couple of weeks ago): Dinner at an Italian restaurant, BYOB. They share a bottle of wine over dinner and talk for an hour or two, then go back to his place for a movie. After the movie, they go for a walk along the train tracks and discuss it. Typically, it is somewhere around five hours in total. Another time, they drove out to the woods an hour or so away for lunch, hike, and dinner, about eight hours,” he explained.

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Not only has Nick been hanging out with Becca alone, but he’s also been joining them when he and Becca go to the movies, concerts, and the bar for trivia nights. He also comes over to their house when they host get-togethers. Nick even tags along when he and Becca go to flea markets or to the Renaissance Fair.

He and Becca had multiple fights about the situation and one night, she kicked him out of the house, and they decided to take several days to calm down and think things through on their own before talking again.

So, he stayed with their daughter, who was attending college in a different state.

“It lined up well because Nick was going to be away on vacation, so that was not an issue. But Nick came back early, and of course, they hung out. He was over at our house so late, and they got so drunk that I had to just send a good night text instead of our usual FaceTime. She replied about an hour later (maybe 12:30 a.m. or 1 a.m.?), saying she hadn’t looked at her phone. The thing is, when we’re together, she always responds to Nick’s texts immediately,” he shared.

He doesn’t believe that Nick and Becca are hooking up. However, he wonders if Becca’s friendship with Nick is to, in a sense, replace the relationships she had with their daughter and her former friends. And if this is the case, he wonders if it’s fair for him to feel envious of Nick and how Becca talks to him constantly.

Now, he can’t help but feel like a jerk, and Becca tells him that she thinks he’s a jerk for how he’s been acting in regard to her hanging out with Nick all the time. Plus, he feels confused and like he’s going out of his mind.

He acknowledges that he’s envious because Nick has developed such a strong bond with Becca, and for him, that’s been hard to do because he struggles so much with being verbal. But for the last 20 years, he has been doing his best.

Also, he thinks that Becca and Nick’s friendship makes him more aware and insecure of where he feels he’s lacking. It all reminds him of the things he despises most about himself.

Now, he has become even quieter and more reserved than before.

As a defense mechanism, he acts like it doesn’t matter to him. At other times, he’s furious and screams at Becca over the situation.

Sometimes, he attempts to make Becca feel guilty about what she’s doing and how she’s negatively affecting him. He’s asked her to try to spend less time with Nick, but according to her, doing so would be an admission of guilt for her. In her view, she’s not doing anything she should feel bad about, and she thinks it would be against her morals to take ownership of wrongdoing that she doesn’t believe she’s committed.

Currently, he’s depressed and suffering from feelings of loneliness and guilt constantly.

While he’s tried not to mention the situation, over time, he can’t help it and broaches the subject to Becca, and the fight begins once more. It’s become a vicious cycle where Becca always blames him for their issues.

He’s concerned that they will eventually divorce over their disagreements. Becca claims, “‘You don’t want me to have a friend. You don’t want me to have anyone to talk to.'”

Despite how much time his wife spends with Nick, he still spends more time with her than Nick does. Luckily, Nick doesn’t hang around them every day.

Understandably, he feels upset when he and Becca are going somewhere fun, and she feels the need to text Nick to tell them about what they’re up to.

What would you do if you were in his shoes?

You can read the original post on Reddit here.

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