Spouse [35M] not really respecting my [31F] boundaries

Spouse not respecting boundaries

Our (31F) husband (35M) associated with 8 years (together 13) is a gamer. Over the last 2+ years he’s made a group of friends he regularly plays with (about 7 people) including another married couple that live in another country.

He’s become quite close up with the wife. I’ll call her “A”. They information on discord randomly throughout the day and then play on-line collectively almost every night. I’ve told my husband multiple times that the period of time spent with her versus me is totally disproportionate plus he’d apologize but after a while go back to doing it.

They will don’t talk about anything improper or intimate but he does talk to her about stuff going on in his day time that he doesn’t talk to myself about. I’ve tried getting in gaming with the group to become closer to my husband.

We all played Minecraft together; each of them ran off in-game plus built a house. He apologized when I confronted him plus said he didn’t think of it like that. He promised we would build a cabin on the mountain in the game but when I had formed to work and couldn’t play for a few days I emerged home to see him completing a cabin and he was reluctant to tell me she’d helped him with it.

There are other examples and they sound childish and petty but I don’t care. He mentioned it meant a lot that I wanted to play games with him but then he place her first in all the video games.

He got myself an expensive Christmas gift a year ago that I told him prior to he got it that I didn’t need or want yet she recommended it in order to him. I don’t even use it because it still upsets me and he’s upset that I don’t use it. It’s the drawing tablet. I already have one and am comfortable with the program it has. The one this individual got me is a completely program I don’t even understand how to use.

This has already been going on over a year. We can’t tell him to cut her out because they’re the only friend group he’s experienced in a while and they many play DnD together every week. I’ve tried talking to him and explaining how him putting all his time and energy into both A plus gaming is hurting the marriage but he’s not getting it.

We’ve tried getting him tell A which he needs to focus on his relationship and that they should only message through group chats and not privately and she said the lady understood but continues messaging him and after a week or so he broke down and started again messaging with her then lied to me about it. I only found out a few weeks later when I saw their discord text messages up on his computer. He or she said it’s just become a habit and he’s battling to break it.

I hate that she’s their best friend and that he sees it easier to talk to her than me. I’ve cried plus told him I was remorseful I couldn’t be more like her or more of a gamer. He’s cried and swears he doesn’t have feelings on her; but to me he loves her enough to rest to me about messaging her.

We’re stuck not knowing how to proceed because he doesn’t want to shed his best friend and doesn’t want to lose me yet I can’t think of any compromises since they can’t appear to just message through team chat. My sister plus her husband game along with a friend group and they each agree that it’s inappropriate that my husband talks to The so much.

The above I’ve got typed up on my cell phone for a while and was holding off on posting simply because they all planned a trip (5 people total) to finally meet in person so we sought out of state and all stayed together for a few days. The main one boundary I gave my husband was to not be by itself with her. The 5th person in the group which came is a single guy and she was cuddled up and physically affectionate along with him throughout the trip during front of her spouse who didn’t seem troubled by it.

Strangely enough it made me feel a lot better because she was providing him a lot of attention and hardly any to my husband. Then your second to last day of the trip I woke up and they had each gone on a 10-15min walk together just the two of them.

He didn’t wake me to ask basically wanted to come or something. He was reluctant to inform me who he was with when I texted him asking where he’d gone. When they got back my husband arrived to the bedroom and apologized and said he “didn’t think about it” and that they were just looking to see if there were worthwhile views and checking on how bad the snowfall had been.

He knew I needed reservations about coming with this trip and I only decided because he was so excited and it had meant a great deal to him. He’s provided counseling and we’re going to be looking into that. I really believe they didn’t do anything at all inappropriate on the walk but I’m still hurt plus pissed off that he ignored my feelings.

Any advice on what other compromises we could try or ways to get him to take this more significantly?

TL; DR! – Hubby has a female online friend who he spends additional time with than me