I may be stupid for worrying about this at this stage of life but need some expert opinions. I'm sorry for the length.
My wife and I have been together since 1986, in various statuses. She’s 64 and I’m 61. We were neighbors in an apartment complex. Though I was interested in her romantically pretty much from the start, she had only FWB status to offer. I shamefully took what I could get and bided my time. She was freshly divorced, had a kid, and was running wild using drugs, etc. We both had other "friends," but I started ending my other attachments in order to pursue her. She did not.
Back then, when I would ask her for a date, she’d decline with an excuse: "I don’t date Sailors" was a common refrain. Though, she did go on dates with other Sailors and Marines as well as an Officer in her command, a UCMJ violation. She was an enlisted reservist, he, an active-duty fighter pilot. These dates, by her admission, always included sex. She told me other things about her behavior back then, some of it probably meant to shock and maybe shoo me away. My assessment is that I was not her physical type but was useful in various ways and she favored me with occasional sex in exchange. I’m short and have never been any woman’s 1st choice. I understand. I have other qualities that you have to get to know me, to know about.
At one point she completely froze me out. She was "passionately in love with" a Recon Marine. Okay, I lost. It happens. A few months later she started paying attention to me again. She told me that things were ending with the Marine and wanted me to watch her kid for a day while she drove a hundred miles to collect her stuff. I did and she was gone for 2 days. Sometime later she accepted a date request and thereafter we became a couple. At one point, I asked her what changed. She had asked a friend if she should give a "guy like me" a chance. Her friend said "yes, they try harder." I took that to mean not very attractive men, like me. Didn’t put much thought in it at the time. I seemed to be winning. We dated for a while. She and her son moved in with me in 1988 and have been together since. My proposal that she move in was based entirely on economics. She accepted and I had a family. We moved from the apartment and into a rental house. At one point she applied and interviewed for a job on the other side of the country. She didn’t take it but had she, that would have been the end for us. Looking back, our relationship seemed optional to her. However, we bought a house in 1991 and married officially in 2004. I fathered her son since he was 4. He’s now 41.
Some of the shocking things she told me back then were: She hung around with Sailors and Marines when she was in HS. Lost her virginity in a gang rape while drugged (she’s the victim in that though feels she left herself open to it.) She gave OS to sailors, on the flight line. She dated men just to eat and sex was the price. She was quite broke back then. She had a two-week, constant sex fest with one Sailor while on ACTDUTRA (reserve 2 week detachment.) They traveled to Falon in his car and stopped often to... She began her dating relationship with the fighter pilot on that det., overlapping the enlisted Sailor. Her reserve time overlapped the tail end of her marriage which means so does the other activity. It was a bad marriage and divorce. He has a long criminal record for DV, not just her. After she finished her reserve commitment, she worked for a company doing field service on office equipment. I also took that job when I left the Navy 2 ½ years later. I know how free and unsupervised that job was back then. You could literally disappear for half a day without notice. She was using speed at the time, getting it from a co-worker and traded sex for drugs. All of that was back then and mostly disclosed to me. However, as a boyfriend and later husband, the story is much cleaned up and she "doesn’t remember" either telling me that stuff or the particulars of those events. I think she does remember, just doesn’t want me to.
Okay, the meat of my concerns: I became obsessed with some videos on FB that are AI narrations of reddit stories about cheating wives. That has caused me to think and re-open these discussions. I’m now off of FB for months but the concerns and discussions remain. Though the flight line stuff, enlisted sailor and fighter pilot all predate even my FWB arrangement, the Marine, co-worker and I, overlap somewhat. Though she cut me out completely for the relationship with the Marine, which is legit. He ended it with her. She says the drug exchange thing ended before we started dating. But, she also says she remembers doing the last of those drugs in my apartment but "can’t remember" when that was, relative to our relationship. The "Sailors" on the flightline became only one and only once. The Marine was not that serious, never even met her kid. Only had sex with the drug guy once. I know all that is BS. It turns out, though she didn’t work with the drug guy directly, he did continue to work at that company. Previously the story was: he got fired. I do not know, and she won’t say, when the drugs for sex thing ended. I don’t remember her being a tweaker or at least not strung out during those 2 ½ years that I was still a Sailor. She occasionally used with my civilian friends when visiting my home town. I just cannot know if the sex for drugs continued. She told me back then, that SI and OS occurred in her apartment and in their company cars, on meet ups. I don’t know when it ended. The fact that the story has been changing to less and less salacious over the years, makes me assume the worst.
The other question I have regards a very good friend of mine from HS. A Submariner in this period. I was on shore duty for the most part. He had a key to my apartment for when he was in port and later our rental house. During our FWB period, he also spent time alone with her and once commented to me that: "that chick is a slut!" I didn’t enjoy hearing that but had no claim at the time. He didn’t know my level of interest. When she and I commenced a relationship, he never spoke like that about her again. Years later, I was going to sea for carrier quals and she dropped me off at the ship. I was supposed to be gone for two weeks but we did a bunch of load-on work and then got liberty for 8 hours. I got a ride home. He was there, which is not unusual, but they were surprised to see me and it seemed like I had interrupted something. They were fully clothed and in the living room, but it was strange. He’s been out of our lives for 30 years or so now. Lives a long way away. I called him once to ask and he denied ever having any sexual contact with her. So does she. Both, using exactly the same words. Given that I knew both of them and their habits back then, this seems unlikely. My friend was probably the most successful "ladies man" I’ve ever known, she willing to have sex with nearly anyone, at least when we met.
I don’t have any indication of anything going on with her since about 1990 and I may be imagining some of what I think might have happened. Neither of us were angels when we were younger. We’ve built a great life together and I’d say our relationship is now the best it’s ever been. I don’t know why this long past stuff still haunts me. Should it, or am I an idiot? I think the full truth would make me feel better, but it might also make me feel worse if confirms my worst suspicions. That would be fresh injury for me.
So, Idiot? If so, how do I quiet my mind about this stuff?
