My wife and I have been married for almost 15 years. Both early 40s with 2 kids aged 8 and 10. About a year ago my wife was introduced to another female (about age 35 we’ll call Mary) that does volunteer work. She and Mary became friends and my wife started volunteering at least once a week and sometimes more with the small group of females that work with Mary. They also do a zoom call once or twice a week to discuss matters involving the work.

They have drinks and are always laughing on the calls. It definitely seems to make my wife happy to be around this group of friends.

Over the past year my wife has hit a point where almost once a week she drinks until she blacks out. She claims it sneaks up on her and I believe it as she doesn’t realize at the time how drunk she is so I feel like at that level she doesn’t know when to stop. Alcohol also seems to keep her up while it makes me want to sleep. I used to try to convince her to come to bed but it seemed to always cause a fight so I got to the point where I would just go to bed without her and she would stay up drinking longer. She’s usually on her phone and says she’s messaging the volunteer group text.

This happens about 50% of the time so maybe twice a month. She’s tried to work on it as she knows it upsets me to go to bed without her.

At the first of the year we were on a trip with a few other couples and our kids in a large vrbo. The first night I crashed along with most of the others at around 11 and she stayed up with one drinking until about 3am. She promised the next day to come to bed at a decent hour with me that night.

Fast forward to about 10 or 11 and I’m headed to bed solo again while she’s talking with the 2 others but mostly messaging on her phone. This time she comes to bed at 4am. I know the times because she’s not quiet at this point and usually turn on a light trying to get to bed.

I’m not happy that it’s happened twice in a row and wanted to know what was so interesting with her phone that it’s kept her up again. I’ve never snooped through her phone in the past but couldn’t take it any longer. She fell straight to sleep so I grabbed it and saw that she had been messaging the group and also messaging Mary.

I opened the text to Mary and immediately saw a naked picture my wife had sent from the bathroom to Mary along a bunch of other text. One being “Anyways I'm not going to annoy you tonight! Love you and still want you to fuck me even though it'll probably never get to happen. I can at least fantasize lol”

Mary had not really responded other than a couple of haha bubbles and it appeared she had gone to sleep. I didn’t scroll up any further to old text but screen shotted the ones from that night and sent them to my phone.

I never went back to sleep and called her out on it at about 6:30. She was obviously ashamed and we didn’t speak the whole ride home.

We talked through it the next week and she said she wasn’t sure what had gotten into her and it had never happened in the past. I believe her but told her I still felt like she cheated on me. She said it was different because it was another girl and she was drunk and she’d never actually do it. I tried to put it behind me and my wife kept saying I just need to get over it.

About a month ago we had an event and our babysitter canceled last minute. Mary offered to watch the kids. We came home and I headed to bed relatively quickly. I woke up at almost 3 and noticed the bed was empty. Sent an angry text to my wife I was locking the door and she and Mary could sleep in the guest room. Mary saw it and seemed to leave immediately.

My wife keeps wanting me to befriend Mary and her boyfriend as she says she’s her best friend. I don’t want anything to do with it as it feels too awkward now.

AITAH for not wanting to be friends or be around Mary or am I just being a jealous husband?