My wife has been peeking at me from around corners and behind furniture. It's gone from weird to terrifying

Our first year of marriage was great. We clicked. I can't say that about the other relationships I've had. Even my closest friends didn't get me quite like my wife did. We've been together for five years now, and it's been a rollercoaster. Ups and downs. Some amazing highs and some frightening lows. <br> <br>When you want to make a baby as badly as we did, you start noticing all these small things about each other. My wife has this habit of biting her lower lip. I've noticed it happens when she's concerned about something. Not worried, but concerned. Worried means teeth gritted and hands on hips. There's a subtle difference. <br> <br>After a while I started to notice that the biting was becoming more frequent. She'd do it when she was waiting for me to finish getting ready for work and then it turned into her biting while she watched me work from home. I'd catch her staring and she'd think I was talking about her checking me out, but her eyes would be fixed on my face and her teeth would be buried in her lip. Like she was studying me. <br> <br>I tried to stop it. Told her to chill out a little, that I wasn't going anywhere. I jokingly said she'd push me away with all her anxiety. It was easy to joke at first, but it didn't seem to help. She'd still be biting her lip and watching me like she thought I was about to disappear at any second. Then she started to move around the house more quietly. Like a cat. The first few times I jumped when she would move up behind me on the couch. <br>She'd laugh but I could tell she felt bad. I could see it in her eyes. Like she was worried that she'd been mean or something. She'd never been mean. But one day she didn't laugh. I jumped out of my seat and yelled at her to stop doing shit like that. She cried and I apologised. I explained that I'd just been going through a lot at work and I was under a lot of pressure, but that wasn't an excuse for snapping at her so bad. <br>I was enough of an asshole to know I needed to make it up to her. I took her out for lunch, then shopping and we ended the day at the movies. We didn't talk about what happened, but she seemed more relaxed. Like the whole thing had been forgiven and she was hoping I'd forgotten. When we got home I had to work again, but she sat with me and watched TV on her phone with headphones. I'd look over at her every now and then and see her watching me. I'd smile and she'd look away. <br>I was glad we'd talked it out, even though we never did *actually* talk about what had happened. But after a few more days of her creeping around I'd had enough. <br> <br>"Why do you keep scaring me?" <br>She looked at me with tears in her eyes and she had that bite in her lip. <br>"I'm sorry" she said, "It feels like something is taking you from me." <br>I walked over to her and we sat on the couch together. <br>"What do you mean?" I asked. <br>"I don't know. There just something off about you. It's not you sometimes." She might as well have punched me in the chest. I felt like I'd been winded. She looked like she had just realised what she said and wished she could take it back. We sat there in silence for a good while until she stood up and walked away. There was no point saying anything. Her eyes told me she wasn't upset with me, just upset in general. <br>What the hell did she even mean? There was something off about me? That I wasn't myself? But I *was* myself. I had no idea what she meant. Of course I told myself it was just her anxiety talking, but for a few days it had me questioning myself. Was I acting differently? Was there something wrong with me? I tried my best to ignore it and stopped combing through our conversations for anything else I might have missed. But I couldn't help it. I wanted to know what she'd meant. <br>I think the stress from the whole thing and the fact that we thought a baby was on the way might have been making me a little paranoid anyway, but this was the catalyst for it all. I'd tell myself over and over that she was just letting her anxiety run away with her. But my head was still turning the words over. <br>I think the turning point for me was one night when she came into work super late and smelled different. I didn't say anything then, but it was the first time I'd noticed and I couldn't stop complaining about it afterwards. It's too random to explain and there's no real way of describing it, but she smelled different. She always smelled like her citrus shampoo and the same cologne every night. But this night was different. Her hair smelled like smoke and her cologne was different. <br>It didn't bother me that much at first, but laying in bed and the smell hitting me again and again was like pulling a thread. The more I thought about it, the more other little things crept into my mind. She used to run her fingers through my hair. She never did that anymore. She used to always have a spare set of keys on her, but one day she couldn't find them anywhere. <br>After that, I started looking back on everything. I'd remember her running into the kitchen while we cooked dinner. I have no idea why that stuck with me, but it didn't make any sense. Why would she run? And then there was the night we'd both been drinking heavily and she tried to show me some new sex position. She had to have Google how to say it in English because she wasn't speaking any language I could understand. I'd never heard of the position, but she acted like it was a classic. I couldn't complain about it, it was new and it felt amazing. But how did she know about it? And why did she suddenly want to try it? We'd talked about kinks in the past, so it wasn't like she just wanted to try spicy new things all of a sudden. <br>Every day it was something new, and I'm ashamed to say that it took me as long as it did to figure out it was all adding up to the same conclusion. But I can't tell you how it feels to have your entire relationship with someone jeopardised. <br>I tried to confront her again. First gently and then not so gently. <br>"You don't have to lie to me. The way you've been acting, I can tell it's not you." <br>She stood up from the couch and walked out of the house without saying anything. I'm not sure why she reacted like that, maybe she felt like she was being attacked, but in that moment I felt like I was being attacked. The person I trusted more than anyone in the world, my wife, wasn't who I thought she was. Who or what was it? Why would it be wearing her skin? Was it inside her? Like a parasite? I had a thousand questions and she wouldn't answer any of them. <br>I think the part that hurts the most about the whole thing is that whoever or whatever it is knows exactly how to get to me. It knows my wife better than I do. It knows all her moves. It knows how to make me happy and it knows how to make me sad. It had access to all her memories, or at least, that's how it made it seem. <br>How did I get here? What did I do wrong? There's no way my wife would ever treat me like this. <br>I can hear it walking around the house now, every night. I hear it in the walls. I see it from the corners of my eyes. I expected it to go and never come back when it saw how angry I was, but it seems like it wasn't finished yet. <br>I've started locking my bedroom door. I know that won't stop it and I'm not trying to, but it's the only place I can finally get some peace. <br>When I'm alone, I can pretend it's still her on the other side of the door. Pretend that none of this is real. I can lay in bed and pretend everything is fine, even though my heart is breaking. But the truth is, my wife has been dead for a while now. I just haven't figured out how to let her go.