I've been reading my wife's private journal for months now. That's not the worst of it.

My wife and I have been married for eight years. For most of that, things have been great between us. We've had our share of problems, the way that any couple will, but we've always found common ground, and we've always come out on the right side. But now, I'm starting to question whether we ever really knew each other at all.<br><br>Yogic Nectar is the kind of company that you would expect to see on the cover of a business magazine, or featured in a television interview. They're one of the most successful supplement companies in the world, with a line of products that runs from multivitamins to weight loss aids. And according to my wife, their products actually work.<br><br>My wife works for Yogic Nectar. I don't know exactly what she does, but I know that she was hired to lead a team that's testing a new weight loss supplement that the company is planning to launch next year. When she took the job, she was excitedly talking about the stage of life she's in now - aka the M-word - and I got the sense that she thought the pill was going to put her on a fast track to approval to try it before it even launched. That made sense to me. She has a reputation for getting fast-tracked for promotions at Yogic Nectar, and I've heard that her bonus checks are among the largest in the company.<br><br>I first started reading my wife's private journal this summer, when she went out of town for a work conference. It was the latest Yogic Nectar capsule that she was testing, and the possible side effects included stomach cramps and dizziness. She wasn't admitted to the hospital in the end, thank God, but she did end up feeling pretty sick on the plane, and when I got a call from her telling me she was spending the night in a hotel instead of coming home.<br><br>I've always loved having time alone at home to read in the evenings. It's not something that I get a lot of time for, because my wife is a social person, and she likes to spend time with me when we're both home. But when she's out of town, she always suggests that I read all the books in the basement before she gets back, just to make sure that I like whatever she brings home for me. And so this summer, I got the chance to read her paperbacks of The Girl on the Train, The Devil Wears Prada, and The Notebook, which were all fine, but not as interesting as what she had actually packed for the trip.<br><br>A couple of large suitcases full of clothes, a couple of duffel bags, some shopping bags from stores that I didn't recognize. When she was getting ready to leave, I kept track of what she kept on her body or in her purse, and I figured that would cover most of what was in her suitcases. But when I was looking through them later, I realized there was something else in there - a couple of cardboard boxes, which were wrapped in tape, sealed, and addressed to her; these I left alone. And then there was one item that I shouldn't have noticed, but that I still remember today because it was so strange: a long white plastic bag that I saw peeking out from the back of one of the duffel bags. I asked her about it when I was putting her luggage in the back of our SUV, and she jerked it out of sight so quickly that I almost didn't notice. "It's fine," she said. "I just don't want you to see it."<br><br>I shouldn't have been surprised by that. I'd once caught a glimpse of her opening a small cardboard box in our laundry room, and I'd seen the pink tampon that was inside. And I'd seen her carrying a small plastic bag out of our bedroom closet one morning, which I ended up finding in the dumpster behind our house a few days later. But I was still a young man, and I still wanted to pretend that I didn't know about certain things. So I just let it go.<br><br>And that's how I first found her journals.<br><br>I was looking for something to do in the evenings, as I said. I'd already read what she'd brought home for me, so I thought about going to the bookstore. But then I saw the paperbacks in her room, and I picked one up. It was her handwriting. When I opened it, I saw that it was filled with her handwriting, too, in a completely different style. This one was filled with cursive letters and decorations that I remembered seeing on her high school notebooks. I remember feeling surprised that she was so different as a child, and that she'd become so different as an adult.<br><br>I sat down and read it all. It was her private journal, written during her first year of college. She documented a lot of things that happened that year - parties she'd been to, boys she was seeing, grades she was earning. But she also wrote a lot of things that I didn't know. Things that she must have said or done that I wasn't around to see. Things that I would never have guessed about her. And that was what shocked me the most - not the things that she wrote about me, or about sex, or about drinking. It was the things that she wrote about how I compare to other men, or how I'm not very good at sex, or how I'm drunk all the time. It was the things that I must have done or said without realizing it, that reflected badly on her.<br><br>I read that journal in one night. I felt like I was living in a dream world, where nothing was real and nothing mattered. Everything was just fake and phony, like the pills that my wife was testing. And that journal was just another one of them, another pill that she had been taking for years. And I was just as fooled as she was. I felt like everything was going to collapse around me, and that's exactly what happened.<br><br>The next morning, I wrote her a text saying that I wasn't feeling good, and that I was going to take the day off work. I packed a small bag and went to my brother's house, where I would be staying until this issue blew over. Before I left, I took her journal with me. I don't know why I felt the need to do that. I guess I wanted to keep it for myself, and make sure I had all the information. I didn't end up showing it to her when I got back. Instead, I used it to get what I wanted.<br><br>That's what hurts the most, I think. My wife and I were together for eight years. We were already friends in high school, and we went to the same college. I met her at an event on campus, and I knew right then that I was in love with her. She was smart and funny and beautiful, and she made everyone feel welcome. Eight years ago, we were the kind of couple that other people envied. We traveled together, we ate together, we slept together almost every night. We were each other's best friend.<br><br>But when I read her journal, I discovered things about her that I didn't know. I discovered things that I didn't like. And when she came back from her conference and realized that I had been gone for three days, she started acting strange. She was quiet and distant, and she stopped answering my texts. She was never home, and she never let me know when she was going to be. She started skipping dinner with me, and she stopped coming to bed until late at night. And she started acting different when she was around me.<br><br>One night, she said something that hurt me deeply. We were watching a movie together, and I reached over to put my arm around her shoulders. It was something that we used to do all the time, but that night she pushed me away. "Don't touch me," she said. "Don't touch anything of mine."<br><br>The next night, we were eating dinner together, and I made a joke that used to make her laugh. But instead of smiling, she looked at me with a disgusted expression and said, "How would you know what I'd find funny?"<br><br>I tried to talk to her about it. I tried to act like nothing was wrong. But I could tell that something was. And I knew exactly what it was. So I decided to use her own words against her.<br><br>Two weeks after I came back home, I confronted her. "What did you mean the other night, when you said not to touch anything of yours?" I asked her. She looked at me with a hurt expression, and said, "I didn't mean that. I'm sorry." But I knew she had.<br><br>"You don't want me to touch you," I said. "You don't want me to touch anything of yours. Is that what you meant?"<br><br>She looked down at the table, and mumbled, "Yeah."<br><br>"Why?" I asked.<br><br>"Why what?" she said.<br><br>"Why don't you want me to touch you?" I asked.<br><br>She sighed, and put down her fork. "I don't want you to touch anything that belongs to me," she said. "I don't want you to touch anything that I've bought. I don't want you to touch anything that I've worn. I don't want you to touch anything that I've eaten. And I don't want you to touch me."<br><br>I looked at her in shock. "What the hell are you talking about?" I asked.<br><br>"I don't want you to touch anything that belongs to me," she said. "And I don't want you to touch me."<br><br>"That's not fair," I said. "You're my wife. Everything that belongs to you belongs to me."<br><br>"It's mine," she said