I’ve been married long enough that people around us have started calling us “one of the good couples,” and every single time somebody says that I feel like a fraud. My husband hasn’t cheated on me, at least not in any way I can prove, but for the past year there’s been this woman at his job that has slowly become part of our marriage without ever stepping foot inside our house.

At first she was just a coworker he mentioned sometimes. Then she became the person who “gets how crazy work is,” the person whose texts make him smile at dinner, the person whose opinion somehow comes up when we’re talking about restaurants, shows, vacations, even parenting.

He insists they’re just friends, and technically I have nothing. No sexy messages, no hotel receipts, no secret dating app. But there’s an intimacy there that makes me feel insane because it’s almost impossible to accuse somebody of something that doesn’t have a clean name.

I’ve looked through his phone twice while he was asleep and I hate myself for it. I found nothing obvious, which somehow didn’t make me feel better.

Their messages were friendly, sometimes personal, sometimes late at night, but never enough that I could screenshot one and say “there, that’s cheating.” The part I’m ashamed of is that I’ve started competing with a woman who probably has no idea she’s even in a competition.

I’ve changed how I dress, started going to the gym more, tried to be more fun, stopped complaining about things because I don’t want him thinking she’s easier to talk to than me. I’m basically auditioning for my own husband. And the worst part is I know what people would say.

If he’s coming home, helping with the kids, paying the bills, not sleeping with her, then maybe I’m creating a problem that doesn’t exist. But I also know what it feels like to watch someone slowly move emotional furniture out of your house while still technically living there.

I don’t want to blow up my marriage over jealousy, but I also don’t want to wake up five years from now and realize I spent all that time pretending I wasn’t being replaced in small pieces.