/vt/ - Virtual Youtubers

I don't really know where to go with this and I came to this place via google. I hope this is OK, if not I am sorry. Maybe this won't get views but I am desperate.

I am a normal adult woman who is 31 years old. I spend some time on the internet but mostly to read the news, academic articles, etc. I do not really use reddit/4chan/twitch, though sometimes I will see references in the news etc.

I have been dating my husband for 7 years, he is also 31, and we have been living together for 4 and our lives and finances are pretty entangled.

9 months ago, I started working a very intense job. Not like your regular "career woman" job, but a very exciting, amazing job, basically my dream job. When I tell people are parties, they are always genuinely very interested in what I do - not really impressed because it is not super high-paying like a doctor but just genuinely love the stories. I was hired on a 1 year contract so I have been very focused on doing a good job so I get to stay on, and I won't find out until a month before. The stakes are very high and the matters I deal with are very important (to me, but also if I screw up I can end up fucking things up massively for a lot of people) and so it requires a lot of my focus and energy. I am also disabled (though not in a way that really affects my skills in this job but it did make it a bit hard to prove to people that I can do it initially) so this is the happiest I have ever been in my life and it is incredible to even be given this type of opportunity.

I will admit, I have not been the best wife. I basically have spent 9 months devoting every waking moment to this. The only time when I am not working, I am sleeping, showering or using the bathroom. I basically do everything else in my desk. For three months straight I did not even leave the house. I've developed a bit of a crippling stimulant addiction as well. I know it is not sustainable, but my idea was that this was temporary. I used to cook dinner every night and do all the cleaning and everything (I have OCD-like symptoms) and I do plan to go back to "normal" once things are settled.

I have still tried to give my husband affection by hugging him, and when he is really desperate I have had sex with him (but it is really a struggle for me because I am drained). But I have really just asked him to be patient for me and that things would calm down soon, that this is like a once in a lifetime opportunity and I will be fucked without it. He seemed to have understood?

This week, I found out that my husband had been in a parasocial relationship with a vtuber streamer (she is not a popular one, like ~400 active viewers and english speaking). Sending her money all the time (despite being a bit stingy when it comes to stuff for us), spending all day chatting in her discord, writing weird scripts for her, sending her pictures of our house (which we bought thanks to money my parents gave us, and which I spent a lot of time curating furniture for and remodelling) to impress her, flirting with her in the various chats, and blocking off his free time to watching her. It honestly feels like he isn't even on top of things at work anymore.

Btw, I did not intend to snoop -- he left his laptop in the kitchen one evening while going to the gym, and I walked passed it and saw the vtuber's stream and the discord chat with her and started snooping.

At first I was surprised but not too hurt because I didn't understand how deep his feelings seemed to run. He remembered her birthday (the first 3 years we dated he never remembered mine) and was planning on giving her a gift (I don't think he has ever actually genuinely gave me a gift. This year on my actual birthday, I remember in the evening I made a comment like "I think I need new slippers since mine are worn out" and I suggested we could order them together as a bday gift.) And just the amount of time and attention he was devoting to her and the things he was saying to her. He was telling her how proud he was of her streaming career.

I think what made it worse was, it looked kind of child-like but I wasn't really sure as it just looked like anime art style. But then I actually listened to her stream and she sounds like a child. And then I read the chatlogs in detail and she calls herself an irl loli and things like that, and just acts like a child. Most of the content on and off stream that she does is sexual, so it is just a bit weird.

However, I think I started losing it mentally because I could not find out how old she was. This was the first thing I asked him and he said that she doesn't disclose her age, but that [for various reason] she is probably 18-19, he wasn't sure. But he said that she mentioned that she will tell the stream "soon" and made a comment that really disturbed me which was that he had the thought maybe she *could* possibly announce she was under 18, and that he would feel like a creep so "he was really hoping that wasn't the case."
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