Back story:
So I will start off by saying my wife I have been married almost 18 years. We have a 5 and 10 year old. Both kids were planned but the first one was a very traumatic birth (both of them could have died). Thankfully, everyone pulled through and 5 years later we had our 2nd kid. That one was much less stressful and had only minor complications. Before we had kids, she wanted 3 and I wanted 4. After reality hit both of us, we both changed our answer to "1, maybe 2". After our 2nd kid was born, I got a vasectomy (yes, she knew and supported it). I've been sterile ever since.
So for the last few years, my wife has been struggling with her mental health and stress. There are a lot of reasons for this, which I don't want to go into on this post. Needless to say, her childhood wasn't great and her parents got divorced in 2020, which really messed with her. She went 4 years NC with her mom. This has taken a toll on our marriage and I've started seeing a therapist for not only dealing with our marriage issues, but also some personal issues I want to work on as well. I've encourage her to also get some help but of course, "There's nothing wrong with me".
Again, I don't want get into it, but she's not fine. Lots of anger, verbal abuse, some really disturbing behavior like destroying her art work and breaking a coffee pot for no reason. She has also been having an emotional affair with a literal fantasy person. She took a guy we causally met through a preschool, made up a whole backstory about him and the "text" each other. What she's really doing is using her notes app and basically coming up with a whole story about how they're best friends, how much she loves him and how he's basically our kid's step dad. All of this is literally made up. I know for a fact she's not actually seeing anyone and this is all a fantasy. Yes, I've been talking to the therapist about it and yes, I'm aware of all of the potential conditions she may have. Yes, I am also keeping a close eye on her behavior to protect myself and the kids. This is messy and ongoing. She has admitted to being very unhappy with her life, feel like she's lost herself and has talked about getting a job. I'm all for that if she wants it.
Here's the real part I want to talk about:
Recently, she's been doing something new. She keeps talking about having another baby. She keeps talking about, "Could you imagine if we had another kid." or "Wouldn't it be so cute if we had another baby", etc. She keeps playing it off as a joke or she's teasing me. The thing is, the more she says it, the more it doesn't sound like a joke. But I had a vasectomy 4+ years ago. There's no way I'm getting her pregnant. I told her, if she got pregnant, then I would have some very difficult questions for her. I do not believe she has physically cheated on me or even would if I'm being honest. She's lost a lot of her sex drive over the last few years and I don't think she'd even physically want to sleep with another man even if I weren't in the picture.
It just seems so out of place. Why keep bringing it up? We CAN'T have a baby and the "joke" isn't funny. A baby wouldn't help us with our marriage issues regardless. What could she possibly mean by this? Thoughts?