Ghosted and alone in another country

Long story im sorry.

I (31M) had moved across the world to a new country to be with my wife (28F) after a long distance relationship. I had underestimated how hard it would be to fit in here and struggled greatly to make friends. This created a deep lonliness, depression, and feeling of being an outsider for me as im a very social person that values connection. The culture here is hard to relate to and there is a negative stigma surrounding immigrants making things extremely difficult to fit in.

Then one day my wife introduced me to a female coworker of hers (22F) that had a lot of similar interests as me as well as fluently spoke english which was rare here. She was particularly interested in gaming. Me and her instantly clicked and began gaming frequently. She was also in a committed relationship (33M) but her fiance didnt mind our friendship and would even game with us from time to time. My wife obviously didnt mind as I had pure intentions and she fully trusted that things were strictly platonic. They 100% were. She was just happy to see me finally make a friend and more importantly a connection. This friend also didnt have many close friends on her end. She had people, but I dont think anyone truly close. She told me that she rarley sees or communicates with her friends these days. I was also her first ever male friend outside of her fiance.

Over a 3 month span we would game frequently, often for hours. The conversations came so naturally and we clicked very well. We werent really even gaming, moreso using it as an excuse to talk. There were really no awkward moments. We would text and sent IG reels to eachother. Hung out in person a handful of times (note never one on one, always with my wife present and once with her fiance). We talked on the phone, made a shared Spotify playlist and even watched a TV series together from a distance comparing notes after each episode.

I sensed things becoming more dry and less engaged on her side as time passed. Mainly via texting and reels, anytime we'd game it would be only positive vibes though. But she eventually stopped adding music to the playlist and watching each new episode of our show became a real chore for her. We eventually planned a shared birthday party together. We both got eachother meaningful personal gifts but the vibes at the party between us were at an all time low. Almost as if I were an afterthought to her, us barley speaking to each other all night. An important note is she started getting really close to a new female coworker the last few weeks. She spent most of the birthday party by her side.

The vibes became wildly inconsistent after the birthday. Some days cold as ice. Some days it felt warm like the old days. It culminated in a day that I was horribly sick with a fever and had no food for the week. My wife was out of town so my friend, who also happened to be sick, insisted on going grocery shopping for me despite her illness. She stopped by and dropped off a huge bag of groceries. I thanked her, hugged her goodbye and never saw her again. After a few weeks of no contact i reached out to check on her and tell her im thinking of her and always here for her. She told me she just needed space because she was dealing with some personal stuff that she needed to process but thanked me for being caring and thoughtful. I obliged and didnt reach out again. 2 more weeks of no contact later, my wife and I were both removed from all social media one day. No explanation. No falling out. No goodbye. Just removed.

One important note was that I said my wife introduced us. That's because my wife and her were originally close coworkers and tried to extend their friendship to outside of work. My wife ultimately pulled back becasue it didnt click on her end. This girl however really viewed my wife as a potential close friend. But my wife remained distant and cold and really only interacted with her anymore because of me. (My wife left the job shortly after introducing us so they no longer had the work connection). Part of me felt like I was being used as an avenue to try to get back into my wife's life and rekindle their friendship. To me it feels like when the rekindling possibility seemed exhausted to her, she removed both me and my wife and moved on. I guess thats what stings the most. If thats truly the case and I was being played as a pawn, then my friend who helped bring light back into my life shrouded in darkness was really never my friend at all. The hours of gaming, the nights of talking, the shared playlist and hobbies, the helping me when i was sick, all actually meant nothing to her.

After no contact for 6 months after she removed us, I noticed that the shared playlist that I had been using as my own for months was made private by her one day. So i built up the courage to reach out and ask her to allow me to copy the playlist to my own account. This request was ignored and my wife and I were instead now blocked on everything rather than being simply removed. It felt like a final stab to the heart.

My question is why? I know I'll never get my closure, but what motivates someone to do this? Was i played to get close to my wife? Was i that blind the whole time? Did my desperation to finally make a friend and fit in lead to me being this easy to manipulate? Or maybe I was just replaced by the new female coworker and now expendable. Maybe for her, a close female friend is probably more convenient than a married male friend, despite neither of us ever showing any boundary crossing behavior.

I miss my friend, or at least the picture of her I painted in my head. To me it was all real and she mattered. Apparently to her I was someone that could be dropped without a second thought