Things have recently taken a turn for the worse and I am completely losing my mind. OK…..I found out about my wife’s affair about 2 ½ months ago (July 29, 2004). It had already ended according to her, (no signs of phone calls or emails since). We have talked and I have figured out what I did to contribute to creating an atmosphere where an affair was possible. My wife has been struggling with her identity for over a year now. The affair was a byproduct (if you will) of her searching for what is missing. She’s obviously not happy with who she is and feels like she has lost who she is. She now says that she lost herself being married to me. She assures me that she does eventually want to be with me, but she has to find herself first. I knew that she was struggling with depression and figuring out who she wanted to be back this spring when the affair started. I backed off, giving her the space that it appeared that she needed. Little did I know, that by me backing off and leaving her alone, I withdrew the meeting of her needs that I was doing before. She no longer got the affection and conversation that she needed from me and her love for me faded at a time when she needed it the most. So by me backing off, I made things worse by making it easier for her to seek the fulfillment of those needs somewhere else. I also gave my wife complete trust and never noticed obvious signs of her new secret life. After telling me about her affair, she said that I had made it really easy for her and that that lack of noticing the signs made her more willing and justified in her actions at the time. It told her that "I didn’t care," she said.

Anyways, the affair ended and she felt remorse at first. She said that she wanted to make things right and was willing to work on fixing our marriage. She wasn’t willing to seek counseling yet. She said that she needed more time before she could deal with what she did.

Since then she says that she cannot be 100% committed to me and the marriage until she figures out who she is and who she wants to be. She says that she has to learn to love herself before she can really love me. I have been trying to be a good husband and friend by attending to her emotional needs and she says that I have been doing a good job and she has noticed the change. But she is unwilling to really try to meet my needs right now. I don’t know how long that I can go on loving without being loved.

In the past 6 or 7 weeks (she is a college student) she has formed relationships with male classmates of hers that I am not comfortable with. She is in a major where she is one of only 3 girls in her class so she gets a lot of attention from her male classmates. I don’t trust her. I do check up on her (check her email, cell phone, etc. ) and whenever she is reminded of that, she gets angry and resentful. She is not willing to allow me time to gain back her trust. She resents having to be accountable for where she is and who she is with. She has also formed a close relationship with a certain guy in her class (I’ll call him POM (possible other male)) who she has admitted to finding attractive before and who she admits, does not know that she is married. She says that she doesn’t want to tell him yet because she doesn’t want him to treat her differently. ?????

She has recently asked for “me time”. …time away from me to find herself. She went on a trip to New York with her class and although she missed me, she said that she really enjoyed feeling independent. A week after she returned, she asked if it was alright if she took an afternoon and went to take some pictures of natural sites and be alone. I agreed and gave her my blessing. She went and said that she would be back around 9 or she would call. She called me about 8:30 and asked if she could have a little more time. She was going to go to school and work on some projects. I said that would be fine but just call me if she would be later than 11. She called at 11:20 and asked to stay out later. I finally got her to agree to be home by 1:30am. This was a Sunday!!! With her part time job and this “me time” that I gave her, she had spent the entire weekend away from me. She promised that next weekend we would spend some quality time together. We planned on going hiking to some of the places that she had gone to.

Later into the week, she asks me if she could spend the night away from me on Friday night. First she asks if she could go to a hotel. I tell her no because we can’t afford it and I don’t trust her that much. She asks if she could spend the night with some girlfriends of hers and reluctantly I agree to her request. I know her girlfriends and I feel somewhat comfortable with her being with them. She promises to come home the next morning and dedicate the rest of the weekend to spending quality time with me. I go out and hear some live music that night and try to enjoy myself. Afterwards, I checked to see if her car was parked near where she said that she would be staying and it is not there. I became worried but I was sure that there was some logical explanation so I went home and went to bed. The next morning 9am rolls around….no sign of her or phone call….10am…..10:30….I began to get worried and concerned about her whereabouts. On a hunch, I look up POM’s phone number and address online. Then about 11am I decide to ride over to the address just to ease my worries that she might actually be there. SHE WAS!!! I saw red and I was devastated!!! I went back home, still hoping that she would call. 1:00pm rolls around and still no call or sign of her. I decided to right her a very frank and direct letter and go and put it in her car. I know, I know…..psycho…but I felt like confronting her…..I could see no other logical explanation for why she was there in the first place. I suspected that she had lied to me about spending the night with her girlfriends and had actually spent the night there. So I left the letter in her driver seat and go back home.

It’s about 3:30pm and I still haven’t heard from her. I don’t know if she has gotten the letter or not and I’m annoyed and extremely angry that she is spending so much time there and ignoring my feelings. I decided to go over there and confront her directly. This is where I turned psycho. I didn’t intend to knock on the door, just call her and ask her to come out and talk to me. I went to the apartment complex and stopped at the office to use the restroom before going to POM’s apartment. When I was getting back in my vehicle, I spotted my wife driving past in her car with POM riding with her. I lost all sense of rationality and calmness. I got in and sped away to follow her and not secretly. I was right on her butt. She gets her cell phone out and calls me to ask me to stop following her. She agrees to call me and explain within the hour if I’ll stop following her. I regain my senses and agree but I tell her that if I don’t hear from her, she can come home and get her stuff. I went back home upset, angry, hurt, and shocked about my behavior.

She does call me and tells me that she can’t believe that I did what I did. I ask her for an explanation of her whereabouts but she refuses. She says that she and POM are getting something to eat and she’ll talk to me later. The next hour and a half were the longest of my life! She calls me on her way home and says that she’ll talk when she gets home. When she does, she proclaims that she is pissed that I did that. I apologized for going psycho but I asked for an explanation as to why she was there in the first place. She proclaims that she did spend the night with her girlfriends as she said and that she just went over to POM’s that morning to do some homework problems with him. They have several classes together. She says that nothing happened. I can believe that nothing physical happened but she doesn’t see how her emotional attachment to this guy hurts me. She still has not come up with one alibi proving that she was at girlfriends and not with him. She says that she doesn’t like having to get my approval about where she is and who she is with. I said that I at least deserve a phone call letting me know, and that I was worried sick. She admits to feeling guilty for going over there, but she claims that she thought that she felt at the time that she would rather beg for forgiveness than ask for permission. She says that she needs freedom and to feel independent. I told her that if she needs that, and it is more important to her than me, then she needs to move out. So she said that she would call me from now on and let me know where she is, but she refuses to ask for my permission. It’s like, my feelings are second place to hers right now. I am going to a Christian counselor once a week, but she has refused to go for now. In fact, when she found out who I’m seeing and realized that she had met him before, she is using that as her excuse for not coming with me. “I don’t want to talk to him because he knows me,” was her response. So I am left here trying to save my marriage with a wife that I can’t trust and who is unwilling to work on fixing our problems. She has repeatedly said that she just needs more time and space. She keeps asking me to back off. I don’t know how much longer I can live like this. What should I do? Anybody ever been in a similar situation? What comes next? I have started mentally preparing myself for the very real possibility of separation, emotionally and financially.

SCdazed...my sitch is a bit different from yours, but the general idea of "jealousy over perceived EA/PA with OM" is something I have felt and dealt with in a sense...

First my story in brief (and this is only the part that correlates to yours)...
Before my WW came clean about her PA with OM, she admitted it was only EA. I didnt' believe her and went to great lengths to dig for info myself.
She took a trip to Vegas "with girlfriends," and I believed that he was there with her. I tore through the house, trying to find any shred of evidence, and all I got was circumstantial clues. I started sending her psycho TM's and VM's on her cell phone while she was there (she only TM'd me back to "calm down and we'll talk later", and I even met her at the airport when her plane was scheduled to land so that I could see if he was with her.

She denied it for about 1 week, but then finally came clean that the EA was actually a full PA and that he HAD been in Vegas with her.

You have circumstantial evidence and you've confronted her with it. Continue to look for clues until she can't deny it any longer, your snooping is justified!

OF COURSE she's going to get MAD at your confrontations if she's actually in an A with this guy - if it were totally innocent, she would be more concerned with your suspicions than about having lunch with HIM! She would be soothing and loving and saying "no, honey, it's not like that, I'm sorry."
She's trying to act like it's nothing but also is trying to save face with OM that HE is more important than you.

In the meantime - make sure your confrontations are done calmly, with love, and as sane questions, not pyscho/following her around/enraged notes on the windshield. All that will do is PROVE to her that OM is better for her than you are "oh Mr. OM, I'm so glad we met, my H is going crazy, I'm afraid of him, protect me please!"
See what I mean?

If you are cool and loving about your interrogations, she will eventually buckle. And the full truth is necessary for healing and starting Plan A.