Hi everyone.....newbie here. I've been reading these posts all day and a lot of people seem to be in my shoes....I want to break down my situation and I think I understand what Plan A is, and how I should implement it, but any advice would be really really appreciated because this is the hardest time of my life....

Where shall I begin....my wife and I do everything together. We have a lot of the same interests and we are the best of friends. But admittedly, our romance escaped our marriage over the last year or two (we have been together since we were 18.....we are now 29) and we have been married for 5.5 yrs. We had come accustomed to doing the same things over and over probably like many marriages....but we just let it escape because we get along so great in every other aspect of life, it didnt seem to be that important.

Well....one of the things we enjoy to play together is poker...we have a large circle of friends that all play together. Well...one of the people that played with us seemed to take a great interest in getting to be "friends" with my wife (this past summer). We had to exchange phone numbers so we could keep updated on schedule changes, etc...and eventually, he sent text messages to my wife, to which my wife is a very nice person and can be friends with anyone, so she reciprocated what seemed to be harmless chatter....well now it was a constant texting, and then all of a sudden he was asking to meet up with her at a neutral place to discuss playing poker and other things. I didn't like it so much, but I trusted that everything was on the up and up....because I mean this guy was always around even when I was, and nothing seemed all that secret. So I let it shrug off....until we went on a vacation and stayed at his house. Everything seemed OK....until we left and my buddy who also went on the trip with us mentioned that he said some inapproprite things about our marriage to him and hinted that my wife had shared some intimate details with him that obviously were best left between us. This infuriated me.....and told her that the relationship needed to be scaled back. The "friend" freaked out....he didnt like the idea of having to scale back and began to profess his true feelings for my wife.....unfortunately, through time, she began to have some of the same feelings toward him as well. However, for the sake of our marriage she agreed that he had to be away for good. Well....he began to lash out via his MySpace page saying things like "your wife is a ****** and I have the emails to prove it", and sending emails saying what a bad person I am, and really becoming a thorn in our side...especially since he was still in our same circle of friends and not running into him was really not an option. Three months or so pass.....But after awhile we decided to try and make things amicable....so that our lives would not be a living ******. So we did....and a mutual agreement was made between all that we werent going down this place again, and contact would be limited and everything.....of course this turned into a full fledged "friendship" again....he was allowed over to our house to hang out and everything.....it was like the vicious cycle was happening all over again.

Well....a week ago today....my wife had been acting a little distant and I called her out on it. She has been going away on Sundays and doing her own things and I would never be able to get in touch with her. I got a little upset at this....and the distant thing all at once....and then the unthinkable happened.....she opened up and told me that her mind and emotions had not been with her or us for awhile now, and she would sit and cry and think about how she could break it to me that she wasnt herself....so we cried about this, and she said it would be best if she left. I was devasted. I asked her before she went if her heart just wasnt with me, but somewhere else and she said "partly elsewhere" of course this didnt help. But long story short....she left late that night.

I made her promise she would be with people who love her and basically not to him.....but she ended up calling him at 2AM to have a place to go. I didnt hear from her at all the next day.....except that she came by the house before I was back from work to clean up the house, and stuff....she had left her wedding ring and I took mine off....they were on separate dressers, and when she cleaned...she put them beside each other and left them....this made me break down.

Next day....a long email explaining where she thought our marriage had gone, and that she still loves me, but thinks that we let some things go, and she is still my best friend, etc. Her heart had left and she had to leave because she didnt want to hurt me anymore....because being distant was killing me. That day getting home from work, she had been at home again....to see the dogs, and she left me Pop-Tarts and potato chips...a couple of my favorite things. Again, I didnt understand this and I was sad.


Wednesday...I get a text message from her saying that she wants to meet me for lunch. I was hesitant if this was a good idea because she apparently needed space. But I agreed. As soon as I got to the car when she picked me up, she started bawling and said how much she misses me....said she had a dream the night before that she saw me in her dream and that we werent together, and that I didnt know how she was....and she couldnt handle that. We had a great time at lunch getting emotional saying how we missed each other and everything. That night....she went to her sisters house to stay (she had packed up from the other guys house), and she needed to use the laptop wireless internet....but it wasnt working....apparently she was still in contact with the other guy because he offered to let her use his office space to use the internet....which she took the offer....this made me lose a little bit of hope that I got earlier in the day.....in the midst of talking to her I found out that she was going out of town over the weekend to a casino and he was going as well....and I got a little frustrated....this in turn made her think that I was "pressuring her"....

So I get an email the next day that says that her emotions are clouding her judgement...and that maybe lunch was a bad idea because she didnt want to be pressured...she simply needs time apart from both of us to figure things out.....this wasnt good. We had some emails back and forth , and I found out that she was going on the trip this weekend with a couple of girlfriends, he wasnt going, she told him not to.

Friday comes around and I get a long email telling me that she is ready to communicate...things she should have a long time ago. Things like where she thought our marriage had gone, etc. Where things went wrong.....all along saying that she isnt giving up on us, but that she is very confused. So I sent her back a long email letting her know that everything she needs I will give her. Telling her that she is everything to me. Telling her I apologize for makiong her go elsewhere for the things we were lacking, etc. Everything very amicable.

Saturday...she is leaving on her trip for the weekend...this is supposed to be her time. All to herself. Well....of course I wanted to be there....but I respected her wishes. I hear from her that she was contacted by the other guy and that he was coming anyways....she told him that she will be mad if he comes, but he says "I dont listen to anything anyways" so he shows up. I thought this was a good thing....at least for me.

Yesterday comes and passes and I have some real good and neutral conversations with her....sometimes she speaks to me as if nothing is wrong. This bothers me. Today was the same way....we spoke on the phone and things are perfectly fine....we enjoy talking and everything....but I still know she is confused and not coming home anytime soon.

That is everything in a nutshell....sorry it was so long....I'm confused and hurt and dont know what to do.

By the sounds of it....it seems like I am in Plan A right now....and PLan B sounds terrible and hopefully I dont get to that point, but I am being too cooperative now, and it may come to that....what do you all think?

I am very sorry for you. I think that chances are pretty good that your wife is a cake-eater and probably having an affair with this other guy. She spend the night at his place, she has been lying about contact with him and now he will be at a hotel this weekend with her. It really sounds to me that she is enjoying her freedom and her being with another man but also wants you as a safety net to fall back on. She wants you to wait while she still is in contact with this other guy. I am sorry but she is playing you for a fool. No consequences to her actions equals no motivation to change. If the roles were reversed do you think your wife would be so accepting as you have been without any consequences whatsoever?

Thanks Bryan, you are exactly right, and eventually, hopefully very soon, I will come to this realization. But real emotions are involved and I dont want to shove her aside. However, she is not in a hotel with him this weekend, she is with girlfriends....he just came to be in her presense.

She swears that there has been no physical contact....and I tend to believe her. I have always said that I think an emotional affair is more damaging than a physical one....and she claims they have done nothing.....but I guess I dont know what to believe anymore...

I certainly agree with you that an emotional affair is as damaging as a physical affair. The problem is the lying. Clearly communications have been going for a period of time behind your back between the two of them. All your wife had to do was to tell this OM to get lost or she would file a restraining order against him and that would have been the end of it. The fact that you must realized is that she had to have encouraged it and continued the emotional connection behind your back.

Of all of the places she has to spend the night she decided instead of a girlfriend or a motel; she decides to spend the night at this man's home? She swears to you that they have not been physical. Clearly she has had no problems lying to you about her ongoing emotional contacts with him so why would you believe anything she says now? You will find that the creed of a cheater is to lie, lie and lie some more.

The problem that happens so often is that the betrayed spouse is in a kind of shock and is willing to believe and accept any and all types of explanations from the cheating spouse. When the cheating spouses realizes that the betrayed spouse is no longer willing to accept such disrespect and humiliation; the chances are greater that the cheating spouse will move quickly out of the fog. Allowing her to continue to be in the fog encourages this type of behavior because there are no consequences to her actions. She does what she wants without any fear of consequences. She is disrespecting you and your marriage. If you do not respect yourself then who will? I wish you luck.

Start preparing for the fact that it is a physical affair. She spent the night at his house? And now she wants "space" (another term for freedom to carry on the affair), and when you gave her space, she hooked up with him.

Plan A is where you need to be. She is having an affair. Expose to your friends and her family.

TroubledT,
Sorry to hear about everything...I'm definitely not an expert in PlanA/B given that I'm in a very similar circumstance to you, and I'm just coming to terms with my wife admitting to an EA but not a PA. It's so easy to believe the B.S. drivel that comes from their mouths, because we want so badly to believe they wouldn't hurt us in that way....that's the toughest part. I think from what you've said Plan A makes sense, at least from the exposure standpoint....Good luck!