Whew! If she's not having an affair, I'll buy a hat and eat it in the middle of the town square at high noon!

Where did she work prior to her new job?

There's something missing, here...I feel there's a piece of the puzzle missing, Lv. Um...tell us about her friend. Is/was she married? Does she have kids?

What does your wife do for exercise/fun/hobby?

She didn't work for about 3 years. I worked so that she could stay home with the kids, but money has become tight so thats why she just recently got the job.

Her friend is someone that she knew about 8 years ago and they just recently connected again. She is not married and has no kids. I think if any affair is going on with this friend it might be my wife is more or less pushing her affection onto this woman because of her resentment towards me. IDK maybe im just making excuses. I just feel really defeated.

Did her change in attitude toward you begin at about the same time they reconnected?

(Don't accept any blame over any unfaithful actions on your wife's part. SHE owns her actions, not you.)

Her change in attitude happened after she actually admitted to an
EA. She told me how horrible she felt that she allowed her weak mind to be swayed into the EA. She told me that she just felt so neglected and that she didnt want to try anymore. I assured her to just give me a month at the least to show her that things can and will get better. She completely cut the person off and for a month I focused on changing for the better, meeting her ENs. It was at the end of that month that she said she felt no differently about our relationship and that she thought we should separate. So we did. And here we are today. I just feel so very rejected. Everything I do seems to get me nowhere and when I think we are making progress she makes sure to let me know thats not what is happening.

Oh and the friend and her reconnected after we decided to separate.

Gotcha. I suspect she was in an EA (possibly PA)and never ended contact with the AP. She just let you think that so she could go through her charade of 'working on the marriage' for a month. Now she gets to claim that she 'tried to work on the marriage'.

Did she tell you who the OM was in this EA?

Yes it was a person off of her online game. She is in love with playing online Xbox 360 and they "met" on there. They exchanged numbers and had been talking and getting closer for 8 months until she finally admitted to me that she was catching feelings for him. I knew they had become friends but I was not aware that she was falling for him. But she did cut him off. But it is like she transferred all that emotion to this newly connected friend of hers. I just feel like screaming!

It just feels and seems so hopeless. She seems to just not care at all. Her days are spent smiling and laughing with friends and with me. I have been keeping our homelife carefree, fun and spend as much time as she will let me spend with her. But its like she sees none of it. Its like as long as I don't bring up anything about our marriage she is fine. I have been adhering to the whole stay her friend and treat her like one that Dr. Harly had suggested on a radio show I heard, but it is just so hard.

I want to kiss her, hold her hand, make love to her again. I want to whisper I love you in her ear. But if I even tell her I miss those things, her response is you didn't miss them before. You didn't care before, why now? Because I'm gone?
I'm damned if I do, I'm damned if I don't.

Lv, remind me - what snooping have you done regarding the online guy? Because I suspect they did not end contact, but went underground instead.

I agree the emotional affair is still affecting your wife, she is in affair fog.....fantasy world she has created for herself, I think it's time to find out who he is and then expose the affair to everyone you two know and his side as well, it's time to kill the affair..........
You can't put a marriage back together when there are 3 of you in it.........impossible.......

Well I just found out some news today. I actually attended my first counseling session today BY MYSELF mind you, but it felt amazing to just talk. When I came home she was very interested in how the session went. I brought up emotional attachment and how I think she has emotionally cut herself off from me due to her attachment to someone else. She was quiet for a moment then she just blurted everything out.

She said that yes she is emotional attached to her friend. She says she feels as if all the things she wanted from me that she was not getting, she is getting it from this friend. This "friend" is the woman she reconnected with. All of you were right that suspected her in the first place.

She continued to tell me that she actually last night went to see her last night and she told her how much she is growing to depend on her. She explained to me that Nancy (the friend) promptly told her she will NOT contribute to the failing of our marriage and that she is only there as a friend. She said if them being friends is too much for my wife to handle right now, that she will step back and not text as much, not call, not hang out as much in order for her to have a clear and sound mind about her choices and decisions. And so that is what she has been doing. Nancy also has told her she really thinks my wife needs to work things out and fix the marriage.

Now the whole time my wife was confessing and telling me all this I said nothing, no interruptions nothing. I just said I understand. I told her that we should really work on spending 15 minutes of UA. I'm not sure she's totally on board with that but she didn't say no.

She also told me why she is so apprehensive about going to a therapist. I guess she went to a couple before where she says they did nothing but be overly critical her and make her feel judged. My wife is a semi narcissist, so she does not take well to criticism, even constructive criticism at all. I didn't push her going to the counselor with me but I did let her know the door was open if she decided to.

It really opened my eyes and know I see why and understand why I am having the damnedest time getting her out of withdrawal. Like jessitaylor said, she is in a fantasy world right now, that just came crashing down since the friend did not reciprocate her feelings like I believe she thought she would.

She still is asking for us not to sleep in the same bed. I had been graciously allowing her to have the bedroom, but tonight I told her if she didnt want to share the bed then she could take the couch. She just said ok, and went. She did seem a little stunned. So my question to everyone out there is where do I go from here? I'm not sure of what my next step should be. I do want to thank everyone here. Without your advice and persistence on me finding out if there was someone else I would have never put the pieces together and probably be in a worse situation than I am in now. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Hi there again,

Well it looks like things are starting to break with your wife, her fantasy world is starting to break up a little, she is now in the position to think about the reality of her attachment and what life will be for her if she continues to live in the fantasy world.
You have handled yourself very well, listening and understanding right now without any love busters. I like the calm and firm attitude towards the marital bed, you stay there it will be up to her to return because that is where she choses to be, in the meantime if she is uncomfortable about it let that happen..........
I would say to her that you are willing to work on your marriage together because you love her but that is up to her, if she insists on being involved with someone else then you can't go there. That will have to be her life and you will not be a part of that life.......
Your wife will now have to decide what she is going to do, because of your firm boundaries and what the friend also said, the process of weighing out everything is going to start happening,
You in the meantime will be calm and conduct yourself with integrity and be a loving and caring partner, tell her you vowed to stay devoted through the good and bad and this is the bad........fill her emotional needs where you can and show her you are the better option and that she would be a fool to throw all that away.
In her fantasy world she has not processed your reactions because she has been to busy filling her own needs, she will be shocked when you stand up for what you believe is right and worth while.........
In the meantime you go on with your life, work out, look good always, smell good........take up a new activity, show her your life will go on even if she moves on with hers in a different way........
Right now you have to let the process happen and you can't save her from that the more pain she feels with all that the better, be truthful about your feelings and stay firm with your boundaries.......she won't like it all but that is where she has put herself...............
Accountability and being truthful with herself is what is needed, when she has taken some time with No Contact with the friend she will start to see things more clearly..........you should request No Contact until she decides what she is going to do........it usually takes about a month of no contact to see the emotional attachment lift, if she stays in contact she will remain foggy..........
Lay it out there, it's you or the friend she needs to decide..........if she can't stay in the marriage the right way go see an attorney, change the bank accounts, show her that you mean business in a nice way..........she needs a little reality check.........
good luck and stay calm at all times........no love busting no matter how much it hurts you............
jessi

Thanks jessitaylor. What you wrote was exactly what I needed to hear. This morning while getting ready for work she proceeded to tell me about how she is excited to look for apts at the end of this month and how Erin said she will go with her if she wants. Needless to say my jaw wanted to hit the floor. I wanted to scream and cry and say after everything we talked about, that your friend Nancy told you, you still want to leave? But I didn't. I listened ( to be honest I wasnt very "caring" about the way I listened) I could hear the agitation in my voice. But I just responded with an ok, well good for her and you.

As far as Nancy goes...she has told me that she needs the support from her. If she refuses to do No contact, then where do I go from there? Do I write to Nancy? I don't want to push my wife farther away, but that is all that seems to be happening. She is treating me more and more like just a friend. She even told me I don't have to do her laundry anymore. This is so hard.

Still looking for some more advice...I don't mean to be so crazy posting so much...I have been sitting here thinking and I am starting to wonder if I should suggest to my wife that she move in with Nancy, but leave the girls here. Even though only 2 are biologically mine, I have no problem providing care for them all. I am sure she will not go for this but I don't know what else to do. She really views this Nancy as just a friend that she leans on and does not understand that she is a threat and issue. Or maybe she just does not care. The point is she has made it clear that she does not want to work on "Us". I had a couple mutual friends even say on her Facebook it seems like she is over our marriage already and seems almost happy we are done. Im not sure if thats her puttinMelodyLane, maritialbliss any suggustions? I feel like Plan B needs to start now, but at this point I know she has no where else to go. And she will use the kids as a guilt mechanism.

He!! No!!!!! You do not send your wife to live with her affair partner. Look, my friend's wife was having an affair with their female roommate, and that dumnut moved out, after tossing the roomie, who his wife moved right back in.

Wanna guess how that worked out?

Do not encourage her affair! Exposure is what you need. "MIL, FIL, ( everyone else who can influence), it pains me to speak of this, but Wife is having at the very least an emotional affair with skeevy friend, and this attachment she has is causing her to want to divorce me and destroy our family. I ask that you use any influence that you have on her to convince her to stop seeing this woman and return to our marriage."

A few pages back you siad you were giving her what she wants becuase you were scared if you told her to leave, she would. That is the VERY mistake my friend made. Don't be dumb, work the plan! You need to be on the SAA board, or at the very least work a stellar Plan A then go full-on Plan B, instructions are linked in pepperband's sig.

Forgive my typing, I'm on this stinkin iPad, which sux for typing. It's too hard to fix typos.

Do you think this will save your marriage?

Well Im back...and its not good. I did some more snooping on Facebook and found some damning post that she was making. She was talking about giving this person space and how its driving her crazy. It was NOT about me obviously. I confronted her tonight when she got home from work.

She admitted that the person was the person she had been having an EA with in the beginning. It lasted for about 9 months but heres the kicker...she had been lying the whole time about how she looked, her life, etc to this man and he had fallen in love with the person she claimed to be. She said she did stop contact for about a month (remember I told you we separated and I asked for a month...that month) They got back in contact and she says she is in love with him. She says that he is not the reason she does not want to save our marriage though. She claims she checked out of the marriage well before him (I highly doubt that) and that even though she is in love with him, she does not care if she gets to actually be with him...wtf?

She gave me every WW speech that is listed on here. She says the good outweigh the bad, she was never happy, It's too late, She only loves me like a friend, we dont have a connection. I even allowed her to read one of the forums that listed all those excuses. She just said well thats really how I feel. Im not confused. I tried to explain that there is no way for her to know that because she refuses to cut contact. She made sure and let me know that he is just a friend and that she loved being loved and he showed her that...even though everything she told him about herself was a lie.

So anyway I did attempt to convince her to at least give no contact and try and see if her feelings changed, but no dice. So I told her if she does not want to work on this marriage, save our family, then she needs to leave. She gave me excuse after excuse, I have no where to stay, I told her to stay with a friend. She said what about HER kids. I politely explained that these poor children did nothing wrong and that they would not be going anywhere except to their own beds that they have known for the last five yrs of their lives. I told her she is making a selfish decision and they WILL NOT be punished for that. She become angry and said I can't believe you. I told her if she wants to work things out and work at this marriage she is more than welcome to stay. It is her that is making the selfish decision to leave.

So she left. She packed a suitcase and went. So I guess now I am officially in Plan B mode and this posting needs to moved. I don't want to be at Plan B, I really want my wife back, but what do you do when she refuses to understand that this love for the other person is why she can't and will not love me again. I hope I did the right thing. I really tried to use all the advice I have been given on this forum. I am just happy that she didnt drag my poor stepdaughters out and into all this although I am sure it is coming soon . Oh and I forgot to mention the guy she loves is 22, she met him on xbox live and my wife is 31. So yeah...wtf...

To answer that, no I did not think that would save my marriage so I actually ended up not saying that.

Now that I'm moved to the correct forum. Please give me some solid advice. I am kind of at a loss right now. Like I said earlier I have all 4 children with me right now, even though I have no real legal custody of my 2 stepdaughters. How would I work Plan B in this case? Also should I still expose the affair? She is not really close with her family and neither am I. I have contacted a couple of her friends and told them what she has chose to do. I just want to make sure I am doing this right.