As I said she's moving back in next month, but she says she's not happy about it, that she just got to get her own place and her own bank account, etc, and she doesn't want to give that up.
I think it will help for you to consider that there are likely several reasons that she is unhappy about moving back to your home. ---When she has here own place, she can see OM all she wants. ---When she has he own place, she can hide from the reality of her situation - you - and focus on the fantasy, i.e. the A. ---Part of the journey for her is figuring out what it would be like to be single. She wants to see what she missed by getting married so young. ---When she has her own bank account, you can't see what she's doing with her money.
And we could keep going.
The reason I bring this up is because I don't think it works to focus on one aspect of explaining your W's thought process/motivation/behavior. Believe me, I've been down the exact same path. I've told myself that all of the issues my H has with our M are real - needing to figure out who he is, feeling he's missed something in life, feeling as though I am the husband and not him, we're apples and oranges, etc. And they are real. They have been there forever. The point is, one day my H woke up and decided that instead of working on these long-standing issues or living with them as he had been, he instead decided he was done.
It's not a coincidence that his major life epiphany corresponded with him meeting the OW. I think what happens when a lot of people have affairs is that they meet someone. That someone makes them feel fullfilled in a way they haven't felt in some time because that person mets needs that were neglected (unintentionally or not) in the M. That person begins to consume their thoughts and suddenly they are "in love" - or, what the wise call infatuated. Suddenly, this person is unbelievably appealing, and the spouse's flaws are typically magnified. The person having an A descends into "the affair fog". This fog clouds judgement - it helps them to avoid reality by descending into a fantasy world where the grass is greener, their entire life history is completely different from the one they remembered before the OW, and they suddenly feel enlighted, as if they've found the last piece to a giant puzzle.
All of a sudden, they know they've met their soulmate. They begin to rationalize: ---"I was never truly happy with my H/W." ---"I made a mistake in marrying my H/W. I was pressured into it/ I married out of complacency/ I didn't know what love was." ---"I don't truly know who I am." ---"We've changed so much. The people we are now are not compatible."
And it goes on and on and on. The beauty of all of this is that we know good and well that they actually aren't truly happy now. It's a skewed version of reality, and once the fog clears and the real world encroaches onto their fantasy world, they then realize that the grass was only greener because they'd put on green-tinted glasses.
The point of that whole rant is to say that your wife likely has many reasons for leaving - and they are likely all equally valid in one way or another. But do not discount the A as being a major part of that. You might be trying to save yourself some pain - even if it's subconscious - by not focusing on the A. Believe me, I did the same thing. It's not to say that you should become obsessed with the A of remove focus from you, but beware denial. The longer you stay in denial, the longer before you can progress in your grief and move to acceptance - and acceptance is where you want to be in order to maximize your DBing efforts.
Your wife probably always struggled - from time to time - with the fact that you'd been together from such a young age. She probably felt - from time to time - a longing for passion and romance that no longer seemed available because you'd both "moved past it". She probably wondered - from time to time - what it would be like to be more like the other people she knew, people who had dated and been wild and young.
But she lived with it. She loved you, and she loved her life with you. If she has any wisdom, then she recognized that the love she had with you was lasting, was real.
It's just that sometimes, she wondered. Sometimes, she felt restless.
But it was never enough to leave until one day, she met someone that made her feel ____ (whatever she wasn't feeling with you). They talked and talked and talked, and after awhile, she found herself longing to be with that person. Somewhere along the line, that person began to consume her thoughts. You were pushed to the sideline in her mental landscape. She began to examine her life, to pluck out all the negative encounters. Now, that once-wistfulness has grown into full-blown panic. She thinks that she's made a mistake with her life, that she needs to be free.
And the rest is history. That might not be exactly what happened with your W - or even with my H for that matter - but I'm willing to bet it's pretty darn close.
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I've given her as much of my life as she's given me, and now I just feel like she wants to throw me out like old garbage.
I completely empathize. Believe me, I totally get it.
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As time progresses I'm beginning to believe that this is less about the EA than it is about her wanting to just be on her own for the 1st time in life--how do I combat that?
Like I said, don't marginalize the importance of the A. Even if the A is only a catalyst to launch her into action, that is still huge. The problem is that as much as those other issues of her might be the root, the key weakness that propelled her to cheat - the cheating is what is keeping her in her fog. While she's in a euphoric state, there's not much you can do except give her time, give her space, and work on YOU.
The time and space helps to propel the A to its natural death.
Working on you helps you to work through your grief and grow. An added benefits is that when the A begins to fall apart, you will be even more appealing.
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The other part of this is that we started off as best friends and then moved into a relationship, so she keeps saying that she still wants me to be a very good friend, but that she sees no future for us as a couple.
You have no idea how much I hear the friend thing myself. I believe that a big part of this is about the cheating spouse minimizing loss. They want to cake-eat. They don't want to truly leave, to truly make a choice between two people and accept all of the consequences. And if you're friends, they feel less guilty.
My H and I are best friends as well, so I know how hard it is. Even if you truly want to be friends later, being friends right now isn't always the best idea. In many cases, it enables the cheating because you're not allowing your spouse to experience the full consequences of her choice. You're not allowing the naturally occuring lesson to fall into place, so they cannot (in many cases) learn from that mistake.
The key is being friendly without being a friend.
Believe me, it is HARD. But you can do it, and you must.
If you do part ways in the end and youboth decide on friendship in the future, that's great. But right now, your W has to feel the loss.
