My wife wants to separate

[SM34]

So FloydMan, KLB and myself. We all seem to have the same sitch. Working hard, running a business trying to secure a future for our family so that we can perhaps back off in the near future and enjoy our family for a change. The near future didnt come quickly enough and now here we are!

I think a part of me, and maybe the two you too, is a little angry at her. She isn't cutting me any slack for having sacrificed my entire 20s, and almost half of my 30s now, to build this business up so that she didn't need to work and could enjoy all the time in the world with our daughter. She never had to worry about bills or any other financial situation. She just asks me "Hey I am doing <insert something lame>, which card should I use to pay for it".

Now, i am the one of didn't appreciate her, didnt offer her enough affection, didnt make love to her enough (once or twice a week instead of every day like she wants) because I am always so run down physically and mentally. So now she is dropping me for someone who's life is much more basic and has a regular dead end job and can devote plenty of time telling her how hot she is.

I read on another site, marriagebuilders.com that when a women feels neglected and that her husband is in the position of power financially, she will ALWAYS trade down! In other words the OM will always be a douche! Thats the whole point because they need to feel like the intelligent, motivated, attractive one with the upper hand for a change. Thats exactly what is happening with my W. Her OM is a mechanic at a used car dealership, he is small and scrawny, and is kind of gay looking. I am a broad shoulder stocky guy who owns two businesses and am a manly man lol. So it could work in my advantage.

However, I spoke with the W best friend (friends since they were 8 years old and went through both their parents divorces together so very close). She saw a picture of OM on Facebook and she cannot believe my W would go for this guy. he is a "Troll" as she put it. My MIL also cannot believe it. We all agree he is really not her type at all! But he tells her she is hot, and he gives his so much attention that she is falling for it. I think she figures she tried the type she is attracted to, successfully, motivated, hard working, businessman type and it led her to be lonely so its time to trade down to a dead end job type guy who has more time to love her.

The interesting thing that puts a twist on this is that my MIL cannot talk to my W because W tells her you are a hypocrite. My MIL left my W's father when W was 13, and traded down to a guy who really has nothing going for him either. She is happily remarried now. However, MIL tries to remind my W that her father was emotionally and verbally abusive to her and was a very angry person who refused to seek help for his anger. They also had married because she got pregnant with my W when she was 17. Also, when she left her husband for OM, she had known the other guy for 15 years! It is a completely different situation than my W has! But W still thinks MIL cant give advice because she did the same.

Anyway, i know I shouldn't focus on the OM at all, but he messages her ALL DAY LONG! She is on the phone texting literally the whole day. Her iPhone beeped and she was in the bathroom and I looked at the message and he had messaged her to tell her "I miss your face". Gag me. What worries me is that he knows what he is up against. He knows her husband is somewhat successful and could be something big in a couple years, he knows she has a daughter who draws her to this family unit, he knows he doesn't have anything to offer, EXCEPT affection, and he know she is sorely missing that. So, he will lay it on thick at least until he is sure she has left me. At this point in time, she still spends more time around me than him so he has to keep her occupied with messages all day so she doesn't spend time with me and change her mind. But i know my wife and when she was in her right mind she would have thought that 1000 messages a day was lame as hell. She is so much more mature than this high school behavior, or at least she was.

Somewhere in that person who is not my wife, who is acting reckless and jeopardizing everythig we worked hard to build together, is my old wife, the one I love, the one who would never fall for a loser like this, one who always stood by me through thick and thin. i just need to find her.

She has stopped telling people about what is going on. Every single person she tells immediately calls me and asks me if she has lost her mind. After her mom, best friend in the world, and one of her close gay guy friends each found out, they told her she was crazy and she would never find someone better than me. They told her if your husband is willing to work on the problems, and willing to seek counselling or medical help or whatever he needs, then there is absolutely no excuse to be bailing on your family so quickly. She told her best friend she loves OM and her best friend said you don't even know what love is if you cant see that your husband loves you more than anyone else ever has, or ever will. They all think I am an AWESOME guy! I really am I catch (have to toot my own horn to remind myself that she is crazy). I grew up in Dubai, went to a private British school that was rated top ten IN THE WORLD. I graduated from college here in USA with a double bachelors in Computer Science and Computer Engineering. I immediately went into the master program and started a business. By age 24 I was making 6 figures at my business. It is only recently with the bad economy that we have suffered.

i have a question in case any of you can shed some light on this theory. On marriagebuilders.com they say you should expose the affair to all her friends and family, and all the friends and family of her OM. That puts a strain on their relatioship. however DB and DR suggest not to discuss these matters with any of her friends because she will be mad. What gives?