So I had planned on confronting the wife in an attempt to find out for sure if the EA was really a PA. I ended up not having to.
My W had been in a really foul mood when she got home from work on Sunday, but I didn't engage with that mess and left it alone. Monday (yesterday) she again was still in this mood and taking it out on her D20 as they spent the day doing errands together. The D20 was texting me the whole time asking me WTH was wrong with her and that she was about to slap the $%^& out of her mom. I just told her to try and ignore it as best as possible and to not fight with her mom.
So last night when I told my W that we needed to talk, she pretty much just instantly broke down sobbing that she had "messed" everything up. I asked what she meant. She said "everything". "Our marriage, my friendship with OM, everything". I asked her what happened and she told me why she had been in such a bad mood....
As I mentioned before the OM is a co-worker. My wife only works 12 hour shifts on Sat and Sun and the OM works during the week and on Sat so they only see each other on Sat. However on Sunday the OM called my W at work to check if a shipment had come in, upon finding out it had not he told my W "(explicative), that means I have to come in for a bit today". To which my wife replied "Good, that means I get to see you" (yes that means she was not fully disengaged from the EA). Now here is where it gets funny ... to me at least. Apparently the idiotic OM had called my W on speaker phone and his W was standing next to him and she blew up like a bomb. This started WW3 in his MR and he of course became very angry with my W. She hung up and texted him that she was "sorry but was done and was going to leave him alone." He gave no response. It really took everything I had in me to not ROFLMAO. She went on to say she wished she had never pursued anything with him b/c he was a friend first and now she lost even that.
Still sobbing she went on to apologize to me for "basically cheating on me". I asked "how so", she confessed to kissing and some essentially heavy petting but nothing further. (I don't like this, but as I mentioned previously, as long as not full on intercourse I think I can get passed it). She started beating herself up and saying she can't believe she did this to me, to him, to everyone. I just let her break herself down nodding and occasionally saying "yeah" or "ok". I made it a point to never tell her it would be OK or that I forgave her, or anything to make her think her behavior was accepted.
At this point it was getting late and I had to take step-D20's BF home (his car is broke down) and my W went to bed. As I was dropping the D20-BF off, I got a text from the W: "Don't be shocked, I made a drink and I'm up writing. Please don't bother me or let D20. Love you.", I simply replied "OK sounds cathartic. Love you too." (Yes I know that is an improper use of the word cathartic, it's just what popped into my head as I was trying to drive away from the BF house.)
When I got home, I did have to go in the Bed Room to change clothes and the W was sitting on the best crying. I ignored this and said, "just need to change and I'll be out of your hair" and went into the Master Bath (where the closet is) to change. On my way out, I didn't say a word and when I got to the door she asked me to stay. When I sat on the bed, I noticed she had written about a page of stuff, but I didn't even try to read it. She started sobbing again and said she had made things even worse. Apparently while I was gone, she decided to text OM (since she hadn't gotten a response earlier) to make sure he understood things were over between them. Since it was late she had assumed he would be asleep and would not get a response that night. She was partially right. OM WAS asleep, but OM's W was not. My W got a response, she didn't tell me what it was, but I can only imagine the utter hell the OM must be in right about now. A thought about just deserts crosses my mind but I didn't mention that. I simply said "well, I'm not sure what to tell you". She went on sobbing, and beating herself up over her actions and wondering out loud how she got here, how it was not her, or who she thought she was. I just listened.
When she was done, she wanted to know what was next. I told her that I had taken our recent problems and discussions as a wake up call that I hadn't been living the life that I had wanted and in a way that was right for me. I told her that I deserved to be in a relationship with someone that was both in love with me and attracted to me. I told her that I could not make her fall back in love with me and I wasn't even going to try, because I didn't make her fall in love with me the first time. It was her choice the first time and would have to be her choice if she fell in love with me again or not. I told her either way THIS marriage was over, and I was going to build a new life, one where I was more of who I used to be, one where I was living instead of just surviving. I told her I was doing this for me, because it was what I needed and what I deserved. I told her that if she still wanted to date me, we could see where it went, and maybe if we found our way back to each other that we could begin a "new" marriage (symbolically speaking) and try to do better with that one.
I know this probably broke most if not all of the DB'ing rules without even have received the book yet, but when I was done I saw something in her eyes that I hadn't seen in a long long time. Just a hint of a spark of interest. The only thing she said, was "will you hold me?" and I did, until she fell asleep. That was the first time in probably 10 years she wanted that. Now, I have already read enough here to know that this was probably just a short lived moment of weakness on her part, or some attempt to keep me hanging on, and I am not going to read too much into it, but I now feel like the stage is properly set for me to distance and detach and see if she starts coming back to me.
