Well, where you are usually spot on for me, this situation is kind of twisted on its ear. See, he IS so much more than a friend who happens to be male. Our entire marriage, she has had her own friends, many of whom had been male, all of whom were (and are) friends of the family. These friendships were with my knowledge and support. In fact, it's how this one started... a friend, and one I know about, and had no problem with. That's how it was so easy to "hide" him from me. They hid the affair right out in the open. In my house. At our club. Around all our friends. There is no "unreasonable jealousy", and I don't even mention him. Hell, I go places with her where he's in attendance, since it is in no one's interest to "out" their affair to all their friends who know nothing of it.
But the question "Why is he so important....." is an interesting one, and one I chose not to pursue, because, this is none of my business. If she eventually leaves me and goes to him, how is it any of my business, in that it will be her choice. I can not tell her how to be, cannot make her stay. I can only make a person whom she is happy to be with. A person happy in my own right. I believe the problem is that she is rebelling against something, unhappy in her self and trying to pin it on me. She was distracted from her unhappiness by him. She thinks he is her happiness, or could be. She is stuck between us... afraid to make a mistake and leave the marriage, afraid to allow this thing that looks like her happiness to her pass her by. She remains clueless that happiness lies within. She is searching for it outward. I believe that as long as he is hanging in there, as long as he is a distraction from her unhappiness, she will never notice or realize where that happiness's true source is. There is nothing I can do to hasten that discovery, nothing I can do to point it out. Any attempt will be read as controlling and directive. It requires self discovery, self awareness. As long as she can blame me for her unhappiness, and few him as the source of happiness, she will not examine that self.
