I sent a message on the guys Facebook page, asking if he had time to meet in person in the next few days. He informed my wife of this via text, and she was furious. She said he is too busy to meet me and doesn’t want to get involved in our marriage problems. I told her he IS part of the marriage problems. She continue to insist they are just friends. She swears she will be filing for divorce. I need to be prepared.
He never replied to me. My wife is still insisting that they are “just friends” and doesn’t accept that she is having an emotional affair. So I asked her to stop talking about him and stop texting him.
I will be contacting a lawyer this week, just to go over my options, even if she doesn’t file. I will ask if I can legally kick her out of the house, as has been suggested.
Oh, boy.
When you contact an innocent friend of your spouse and say you want to talk to them, they assume you want their help in arranging a surprise birthday party for your wife. Maybe, if your spouse has been acting strangely, they are concerned that your spouse might be in some kind of emotional distress, and that you need their help. They will, at the very least, ask the nature of what you want to talk about. They do not ignore you and notify your spouse.
Also, people do not normally feel a need to seek “permission” to contact innocent friends of their spouses. Neither do people with nothing to hide fly into a rage when a spouse e-mails one of their friends.
IOW, both your wife and her friend are acting exactly as you would expect illicit lovers to act. Not a big surprise, alas. They are either lying to you or–and this is the most charitable thought I can come up with–lying to themselves about their relationship. That, or your wife has convinced this friend that you are a manipulating abuser of some kind. That’s just about as bad.
Let’s just say that you have no room to keep up so much as the pretense of believing that even they believe their relationship to be innocent. Maybe on an intellectual level, but not deep down. Your direct contact with him forced their hand, and they’ve both blown it. If you ever had a chance of using that pretense in your own favor–and it was a longshot–that is long gone. Goodbye to “I believe you when you say there is nothing.” That man reacted as if you are your wife’s enemy. While I suppose it is remotely possible in some universe that they have a friendship that isn’t a threat to your marriage, it isn’t a reasonable possibility.
Empty your schedule for Monday. Call around, and find who is the best attorney for representing men in divorces and family court that you can get. Call him (or in your case, it is very likely to be a her) immediately. Get the first appointment you can get. In the meantime, ask if there is any ground rules you need to know in order to keep from being cleaned out and having your children taken away.
There are cases where contacting your own legal counsel will exacerbate a bad marital situation, but your case I think that giving her a free shot at your bank account will only encourage her self-centered lunacy. If your wife figures out how to get your money and the kids, she will leave you and never look back. If she finds she can’t do that, I suppose there is some shred of hope. I don’t know, though. She sounds like she’s going to burn every bridge she can find with you, and then blow up the ashes for good measure, before she can give herself a chance to change her own mind.
IOW, I think that the best you can do at this point is to guard your ability to be a father to and a provider for your children. Except for not provoking her with any blatantly uncharitable treatment–I hope you’ll never call another woman a b**** for any reason, ever again, nor indulge in the temptation to heap blame or accusations on the mother of your children–I don’t think there is much you can do. She’ll either come around and ask about the overtures you have already made, or she won’t. I don’t think you have any other cards left to play.
You are in the path of a hurricane. Pray for a miracle, but in the meantime, get out the plywood and nail the place down. You don’t have any time to lose, and both you and your children are in the path of this thing. It is not the time for regrets over what you might have done in the past, but the time for level-headed action.
I’m so so sorry. I wish I could think of a message with more hope. The only thing I can think of is this: I’m not a professional and I don’t know you or your wife. Find those who are, and who do. Make sure one of them is a priest. If they, collectively, have hope to offer, listen to them. If they don’t, though, listen to them, anyway.