Wife had EA, turned PA, then left. Doesn't think she cheated.

My best friend is gone. We've known each other for 15 years. Been best friends since high school. I always wanted to be with her, but at the time, the interest wasn't returned. So I was content to be the friend, hear about all the other guys and their problems. I dated, and maybe loved, a few women myself. But through all of it, I daydreamed about getting that chance. After high school, that finally happened. We both fell for each other, and we just knew we were done searching. Engaged two years later, married two years after that, celebrated a 4th anniversary back in October, and were making big plans for our 5th. We were both happy, or at least I thought. Not perfect. Truth be told, over the last year or so, I had gotten a little complacent. I wouldn't say neglectful, but I know I wasn't meeting all of her emotional needs, and I could have done better. In November she sat me down, talked it all out, and I knew I had to change, and was working towards it. Around the same time, she reconnects with one of her old high school BFFs (a girl) that she hadn't really seen or spoken to in a year and a half. She had also been in a long term relationship, and had recently left the guy for the same issues of neglect/complacency. I don't know if this sowed the seeds in my wife's mind, or if it was just a coincidence. I didn't think anything of it at the time, I was just happy they were hanging out again. They make plans to go out to a club one night. They invited me along, but I figured they should have a girl's night out. And to be honest, night clubs have never really been my thing. That night, my wife makes a new guy friend, a mutual friend of her girlfriend. A week or so later, I notice that she's suddenly texting...a lot. Normally our phone bill would only have 200-300 texts per month on her line, but now the phone is constantly dinging. I happen to look over her shoulder, and see his name. Ask her who he is, she tells me how they met, says he's "just a friend". She's had guy friends in the past, so I don't think much of it. But it continues. Texting all the time. And now she's more guarded with her phone. I playfully express some jealousy, although suspicion is starting to prickle in the back of my mind. She continues to wave it off..."just a friend". Towards the end of December I look at the phone bill, and her 200-300 norm has spiked to over 2000 messages since meeting this guy in mid November, and over 1000 with him. Now I'm getting worried, but I wave it away. She wouldn't do that. She's always been the biggest defender of fidelity, always gets so angry when a celeb or politician is caught in a scandal. "If you're going to go after someone else, there's no excuse not to break it off with your current partner first." She's also spending more time out with her friends. Never mentions him or if he'll be there. I assume it's all girlfriends. The night of 12/30, a Sunday, she goes out about 6 pm, says she's meeting up with this same girlfriend. For some reason my gut tells me to check, and through "Find my iPhone" I see she's at someone's house - but it's not her girlfriends. She comes home around midnight (very out of the norm for her on a week night), and says they just went to the mall, and back to the girlfriends to see a movie. After she goes to sleep, I check the phone. I look at the texts, and I know she was with him, probably by herself (text to him that evening says "I'm here", not "we're here", as it should if she was with a friend). There's also a bunch deleted - per the phone records, there should be a couple hundred more than the ones I saw. I'm shell shocked. I don't sleep all night, and when she gets up the next morning, I confront her. First mistake, should have waited for more evidence. She admits they went over to his place, but that her girlfriend was with her, it was a spontaneous plan, and they really did watch a movie. Didn't want to tell me last night because she knew I'd be upset, but they really are "just friends." I say fine. But I want to meet him. They next time they're all going out to the club/bar, I want to go. She hesitates, says that's not a good idea, and it would be awkward. Doesn't explain why. Now I just have more suspicions. Then, out of nowhere, she starts talking about how she thinks she might need some space, might go live with her mom for a while. That we've been having our own problems (true, from the talk in October), and now I'm being irrationally jealous. I talk her down from that, and she goes to work (I take the day off, having got no sleep that night). That night we go to a New Year's Eve party with some friends. She's on the phone texting all night. Every time I see it, I pocket dial her, interrupting her texting. Tell her jokingly that we're here to spend time with friends, not our phones. She laughs it off, but I sense some irritation. On the way home that night, I decide that enough is enough. We've always had a promise to each other that if we had a friendship that made the other uneasy, we'd cut it off, no questions. I invoke that deal, tell her that I don't like this, that I want her to cool it with him while we're working on our own issues. She's only known him for a little over a month, that shouldn't be a huge sacrifice. She flips. I'm controlling, I don't get to tell her what to do. She packs her things that night, and leaves. Happy New Year. I wasn't sure if there really was an EA, or if I was being crazy. I thought maybe it really was all about me. So I chased. Begged. No 180. Second mistake (first being the too-early confrontation). We did spend sometime together that week, and one night I ask her what her weekend plans are. She's going to the aquarium with her girlfriend. Alarms go off in my head - I remember from the texts I read a few nights ago that the OM is into aquariums. I ask if she's driving there, she says yes. Another alarm - this girl hates driving in the city, so to voluntarily do it on a weekend night? No way. I don't question it though. I give her a couple days of space, then the night she's there, I text her to ask her how it's going. No answer. I call a few hours later, trying to see if she has plans the next day. No answer. I check the phone details online - I see texts to her girlfriend (that she's supposedly there with), but not a single text to or from the OM. My heart sinks. The next day, she comes over to get some more of her stuff. I ask her again about last night. She sticks to the lie. I confront her again. With the evidence in front of her, she says that yes, he was there - her and her girlfriend invited him at the last minute. The texts between her and the girlfriend were about things they didn't want him over-hearing. I didn't ask what. Then I get the "I'm not in love with you" speech. She's not sure she ever did. This was all a mistake. Totally whitewashed the past 8 years together. She's done, this is over. I have to accept it, she says. She didn't tell me about the OM the night before because she didn't want me going down the wrong track. He's just a friend, this is really about you. She wants a divorce. I'm just floored. It hasn't even been a week since she left. In the next couple days she wastes no time opening up her own bank account, severing as many financial ties as she can, getting more stuff out of our apartment, etc. Full spee d ahead to D. So the next week, I chase her some more. But my gut is eating at me. There's more to the story than this. So finally, I take the plunge, and I get all the texts and photos from her phone. Won't explain how I did it, but it was an invasion of privacy, and I don't feel good about it. But I had to know. And it was all there. Flirtacious texts. Calling each other babe, sexy, cutie, etc. Sexual innuendo. Talking to her girlfriend about her feelings for him. All of this, spanning from before she left, and after. Texts proving that on multiple days after leaving, she had gone over to his place. Even worse, she trashes me to her friends, and to the OM. Psycho, loser, weirdo. "Psycho just won't get it, we're done." I think that hurt more than anything else, but I figure that was her way of dealing with the guilt of the affair. She was supposed to be my best friend. I did see texts to her girlfriend saying that she no longer had feelings for him, only wanted to be friends with him now. But they were recent, from the same day I obtained them. I said nothing to her, but the next day, she must of figured out I had all of this, and that she was busted. She comes over, tells me I need to know everything. The first time she met him, he hit on her, she shut it down. A couple weeks later, they went out as a group again, they were dancing, he was kissing her neck. She shut it down again. The weekend before she left, they all went out again, he tried to kiss her, and she didn't stop it. They made out. She swears that's as far as it went. Admitted that the night of the 30th, when she was over there watching a movie - she was alone, and it had been the plan the whole time. Night at the aquarium? Same thing, her and him alone, always the plan. That she did have feelings for him, but they had passed, and they really were just friends now. But she argued that she hadn't cheated. There as no affair here, EA or PA. Her leaving really was still all about me, nothing to do with him. No remorse from her. Guilt about lying, sure - and she said she only lied because she didn't want me thinking she left for someone else. But I think if she hadn't found out I knew, she never would have come clean (if you can call that coming clean). I thanked her for her honesty, and she left. A couple days later, after stewing on it, I emailed her, and told her that until she could admit that this was an affair, and show some remorse about it, there was nothing here to salvage - relationship or friendship (which she told me throughout the separation that she really hoped we could stay friends). That I was willing to forgive her, but I can't forgive what she's not sorry about. She wrote back that she had apologized for lying, and the rest of this was simply "semantics" that she wasn't going to talk about anymore. The OM had nothing to do with her leaving, that she has no romantic interest in him, and no romantic interest in me. And she's not sure if she even wants to be friends with someone who thinks she's a cheater. I told her, I don't think you're a cheater, I know you are. And left it at that. Haven't talked to her since. It's been a few days now. I don't know if she's in a fog, I don't know if this was just an exit affair. I don't know if it's too late, if I made too many mistakes dealing with this. I still have the evidence, I could expose, but is there a point to it? All I know is that I miss my friend. I know that we can't go back to this M, that I could probably never trust her again, even if she wanted to try for R. But I miss her friendship. I just keep reminding myself that friends don't treat each other this way. That she's a stranger now. But it still hurts, that 8 years together, and a bright future, have all been seemingly destroyed in a span of four weeks. Sorry this is so long. If you read this far, thanks. Guess I'm just looking to vent.

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