How bad is this?

I am new to this forum. I have read many of the threads and am impressed by the support and experience and good advice on here, so I thought I would share my own situation and see what people have to say. At this point, I believe there is sort of an affair smoldering between my wife and a mutual friend (former mutual friend, from my perspective), but I'm not sure exactly how bad it is or how far it has progressed -- is it just the beginning of an EA? a full fledged EA? a PA? both? -- and would appreciate some thoughts and advice on that. Six months ago my wife e-mailed me out of the blue (at least to me) and surprised me and said she wanted to separate. We have been married almost 18 years, and together 21 years. It was love at first sight for both of us, and I feel like it clicked for both of us immediately. We have two girls, ages 14 and 8, who are awesome and that we both love dearly. Leading up to her e-mail saying she wanted to separate, I would have said our marriage was maybe stuck in a rut a little, with some things to work on, but certainly nothing that bad. Never any infidelity on my part, and none on hers that I knew of; no abuse, emotionally or physically; no addiction problems; financial disagreements were present, but no big financial transgressions by either of us. She just simply said she was unhappy, and wanted some time and space. I spent 4 months trying to talk her out of moving out, but pretty quickly determined that pretty much all of my efforts were useless. Her mind was made up by the time she told me she wanted to separate, and nothing I could do or say would change this. I still very much love her, and love our family and girls, and we have a beautiful new house that I (mostly I) just bought for us 2-3 years ago, and so I sort of thought we were set, despite a few minor issues we may need to work on. She apparently saw it differently and kept acting like she has been miserable for years (don't know if that's actually true or not -- I don't think it is). She moved out two months ago. My life has been a living hell the last 6 months, and even worse since she moved out. I am constantly alternately devastated/sad, and furious. Shortly after she told me she wanted to move out (5-6 months ago), I asked her if she was cheating on me. I blurted it out in the middle of a heated conversation (not the way to do it, I know now). She said no in the heat of the moment. I have no idea if this was truthful or not. Awhile later I asked her if anything was going on at her work -- she had started a new job a few months before she told me she wanted to move out, and I really have little feel for the other men she may be around in her new office. This time I asked her calmly, not during a fight, and literally face to face and looking her in the eye, and she answered no, and I actually believed her the way she reacted and said it, and still sort of believe her on this. She NEVER stays late at work, or works on weekends, etc. There are/were two mutual friends, that I immediately suspected that if anything was going on, one of these two guys would be likely candidates. I actually went thru her phone quickly one time (I NEVER do this), about 5 months ago, and saw these two guys in there, but limited and appropriate texts, and limited phone calls. The one guy who I was actually more worried about is recently divorced, but is in another relationship living with a woman, and I really don't think anything is going on with him. The other guy however -- also recently divorced and a bit of a party guy and neighborhood playboy -- has recently caused me much concern. After returning from a trip out of town with my girls (my wife did not come), I was told by two friends that they saw my wife jogging with this other guy -- and one friend said they stopped and talked for a minute (bc they literally ran into each other) and she and her husband definitely got a weird vibe from it. My wife has never been jogging with this guy before -- she and I jog together, and she knows I would not like this, especially with this guy. Then about a week later, I picked my eldest daughter up from somewhere, and she says this guys' kids had been hanging out with her and others, which is a little weird bc this was a school hangout and his kids don't go to school with my kids. I asked my daughter how it was his kids were there, and she said "it was weird", that she saw him drop his girls off up the street from the kids' han gout, like he didn't want to be seen, and then rushed off like in a hurry. I was immediately concerned bc I knew my wife was jogging at that exact time during our other daughters' soccer practice. I have since learned (she admitted when I confronted her) that this other guy did meet her to go jogging that day. That day she was wearing a skin tight jogging outfit that is quite flattering and suggestive. Prior to my wife saying she wanted to move out, almost a year ago, this other guy was at our house with some friends after being out to dinner as a group. There was a lot of drinking going on. My wife came out on our back deck where I was sitting with some people, and went to sit down, and as she did I saw this other guy who was also sitting there grab and pat her butt. She froze a little as he did it, but then smiled a little, and sat down. At the time I was not concerned about it (this was before our marital troubles started, as far as I knew), and was actually a little flattered by it. Oh, this neighborhood party guy likes my wife or thinks she's hot, I thought. I was pretty secure in our relationship at the time and so not concerned. Then with the jogging incidents and our separation, I've become a lot more concerned. Then just about a week ago I picked my youngest daughter up one morning for a soccer game, from my wife's place, and she proceeds to tell me (I didn't ask or draw it out of her) that last night was a "crazy night" with the adults doing lots of drinking and smoking (my wife's sister and her boyfriend were there from out of town). And then she says this other guy -- the jogging and butt pat guy -- was also there. She says he arrived at about midnight, and stayed until 2:00 or 2:30 am, and she saw him talking on the back deck with my wife and sister's boyfriend (sister was passed out). No one else was there other than my daughters. I confronted my wife about it the next day over the phone (I wanted to set up a confrontation in person, but couldn't help it and asked her about it over the phone). Her immediate reaction was extremely defensive and hostile, and yelling at me "You can't tell me what to do!" I told her yes, I could, in this area, and set up a time to talk in person the next day when her sister was gone. Our meeting the next day didn't go well. I asked her what was up with this guy, and she just glibly said nothing, and acted all offended that I was even asking her about it. she admitted she had texted him and invited him over to her place that night, and that he was there until about 2:30 am. She admitted to jogging with him " a couple few times", but nothing more. I asked what the butt pat was all about almost a year ago, and she blurted out loudly, "Oh, he's just a flirt!" I have demanded that she end all communications with this guy -- no seeing him at all, no texts, no e-mails, no phone calls, nothing. At first she didn't respond when I demanded this, and then finally about 4-5 days later, when we were fighting bc I was confronting her about not agreeing to zero contact with the guy, she begrudgingly agreed to no contact. But she said she might still wave to him bc he lives close by. This guy actually lives 5 doors down from her place -- which is beyond weird to me. I'm not sure that I trust her when she says she won't have further contact with him. This other guy is sort of a fun guy, and reasonably good looking, but I don't think she would ever go for this guy long term over me. My guess would be that my relative "sex rank" to him might be pretty close, but probably favorable to me. He really doesn't have much personality, and my wife loves lots of personality. And his current work and income picture is pretty funky (an alleged general contractor), although he may have some money in the bank. My guess is that my wife is flattered by his attention, but does not see him as anything serious. Approx 6 yrs ago, when I first met this guy thru others, multiple people told me to watch this guy, and keep him away from your wife, he's a homewrecker. People have also told me they've seen him with his hands all over other attractive married women at a local swimming pool. My wife and I had probably been to this guy's house dozens of time before he was divorced, and before all this started. He's probably been to our house 10 times or so. He has thrown some pretty wild parties, and is known to go to parties, bars, concerts, at all hours of the day and night. He has driven my wife home from parties a few times over the years when she was too drunk too drive -- but I believe also always when my kids were also around, or I was around. But I'm wondering if he's been flirting with her, hitting on her, or grabbing her butt, when I'm not there to see, over the last few years. I don't know about this, but just a hunch now. Well, that's enough for now. My wife was raised as a Catholic school good girl, and so her having a full on PA with this guy does not fit to me. But on the other hand, she has been checked out on me and mean as a snake for 6 months, and obviously this other guy is sniffing around, and she's even allowing or inviting it. Let me know your thoughts.

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