Sorry in advance for the long post, please ask questions if clarification is needed:
A month and a half ago, my wife sat me down and told me that she wasn't feeling loved. She said that she took on the emotional load of the family. We have been married a little over 4 years and have a toddler together. I had emotionally neglected her through multiple stages of our marriage, especially during her horrible pregnancy and postpartum period. I was always present, trying to make sure she was well taken care of—making food, working full time to support our family and house. I tried to clean up here and there (but my level of clean is different than hers, which also caused a lot of conflict and made her feel unloved which she mentioned multiple times through our marriage), and getting her the occasional flowers or cards (doing random cute things like a special message on the digital picture frame). I was there to watch our child, helping her will every appointment, getting our child up in the morning and when I got home from work each day I would get our child dinner and ready for bed every night. Throughout the entire relationship, though, she took on the role of the "parent", having to be the emotional support for the family (including supporting my emotional needs / helping me get on low dose anti-depressants). After years of that building up, she's completely fried. The surfacing of this pain came from her starting personal therapy. She has gone to therapy on and off for years. Much more than I have but I have also gone in the past. Each time I went was from her supporting me and pushing me to peruse help.
Whenever we have had deep discussions about our situation, I do a horrible job of responding emotionally. I made it about me and how I keep failing as a person, husband, father. Which of course made the situation 1000 times worse. I immediately sought therapy for myself to help work on these issues after she brought them up again. I have asked constantly if we could also pursue some type of marital therapy to help mediate some of the conversations. Every time I got a response that she was exhausted and I had too much personal stuff to work on for us to do marital therapy.
We proceeded to have allot more conversation. I was in complete panic mode trying to power clean everything. Show her overwhelming affection. I realized that I was being too much and apologized for coming on so strong. She said that she needed space and was even more angry that I could have done all the house work but only did it because things were bad between is and I was trying to make amends. Which is completely true, I could have figured out how to make things better around the house.
So here is where things really fell off and how I made a bad situation go nuclear. The day after the first conversation she said she needed some space and wanted to go on a walk alone. So I stayed home and watched our child while she took some space. About an hour or two into the walk I called her because it was getting really dark and a bad thunderstorm was rolling in. When she answered the phone she was talking with someone else. I didn't think anything of that but just wanted to make sure she was safe.
Later that week, she mentioned an antique place she wanted to visit. It was a special pop up thing that ended at 1. We agreed it would be hard to go with our toddler so I stayed home and she went off to the pop up. I checked in part way through and it took her a while to respond but she said she was good. 2 o'clock rolls around and no response, 2:30 nothing. I am starting to get worried. I try and pull up her computer to track her at the same time I call her sister who also has her location. When I pull up her computer I see a text pop up saying "I just arrived". Now I am completely hysterical thinking she met someone and now is in an unsafe situation.
She finally responds saying cell service was horrible. and would be home around 3:30. I asked her in the car later who was on the phone when I called earlier in the week and she said some guy on the path who was also running from the rain. I stay up all night in complete anxiety. I asked her point blank the next morning and she told me he was a guy she met the day before our difficult talk (she had mentioned that she met the guy I think but not that they exchanged numbers). She really wanted to tell me but was scared because of our current stressful situation (which I believe).
She proceeded to hang out with this guy knowing it upset me but I didn't tell her she couldn't I had no right to tell her what she could and couldn't do. We talked about an open marriage her saying she needed space and not to be the emotional parent. I "agreed" because it was something she needed but I made it clear that I wasn't going to participate. Most of the hangouts were a dinner here or a walk there once or twice a week while I watched our child. She communicated every time she was going to see him and for the most part updated me on timing. This is where things broke down, we had had a very tough conversation that ended with us deciding to do some form of separation. This is when I started to reach out to my family and she said I could reach out to my brother-in-law for support as well (we moved to be close to her family but I don't have many friends or family here). A few days after that she told me that she might go camping with this guy. I didn't take that news well but I couldn't stop her from going. She said she hated seeing me struggle but proceeded to go. I was going to her families house with our child her two sisters were there and my brother-in-law. She had mentioned that she didn't want her parents to know anything about the situation that was going on and I agreed. I got a text from her on the way over that she wouldn't be home that night. I went into full panic attack (my mental state through this whole thing has been completely unstable) I called her saying I wasn't safe and needed to stay with someone that night but since she didn't want her parents to know I didn't know who to reach out to. She said she would think about it and get back to me. She decided to come home late (2am) instead of staying the night.
I basically spilled everything stated above to her sisters. Clearly stating that she didn't want the parents to know. I again, did a bad job of explaining the whole situation but I tried to stated what had happened/ was happening.
I was so worked up by the situation that when my wife came home I didn't really say anything I proceeded to grab my stuff and went out to sleep on the couch. She came out to ask if I was coming to bed and I told her I was going to sleep there. Wrong answer. She was pissed saying I didn't even say anything when she came home then just went to sleep on the couch. I told her she was out camping going to spend the night with another man. How is that and the other nights of dinner and walks not going on dates. She said that nothing has happened and it's not like she is spending the night at a hotel or something. We had very different view points on what dates were apparently.
Fast forward her sister tells the whole family about this situation. At the same time, her sisters rail on her for cheating and giving up on our marriage. I unintentionally turned her whole family against her. She is SUPER pissed now and it's all my fault. She told me if things were going to change I needed to take accountability for telling everyone the situation and explaining that she never cheated.
She said that she has been isolated and this guy is one of the only friends she's been able to talk to (of whom she is out with right now while I watch our child). She is pissed that I turned this situation into a selfish thing where the core issue was her not feeling loved and respected and now I just made that way worse. Everyone I tell about this is on my side that she shouldn't be hanging out with this other guy. Even though there is no physical contact it doesn't matter.
I still feel like crap for the way I have acted in an extreme emotional state and my wife is now even more pissed than ever before. I guess my question is, am I being gaslit into thinking what I did was wrong and she is justified in her anger? Or were my actions of seeking help in a time of crisis warranted even though I overshared and made everyone think she's cheating on me (even though I explained to them that we had talked about having an open relationship and nothing physical was going on).
Edit 1: She got an apartment to make the separation more permanent while we work on things. I told her that we have two different viewpoints. Mine is we commit to each other and work through this, hers is she needs the opportunity to meet other people because it's unfair for her to wait for me to fix my problems. I told her that these two things conflicted themselves and we would need to break things off if neither one could change. She said "so you are just giving up?" I said not but I'm holding strong to this condition. (Ps I had asked during every bad conversation that we see a marriage counselor to help which she said no to)