Thank you for reading my post. I'm not sure where in teh process I am and I am not sure if my W is gone forever but here is my sitch.
Jul 2007 wife gets boob job (uh oh. Nov 2007 Wife turns 40. Jan W joins a gym. Starts going out with girlfreind. Aug 2008 I received the ILYBNINLWY speech. She has been unhappy for many years Oct 2008 discovered she had a deep affair with someone. April 2009 sperated after I found out she was still seeing the OM. She feels guilty for what she did. We are living like we are divorced but no real talk of Divorce and she has not filed June 2008 discover she is still with OM even though she denied it. September 2009 W joins match;.com and goes on a few dates (I find out later to get over the OM). I expose the affair to OM's W and the OM tells my W goodbye and he loves his wife. W is in DEEP greiving. Crying etc. she seems to be clinging on to me but does not want to talk about the R and has told me to move on if I need to and she is not sure she will ever love me again. Still no talk of D.
November I send a marriage builders love letter with path to restoring marriage. She has an emotional breakdown and goes to Italy to visit her sister and get away from everything (she works with the OM). She is very depressed over the OM. She still is very cordial to me.
December 2009 she meets another OM who she tells her sister is just a distraction to get past the original OM. She also FINALLY signs up for personal counseling. She says she is done with the marriage, but she is still very unhappy. Very confused. It almost seems like she wants to date but maintain positive contact with me just in case. We had Christmas together with the children and her familly and she was very depressed. I asked her sister if she is always like this and she said yes she rarely smiles.
My question is is this normal behavior for MLC? She is now on antidepressants. Where do I go from here? She has told her sister she is through with the marriage but her sister knows she is in the middle of a major funk but my W is pretty darn sure she is finished. Why not file for the D? I am confused by all of this. Please help. Where do I go from here? We have been married for 15 years and have three children 13, 10 and 3. She says she wants to be friends.
Sorry you are here, but you've definitely come to the right place.
Read as much as you can on here. You'll see your story in the stories of so many others on here. The first thing you'll need to do is detach from your W. Your W is going through depression and grieving so you will need to be the one to be there for your children. As difficult as it may be, they'll need you to be the strong parent at this point.
Be thankful that your W is still cordial and wants to be friends. It's a start. Try to look at it this way - whether you end up D or back together, you'll need to start out by being friends first. Don't expect anything of her at this point.
You seem to be doing a good job of understanding her state of depression and not taking things personally. Work on yourself. Even though it wasn't your fault your wife had A, try to find out what was missing in your M that would make her try to find that missing element with someone else.
