How do you deal with the pain? How do you forgive? Here's my story: After 8 years of marriage, with 2 children, my wife told me on 2/26 (almost right after lovemaking, no less!) that she wasn't happy and was considering leaving me. She also swore that there was no OG. It seemed to me to be a combination of a MLC (she is 39, has started going to the gym, had decided to get a breast lift and implants, talked about being unfulfilled just raising children, other stuff) and also maybe symptomatic of a WAW (I never paid any attention to her, except for sex; I was grouchy all the time, etc).
I was devastated, having had no clue, and having felt closer to her in recent months than ever before (obviously, I was alone in that). I immediately got DB, and started changing my behaviors. She refused to go to MC, read any books, or do anything else that I suggested. But, slowly, over the course of the last 2 � months, she has become much more receptive to me. We've been talking regularly, holding hands while watching TV, going on some dates, and she often asks me to rub her back and shoulders. We also have been having sex, albeit only about once a week. I thought we were really on the right track. Any day now, she was going to tell me she loves me and had decided to stay.
Then 4 days ago I walked in on her while she was on the computer. She acted flustered and quickly closed down some of the windows. I became suspicious, and being fairly computer-handy, I installed some tracking software that records what the computer user is doing. Two days ago, I found out that my wife had a secret e-mail account, and that she was using it to e-mail her OG. I found out that the affair had begun at the beginning of February, a few weeks before our fateful conversation. Some of the e-mails contained very sexually graphic language describing what she had done and would do to him, and him to her. She also described how much she loved him. As much as it was killing me, I somehow couldn't bring myself not to read every last one of them. That was a mistake, I think, because I cannot get the ones about the sex out of my mind.
I confronted her, and she quickly agreed to end the affair immediately. She said that she had been recently feeling somewhat better about us and our relationship, she realized that she had a lot to lose (she was mainly talking about the kids, the house, and her relationships with our friends, I think, and not so much me), and that she was probably about to end the affair anyway. At that point, I wished to God that I had not read the e-mails.
But even with her already having decided to stay, I am in such pain. I love her so much, but I just don't see how I can ever get past the pain. There are so many aspects. The bald-faced lies. The secrets. How do you ever trust again? Then there's the passion with which she expressed her love to him in those e-mails. But the thing that I really can't handle is the sexual e-mails. I can't see how I can ever have sex with her again without picturing him (I've met him so I know what he looks like) with her. She described sex with him in terms and with a passion that she has never used with me (maybe not even at the beginning of our relationship). I've read that others have made it through their spouses' affairs with marriages that are better, with even the sex being better. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? I just don't see it.
Our sex life was OK, I thought. Not great, but not terrible either. She says now that it wasn't so much the sex, it was the attention that the OG paid to her. But sex was obviously a primary activity for them.
There is so much involved. My pride is shot. I'd like to be able to say that my ego is not involved, but it is. Some other guy had sex (and lots of it) with MY wife. How do I deal with that? Part of me wants to go out and kick his a**, or have my own affair, to even up the score, as it were. But I know I won't do that.
If we didn't have kids, I might leave. But we do, and she's willing to try, so I have to make this work. But how? I can't forgive her. She has apologized, sort of, but at the same time she basically blamed me for driving her to it. She feels guilty, and feels bad that I have been hurt, but reading between the lines, I can tell that she thinks that I sort of had this coming to me. But, while I was no perfect husband, I cannot and do not accept responsibility for HER affair.
So many thoughts race around in my head. Why did she start an affair rather than first coming to me to explain how unhappy she was? Why didn't she just end the affair before I found out? Why did I feel so compelled to spy on her, just when things seemed to be going well?
Somebody, please help me. I've got no one to talk to about this. I can't talk to my friends and family about this. The one condition that she put on staying with me was that I don't tell anyone about her affair. That pisses me off, but to tell the truth, I know she's right. Telling everyone what happened wouldn't help anything. I don't want anyone gossiping about us. Plus, I'm ashamed for myself (After all, I was such a bad husband that my wife sought out sex with another man). I don't want pity. I just want my life back. But I have no clue how to make that happen.
