fighting to save my marriage

[grant]

Hi all. I have just recently discovered Michelle and "Divorce Busting" after a 3 month enforced separation from my wife of 19 years. My sitch is an extremely complex and daunting one. The cited reason from my wife, is that I had an online sexual relationship on the internet as a result of poor sexual relations with her, from which she has never fully recovered. I have also had issues with pornography, and for the last 3 months have been attending 12 step meetings for sexual addiction. I now fully acknowledge the pain and the sense of betrayal that she felt as a result of these actions, and am deeply regretful. I understood that she felt she needed to ask me to leave our home, needed time to "discover herself"and I have been trying to heal myself, my issues, and the great rift that has appeared in our marriage. Of course, I have made many of the usual "pursuit" behaviour mistakes, although I feel that I have made many efforts to try to give her that time. Unfortunately, there is another man on the scene, a high school boyfriend, with whom she resumed a relationship. I was aware of this from the outset, and despite my acknowledgement that I was largely to blame about how she felt about our marriage, I did feel that she was having, at the very least, an emotional affair. It took until recently, when I could finally take no more of the lies and deceit, for her to admit that she had feelings for this OP, and although she maintained steadfastly that it had not gone further, I knew that her complete refusal to work on our marriage had been hugely affected by this EA. To make matters worse, our children (2 boys 16 and 13) are best friends with this mans children. He took them to school, and has quite calculatedly manipulated her into thinking that he is her best friend and soon-to be lover. I discovered that he has been in an unhappy marriage, and has just left his wife.
As a result of discovering Michelles book and this website, I have just started the 180 technique. I was most skeptical at first, but even at this early stage I did see some quite startling results. Deciding to try to be her friend, and by trying to like myself more, my self-respect and dignity are slowly returning to me. I am so desperately scared that I have lost the woman that I love, and am willing to fight through this pain, until she does opt for this guy and divorce. It is, as we all know, a roller coaster from hell. Emotions change, not even daily, but hourly, and it is a struggle to carry on. I have been working on my relationship with my children, and it has been a huge blessing. This was another problem in my marriage, and because I worked away from home 4 days a week, there was just so much to deal with at the weekend. My wife is a wonderful, selfless woman and mother, but feels now, the need for her to find happiness wherever she can. Thankyou so much to all for the support and advice given in these pages, and apologies for the length of the post. I pray for you all in your situations, and can sympathize with anyone who has been where I am now.