You should make a consultation to speak with a good family law attorney, preferably one who specializes with women. You don't have to do anything yet, but it will help you know what your options are, as well as some specific "do's" and "don'ts" in the meantime.
DO YOU HAVE SOMEONE YOU CAN TALK TO TODAY NEARBY -- friends, family, someone at church perhaps?
I would also advise seeing your doctor ASAP and getting on some anti-depressant/anti-anxiety meds. My doc gave me to -- one's a more long-term, "even you out" thing (that helped a LOT), but it takes a good couple of weeks before it kicks in. The other was an anti-anxiety one to take IMMEDIATELY on days like today, if you need it.
There is no shame in it; it helps.
The anger is natural -- even healthy. Don't let it alarm you. But you DO need to make sure you channel it in a healthy way in the days, weeks and months ahead.
Ok I've caught up and although I'm sorry I took the last few days off, I'm sort of glad I did simply because I have gotten to see what some other people are saying to you.
Before I tell you what I think, let me tell you my story.
My H used to volunteer at a firestation when he wasn't at work. These people were our friends. Close friends. I had spent a year planning our wedding, which btw was his idea. We got married and all of these "friends" were there. Three weeks after my wedding, they (H and 3 friends) sat me down in a room at the meeting table, while the rest of them (about 20 people) waited outside, to tell me that there was a rumor that my H had been caught just before the wedding making out with one of the female volunteers. Of course H denied that anything happened, they were just talking. Whatever. Talk about humiliated. If the situation had been different, I may have reacted differently but I had less than 5 minutes to decided what I was going to do. I walked out of that room, stood infront of all of those people and defended my H and my marriage. Yes at home, things were not so smooth for a while but in the face of the biggest humiliation, hurt, and betrayl in my life I faced the music with strength that I still don't know where it came from. Since that time, there have been 3 other OW. Maybe I'm just stupid IDK, but I have survived. A couple of months ago, my H asked me what if he wants to start dating, and all I could tell him was I've survived it before and I will again.
I will never regret making the choice that I did that day. Or any of the other days that I have been hurt and stood by him. Or any that might come down the road. My H did not do those things to hurt me. Unfortunately he also did not learn from them which is why the pattern has repeated. I think he may have learned from the last one, just how deeply he hurt me and us. IDK but I do know anything is possible. No I have never forgotten that pain, but I no longer have the anger that was attached to it either. That is where I hold my regrets. I held onto the anger for 12 years. There might not have been 3 other OW if I had let go after the first one.
I think Puppy was right that you were not in the best place to find this out right now which is why I didn't really push the issue earlier. But now you know. Puppy has given you some very good advice but one thing he has not said which surprises me is that you marriage DOES NOT have to be over because of this. I too agree you might just assume he has actually had sex with her simply because it is just easier to deal with it all. I went on the assumption that he had F'd them all. Whether he did or not, doesn't really matter. The hurt is the same. The worst part of A is not the action, it is the deception that comes with it.
So you have some very very very BIG questions you have to ask yourself before you do anything else.
1. Can you accept that this happened? 2. Can you do the work to move forward and forgive and let go of the anger that you have? 3. Can you allow yourself to trust him again? 4. Can you not spend the rest of your life punishing him for this if you do work on your marriage? 5. Is this a deal breaker?
Only you can answer those questions. Only you can decide if you are willing to take the risk with this man to repair your marriage.
You haven't really shared how you found this out or what he has said, but until this weekend he was wanting to go to counseling and see what happened, so maybe he isn't as done as he says regardless. On the other side of this (and yes I have also been the adulterer), when you make this mistake, once you want to come back, it is hard to know how to do that because you don't know if how or if you can fix it. You have hurt the person you love most, and even though you didn't mean for any of it to happen, it did. IMO, I don't think there are many people who have A's who do it to intentionally cause their S pain, and I don't think that they go looking for the A. They do just happen regardless what some people think.
Good luck and know we will support you in whatever you decide.
If you focus on the past, you ruin the future. You can only live for today.
Puppy has given you some very good advice but one thing he has not said which surprises me is that you marriage DOES NOT have to be over because of this.
This was why, in my very first post to Regrets, I asked her "would this be a dealbreaker for you?" For different people, their boundaries are different, and only she can answer that for herself, so I typically just ASK, up front.
Maybe I was unclear, so let me state for the record:
YOUR MARRIAGE DOES NOT NEED TO BE OVER BECAUSE OF THIS, Regrets! Thousands of marriages are saved every year despite infidelity, and there are numerous books, counseling practices and websites beyond even this one that have great track records in restoring and healing marriages damaged by infidelity.
Today, this seems hopeless. I can say categorically that your mind WILL waffle all over the place in the days, weeks and months ahead as to whether or not this is possible, and whether or not you even WANT it. But it IS possible, and there are simple (not easy, but simple) plans that the two of you can follow.
