Is this the end of my marriage?

[P17]

I know this is going to be a long post so please forgive me. I've been reading these forums intently for the past few days waiting for my account to be activated. I was particularly interested in PuppyDogTails posts about his 'new' marriage.

Anyway. Here goes.

I have been married for 3 and a half years and been together with my wife for 7. We had a blissful 6 years together (she says it was 7 out of 10, I say 9 but whatever, it was good). The last year things have slipped and I think we really came out of the honeymoon period and saw things were tough.

My wife decided she wanted a six month separation and told me on 2 August about it. She looked around for somewhere to live and couldn't find anywhere. Her dad then bought her a house, 500 yards from mine (?!) and she moved in on 7 September.

During the time between 2 August and 7 September we continued to live together, she stayed in my daughters room (from a previous relationship - my wife is her step-mother). Those 5 weeks were absolute hell and a lot was said, particularly by me about how much hurt, anger and upset I was feeling. I wish I had found these forums before I did that but we can't change the past.

After she left I then chased her for a month between 7 September and 5 October. I sent her a rose (for which I got a thanks), I sent her a 33 page love letter (they were little pages not big A4 ones!), I texted her with 'Thinking of you' and 'Love xx' - not too much. We also had a few slanging matches via text.

On 6 September, the day before she moved out I found out she had been texting another man that I had been suspicious of all along. She was having an EA with him that I think was probably also physical. I confronted her and she admitted it but there was nothing sexual. I confronted him and he also confirmed there was nothing physical. He also agreed to not contact her again.

The week before 5 October I was away on holiday and didn't text or contact her at all. She told me the week prior that when she moved out, she took her heart with her and that I needed to accept that. I got a text on the Wednesday saying thanks for the rose (which I sent her before she told me about taking her heart with her and because I was away I couldn't cancel it). I got quite drunk on the Friday night (it was the last night of the holiday) and I think I pushed a bit too hard. I called her, accidently, at 3am and 4am. I texted her too and I think it was too much for her to bear.

On the 5 October we met for breakfast and she told me she saw no future for us. We talked for about 90 minutes about things and I was very calm, compassionate and understanding with what she had to say. I also told her that I would continue to fight for her (bad mistake). She then gave me the coffee table from her house as she had no room for it and she helped me into my house with it, sat down and had about a 20 minute chat. I went to a friends house and about an hour later I get a text from her asking me if I wanted to go to the beach with her and the dog!?!

I went to the beach and she did nothing for 90 minutes but criticise, blame me for everything, tell me she didn't want me and told me basically what an a$$ I had been and a terrible husband. I just again continued with the compassion, understanding and forgiveness.

Since leaving I have actually become the man she married again and not the snivelling weak, needy, manipulative idiot that she spent the last year with. I put this down to the financial problems that she had, and laid on me in the marriage, she took with her. When released from that I got back to my old self again and it's great.

The part about the affair is an interesting one and I'll list it in point as it makes it easier:

1. She told the OP that I beat her. I know because he told me when I spoke to him. She also told him that the night before I spoke to him that she said I had split her lip. None of this is true - never lifted my hand to my wife EVER and NEVER would. It's just not me.

2. I confronted her on why she told him I hit her and she stared at the floor and told me it was because that maybe she deserved to be hit for what she did. I asked her if she knew I would never hit her - she said, yeah you would if pushed. I pressed her on this and she did say I would never ever hit her and never would. What also came out of this is that the OP never told her we had spoken. Hmm, deceit between them.

3. She told me that the OP was looking for jobs and going to move up sometime. I have it on very good authority that he is either already here, moving up shortly or moving up at the end of the month. She had the opportunity to tell me about it and she didn't.

4. I asked her how the OP would be able to move 250 miles, a 3 hour car journey and a 3 hour ferry journey away from his kids. She told me that the OP hasn't seen his kids in six years. Again I know this is a total lie. I called him (he's now blocked my number so it goes straight to voicemail) and pleaded with him not to give up on his kids. As a father who fought to see his daughter for 7 loooong years I knew what it was like. This would do two things - make him think about giving up his kids for her and also make him think what the hell she has told me and why she's still lying.

5. I am 36, my wife is 34. She hates smoking. She desperately wants children. The OP is 45 (forgive me any 45 years olds out there :-)), smokes, smokes pot (if his Facebook page is to be believed), drinks heavily, has facial hair (another pet hate of hers) and is abandons his kids (not a great father figure - this is one of the traits she loved about me that I fought for 7 years for my daughter and WOULD never have given up).

7. He desperately wants off the island he is on and I believe is using her to realise that.

8. My wife had a history of dating married and unavailable men - father figures - before I met her. I put this down to her own father (and mother to an extent) abandoning her when she was young. I thought in me she had found somebody who could love her.

9. My wife still wears rings on her wedding finger (not the wedding rings), still has her Bebo page which says I am the love of her life and she is married, her Facebook page with the same and is telling everybody different stories (including that I left her!). Nobody believes she is having an affair as she is such a nice person.

It's been a hard road but I feel I am coming to the end of this. I am trying to encourage a relationship with my daughter as my wife and her are so close and she has been around since she was 2 (she is now almost 9).

Today is my first real victory in the 'letting go of this relationship' and I feel really good. I had a text from my wife this morning asking is she could come around tonight at 8.30pm as 'I need to talk' and sort out some dates to see my daughter. I texted her back that I was busy tonight and could she text me the dates and I'll look at the calendar. I got a receipt saying it had been delivered 2 hours ago (during her work break) - no response to it. It feels good. Really good for me to be finally standing up for myself. It's too late, but it still feels good.

I don't want to talk about us, the relationship, OP, or her. She just wants to tell me he is here or is coming up. I no longer care. She can have sex with him up and down the street wearing nothing more than a ribbon and I would bat an eyelid.

It's taken me on a week from last Monday to get to this stage but it's been in hand for a while.

Before anybody asks I know a lot of what I did in the relation ship and told her about it and promised it would never come between us again. I know I am half to blame for the breakdown, half to blame for sticking my head in the sand and half responsible for how we got to this situation. I am only half to blame though. If you listen to my wife, I would be the worst man on planet earth.

My wife is a text book affair addicted woman. She is in love with OP that is clear from reading here. It can't last (lies between them never mind lies to me), at least I can not see under which cloud it will.

My question to all you guys who just know so much of what you are talking about is while I don't care any longer about what she does, I still love her and I would still very much like to get my marriage back. Not the marriage I had as that is dead but the marriage with the same visions for the future - kids, grow old, die together and have a house by the sea (obviously not in that order :-)). We both wanted that.

Any thought's or help appreciated.