My story begins with a twist...

[TrentC]

I need to finish reading DB and DR, but wanted to get my story started because I have what seems to be a unique situation and was looking for advice.

My wife dropped the bomb on me right before her 33rd birthday (08/25). We had a followup conversation a few days later, on our anniversary (08/28).

After that, I spiraled into a major depressive episode, and made a real mess of things for the next few weeks. If it was a mistake, I made it -- pleading with her to stay, emails and text messages, turning to friends and family to "help", and a date to try to rekindle things that was a disaster.

I am convinced that she is having an emotional affair with someone from out-of-state that she met online. We both play World of Warcraft (although I stopped playing when the bomb was dropped) and she has a circle of a friends that I don't know much about.

I found text msgs on her phone, I've found emails, and I've even caught them flirting online. She has told me that it is harmless and that he's just a huge flirt, and that she is not in love with him -- although she conceded that he has a crush on her! The OM came out to visit a few weeks ago (after the bomb was dropped; I asked her to tell him not to come, but he came out anyway) and I have no idea if they got together physically but there's nothing I can do about it now. (She said they did not.)

They are in frequent contact; I can see from the phone bill that she talks to him during her day at work, and she has gone to bed and spent an hour texting back and forth. We still live in the same house, but are sleeping apart; she moved into the spare bedroom after I left for a few days and stayed with a friend, to try to clear my head.

I started doing The Love Dare on the advice of someone from church with some positive responses. I came across this site last week, bought both DB and DR, and was starting to put things into practice (GAL, 180s, etc.) when a different kind of bomb was dropped.

Friday morning at 3 AM my wife asked me to take her to the ER. She had stayed home from work on Thursday because of stomach/intestinal upset, but she woke up at 3 and couldn't take it any more -- she had a burning pain on one side of her abdomen.

Turns out that she had an ovarian cyst that was twisting on one of her ovaries. They took her into surgery that day and removed the cyst; unfortunately, they had to take the ovary as well. We spent the weekend together at the hospital and were able to reconnect a bit; she thanked me twice for being a friend to her in all of this, and she even held hands a couple of times.

She'll be home for at least two weeks recuperating. Her mom is flying in today to help around the house, as I can't take two weeks off from work. (No MIL cracks here, I think her mom is great!) She actually offered to come back to bed with me while she recovers; the spare bed will not be good for her while she has limited mobility. Because she doesn't want her mom to know about the OM ("she wouldn't understand"), I suspect he will be limited to more tame conversations and the late-night texting will come to an end for a while.

So my question is, how much DBing do I do right now? I can still work on GAL and 180s (I'm working on changing my style of dressing, looking at taking some self-defense classes, and spending more time with friends) but one of her biggest complaints is that I have not been there for her when she needed me emotionally, and this weekend went a long way towards fixing that; so I'm not sure if detaching is a good idea.