I'd like to post a little more information about my situation.

We got married at 20. Around the age of 23 or 24 I became ill. I would prefer not to say what it was, but I was in bed for six months. I couldn't leave the house and my wife had to take care of me. I was out of work and not able to be a good husband. During this time we had our first child. Eventually, I started getting better. I started working more, then I relapsed. I ended up going to the hospital for a week, but the recovery took nearly 8 months. During this time our youngest child was conceived.
I'm better now and the chances of me relapsing are very unlikely.

Sunday, I found out that her and the OW fooled around a week or two ago. The OW's husband hit on my wife as well...neither of them knew about the other person's feelings for my wife. She never did anything with the husband. The OW and her husband decided to work on their marriage and decided to not have anything to do with my wife ever again. When I found out about the fooling around I told my wife I wanted nothing to do with her ever again. She can call me about emergencies with the kids but otherwise she needs to communicate via email.

That night she started talking about working on things. I've tried to understand the affair. I figure that I could not be there as a husband for her while I was unwell...which was a long time. I can understand what happened and I asked her if we could just call everything even and move on. So, here we are now. She's been very kind in answering my questions about the affair. She told me she got caught up in the moment and does not have any interest in women. The thing is this woman told my W everything she wanted to hear, she laughed at everything, told my W how great she was, etc. I told my wife that she needs to understand that she was doing this to get her in bed...then left her high and dry. Well, apparently that's negative...which is what she describes me as.

The thing is I'm in pain. Especially with the mixed messages. I don't know if she got dumped and I'm her rebound. I don't know if me telling her I wanted nothing to do with her is what made her think. I really don't know and probably never will. Either way, I feel like I'm dying.

How can I be "positive" around her when I hurt so bad? How can I compete with the OW? They don't have kids together...they didn't live together...it was a fantasy world. I cannot compete with that. My W knows I'm hurting and is claiming she feels really bad for the pain that she's caused me.

Guys, I'm more confused than ever. I do want to jump back into this relationship...I know I can't. Maybe I feel like that would ease the pain, but it wouldn't. So, how can I be positive and upbeat when seeing her makes me feel so bad? I feel like I'm screwed and this is never going to work. I want to run away to protect myself. I can't handle any more bad news.

She told me that we will work on ourselves and see how things go. She also told me that she can't promise anything. She's not sure if she can live with me anymore because of her being drained emotionally, mentally and physically. My problem is that I do want to make things work. I do want to hurry this up. In my mind I know I can't. In my mind I know that time is the best thing. But my heart tells me that I can't deal with any more pain...I can't handle losing her again. MrBond is right...I'm scared to death. I don't know what to do about it though. I can't shut my feelings off. I love her so much that seeing her is painful. I just want to run far away from her because that the only way I feel like I can work on me.

What do I do and where do I start. I'm at the point that I don't ever want to see her again because seeing her hurts too bad. All I want is to be around her, love her, make her feel special, fix all my mistakes, etc.