Bare with me as I just found this site and have not memorized the abbreviations yet. wink My husband & I will be married 10 years on March 1st. I am 38, he is 35, we have two children 4 & 6. On December 16th I discovered my husband was having an affair. I found out because I checked the GPS feature on his phone. The reason I was suspicious is because although my husband has always made it a priority to go out with his friends and encouraged me to go out with mine throughout our whole relationship, during the past maybe year or so he had been just awful about returning my texts and letting me know when he'd be home. Also he has a drinking problem, I'd call it a functioning alcoholic, drinks nightly but only gets "drunk" on the nights he doesn't work the next day. I grew up in a home where my dad drank but also functioned. I don't like the fact my husband feels he has to drink all the time, but it wasn't something I was willing to end my marriage over and I probably put up with it more than I should more to keep peace, both of us hate confrontations.

Anyway, because a few times he's driven home with more to drink then he should have plus the whole "forgetting about his family" tendencies while out with his buddies I'd started to monitor where he was using the phone GPS...and it turned out he was where he'd said he was going to be so I laid off the monitoring. During football season he goes out every Sunday and he started being even worse at returning texts or phone calls so on that Sunday when I saw he was at a bar 45 minutes away and not where he said he was I started monitoring it and sure enough an hour later he was at a hotel. When I confronted him he lied about why he was there, drinking with friends wanted to get away from the noisy bar, then the next day admitted he was there with a girl and they "kissed" (he admitted it was sexual later after he knew I wasn't buying it). He was very apologetic and said he would do anything and he knew he messed up big time. So we signed up for marriage counseling and a week later without talking in between )I slept upstairs with the kids he slept in guest room) we met at therapy. He admitted the affair was going on 3-4 weeks wouldn't say who as lady was married too & he could effect his work (he's a cop) so I was left with lots of answered questions. He said it was over he said it meant nothing it just happened and it would never happen again because of how awful he felt for putting me & the kids through this.

After therapy and hearing my decision to work this out for the sake of our marriage and I know it would be best to keep the family together in the long run, I think he felt motivated that I wasn't going to leave with the kids and for a while was in "kiss butt" mode. Then something changed and he became moody & depressed. I started writing him letters telling him I'd be willing to work this out, I need for him to come clean about everything & then we can heal and move on. When he never responded I confronted him because I felt I was in limbo, he then said he didn't know if he wanted to be married anymore and he didn't know who he was anymore, I deserved better, etc, there were many nights he almost left in the middle of the night. He also said he didn't know if he could ever be the kind of man I deserved, he said he didn't think he had a drinking problem but it's something he enjoyed and didn't think he could ever give it up if I wanted him to. After hearing that I kind of gave up trying because how do I change someone's mind who decided he doesn't want to be married?

I had planned a girl's cruise for the weekend of Jan 18th & I decided to still go because even though there was a chance I would be sad the whole weekend it would at least be a distraction. So that whole week I got my hair done, my nails done, got eyelash extensions and went tanning at night and kind of ignored him. Little did I know I was DBing lol. The day of the cruise he was very nice, helped me with my luggage and even hugged me goodbye although I don't know how much was for show to the girl who was picking me up. He took the kids camping that weekend and when I got back he was very chatty about camping and what he and the kids did that weekend.

I was feeling empowered so the following day I brought up doing a trial separation because I did not want to feel sick all the time in my own house walking on eggshells because I didn't know if my husband was going to ignore me all day or make small talk like I was a neighbor and I knew whatever is was it was uncomfortable. Although he stopped marriage counseling the day the counselor accused him of feeling sorry for himself and not thinking of how he hurt me, he has continued to go to therapy for himself. He was very receptive to the trial separation but when he started talking about keeping the kids at home and us taking turns leaving I got defensive because I felt like I was getting kicked out of my own house and I did nothing wrong. He had suggested renting a room in someone's home like a Casita and sharing it. I started backpedaling because I started freaking out about being away from my kids so we dropped the subject, he said we could sleep on it. He also said that his mind wasn't made up about us and he didn't feel as strongly about leaving me as he did the week before when he told me he didn't know if he wanted to be married. That was a week ago Tuesday.

Wednesday we had a nice dinner together as a family and I had left him a letter saying how I didn't think we were a lost cause & maybe we should go back to counseling and I told him to check out the Retrouville website I had looked up. Well I know know that all the letters were only working to push him away and I would have stopped them even if I hadn't read the book because when he say the last letter he looked pissed rolled his eyes and said "ANOTHER letter??" and here I thought I was being helpful letting him know how I was feeling, oops. Friday he texted me to see if I wanted to go to a kids birthday party on Saturday with him and the kids & I said ok I will get the present. So we went, he introduced me as his wife, but he hung out with his buddy the whole time and I played with the kids and kind of hung out with the hostess. Since then he's seemed even more distant.

I read the Divorce Remedy book on Sunday so since then I haven't been around when he is but for the most part that isn't difficult. He works noon to 10pm so in the morning I am taking kids to school and where I used to wait up and watch tv at night and hope he joined me, now I go to bed before he gets home. I see on the computer he is still looking up rooms for rent, so I am wondering if he thinks I am avoiding him because I am angry. I have been very positive in the little interaction we have had. We have a puppy that is on a strict schedule for housebreaking so I have to tell him the last time the dog went out and then I told him we needed dog food. He just looks sad and responds simply "ok". I am feeling discouraged because so far I haven't seen any positive changes since I've been distancing, he has not texted me once. and is still moping around the house.

I also want to put out there as back story that we have both had some very traumatic events happen in the past 10 years we've been married. Our first born son passed away in March 2005 in the hospital on the day he was born due to unknown reasons. We both went to a support group together for almost a year and we were very close during that year. I think my husband may have started drinking more after that. He is a cop so his job is very stressful as it is, but he has had more than his share of life & death situations including having a gun put to his head and the trigger pulled without a bullet in the chamber by the grace of God, having a bad guy ambush him in a underground parking lot and almost getting choked out while the bad guy was getting his gun from the holster, and having almost been run down twice while in a shooting the second time the shot killed the bad guy. All those events including the death of our son he has briefly "dealt with" then said he was "over it". I think the drinking is a form of self medicating plus his mother drinks so it's in his family.

I know he has so many issues he needs to sort out before he can deal with us, I'm just glad I found this forum so I can see if what I am doing is the right thing, I'd love more than anything to put this family back together...