This is my first post. I would welcome any advice on how to proceed. I have both DB and DR on order, but they haven't arrived yet.
Background
My W (36) and I (36) have been married for 6 and a half years, and have been together for 13 years. We have a S4. She is an administrator at a college and I work in a different professional field.
My wife is also an academic, and continues to do research and attend academic conferences around the world. At one of these conferences about 3 years ago, she met a guy that she hit it off with. She and this guy work in the same field and started to collaborate on research. They would meet up a few times a year at various conferences.
I was jealous of the amount of attention that she paid to this guy, and the fact that she met up with him 3-4 times/year in various locations around the world. She spent a lot of time messaging him and skyping him, supposedly to work together on their research. I told her the quantity of time she was spending on him bothered me. We would periodically fight about this, and each time should would say they were just close friends.
Last month, I woke up early to find my wife in bed texting with this guy, in a way that made it clear they're in an EA. She was messaging him about how much she loved him, called him "my love", and how she couldn't wait to see him during their next research trip. After the conversation was done, she went back and erased the record of the romantic-type messages, and left only the friendly ones, I guess in case I checked her Messenger account.
I confronted W about this and said I thought she was having an EA. She agreed, and said that she wasn't unhappy with me, but that she'd met the OM during a rough patch in our M and that they had a special connection. She apologized for hurting my feelings, but said that her relationship with the OM was important to her, and that she might not be cut out for strict monogamy. She said she still wanted to keep our relationship as the primary one, and that the EA with the OM was not physical.
W has now gone away on a week-long research trip with OM. I'm not sure what to do. I don't believe her that this thing isn't physical, and I'm worried that it is going to erode our M, with her turning more and more towards the OM.
I think our M is still pretty good; we talk a lot, have very regular sex and still manage to make time for us. On top of that, OM lives in a different country, so it would be very difficult for her to go to him and keep our S4. But I am feeling hurt, betrayed, and jealous.
I realize my situation is not as dire as some on this site, but I would still appreciate some advice on how to fix the M without driving my W into the OM's arms. I have been trying to GAL by focusing on my work and spending time with my S4. Most of our friends are mutual, but I have been reaching out to my other friends to try to spend more evenings out of the house (I am a bit of an introvert).
I love my wife, and I want to make this marriage work. Thanks for reading and for any advice you might have.
