My turn... Part 3

[Cole_]

For a number of reasons, I stopped visiting the forums... not sure why I'm back other than I need some guidance or reassurance. I realize I haven't been helping others, but I haven't been in a good place where I thought I could do so. Hopefully that will change soon.

Summary:

• Wife gave me the ILYBINILWY speech, asked for space, then started a lot of new hobbies and spending time with a family friend.
• I made a ton of mistakes and heavily pursued her with professions of love, etc.
• I became suspicious and discovered inappropriate text messages with professors of love, nude photos, and sexual discussions
• I confronted her, she blamed me and showed little remorse
• Eventually went to a marriage counselor who failed us but ignoring the infidelity and validating my wife way too much
• I became severely depressed and saw an individual counselor
• I lost my job because of the depression and other circumstances related and unrelated to my wife's infidelity and was unemployed for 3 months until I landed a contract position that pays a little less than what I was making and provides few benefits, but it's work.
• We sold our home and are now separated. She bought a house with help from her parents and currently lives there with our kids. I have an apartment that I'm now trying to get ready so I can have the kids stay with me overnight, etc.
• I see the kids Monday, Wednesday, Friday and have dinner as a "family" a few times a week but the kids are still 100% living with my wife
• Current situation is "amicable" and we are able to communicate and coparent well. We've been good about prioritizing our kids and making sure things are as equitable as possible. The amicable nature is likely because I'm admittedly setting aside pride and probably being too agreeable and helpful because I'm so tired of the hate and pain, anger and bitterness I feel and just want to find someway to let love and compassion back into my life.
• She says things with OM are over and I have reason to believe they are on some level though I'd imagine they could start back up again.
• She works with OM, and without getting into details, we recently had some escalated conversations (I wouldn't call it a fight) because she put herself in a position where, on two separate occasions, she either brought our children in to see the OM or put herself in a position to see the OM when both situations could have reasonably been avoided.
• She views our current situation as an opportunity for a new beginning, a new life, but seems unwilling to discuss specifics about what we are doing to either file for divorce or work on our marriage. I've been trying to avoid relationship conversations because I want to make time my friend... as hard as that can be.
• She still fails to truly acknowledge the role her infidelity played and the magnitude of pain it caused me and our family. She gets upset when I bring up her infidelity, saying that I live in the past. Her assertion is that our problems existed long before her infidelity and that those problems should be our focus, not the infidelity. I told her that while I was willing to discuss and work on resolving the issues in our relationship, I wasn't going to sweep her infidelity under the rug and the time to discuss and try to fix the problems in our marriage was long before she made the decision to have an affair.
• She believes all trust in our marriage is gone because her privacy was violated when I obtained emails, text messages, phone records, and GPS location data to discover her infidelity and continued relationship with OM after she told me and our MC she was no longer talking to him. In her mind, she feels like she's in a prison.
• Our families are really upset about our separation but nobody is aware of any infidelity. In their mind, my wife is being emotionally immature and unreasonable with her expectations of love and marriage. This view is shared by both sides of our family. My best friend knows and had been a lifeline. Her best friend knows and in some ways has supported or at least not discouraged her infidelity... to the extent that she joked with my wife about acting like a giddy teenager in love with the OM.
• She has recently admitted that she was in a bad place and made a mistake in confiding in the OM. She has suggested that she should have sought counsel from one of her girlfriends instead and may have gotten caught up in the grass is greener syndrome and the naive and unrealistic portrays of love in movies, etc.

I guess what I'm looking for is some guidance on how I should be handling the current situation. Every night I walk out the door and leave my kids behind and every night I Skype with my kids at bedtime breaks my heart. I miss my family and feel like I'm in limbo. Should I just keep working on myself, GAL and be patient and wait for my wife to make a decision about what she wants to do?

When I'm around my wife, I try to be positive and present myself as being happy, ready to move on, etc, but the truth is that she helped destroy my family and my career and it's hard to appear happy when you're hurt, lonely, and starting over in so many ways.... I guess if I'm honest, I'm not even sure I should try to save our marriage anymore. I just know I'm still grieving for the loss of my wife, my best friend, and my family. I cry every night and it's not uncommon for me to breakdown in the middle of the day. Don't worry, I'm working on that.

I'm just tired and want to feel like I have some path forward... some kind of future... something to plan around... because if I'm being truly honest, the only reason I'm still fighting for our marriage is because of my kids, the dreams we once shared for our family, and the promise I made to my wife and her family when we got married. I told them that I would always love my wife and would be with her, for better or worse and I don't want to be a man who is unwilling to honor is word. I'm just not sure if there's anything worth fighting for anymore