My situation is, hopefully briefly, I discovered the 12-year-long affair in March from a letter written to me from the OM's wife. This was a double whammy, because my WS was cheating on me and I had to learn about it from the OM's wife. Since that time we have been working on rebuilding the marriage. Our minister told me when I revealed this to him, "You would be surprised at how many marriages I consider good marriages have had to deal with infidelity." I felt supported by his revealing that. My WS has promised no contact with the OM, and as far as I can tell she is telling the truth, but who ever knows? Also, we are visiting an MC whom we both feel comfortable with, although my WS wants to suspend the sessions because she is a schoolteacher and is feeling stressed right now by her duties at school. I want to continue the sessions and we are going to talk about that with him tonight, but I don't know about being able to afford them, because my job is in jeopardy right now, and I don't know how long it will continue. So, I have two major life stresses in the same year. I do feel commitment from my WF to rebuilding and strengthening our marriage. The readings we have done stress that discovering an affair can actually make a marriage stronger, if both partners are committed to an honest, open, caring rebuilding. I don't know; I still have dreams about my WS leaving me, so obviously the shock of discovering the affair has lessened after 8 months but not gone away. Again, readings we have done state that the shock and flashbacks will stay with me for a year or two or maybe longer, but will lessen over time. I believe my WS's committment to our marriage but do not have the trust I had in her before the Bomb was dropped.
"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places." - Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms, 1929.
