Hello - this is my first post. Hope someone can help me out. My wife has been having an emotional affair with my cousin since the beginning of the year. We are in America, he is in Europe. We have a 3 and a half year old son. My wife has been open and honest since the affair started, so there hasn't been the huge amount of deception that usually accompanies affairs. We have acheived a sort of stalemate. My wife is rationalizing her feelings and looking at our marriage as bad, and has been talking about ending it - something that never came up before the affair.
In my effort to cope with the pain, I have done a great deal of reading up on affairs to try and understand what is going on. All reason and logic is lost on my wife, who seems to on one hand recognize the futulity of the affair, but who is convinced that she can't/won't give it up. We have started marriage counseling - I beleive my wife's goal here is to get validation from the counselor that our problems necessitate ending our marriage, although I have no doubt that they can be solved. I have tried to focus on finding happiness in my life apart from the marriage, and have tried to change my behavior in the marriage to make our interaction better. There is no question that things have changed, but the affair is still ongoing and my wife has not shown me any intimacy. It seems to me that she is trying to make things comfortable enough to have a decent life with me (as more of a friend than anything else) meanwhile continuing the affair. I am starting to get to my wits end because any conversation about the affair is viewed as confrontational and sparks an argument. I have surprised myself with the amount of self-control I have in the heat of these arguments, and I have been able to see through her abusive behaviour. It is clearly how she is coping with her guilt and confusion. I want more than anything to save this marriage, both for our son's sake and for ours, because I know that our relationship is special and unique, and it's clear to me that the resentment my wife holds against me (a great deal of which is not attributable to me) is killing our intimacy and her attraction to me. I am trying to get an understanding of what portion of that resentment is in my power to change, but this is not easy. I feel that it may take some drastic measure to change my wife's perspective on the situation, like me moving out and stopping all contact with her.
Anyone have any ideas?
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. ” – Albert Einstein
