Dear Joanne,
Bet you've heard variations on this message before. I've not exchanged messages with you before so please forgive me if anything I say is too invasive or in any way inappropriate for you but I'd like to see if I can help. When I was 4 yo my 2 ½ yo sister died. Because this is just about the worst thing that can happen to a person and because my parents coped in, shall we say, less than complementary ways , it was hell for them for a long time. In fact, if the truth be known it's still hell for them from time to time. To have this experience complicated by another one of the worst things that can happen to a person, an affair, and God knows whatever other stresses you have (like helping your remaining grieving children), if you weren't venting, there'd have to be something to be really worried about.

An aside: Recently, in the bookstore, I read a chapter on coping with loss in a book by Linda Richmond (Mike Myer's mother-in-law--on whom he based his "coffee talk" character). She lost a grown child and has a very interesting take on grieving while living life to it's fullest. In addition to being heart felt and "saying it like it is", she is also very funny. If you get a chance a quick look might be interesting to you.

Anyway, my parents have had a somewhat tumultuous marriage and even on their 50th wedding anniversary fussed at each other (just a little bit) but both of them in such heartfelt ways (exceedingly rare for my dad, everyday normal for my mom) let us know they were so very glad they'd hung in there. Now...you would think this would make me realize that one should expect plenty of difficulties in marriage but noooooooo, I want my marriage to be "satisfying, fulfill my needs, really good, and above all scrupulously HONEST". Well maybe I need to realize that good marriages contain moments of rage, disgust, bitter disappointment, etc and that in times of stress you can multiply all that rotten stuff by the appropriate number fitting the stressor. I hope you and your husband (and my H and I!) can find a way to create a "good enough" marriage that in the end contains, along with all these tough, times some wonderful ones also. I'm not going through all this for nothing! Gonna hang in there and do better! Wish the best for you two.