A little background. My husband and I have been together for 12 years, married 11. I am 30 and he is 34. We have 4 children together, oldest is 10. He sprung the news on me that he wanted a divorce as we were in the process of moving and buying a house. He said he was going through a tough time in his life and didn't love me anymore. He wasn't cheating on me, but at the time, I had my suspicions. This all started 7 months ago when he told me he thought we should get a divorce. In that time, he went out to sea for 4 months. He told me to move on with my life, get over our marriage and try to be happy. We emailed all the time while he was gone, but he never gave me any hope whatsoever that things would change. He always told me it was too late for him, he checked out a long time ago and I need to get over it. We got along great up to the weekend before all of this happened, so naturally, I thought he was cheating on me. I even found a few emails from a girl he had written. He has told me many times that he never cheated on me and I have to believe him until he tells me differently. He told me that if I were to go out and have sex with anyone else, he wouldn't blame me because of the way he had been treating me. I went out one night with my sister to dinner and when I got home, he asked me if I hooked up with anyone (this was right at the beginning of all of this talk). Fast forward a few months ago. He got back from sea and things between us were still messed up. The animosity was unreal. He said he would move out, talk to a lawyer and do what we needed to do to get the ball rolling. He kept dragging his feet. In the meantime, I would take any chance I could to tell him I loved him. I still love him very much. He is the love of my life. Well, after many repeated times of him telling me to move on and things were over, I did. It was just recently that I did have an affair with someone and told my husband last night. It was a one time thing and I made a huge mistake. I regret every second of it. I honestly did not think he would care because he told me he didn't love me and in fact, even suggested when he got from sea that we bring other people into our marriage. He said he would like to see me with another man. So, now that I went and did what he told me to, I am the bad guy. He called his parents and told them (since he had no one else to talk to) so now they all think I am this horrible person. He confessed to his mom that he had made the decision to stay and try to work things out for the kids sake but now, things would change. I mean, why couldn't he tell me this instead of telling me the total opposite? When he is here, we rarely talk to each other. We just pretty much co-exist in our house. I have lost alot of weight going through this and he never even once told me how nice I looked since he has been home. I made the biggest mistake of my life. Do you think that there is any way we can get past this? I have been crying so much that my eyes are almost swollen shut. In the 12 years we have been together, even enduring many military separations, I have never been unfaithful to him until this one time where I truly believed my marriage to be over. I have hurt him beyond belief, but at the same time, he hurt me by treating me like crud for the past 7 months and telling me to go out and do this stuff. I am not making excuses for myself because I am taking responsibility for my actions. I am just so upset right now that I cant even function. He leaves for school tomrrow for 3 weeks so I am hoping that will give him some time to cool off and maybe think about things.
