Thanks for your background. Mine is a little different. Husband and I have known each other for many years. We are both 38. We started dating after I was done with high school and he was in his senior year. We were in love from the start. Husband went on to college and we married after. We have four gilrs ages 4 - 12 who absolutely adore their father and he adores them. I worked part-time as a secretary up until March of 2001. In December of 2000 I realized that something was wrong with our marriage and knew that there had to be some changes at home so I quit my job. Things for me have gotten a lot better. I'm not so stressed trying to be wonder woman to all. I'm concentrating on my family and I absolutely love not having all the stress in my life associated with trying to do it all. Although my husband did notice the changes, he said it was too little, too late. He moved out the end of August with the all to familiar I love you but I'm not in love with you anymore. I found out about the OW on September 30. They had met in a business class they took in September 2000. According to the information he gave me, the EA started that October and went physical that December. She is so different from me. Married young and divorced in about a year, 40-year old professional business woman with no children and all the time in the world to whisper sweet nothings in my husbands ear. Nothing to worry about but her job, how she looks and who she can impress. According to him she doesn't have many friends (I wonder why) and her family lives out of town. She told him that if he left her she'd have noone, at least I'd have the four girls. How sweet of her to think of me. He broke it off and moved back home October 2. He did not stop contact and I knew this by checking his voice mail at work. We went to a long-planned trip the end of October where, unfortunately, I got drunk and told him I knew he was still contacting her as I had been listening to his voice mail for a couple weeks. He called her immediately and she rented him a furnished house for 6 months (people are gone to Florida). He moved out the day we came home from the trip (October 31). He was so angry with me for getting drunk and exploding that I thought he'd never talk to me again. He left for a hunting trip that Weekend and came home that Sunday to visit with the kids. I stayed in our room so he could have his time with them. He left that night, telling the kids he had to go to the office. He came back in the morning to get them on the bus and came home for dinner that evening. By Wednesday he told me that part of him really wanted to come home. He knows the door is always open. He broke it off with her again on November 21 (but never gave up the rented house) and moved back home. He stayed home until January 4, when he moved back to the rented house. I had believed that things were going well between us, relations in all aspect were great. He had his ups and downs with withdrawal, but all in all he was trying and that's what was important. Then she mailed him a Christmas card and called him. I'm sure you know what happended then, it started all over. He said that it wasn't fair to me to be home and still thinking of her, said he had fallen in love with me again, but preferred her. Now he is more confused than ever. The kids still don't know that he has moved out. The past times he has moved out he would come home early in the morning to get them on the bus and be home for dinner once in a while then told them he was going back to the office or out on an appointment. Last week, we said he was on a business trip. Friday, I left for a hotel room and he was with the kids all weekend. I saw a lawyer Friday afternoon and got some information on what would happen if we move ahead with a Divorce. He knows between child support and maintenance, he'll be left with virtually nothing, but that doesn't matter because she has money and can support both of them. It's now Sunday morning, and I'll be preparing to go home soon. He's taking the kids swimming with friends and he said he would call me later to figure out what we'll tell the kids about his MIA status for the this next week.<p>He tells me that a life with her is intriguing to him. He'd be able to work all day and then come home to a clean, quiet house with no distractions. I think the prospect of seeing the kids every other weekend bothers him, but I also think he'd be able to handle it given all the solitude he'd get all the other days.<p>He had always told me that he never felt in love with me like he does with her. Well, we've been together for 20 years, the bliss wears off and the reality sets in. You take the magical moments when you can get them, they are not there all the time, but they were there and when they were it was wonderful. He forgets all that. I found letters that he had written me when we were first dating, when we were blissful and he was always writing me letters and telling me how much he loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. At least I have evidence that he did have those feelings for me. I've told him that I believe he is just trading me in for an old version of me. The one that could just go have fun whenever we wanted, we had no responsibilities except to each other. We would just pick up and go whenever we wanted or just hang out and watch tv or play cards or just stay in bed until noon if we wanted to on weekends. Kids change that. We always had a plan, always knew that when we reached our 40's kids would be older and we'd be able to do things with each other again, take off and just be together all day. We're partially there, but now he has found someone that he can and has been doing it with for some time.<p>The hardest part for me is that he says that he has fallen in love with me again and he knows that our life together can be good again. He just prefers her (that hurts). We have agreed not to tell the kids or my parents until he is absolutely sure of his decision. He knows that his relationship with her was built on lies and deceipt and that adds to the excitement of everything. He says that he tells me everything, but has not been honest with her about our relations when he was home the last time. She thinks it was strictly because of the kids, she does not know that his feelings for me were coming back and that we had wonderful relations almost daily. He can't tell her because she would be mad. See, still a relationship on lies and deceipt. He's so confused, he doesn't know what to do anymore, thinks he's in too deep to end it and come home to what he knows can be wonderful. What they say about their personalities changing so much through all of this (like they have been abducted by aliens) is so true. He did start turning back into his old self the last time he was home, I know he wants to be back to his old self, the wonderful person he was, he just doesn't know how to get there. It was coming back though, all he has to do is try a little harder and realize that he can't do it alone. He's gonna need help and it's not going to happen over night. I know he wishes it would. I can't even get him to come on to these boards to talk to some of the WS that have come through it and are testimonies to their marriage and their life being better than ever.<p>I'm hopeful that he will give our life together the chance it deserves, but know I can't go on like this much longer. The crying, the weight loss, lying to family and friends by not letting them know what's been going on (only his parents, our two best friends and a girlfriend of mine and guy friend of his knows the whole truth). No one else knows that he is even out of the house. I can't go on not being able to concentrate and get some projects done that I have been longing to do, just can't muster up the want to do them, just go day by day doing the essentials like laundry and kids. I'm really going to work on that this week though, make myself get out of this rut. My life is changing and there is nothing I can do about it. As someone said on this board a while ago, I don't have to like the situation I'm in, but I can like me in it.<p>I have learned so much these last few months, things about myself, and I like myself much better now for what I know I can be and will be. I'm just praying that I'll be able to do it all and keep my family intact. I know it sounds strange, but I'm excited about the chance to make our marriage better than it ever was before. I don't want the old marriage, I have already divorced that one, the thought of this renewed marriage on such a different level with us learning so much is just so exciting to me. I truly believe in for better or worse and that sometimes you have to go through the worse to get to the better.<p>Sorry this is so long, I think I used it as kind of a therapy to get it all down.