I found out that my heart and soul, my darling wife of 18 years has had an affair for three weeks with a man involved in her sport. I found out and felt like dying: only our innocent children (11 and 7)stopped me from killing myself to take the pain away. The one person in creation who could hurt me that deeply chose so to do. Today it has been sixth day since I discovered her infidelity and challenged her over it.

I had no template as to what to do. Did this mean divorce and that I would be utterly alone in the world? All for none of my fault ?

In desperation I scoured the web and found lots of tatty advertisements for Marriage Guidance books then I found the marriagebuilders site. Dear God Above, I read it and found in the midst of suicidal despair that not only could there be hope but there is in fact a TEMPLATE for successful recovery from infidelity !

I have devoured the advice on here and following this I managed to summon up the courage to speak with my wife about what we will do next. I explained that every path open to us will cause unspeakable pain but one path restores, maybe even strengthens our lives, protects our childrens interests and helps us restore the union I believe God gave us.

After a lot of thought she said she would commit to trying to rebuild our marriage rather than leave me to be with him. I was happy, terrified, sad, dispairing, everything. But this wonderful resource shows me that it is the first step to an eventual recovery. It also helped me understand what to expect - she argued at first to keep in touch with this man but has reluctantly agreed with me, evidenced by this website that she must cease contact now, forever with him. This has sent her into a depression, but this shows at least she is serious.

Out of utter dispair, I have hope that we have taken baby steps towards recovering from the worst ocurrence in our lives ever. I want to 'do' something actively to accelerate us out of this pain, yet it is clear from this sites' wise words that I can expect nothing from my wife during this withdrawal period. I must only try to love her. God knows why I didn't kill her, I have found a strength to love and forgive that I never knew existed within me. I do not know if it is strength or desperate weakness. If weakness it is the first time in my life that I have chosen the cowards path.

It may be that it all comes to naught, and the dagger is still fresh in my (our) hearts with less than a week passed since the discovery but I am starting to feel the panic subside from time to time, only for a few seconds, but it is genuine. I panic that she may contact this man before she has withdrawn from him, and of course I cannot trust her, but I cannot lock her away for a month and expect a positive result.

I am still dying but once again any hope I have is because of Dr. Harley and this website. Thank you from the bottom of my broken heart.

Bob - get help right away from a pro-marriage counselor. Don't try to do this alone. Counseling with one of the MB counselors is a good choice.

See a doc about getting on anti-depressants. This need is very common.

To help ease your pain, continue reading posts from others here like yourself. Don't be surprised to see yourself in others' words. You are not alone.

Make an introduction post over on GQ II with the details of your story to get more interaction.

<small>[ July 26, 2004, 05:40 AM: Message edited by: worthatry ]</small>

Thanks WAT. I am in England so I do not think an MB councellor will be available to me.

My wife is also very reticent to share her thoughts with a councellor and would only do so if I wanted to.

Also she is going through withdrawal right now and I'm not sure a councellor can help her with that very private anguish. She is a very private person, and has never visted a councellor for anything before, not bereavement, parenthood anything. Its just how most Brits are.

Not sure i can talk about it on a forum yet.

Bob - she might be interested in reading some of the threads from other women going through the same thing. Check out broken vessel, onlywords, runaway pot, chackler, kiwij.

It is very painful to read what they go through, but your wife will probably relate.

Stick with us, we will help you. The general questions site has more traffic.

By the way, the other thread (for WW's) is now called "Appropriate, please help".

She's behaving strangley, my baby. She has no idea how to do this just like me. She is not comfortable confronting this stuff right now, and I can only imagine how she is hurting in the first stages of withdrawal. I think when both of us have some distance and the scars haves topped bleeding a little after a few weeks we might be able to talk again. Right now I feel that any conversation about this is a 'lovebuster' so I am keeping as 'normal' as possible like she is.

So she doesn't want to talk right now, and according to Dr Harley its not much use to talk during withdrawal the best I can do is just love her and support her through withdrawal. But who is going to support me? I have no-one. My wife has been my life support.....