Last year around this time I discovered MB and began posting my situation and asking questions. Then all of a sudden I vanished, I'm back to check in and things are going great.<p>At the end of May it will be 1 year since the discovery of my wife's affair with a collegue of mine from my place of employment. The OM sits three cubicles away from me.
My wife and I started a friendship with the OM and his wife in the fall of 2000. Our children enjoyed each others company. My wife and I felt we had finally found a couple with children that we could hang out with. It seemed all our other friends were newly weds without kids, or single.<p>OM's wife and my wife went to school together as children. After we got together a few times my wife attempted to call OM's wife to chat on the phone just to shoot the breeze however, she was a sales rep and was often not home in the evenings or out of town. OM was more than willing to chat though since he was alone at home. Since I worked with him I had no problems with this. We were all friends, right?<p>One thing led to another and the phone conversations between OM and my wife were more frequent, over time, and more lengthy and detailed. Use of sexual inuendos were used. I voiced my concern but my wife reassured me she was just fooling around, it was all a joke and that I had nothing to worry about.<p>OM and his wife split just before Xmas 2000, he was devestated and turned to my wife for comfort. She felt she had to be there for him because he was her friend. This was a major red flag that I chose to ignore. My wife and the OM began to spend time together just going to restaurants for dinner, movies, etc. I again voiced my concern but my wife always had a good reason for what she was doing. She would argue that she was home all during the day looking after our 2 boys and that she needed to get out of the house too. She would pull a guilt trip on me and I would cave allowing her to do these things with the OM.<p>My life turned from having a life with my loving wife to living a life and sharing her with OM. I felt powerless faced with an enormous problem and not knowing how to solve it. She spent Christmas Eve with me and the boys and Christmas Day with OM and his daughter.<p>March rolled around and things were progressively getting worse. OM was now borrowing our newly purchased 2001 Dodge Dakota truck to do his errands and go to work to do OT for a project he was working on. OM divorse proceedings sucked his wallet dry and he could not afford to keep up payments on his leased car so it got reposessed in January. My wife began offering our truck out of "kindness".<p>The annual company dinner and dance came in mid March and my wife and I attended with OM. My wife paid more attention to him than me infront of my other collegues and managers. Both of them got completely wasted on alcohol. At midnight I got a call on the cell phone from the babysitter, one of the boys wasn't feeling well. I told my wife we had to go, but she didn't want to go home just yet. To her the party was just starting. So I left in anger and she was to get a cab ride home when she wanted to leave. She left with OM at 2am and went back to his place where they proceeded to take their relationship to another level.<p>My wife and I went through turmoil from then on. We were together, but not really. My wife's parents saw a change in her personality and actions and were disapproving of her actions. They spoke out to her about their dissappointment and that just made things worse. My wife began sleeping over at OM place every night, only to come back home during the day to watch our boys while I went to work. As soon as I got home she left again with OM and our truck.<p>It was like this until the end of May 2001. That is when another collegue of mine broke the news to me that my wife and OM were not just friends. I confronted her with this news and she admitted to it. That's when I found out about the events that came after the company's annual dinner and dance back in March, as well as the other times they were intemate together. Blinded for all those months I was suddenly awoken to find myself falling from the sky at the speed of sound.<p>I was devastated. It was then that I turned to MB for help and to cope. I faced a number of the same issues many of you are faced with today in your own relationships.<p>I was haunted by the images of my wife and OM together intimately. I wondered if they would haunt me forever. Today, I hardly think of those images anymore.<p>My wife stayed with me but was still under the OM spell. She wanted to remain friends with him in a plutonic way. That bothered me and I voiced my opinion, however, it seemed I wasn't strong enough to stand up for myself. I always allowed her to guilt me into agreeing to her terms.<p>This is basically when I left MB. Many of my posts where questions on how to deal with the above issues and getting feedback from others who have been through the same thing as I have.<p>Here is how I ended up getting my marriage back on track and earning the love of my wife again. At this point my wife and OM were arguing all the time. Their relationship was on the verge of ending but the catalist was not there to make it happen. OM would always say somthing that would make my wife crawl back to him until the next fight. That is when I broke free. One day in early June 2001, I confronted the OM at work. I told him that she was mine and that any feelings he had for her had to stop. I told him that I loved her and that I was going to do anything to keep her. I demanded that he seize contact with her immediately or I'd kill him. It was a threat, something I know I would never have acted on, but it needed to be stated for the record. It was enough to scare him. He seized contact and my wife began her withdrawl. For two or three weeks she called him. It started out to be every five minutes and dropped to every hour, then to every day, and finally it stopped. Any feelings she had for him then turned to hatred toward him. Suddenly she woke up from a six month fog and found herself plummeting toward Earth at the speed of sound.<p>I remember one moment when we both looked into each others eyes and I couldn't help but parallel it to a movie where two people are left standing after an intense battle as the dust clouds fall. That was us, she was remourseful for what had happened, but I had been doing some reading at the time and came to realize that I had a hand in creating the environment as well.<p>We took a vacation together for two weeks. The two of us drove out west to visit her brother and his wife on Vancouver Island. It was an opportunity to be alone with each other and find ourselves again. I, being the man, tried at my every opportunity to get intimate with her, most times I was denied but there were some moments on the trip. I wanted to just start were we left off before this had all happened but, that wasn't going to be the case we were both two different people and our relationship was under emense change.<p>We stuck it out. We worked together and today I firmly believe we love each other. I always loved her, but my love for her now is more intense then it has ever been. I know that she loves me very much too.<p>I hardly think of the dreadful past, the future looks very bright. We just purchased a new home and we move in 6 days. We also plan on having another baby in a year or so. Trying for the illusive "girl" this time.<p>For those of you who have just found out about your WS and feel helpless and powerless, take heart that others here have been through what you are going though and that there is light at the end of the tunnel even though it may appear pitch black right now.<p>Our marriage will certainly not be smooth sailing from this point on. We will encounter many more obsticles along the way, but I feel this experience has matured us and we are both more adapt to anything that may come our way in our marriage.<p>Good luck to you all,
