Hi, I'm new to this website and this is my first post. I've looked around a lot for a similar situation but haven't found one yet, so I thought I'd try posting and see what happens. This is kind of long, but my situation is a little complicated and doesn't exactly fit anything I've seen described so far.

First, the normal background stuff that DOES fit some of the common affair scenarios. My wife and I have been married 26 years and have two teenage kids, 16, 18. We're in the middle of dealing with an online affair that I had. It started this year in March, I told my wife about it in May, and we've been in counseling since June. We've read numerous books, online info, including "His Needs, Her Needs," and we both realize that the affair happened because of neglect to the marriage and unmet needs. Our counselor has described our situation as one of invisible divorce; we're married on paper, but that's about it. My wife seems more committed to working on re-building our marriage than I do, and our counselor has described my position as being on the fence; I don't want to stay, but I don't want to leave. I don't want to stay because the marriage feels like nothing to me, but I don't want to leave because we have kids.

During the last 10-15 years, our marriage slowly deteriorated. I wasn't paying enough attention to my wife, and she complained about it. She said hurtful things that caused me to pull away from her. In hindsight, we now realize that she didn't mean what she said and that she was only trying to get my attention. One incident stands out as having been the final straw that led the invisible divorce. She had a platonic relationship with a male colleague whom she said she felt more connected to than me, and I felt threatened by that. The first time she went on a business trip with him (planned flight, hotel, conferences together), I got very upset. I believed her (and still do) that nothing physical was going on, but I was worried about the possibilities. We went through some counseling and she agreed not to take another trip with him. A year or two later, she planned another trip -- flight, hotel, everything, together. Needless to say, I was very upset, again not that I thought anything was happening between the two of them, but that she had told me she wouldn't and now she was doing it again. Our marriage was pretty empty by then, and I told her before the trip that this could severely damage our already fragile marriage. She said she didn't care what happened to our marriage and that she was going on the trip anyways, which she did. I remember consciously saying to myself that I was pulling out of the marriage. I didn't want a divorce because of the kids, but I would resign myself to living in a lifeless marriage and just try to find happiness on my own. That was my fault, I shouldn't have done that, but that's what happened. That was 2-3 years ago.

For the next several years, we pretty much lived like roommates. There were no marital feelings. I wasn't sexually attracted to her, I didn't look forward to spending time with her, she was like a sister to me, not a wife. We were in a parallel marriage, invisibly divorced.

Here are the details that make this situation a little different from others I've seen. Because I wasn't sexually attracted to her, she thought I had some problems. From time to time, every 3 or 4 months, she threw out the idea that maybe I should look at porn to rekindle sexual desire. I had had problems with porn in the past and didn't want to go that route, but after her suggestions started to feel like nagging, I did ..... and life has never been the same. She was across the country visiting her ailing parents, and I found a porn website that had live girls that would chat with guys. I had never seen anything like that before and was shocked that it even existed. After a few sessions on the website, I quickly realized that this was not what my wife had in mind when she suggested porn. So I tried to rationalize my actions, and I got into a discussion with one of the women on the website about how to improve my wife's and my sex life. This woman was more than happy to help, and in fact she did. My wife even noticed some improvements in our sex life. In talking with the online woman, we developed a friendship, and I didn't realize it was happening until too late. When I initially went to the website, I had no intention of an affair happening, but it did. About a month after meeting the online woman, I decided I had to tell my wife; I didn't feel good about the deception. About that time, my wife's father died, and I had to hold my secret for a while because I didn't want to add to her grieving. I finally told her in May, and she was devastated, and we're now working through the impact of the affair.

What's different about this is that in most of what I've read about affairs, the husband gets a rude awakening when the affair is revealed, feels very sorry for what he did, realizes he loves his wife, and rolls up his sleeves and gets to work on restoring his marriage. That's not what's happening with me. Other than the fact that I hurt my wife's feelings and caused her a lot of emotional pain, I'm not really sorry for what I did. I feel like I SHOULD be sorry, but I'm not really. I don't feel that I love my wife right now. I pulled out of the marriage several years ago, and I don't feel like there's anything worth working for. Because of the kids, I'm not ready to get divorced, but I don't really feel a need to try to fix our marriage. My wife, on the other hand, desperately wants to fix things. She's been trying to change a lot to refocus on our marriage. She also feels that there's a love for her somewhere inside me that will eventually show up. I feel like we could spend a lot of energy working on things and maybe get some temporary fixes, but I don't think we'll ever restore the light and easy, fun relationship we used to have. I think it will always feel like a lot of work, like we have to work hard just to keep things manageable.

The advice I see all over this website and other material I've read says that I absolutely have to stop contacting the other woman. I agree that that would be the best thing from my wife's point of view, but since I gave up on the marriage a while ago, I don't want to stop contacting her. She's not trying to steal me away from my wife, we have a good friendship, and I enjoy emailing her. I'm sure someone is going to mention addiction, but I'm positive I'm not addicted. There are too many affair stories I've read where the husband just can't stand not contacting the other woman. He feels compelled to contact her. And when he tries to stop, he goes into depression. I'm not like that. We exchange emails, but if I don't hear from her for a while, I don't start missing her. I don't have fantasies of running off with her. She's a porn star! How could I do that? She knows all about my situation and can sympathize with my wife, but she enjoys our friendship. I'm sure someone's going to reply that I simply have to break contact with her, but I don't want to. I'm not trying to hide it either. I've decided that dishonesty is bad. Even though my wife doesn't like it, she knows that I'm still in contact with the other woman. It hurts her, I know, but at least she knows the truth. Maybe this is a sign that I don't value my marriage very highly. It's true -- I don't feel much like trying to work things out. I guess I don't see much value in working things out. It's kind like a cost-benefit thing. For the effort involved, I don't see the benefit of making my marriage work.

Another thing that's different about this affair is that the ones I've read about are either the one-night-stands or they start out as casual friendships that develop into sexual relationships. Mine is different. It started out as porn, very sexual, but quickly changed into an emotional affair. Our interaction is via email, IM, or phone, that's it; I've never met the woman in person and don't think I ever will. Although it was sexual at first, it's not now, and it feels very much to me just like any other friendship I have. The only problem is that from my wife's point of view, the sexual nature at the beginning of the relationship makes it unacceptable, and I can understand her feeling that way.

Even though this online affair has caused a lot of pain in our lives, both my wife and I realize that it will turn out to be a good thing in the long run. Before, we were just cruising along, not bothering to care about our marriage. Now, we've decided that we either have to make it better or end it. We don't want to keep cruising along. As I said earlier, she's more committed than I am to making it work. I'm willingly going through counseling, reading lots of books on relationships, spending many, many hours talking with her about our feelings. In fact, we both realize that even though the topics are painful at times, our communication is better now than it has been in years. I'm ok with the marital therapy we're doing, but so far it hasn't stimulated any real desire in me to work things out. I sort of wish it would, but so far it's not.

Sometimes I feel like telling my wife, "Look, I don't care much about making the marriage work anymore. I don't want you to get your hopes up trying to work things out when my heart is not in it. Maybe we should just bide our time until our second kid is out of the house and then split." I feel a little guilty that she really wants to work things out and I don't. I know it's a sad thing to be so apathetic about a marriage, and I know it doesn't feel good on her end to know that, but that's honestly the way I feel. For her to want to work things out and me not, makes me think she'd be better off with someone else who would respect her more. I don't want to lead her on.

So why I am posting all this? I guess I'm looking for someone's assessment of whether this marriage can be saved or not, whether it's worth saving, whether my desire to work on our marriage will ever come back, whether my wife is being too tolerant of me and deserves someone better, things like that. After re-reading all of this before posting, I can see how someone who doesn't know me would think I'm a bad, uncaring, unworthy person. I do care about my wife, and I want her to be happy, but I'm being honest with her in saying that I don't know if I'm the one who can make her happy. She's still sticking with me hoping that things will turn around, and I admire her for that, but I really don't want her to get her hopes up too much. I want her to have a realistic picture of the prospects ahead of her. Any thoughts?

I was hoping for a more objective or encouraging "you can do it" kind of environment, but it seems that the posts have become increasingly judgemental, critical, like people here are chomping at the bit to crucify.

One of the things I like about our counselor is that she is very flexible. She has said that we're an unusual couple and that we're not following the textbook process toward recovery. But that's ok with her; she doesn't give us this "do it this way or else it'll never work" attitude. She's working with the problems we've presented to her and she's very creative. She can quickly perceive where both my wife and I are at and always has ideas about how to proceed. (BTW, Resilient, yes, she is Pro-Marriage, very much so.) She has a plan but sees that with us, she needs to modify the plan as we go. Like I said, we're not the typical couple. Harley may have a plan, but it's a generic plan. My wife and I need a customized plan, and that's what we're getting. In the header to this forum it says that the advice offered here is only peer advice, it's not professional. I think I'll be better served to stick with professional advice.

I was thinking about the issue of contact with the other woman and why it seems to be such a flashpoint on this forum. Our counselor has told us that the affair was a SYMPTOM of problems in our marriage, not THE problem. She urged us to not focus on symptoms, but focus on the problems instead. Focusing on the symptoms will distract us from the real issues. Fixing the problems will make the symptoms go away. I think a lot of people jump to the conclusion that the affair is causing the problems, not the other way around.

I should also clarify our counselor a bit because I can see that people think she's not that good. She DOES think the quickest way to recovery is for me to stop contacting the other woman. That's right, she does believe I should stop. But what she values and encourages most of all, is honesty. Given these two scenarios:

1) I tell my wife I won't contact the other woman but I keep contacting her in secret.
2) I tell my wife that I'm still in contact with the other woman.

Our counselor prefers 2. It's better to be honest with who am I than to live a lie, and my wife and I both agree with that. Truth sometimes hurts, but truth is better than lies. Now you're probably wondering, why not scenario 3:

The joint agreement principle is not so absolute. I think there's going to have to be some give and take. My wife and I were just talking about this last night. Yesterday, I went to a lunch meeting where I met my former office friend, the woman I've mentioned earlier in this thread that I had a wonderful, non-physical friendship with. After the meeting, we talked for a few minutes, catching up on each other's lives, but I left feeling guilty, .... guilty that I had spoken with someone that my wife prefers I don't contact. It feels so controlling that she can make me feel guilty about doing something like talking with a friend. As I pointed out in my first post, the situation was reversed several years when it was **I** who made her feel bad about talking with her male friend.