having had time to reflect a little about some of the comments posted, some accurate and some ridiculous, I have this to say in answer....
I married for the first time because my girlfriend, whom I was about to dump told me she was pregnant (4 months gone) and I felt at the age of 21 that I should stick by her. I was not in love with her, she was in love with me, but I LEARNED how to be a husband even though I wasn't ready for it or even wanted it. I started to have panic attacks soon after making the decision to stick with a person that I didn't want to be with but fell in love with the my little boy and love him as much today as I did then. He is now 19 and studying to be a Doctor. I am proud and as the second boy, who, again, came as a bit of a surprise has an equal place in my heart and is 16, custody is no longer and issue. I never loved my first wife but somehow learned to create an environment where I could be with my children but never really be with her. I worked away from home a great deal and spent all my time at home when I could be around the two boys. I learned a great deal about marriage from my parents, who were deeply unhappy for 30 years and somehow made things survivable for the sake of my kids. I got tired though after 10 years. I really did. I hadn't slept with my wife for over a year, had totally separate lives, lived away a great deal and sincerely made every effort to rescue the unrescuable. It got to the stage where I had been away for 8 days working and would get home at night and she wouldn't even turn the TV off and say hello. I was, in effect a single father when I had the kids and had no love in my life except them. I didn't want to hurt my wife at the time because she seemed to need nothing (only child) from me except a roof and a loving father, which I was able to provide both of. I am a believer in the sanctity of marriage and even though I fought hard to cling onto something that was never meant to be, admit that I gave up after a great deal of thinking and therapy.
I met my current wife when I was about to file for divorce, I know you're going to doubt that, but it is absolutely true. I was deeply unhappy, working very hard and drinking to try to give myself some happiness.
My current wife and I met by chance, the same way many do, and were instantly head over heels. She too had lacked love in her last long term relationship and together we showed each other what it could feel like to love. It was never about sex or sneaking about or an affair, it was very much about two people who, in a different place and time would have fallen in love all the same.
I admit whole heartedly that I should have been single when we met, but sometimes these things aren't ideal. I divorced my wife as soon as I knew that I could feel love but gave it six months with my current wife very much waiting in the background willing to move away if it made life easier, ensuring that I got it right for my kids and dealt with the horror of divorce as best I could. Only at that point did I commit to my current wife as girl friend and boyfriend and way after that moved in with the kids that I had joint custody of and whom both at the age of 16 (as that is what the court decreed) chose to live with my current wife and I more or less full time. We must have got something right here as it certainly wasn't persuasion. I have never since had even the slightest emotional feeling for my ex wife, never did, still never do and whenever we meet I still don't understand how I managed to stand 10 years of marriage as I can't stand to be with her and don't even particularly like her.
I felt guilty for hurting her and creating a divorce and splitting a family and still do, but truly I feel nothing for my ex and never did. Nothing to do with my current wife, just the way things were.
I understand that this forum is based on building marriage, but I find it incredible that people judge what they don't know !!! I was not married, I was existing and then met someone whom I wanted to be with !!! Is that really such a sin.
Anyway, we are all entitled to our own opinions, but heres where I think it went wrong and I am truly grateful to those who have been constructive and not judgmental as it has pointed me very much in the right direction.
I carried with me every tool that I had made for myself as an independant living married man into my next relationship. I was so used to doing things my own way without the need for another and coping with the kids, cooking, ironing, cleaning working, that I didn't really know how to conduct myself as a partner in a relationship. I was conscious that I had to be controlling in my last marriage as that was necessary, but didn't realise that it was not necessary in my current relationship, until recently that is. I suspect if you sit on anyone hard enough for long enough they will wriggle and that is precisely what happened. I was, always have been, and always will be deeply in love with my current wife, but just acted like the 20 year old idiot that got married to the wrong person and controlled things that he needed to to manipulate a relationship into something that suited the time. I didn't realise any different even though my current wife was trying her hardest to point it out.
I made my wife ( i think "current" is now unnecessary) feel so lonely and unwanted because I had learned from my past marriage how to act alone and still be married, how to live in an unloving place and how to make sure things happened my own way. What I hadn't taken into account was that I truly and deeply loved this woman and was crushing her with my past learned behaviour.
So, she cheated, it was not sex as such it was a cry for help. She passed a polygraph test to say as much and nothing she has ever said to me has been proved to be a lie, EVER, or since. She did not steal me from my last wife, I was not married really, just existing. All she has done is loved my and put up a fight to keep me even though I couldn't show her the same affection in return as I did not know how to.
Since I found out about the ONS it placed us in a position where there was a chance that we would loose each other and that really made me and her realise quite how strongly we felt about each other. Almost as if it had to happen to one of us to place us in that position.
That was a year ago and we have spent hours, days, weeks working on us. Perhaps what I failed to do is work on me as an individual.
What I have also failed to do is look at the bigger picture and realise that we are all human and in effect we can all make mistakes. None of you out there have seen the tears my wife has shed over her actions, how physically sick it makes her when it is brought up and quite what steps she has taken to mend what she did, selfishly, in a moment of loneliness, having been dumped yet again by the one person she really wanted to be with.
My work is about showing her how much I love her. This whole episode opened my eyes as to where I had gone wrong and I suspect that I carry much guilt about the fact that if I had done something about this long ago, I wouldn't be here talking to you now. She is not a cheater by nature and never had an affair, that has been proved. She just got drunk one night having never drunk really in her life, because I acted up and shamed her, and made a very bad call in a very vunerable condition.
The reason I can't get over it is, i think, because I feel like I caused it and am acutely aware of that. She accepts full responsibility and has never once blamed me, quite the opposite. She has taken all the steps that this web site suggests and more to ensure security, but I have focused wrongly.
Catperson is right. My wife did wrong and fixed herself, I have been doing wrong for 20 years and am having trouble fixing myself. Simple as.
Obviously on a forum you cant see my house and how much love is in it. You can't fake it and I and my wife are both $hit actors which is why I knew something was up in the first place.
We have never been more in love it is almost sickening, and we have never been happier in either of our entire lives, in the main. It is just the fixing of me that is getting in the way and relearning all that I taught myself as a defence mechanism in my last marriage is taking it's toll. I think my silly focus on one minor, drunken, regretted (by both parties incidentally) moment is because I I don't have the tools for that bit yet.
I am not living some fantasy, as someone very helpfully pointed out. I am living a reality. I have made a mess to the extent that someone who loved me, was, and still is a fantastic Mum and step mum, got extremely lonely because I didn't know how to act as a partner in a marriage.
Now we are an US, I suppose I am having every day to work on keeping it that way and part of that is a reminder of what can happen if you don't work on marriage. That's the bit that hurts.
Maybe over time that will fade as I become more confident in my ability to be a good husband. Time is a great healer and whomever it was that said I was looking for a quick fix was right. In my business life things move at a faster pace, in my love life patience is something I am going to have to learn.
I sincerely thank those who have been suggestive and helpful and pity those like dude007 and mrwondering.
For those two, I need to say this:-
Whilst I may well have messed up and whilst I may well be reaping what I sowed, I have always been a great father to my kids and their loyalty to me and my wife and their desire to be with us are testament to that. I never, ever do anything without them in mind and as I have four, soon to be five. I do not take kindly to the suggestion that I have somehow neglected them in any of this. I still feel guilty for splitting a home......every day......so no need to rub it in !!
As fr my ex wife. She was an only child and has had a succession of boyfriends but never settled on one in particular. She is not waiting for me, I hope, as she never really had me in the first place. She also learned to fly solo in a marriage and I suspect she is perfectly comfortable being on her own at present. Some people are you know !!!
Self medicating. Yes. I have throughout my entire life found it difficult to switch off. My mind is one of those that works at a million miles an hour and sleep is a problem to me, which does not help all of this. I used to drink to get to sleep, that is not really an issue any more, or certainly not to the same extent, but I do take a small amount of valium to calm my mind and get me some sleep.
I have never gone down the route of antidepressants because I thought I could deal with it myself, as I have most other problems which have come my way, but maybe it is time to heed the advice given on many occasions and start to give myself a lift so that a little more strength is felt. I will give into the professionals and get medicated properly for depression as I am running out of fight and cannot ever be happy it seems in myself. That is not because of the "fantasy" world I am living in or the fact that my wife was an "affairage" (she was not) that has been going on since I was a very small boy. I know why, but have just never dealt with it.
As I sit here now, my wife is looking as happy as she ever has at the fact that I am actually doing something about getting me fixed.
I am truly grateful to you all for helping me start the process and welcome any constructive help on obsessing and keeping the very, very special thing that I have in my wife, truly happy whilst I recover myself.
Thanks again.

it is almost sickening

how can I possibly be being insensitive ? If anything, surely I am letting people know what can be done to go wrong in the first place and am letting them know that we as a married couple are still here, smiling, as testament to the fact that sometimes a wake up call is what is required, in whatever guise it comes, to get things back in track.
I was just being honest. I am not in an affair marriage. As I said I was filing for divorce at the time. I had done everything in my first marriage to make it work but they were different circumstances. I was not living with my ex-wife when I met my current wife, I had not slept with her for nearly 18 months. I had been in separate bedrooms for 6 months while I tried to piece things back together, but it didn't work. Shame but it never ever was going to.
I met my current wife too soon, yes, but also have stated that I made her wait on the side lines until I had dealt with the fall out of my divorce. We only ever met for coffee and she never spent a night with me until I sorted my children out good and proper.

thank you Mrswondering. Most helpful.
again I stress that my current wife was not an affair. I was not living with my ex wife and had already gone through the process of preparing for divorce. Poor timing yes, affair no. I never cheated on my ex wife even though I was unhappy for the vast majority of the 10 years we were together.

goodness. I appreciate that this is about repair and that is why I am here, but i repeat. I was divorced bar the paperwork and that was being prepared when I met my current wife.
I wasn't looking for her, was actually looking forward to being a single Dad, she just came along, but I was not married in reality. Not a justification, the truth.
Even my ex has no axe to grind with my current wife as we had been apart for long enough and I think she had already had a boyfriend too.
I would not be as sad about what has happened to us recently if I had met my wife as a bit on the side. I would call that Karma. She wasn't I was living alone I was single but in the UK it takes and age for the paperwork and money side to be sorted and that is where we were at.

thank you Mrswondering. Most helpful.
again I stress that my current wife was not an affair. I was not living with my ex wife and had already gone through the process of preparing for divorce. Poor timing yes, affair no. I never cheated on my ex wife even though I was unhappy for the vast majority of the 10 years we were together.

how can I possibly be being insensitive ? If anything, surely I am letting people know what can be done to go wrong in the first place and am letting them know that we as a married couple are still here, smiling, as testament to the fact that sometimes a wake up call is what is required, in whatever guise it comes, to get things back in track.
I was just being honest. I am not in an affair marriage. As I said I was filing for divorce at the time. I had done everything in my first marriage to make it work but they were different circumstances. I was not living with my ex-wife when I met my current wife, I had not slept with her for nearly 18 months. I had been in separate bedrooms for 6 months while I tried to piece things back together, but it didn't work. Shame but it never ever was going to.
I met my current wife too soon, yes, but also have stated that I made her wait on the side lines until I had dealt with the fall out of my divorce. We only ever met for coffee and she never spent a night with me until I sorted my children out good and proper.

goodness. I appreciate that this is about repair and that is why I am here, but i repeat. I was divorced bar the paperwork and that was being prepared when I met my current wife.
I wasn't looking for her, was actually looking forward to being a single Dad, she just came along, but I was not married in reality. Not a justification, the truth.
Even my ex has no axe to grind with my current wife as we had been apart for long enough and I think she had already had a boyfriend too.
I would not be as sad about what has happened to us recently if I had met my wife as a bit on the side. I would call that Karma. She wasn't I was living alone I was single but in the UK it takes and age for the paperwork and money side to be sorted and that is where we were at.

well if it is considered by you to be adultery then fine. I know where I was at and how long i was living on my own in a separate house from my ex and i also know where I was at legally.
My wife would be thrilled to be called a pig or turd I am sure.
How can this in any way be constructive?!!
We all got married somehow. Some here will have been an affair marriage, some not. Some will have met when they shouldn't and some not. You can't help who you fall in love with and when or why, I want to move on and have managed 9 years but have made mistakes. learning is something that takes time I am seeing.
Oh, and by the way, alcoholics are the best teachers of alcoholics.
If nothing else my tale may tell a few how to get it right from my stupidity.

thank you Mrswondering. Most helpful.
again I stress that my current wife was not an affair. I was not living with my ex wife and had already gone through the process of preparing for divorce. Poor timing yes, affair no. I never cheated on my ex wife even though I was unhappy for the vast majority of the 10 years we were together.

We all got married somehow. Some here will have been an affair marriage, some not. Some will have met when they shouldn't and some not. You can't help who you fall in love with and when or why, I want to move on and have managed 9 years but have made mistakes. learning is something that takes time I am seeing.
Oh, and by the way, alcoholics are the best teachers of alcoholics.
If nothing else my tale may tell a few how to get it right from my stupidity.