My wife (35) and I (37) have been married for almost 15 years. We have had a rather tumultuous 15 years. Good times and bad. We did not have a "normal" dating/courting period as we met online while I was in the military stationed in South Korea in 1999. We married quickly. She got pregnant early in the marriage. After getting out of the military at her request we moved to her hometown in FL. I am originally from TX and all of my family is in TX.

Shortly before our 4th year, I had an affair on my wife. I moved out of the house for 6 weeks and moved back in around our 4th anniversary date. I fully confessed to the affair. However, we never fully resolved any of the issues that led to the affair or that were apparently plaguing our young marriage. For the next few months I took a daily brow-beating over the affair. I left my wife and child in FL and came home to TX. My family was not supportive of our marriage and were none to pleased when we started to reconcile. I encouraged my wife of the better opportunities in TX as opposed to FL and that I had nowhere else to go. She accepted and we moved to TX in 2004.

Things were improving from 2004 to 2006 when I made another dumb mistake and reached out to one of my wife's co-workers while in a drunken state. My wife issued an ultimatum to me "either quit drinking or me and the boy are gone." I have not had a single drop of alcohol to drink in 8 years as of next month.

We started attending church on a regular basis in 2006 also. Professed our faith and were jointly baptized. We bought a house, work life improved, we re-committed our vows in a church with friends and family and a second child was born in 2009. All seemed to have been going well.

In late spring/summer of 2012 we started attending church less frequently. My wife had started attending school to pursue her baccalaureate degree and reduced her work schedule to accommodate school and to stay home with the youngest.

My wife has always had very liberal political leanings and I have always thought of myself as middle of the road. Her schooling is heavily liberal. I have not agreed with all that she has been educating herself with and have voiced my opinions.

About 6 months or so ago, I even went so far as to complain about the burden of her attending school as she already earned a decent wage in her role at the hospital that she works. Her work schedule also is rather eccentric in that she works weekend nights Fri 7p-3a Sat 7p-3a and Sun 3p-11p. The original intent of this schedule was to keep our youngest out of day care and because of the added pay in shift differential it made fiscal sense. I have voiced my concern that our now 4 year old is ready to go to a Pre-K program and that he doesn't need to spend all day at home with just mom. He's a very smart boy and his mother does a great job with him. But he can be a bit of a burden to a homework routine for her. And I thought it was about time for some added enrichment in his life. I tried to discuss this matter with my wife on numerous occasions but she felt she'd have to go back to a days schedule and her schoolwork would suffer as a result. I reluctantly agreed.

Since my drunken phone call in 2006 I thought I had walked the straight and narrow, going to work and coming home and maintaining a substantial portion of domestic responsibilities in order to lend support of my wife's continuing education.

About 2 months ago I began to notice a change in my wife's behavior: going to bars and visiting with friends after work on Sundays, going out with her closest girlfriend on week nights, she and I had been at odds with one another over stupid political issues that neither one of us can control, then the real kicker was the change in sexual behavior. Up until about this time, our sex life had taken a hit as well. Sex became more of a chore for her 2-3 times per month. I was also resorting to some pornographic material on the web. After these late night episodes and extracurriculars started, she'd come home slightly intoxicated and was aggressive sexually. I thought I was doing the right thing and surely wasn't complaining until I started to examine things a bit more and it dawned on me that in some ways her behavior change was eerily similar to my own when I committed my affair in 2003. So I began to question her as to the sudden change. I even alluded to the possibility of an emotional affair due to our seeming disconnect in recent months and that this emotional affair was re-invigorating her sexually at home.

From the time I raised my suspicions things rapidly deteriorated. I was told that if she were having an affair, "she was having an affair with herself 10 years ago." She'd missed out on having a 4-year degree earlier because she married me at 20, has always been our boys mom, my wife and she didn't know who she was and that I have put her through 15 years of hell and that because we were in TX she wasn't in FL when her grandfather passed in 2007 (her parents passed when she was young, she was raised by her grandfather). Any and everything I had ever experienced regret, sorrow and remorse for all thrown back in my face. I was angered by her outburst and did some digging and found some circumstantial evidence of a possible tryst in 2012 with an ex of hers. I pushed and pushed and she finally got to the point, on a Saturday morning as I was angrily questioning her about the ex's being on her Facebook page even after all of this time, where she requested me to leave and I did so.

Unfortunately, I called my oldest child the night that I left and he wanted me to come and get him and his brother. I did. I kept the boys with me away from her for 3 days. We returned on a Tuesday night. I was receiving some negative counsel from my mother and other family members of which there are many at my disposal and my wife has no family in TX and very little left as it is (an older sister in AZ and brother in FL.)

I went to pick up the kids because they were left with a known good Christian neighbor and they stated they weren't comfortable with the situation Had my oldest said "no dad we are good" then I wouldn't have come to get them. But he didn't. I didn't feel that her parenting choices were top-notch in light of our recent issues.

I stayed the week of Spring Break back at the house on the couch. We have had some rather toxic sex episodes since I've been back. We have talked, we are attempting to seek professional counseling services, there have been many psychological games played. It is really not healthy.

I have gotten myself and my boys going back to church (she can't make it because of work) We are to see a non-church based Christian counselor this Tuesday. In the mean time this past week I stayed at a local family member's house as she doesn't feel comfortable with me in the house. She has expressed her fear in that if I am home that all will just get swept under the rug and nothing will get resolved. However, I still go to the house after my work-day and hang out til bed time then I drive 5 miles across town to go to sleep. While I have been doing this routine this week one of her girlfriends from work came over after work 11PM or later and she consumed some alcohol one night while I was over and it led to another not healthy sex episode. I have expressed the seeming futility in this "separation" exercise. She has expressed that she wants to establish some independence and figure out how to do things on her own. I have reluctantly agreed to her methodology as I don't just want to sweep things under the rug I really REALLY want my life and my wife back.

However, there are many ups and downs in my mind. I pray A LOT. I am trying my best to hand this whole thing over to the Lord but it is very hard. My gut tells me there is something going on even though I have no concrete evidence. I am scared and shouldn't be. The thought alone of my wife and... I'm not going there. I feel guilt for taking my children away from their mother. I hate that my mother and other family have sided on the finality of our relationship. My relationship with my mother, has been not good for a long long time but for some reason I always gave her the benefit of the doubt over my wife of 15 years. There are a lot of dynamics going on in all of this and the one that I am paying the most attention to is my wife and her conduct. I know that there is a current major lack of trust and it is going to take time to correct if it can be at all. My biggest problem is patience. I am a "problem-solver" by trade and this is a problem I just can't solve that easily.

TCBRMachine

That is very long and hard to read through.

Married 15 years with two children.

You had one affair in which you left the home and another indiscretion.

You suspect your WW had an affair in 2012 and you suspect that she is having one now, correct? And she has asked you to leave the house and you complied.

Any other affair (even EAs) for either of you?

All of the other stuff about her childhood, differing political views, etc is basically irrelevant when you have an affair to deal with. Her work schedule will have to be dealt with but that's for later...

The first thing that I would do is move back home.

Men, do not leave your home!

Next, you need to read up on Plan A which is all about being the best husband you can be (meeting her ENs, avoiding lovebusters, making the home a pleasant place to be) while snooping to find out who she is currently having an affair with.

Do you have any idea at all who the OM may be?
Do you have access to her phone records?
You may want to install a GPS and VAR to help you get to the bottom of this.

Sorry you are here but welcome BTW!

Hi TCBR, welcome to Marriage Builders. Susie is correct, your post is extremely long and we don't need all that history. Please follow Susie's advise and start quietly snooping. It sounds like she is having an affair. Don't accuse her, just quietly get the goods and then come back here.