Here�s the story going right back to the start �
I�m 37, with a beautiful wife who is also my best friend, and 3 children. We met when we were 17 and she was 16, started dating and got together, In my early years I was young and stupid and didn�t know for sure that I wanted to be with her forever (maybe this means I wasn�t in love, or just young and stupid, don�t know), so I messed around, including ending things for around 12 months and dating other women before getting back together with her. She�s always been my best friend as well as my lover since, we�ve always had a really good sex life.
I don�t think I treated her with enough love and respect in the early years, and it feels like this has left a scar on our relationship.
I had an alcohol problem when socializing � when I was out I would drink way too much and get hammered to the point that I didn�t know what I was doing, also sometimes flirting with other women. This didn�t happen often but was bad when it did � the worst case was her having to �rescue� me from another woman down an alleyway. This happened around 13-14 years ago. After that I decided that I needed to sort myself out so I pretty much stopped going out drinking like that with friends. I had a couple of isolated incidents � one involved a fight as I was flirting with a woman (maybe 12 years ago) when we went away for the weekend in a big group of friends, and then I got very drunk and missed a plane home from Germany when attending a work party (maybe 3 years ago), I think she thought I was with someone else but I genuinely wasn�t. Aside from those few things, I�ve been very very happy just being with her and with our kids. I�m a devoted Dad, spending a lot of effort on the children. I have a few beers now and again, with her, and other friends, I just know that I�m not �capable� of going out and getting blind drunk so I try not to do it!
Then recently we had been going through a bad patch, not terrible but not perfect either, only I didn�t notice - not talking enough, not spending enough time together, she mentioned needing �date nights� but that never really happened due to the kids / very busy at work. It was difficult, no excuse I now realize I should have made much more of an effort. I think in general I wasn�t doing enough to make her realize that I love her and make her happy. I took her love for granted and thought that she would always be faithful to me, I kept a roof over our heads (nice house, cars, etc, etc) and paid all the bills thinking this would be enough�
Then something really stupid happened in my head, I was sensing the �drifting apart� and I think I had started to feel insecure (although none of it felt clear enough at the time to talk about it). I started to think maybe I�m not enough for her anymore and I wished that I could become more attractive to her. This all seemed to come to a head on her birthday night out � we hadn�t been out for years and planned a meal out with a group of friends but ended up hitting the cocktails in a pub. She had high expectations that the past had been buried and we could have a really good night but stupidly (and I am really beating myself up about this) I got really really drunk. I had very vague memories of most of the night but apparently I was chatting up other women, putting my arms round them, etc. etc. The alcohol took over and I stupidly thought that this would make her want me more as she�d see me with other girls and get jealous. A friend of mine ended up slapped me in the face to sort me out, major embarrassment, major mistake, I woke up in the morning feeling like I wanted to die.
And what a life changing mistake that was as I found out a month or so later that after that had happened, she had started having an affair with one of our friends, which seems to have been sparked off by that �night out� and him being an understanding shoulder to cry on and someone to talk to.
During the affair, which lasted about 6 weeks we went on holiday and we talked a lot, and although she didn�t admit the affair, she now says that she�d already made her mind up to stop it. I found out the day after we got back from holiday when he text her saying how much he likes her and I saw it.
When I found out I confronted him and lost it with him completely, told him to stay away from me and her, she almost instantly texted him saying that she doesn�t want to see him ever again, that she could not ever imagine being without me, and she needs to sort her marriage out with me. I didn�t make her write it, she has shown a lot of remorse saying she will do anything to make things better and that what she did was a stupid mistake which she really regrets, and has completely stopped any contact with him. Although the affair had lasted around 5 or 6 weeks (2 of which we were away on holiday) she maintains that she never had any thought of actually leaving me, and that she�d told him this and that it needed to stop and was a mistake and he knew this already. He however took it more seriously and tried to end his marriage.
She tried to cover it up first by saying that she�d only slept with him once but I later found out that it was 5 or 6 times and she�d been meeting up with him. I found this out by retrieving the deleted messages off her phone, which I did in front of her, she told me not to as I would not like the details, I didn�t.
The other guys wife found out several days after I did as I did enough to expose it to her (through others, not directly). About 2 weeks after it all came out shockingly the other guy went back to his wife, after leaving her she took him back. This does give me some confidence that she�s told him the same that she�s telling me otherwise I think he would not have gone back to his wife.
It�s now 4 weeks on, I�m trying really hard to �move on� as I know I did wrong and she did wrong. Some days I blame her, most days I blame myself, but mostly I feel like I�ve forgiven her and I hope that she�s forgiven me for the stupid things I did. We�ve both talked so much about what�s happened and agreed to have a fresh start, and have a relationship where we talk openly about our feelings, and make sure that this doesn�t ever happen again. She�s also said that she would give up being friends with any males if it makes me uncomfortable in the future, and she�d actually be happy if she feels that I�m possessive over her (as I�ve always been a bit standoff ish).
We�ve talked more in the last few weeks then we have in the last 10 years, I feel so much closer to her � we�ve discussed the stupid things I did over the years, although none were as bad as what she has done I guess the intent was there and the hurt that it caused.
I�m struggling to get over what�s happened, I lost over a stone in weight in about 2 weeks as I didn�t feel hungry, although I have levelled out now I�m eating much better again and back in the gym. I have good days and bad days, usually good weekends spending time together, then not so good during the week when it�s back to work, etc. We�re more passionate now then we were and the sex life if still very good.
Sometimes it helps to beat myself up about what I did, but then other times I think am I only doing this because I�m in denial about what she did � and that she still had the choice to have an affair and made that choice. But then I think maybe I deserved it.
I feel like things are heading in the right direction after 4 weeks, but wish I could deal with what happened better, we�re working through it but I would welcome any advice and anyone�s thought�s on the above � am I doing the right thing or am I setting myself up for a painful fall in the future (I don�t think I could go through these feelings again).

There is really no point in opinion shopping. It does not matter what other people think. What does matter is whether or not you and your WW are willing to do what is necessary to recover your marriage. Dr. Harley has helped thousands of couples to do just that. The path to recovery is not easy. We will be happy to guide you. Are you interested?

We are all wired to have affairs. Any person who has emotional needs - for sex, intimate conversation, admiration, affection - will find themselves attracted to, and falling in love with, someone whom they allow to meet those needs, and who meets them well. There is no married person with emotional needs who is immune from an affair.

You and your wife have both put yourselves smack bang in the path of affairs, and to answer your question, yes, you are setting yourself up for a painful fall in the future, and so is your wife with you, if you both do not learn how to put up boundaries so that a member of the opposite sex is never given the chance to meet your emotional needs. The fact that you drink to the point where you lose your inhibitions and make reckless decisions in fact puts you at higher risk than your wife, despite the fact that she actually had the affair. The way that you have behaved over time has in a sense been more frequently careless and cruel than the way that she acted in this one-off event.

You are still at higher risk than she if you see yourself as somehow trustworthy while she is the only one capable of making the choice to have an affair.

The Marriage Builders programme for recovery after an affair will show you how to behave as married people should, and if you both follow it, an affair will be impossible in the future. What you both need to do now is change your behaviour. How you feel about being in denial, about getting what you deserved or about your wife's character are really irrelevant. What matters if whether you both change your behaviour from today on.

PS: if you lost "a stone", I reckon you're British. Welcome.

I certainly am - i've been reading a lot of the material already, i get the idea that my wife's love bank was running on empty when this happened, that gives me some hope as i can take steps to make sure that never happens again

Thanks :-) yeah you guessed it ! a brit in trouble...

Reading your response makes so much sense now, i just hope it isn't too late to turn things around - we both really want to (obviously i cannot say her feelings for sure), i just want to make sure we do it right

It probably was running on empty, and that makes it so much more tempting for someone to have an affair - but you must not go away with the (implied) idea that the affair is the betrayed spouse's fault for not meeting the unfaithful spouse's emotional needs, or that a full love bank means that there will be no affair.

Affairs are the result of a married person's allowing anyone other than the spouse to meet their emotional needs. It is very tempting to do that when one's marriage has been unsatisfying for a long period, but it is also quite easy to do that if one enjoys getting attention and admiration from the opposite sex. We can enjoy that quite easily as well as getting all our needs met by our spouse. Men, more often than women, find it quite possible to love two women at the same time, and to compartmentalise their lives so that they enjoy a fulfilling relationship with their wives and a separate, different, fulfilling relationship with another woman, conducting that relationship through work, for example, and living two wholly separate lives. And men who are out-and-out "players" do not behave that way because they have unhappy marriages.

On the other hand, many spouses live in miserable marriages and do not have affairs; not because they have high morals, but because they do not put themselves in situations - like getting drunk at parties, or having lunch breaks with an opposite-sex colleague - where they can let down their boundaries and let someone else meet their essential emotional needs.

They key to an affairs is not an unhappy marriage. We can be unhappy in our marriages and never have an affair, and there are people who get all their needs met by their spouse, but who also like having them met by more than one person.

The key to not having an affair is to have solid boundaries. A happy marriage is worth having in its own right.

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.

Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

_____Spend leisure time together.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_____Avoid overnight separation.

_____Allow technical accountability.

_____Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends.

Have you spoken with the OM's BW?

Yes couple of times as she was a friend as well, she is aware that her husband made the first move on my wife after the fatal night out, and also that he left her in an attempt to split my wife and i up and be with my wife, and that he was then rejected by my wife, and she's taken him back.

No doubt she is in an even worse position then me now as he'd actually left her and she's taken him back, apparently they are planning to re-new their vows!

I don't know whether to laugh or cry these days...

I think the checklist of how to end has been followed already, looking through the individual points i've come up with the following:-
Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.
I have been through all that I wanted to with her and she has told me what I think is the truth. I also recovered deleted text messages and whilst it didn�t seem to recover all of the messages (suspect there were quite a few missing) all of the recovered messages agreed with what she has told me e.g there was no mention of wanting to leave me, loving him, or anything more than just a fling

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.
she has committed to never seeing or speaking to him again, and said she will tell me if they ever meet by chance in the street (as he lives in the same town).

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.
she sent the text herself and showed me it afterwards, it was pretty much exactly as I�d have asked her to word it

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:
She is unlikely to come into contact with him anywhere, but we both agreed to talk about it if she does, and she's said that she will "turn her head and walk past", the OM has returned to his wife now so i guess this helps

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).
She doesn�t use social media, but has changed her phone number now (which was by her own choice)

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).
She seems to be doing that, sometimes going out of her way to do so, which is encouraging

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).
She�s also doing that

_____Spend leisure time together.
She�s committed to us spending more time together, and seems happy that I�m doing the same after the wake up call I�ve had, she doesn�t spend a lot of time with friends now particularly as the affair ruined the friendship we had with the OM and his wife.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.
Not necessary

_____Avoid overnight separation.
Doesn�t apply, home every night

_____Allow technical accountability.
??? don�t understand this one

_____Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends.
Exposed to her mum and brother, don�t feel the need to expose it to my family but have confided in a few close friends

also, I have a question about how far the policy of truth should extend:
I've read on another thread that initially it is a good idea to go through "a 2 part plan where you do everything in your power to bust up the affair. [exposure] The other part of the plan is presenting yourself in the most attractive light"
I feel that I need to move on and focus on the second part, but the feelings of what happened still feel very raw. Generally I feel good when we are together � which is pretty much all of the time except when either of us is at work � but then when we�re not together I sometimes feel quite depressed about the whole situation (questioning why she would have done it again, going over details in my head, casting doubt over the things she�s said, etc. etc.) It�s nothing major, but it�s still there, as I mentioned things still feel raw just 1 month on.
My question is should I be relating these feelings to my other half � on one hand I want her to know how much it is hurting me still and give complete truth, but on the other hand I don�t want it to cast a shadow over �presenting yourself in the most attractive light� as my feeling is that women are more attracted to an emotionally strong man, someone who does not dwell on the past and looks to the future.

When she asks me "did you have a good day at work, how did you feel" i'm not sure what to say as i dont want to make the rest of the day negative either