I have been lurking for a while and thought I would finally post my story. My wife and I have been married for 2 1/2 years, yet we've been together for about 10. She is my everything, we had such a great life together. We spend so much time together , share each other' hobbies, take wonderful vacations together, and generally get along well. The only real issue we ever had in our marriage was sex. AT some point the frequency got less and less and in turn my performance got worse. The less we had the worse I "performed" if you know what I mean(speedy). Anyhow, instead of trying to resolve it like a grown up I cowered and tried to avoid it. It got to the point where I would almost rather satisfy myself than disappoint my wife. That sums up the back story,
so here's "the Event".
I went out of town for a sales conference,back in August, the first night away I found my self pretty drunk amongst a bunch of colleagues. We were at one of the bars in a big conference center hotel. At some point one of the single women in the group was a little flirty and as people filtered out throuought the evening I found myself talking to her and eventually I took her back to her room.
We we gave each other oral and when we started to actually do "it " I snapped out of the funk I was in and got off and got dressed. After sitting on the egde of the bad almost immediately bawling my eyes out realizing what I had done, I went back to my room. This is not someone who I would see as while she works for the company it is in another division. I have called the woman to she if she had anything and she says no, so I am hopeful she's not lying.
For the next 2 1/2 months I agonized over it, and made myself sick, this hurts I must have something, I have to tell her, it's the right thing to do I have to tell her, I can't tell her it'll ruin everything, I have to tell her I think I have an STD, I can't tell her she'll never look at you the same, I have to tell her and beg for forgiveness, I can't tell her she'll leave, etc...
I finally told her on October 16, a week before we were supposed to go on a tropical vacation. I am still regretting that I told her, here she thinks we are moving forward with our lives, about to take a wonderful vacation as she is ovulating and going to try to get pregnant and everything is going so well and I drop this BOMB on her, and oh by the way it was unprotected and yes I know we were togther once since and if I have something so do you...I just kicked my best friend in the gut and when she was down there I stomped on her chest...
So far after 4 months all the std tests have been negative, but my body still does not feel right, so I am petrified it is something...
I am homesick for my wife, my marriage, my best friend. I love my wife more than anything, why wasn't tht enough to get me out of that situation?
We started therapy the day after I told her. We go to a joint session once a week and I go to a lone session once a week as well. It hurts me so much that I did this to her, that she is so wonderful and I did this. She is still very angry and hurt and disgusted. She told me that she doesn't know how she'll ever be attracted to me again, that she just feels sorry for me. OUCH. Even though she hasn't left I feel her slipping away. We don't do hardly anything together anymore, she gets more distant every day. The more I try to the worse I seem to make it. Almost everyday she says something like, look at your life you have a great job, a beautiful house, nice things and what I thought was a good marriage, how could you throw it away. I don't know what to do.
Things are so weird, we sleep in the same bed, but it might as well me 2 zip codes away. I occasionally get a hug, but for the most part the contact is limited.
When will it get better?,How do I make it better?
I feel so helpless even though I am the one who did it.

Beleive it or not, you did the right thing in telling her about your ONS because it is HER RIGHT to know the truth so she can decide whether to remain married to you or divorce you. By your own admission you did not try to resolve your problem in an adult way with HONESTY for your wife.

Besides, if you had decided not to tell her the truth, how can you be absolutely sure that there wouldn't be another ONS in the future? Many spouses feel bad the first time they have sex with another person who is not their spouse, but because they chose to hide the truth from their betrayed spouse, their marital situation remains the same and the next time they find themselves in similar situations, they are more prone to do it again with less feelings of guilt until they get to the point where they have them on a regular basis without any guilt at all.

My W and I know of a couple in which the H(husband) also had problems in his marriage concerning sex, and he eventually ended having a short PA(physical affair) with an OW(other woman). He decided not to tell his W(wife) about the affair, but it started affecting him emotionally and the guilt of what he did became unbearable that he just decided to tell her about his affair a few years back. His W was understandbly devastated and withdrew emotionally from him despite all his expressions of remorse. A few months later he came to the conclusion that the best thing he could do for his suffering W was to end the marriage. He moved out of his house, and contacted an attorney who filed for divorce. At first his W was extremely angry and far from considering this action by him a final act of love, she took it as another sign of his selfishness. Something strange happened though, two months after he moved out, she told us that she was starting to have second thoughts about ending her marriage. She had not talked to her H for those two months and was starting to miss him. By the end of the third month, she came crying to us that she realized how much she loved her H and was very sorry for having drove him away with her hateful behavior towards him. She said that she wanted him back home with her and their children, and that she would do whatever was necessary in doing her part of rebuilding the marriage. A week after this encounter, my W and I happened to bump into the woman's H, and we were able to have a long, friendly talk about what was happening. He was very remorseful, and said that he wouldn't blame his W if she too had an affair of her own. We informed him what she told us, and we urged him to get in touch with her to just talk and find out if there was indeed a possibility to save and rebuild their marriage. A week later, the man's W comes to our house and told us that her H called her up a few days ago and asked her if she wanted to meet with him for a friendly talk. She agreed, and after her meeting, they both agreed to give their marriage one more opportunity. They consulted with the Steve Harley, and followed his marital recovery plan, and are now very much recovered and happier than at any time in their marriage. I thought about their situation, and what struck me interesting was the fact that it wasn't until he let go of her and trying to convince her to give their marriage another chance, that she was able to overcome her resentment of him for during the months that he had left, she had gotten a taste of what life was going to be like once they divorced, and she came to the conclusion that she did not want to lose him after all. You might want to consider the same, if after all your efforts to convince her of your deep remorse and willingness to rebuild the marriage, have not succeeded in helping her overcome her pain and resentment.