Alan,
I hate to say it, but join the crowd. Just know that everything you are feeling has been felt by almost each and every one of us, and we have made it through to various stages of this. Hold your head up. Try not to understand, because her world is not connected to the real world. You will not be able to understand it, trust me on this one.
Although I know that you will spend countless hours trying to figure out where everything went wrong. If only I had. If only I hadn't. How could she. I can't believe it. Why can't she try. What can I do. I can change. We can make it. You just have to believe. How can you if you say you are Christian. What about our child. How could you do this to your child. What about if our child's spouse acted like you are. Etc. etc. etc.. We have all felt it. You will as well. You will spend far too much time trying to understand the un-understandable. But realize that it is just part of the process.
My theory, and it is only my theory, is that we all have to go through a similar and certain amount of "stuff". It is very similar for all of us, but how we go about working it out and working on it differs for each of us. I happened to choose total and complete emersion into the grieving and attempting to understand. I spent almost a whole month completely alone. Going to work then back home. All the while trying to figure out how to fix, then accept the problems.
I will tell you to expect this. Some people go out with friends alot and that is great. I just think that some people need to take the work a bit at a time. More managable for some. But I still think that they will have to work through the same amount of stuff, so it will just take them longer, however be more tolerable, at least for them. There is no right or wrong way to do this, except perhaps stalking. Yes, absolutely stalking is NOT the way to go. (A little humor here guys <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> ) I know that it is horrible to find out. I know the feeling, over and over again. I found out about 4 separate affairs in three different episodes. So the last one only hurt for a week or so. But it was also the one that freed me from her.
I don't know how you will do, I don't know what will happen. All is not lost, but the situation is definitely not good. All I can recommend is to look after yourself and your child. Read his needs/Her needs and Surviving an affair. Then if ther is any light sometime in the future, you will be able to have a better chance at seeing it, and helping your marriage. Because she is going to be living her own life for a while, without regard for either of you. Expect the worst she can offer. That way when you see it, you will not be surprised. From now on, your only surprises should be good, because you were expecting something worse than what happened.
I guarantee you that everything you post for the next several months will be straight out of someone elses post that was here before you. Maybe mine, maybe GIIC, Muzo, DJ, Peachy, Nina, Wallace, etc.. We have all been through it and it is amazing how similar the stories always are.
Now this is not meant to make you feel better nor worse. Just realize that we are a great support for you. Make sure that you use us. We are all at different stages and with different backgrounds, but our commonallity is that we are almost all betrayed and divorcing/divorced. Realize that the reason I posted all this is to help you understand that you are not alone, nor are you even the first, second or five hundreth person to have this happen. We are somewhat living proof that you will make it. Now you need to figure out how to help yourself. Others on this board can post much better about the MB principals than I. Although I employed them and I think they are great, my verbal/typing skills are less than those of many others here. So I will not butcher the principles by attempting to reiterate them in my broken words.
Take care, and Stay with God. Do not change your faith for her. Because she may not be around for long and you can only believe if it is coming from you, for YOU.
