Wife left after 16 years. Said I neglected her emotionally which I came to realize was true. She developed a chat room addiction. She left me and kids for a week then wanted to come home. I let her back under the condition we go to counselling. She agreed.

After six months of counseling she said she wanted a D and moved out leaving me and the three kids. She moved in with chat room guy (anyone who flurts in those rooms needs to get a life, you're only asking for big trouble)

Two months later, I convinced her to give it one more try. I would prove to her that I could give her the emotional things that I'd neglected. She agreed and told her boyfriend to leave. We began dating again. I wrote her romantic letters and others things that lovers do. Things were going very well and I was confident we were going to make it. At the end of the month she said it wasn't going to work and went back to OM. This was the third time she'd left us.

She filed for D but didn't have the money to make it final. After 3 more months she e-mailed me and said she wanted to come home.( I guess the chat dude must have been a dud) She said she had realized that what she'd done was wrong and wanted to make up for all she'd done. After several weeks of communication with her, I agreed to let her come home on a trial basis and for the sake of the kids.

It has been almost two years now since she's been back. She no longer goes into the chat rooms and has returned to her "old self". I believe she is truely sorry for what she did and has no intentions of ever doing it again.

My problem is we don't have the same relationship that we once had. We are friends again but I feel uncomfortable when she attempts to get emotionally intimate with me. I believe I have forgiven her for what she did. She wasn't in her right mind, but I feel that I am only staying married to her for the kids. I realized alot of things about her and myself in the time she was gone. We began reading the MB material. We began making love bank deposits towards each other. She has done all she could to make me happy. I have spend the past two years trying to allow myself to fall in love with her (which I realized I never was to begin with) but there's nothing there on a deeper level. Our relationship is all about taking care of the kids, managing the home, etc. We go out together and have sex, but we are missing something very,very important; that intimate bond.

I feel I can make this marriage work but I want to be in love. I don't want to just endure it, I need for it to be great. I need to be able to pour out my love on her, but the fact is, it's like doing something out of obligation. You do it just because you know it's what you should do, not because you want to. I've heard people say, "just keep doing what you know you should do and the feelings will come". Ok, I'm still waiting. How long do you wait? I have been struggling with feelings of depression and have begun to drink on a regular basis(something I haven't done for 15 years)

I am concerned that if I continue to stay in this marriage or if something doesn't change, I will end up at a place where I don't want to be. But my commitment to our children is so strong that I can't leave them. I feel like I'm trapped.
Anyone been here? Will the feelings come??

You can choose to be in love with you wife.

But if </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I have been struggling with feelings of depression and have begun to drink on a regular basis(something I haven't done for 15 years)
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">your mind is clouded.
See a doctor now about the depression and drinking or you might just lose your family despite your hard work.

By helping yourself, you will help your family.

Dear Newly, thanks for your advise,
I am not opposed to seeing a doctor, but If you're saying the solution to my problem is medication, I have to disagree. I should've used the word dissatisfied rather than depressed. Based on symptoms of depression that I've read, I don't fit. I still get up for work and do my normal activity, have no trouble sleeping, but there's just this sense of incompleteness about my life. I agree I need to stop drinking.(I have 2-3 glasses of wine a day.)

I don't think that I'm seeing things through a cloud. I have been able to get my thoughts to the point where I convince myself that I love my wife, I willfully make the choice, but the moment I look into her eyes, I feel very uncomfortable. This has been going on for two years. What am I doing wrong? You may ask,"what is it that attracted her to you in the first place?" It was a spiritual bond that formed between us. There were no feelings of romance ever. She asked me to marry her and I agreed. Over the years the lack of emotional bond began to affect her more than it did me. When she left the final time, that bond was somehow broken and now there is nothing that attracts me to her other than the connection we have with the kids.You said I can "choose" to be in love. Let me in on your secret. How is that possible when there's no attraction?

I believe in commitment. I was never unfaithful to my wife through our entire marriage. But do two people have to endure each other the rest of their lives just for the sake of commitment? She commited adultry. I forgave her for that but it doesn't change the fact that it has changed things between us. There are consequences to our actions.

I really do want this to work. I want to be in love with my wife. I just need to know how since what I've been doing hasn't been working for nearly two years.

Your life is in a place of questioning. This happens after a divorce. For one, will you ever beable to trust her again. That is the one big problem of the adulterous spouse. You have to beable to trust them, and that is where the counseling will help. I see from your writings, that you are not willing to give out all your inner feelings to her yet. You still don't trust your wife, which is true to the pattern she selected. An adulterous spouse, needs to show trust, giving themselves freely, no hiding anything, and the love will return. I do feel your wife is not able to expose herself. She hurt you once severely and doesn't want to hurt you again.

There seems to be a wall between the two of you right now, which is normal. An adulterous affair puts a dynamic barrier between the two of you. After all you married for better or worse, and the adulterous one decided to break those committments.

Seek counseling, work through it. Like the Harleys said, it is going to take time and many effort on both your parts. It will happen and your joy will come. Beleive what the Harleys state, I have read other books that same the exact same statements, that it will happen. Just the trust is not there between the two of you.

Don't say you are staying for the kids. You are staying cause you do love your wife, you do want to keep your committment, you do have deep emotional feelings towards your wife. But what she has done has damaged so much between the two of you.

I care for my X, but now am able to move on without him. It is hard, cause I wanted the marriage to work, but he never wanted the marriage to work. He had a sexual affair with a bimbo, which he realizes now that she was emotionally unstable, and was a user of my xhusband and his family.

We all have learned quite a bit through this tough ordeal, and it is still difficult for a woman that was abused and left to fend for my self. Stay for your marriage, your love, your desire to be with your wife, and the intimate connection will come. Believe in the Harleys, it will come. Have you ever thought of doing the books that the Harleys have. Emotional Needs, etc.

God loves the two of you, and God will show you that you two can have a marriage out of love and intimate feelings.

I know what you feel. After finding out about first affair, I did all I could and worked hard, but my heart just died a little bit more every day I plan A'd my xh.

You do I believe, lose that "special" feeling and place you are as a spouse when the other partner cheats. Almost felt dirty to me.

And I prayed and prayed. Your W has come back and sounds like she has made good efforts.

I suggest trying MB therapy or couples' therapy. Don't believe you're depressed but if you are down, try getting outside and releasing those darn endorphins for that happy kinda feeling...

What this site doesn't say is that there's a chance after affairs that the BS will walk. That's a risk you take when you play. It's sad, but it happens. I wanted so badly to make my M work, but after all has settled, dust and all, I know now my heart has been hurt beyond repair short of only a literal Miracle. Trust me, nobody on earth could make me change and only God if that is part of his plan could do that.

I also suggest some IC as well so you can see if this is a real hurdle you can get over or if it is something that will not be able to heal. We are people. BS have feelings and we don't always in the end want the picket fence with the person who originally knocked it down. We expend so much energy putting the fence up that after that fence is back, we forget why we put it back up in the first place...

Thanks for your replies Faith and Peachy. I just want to be sure I'm not gonna waste anymore years of my life trying to fix something that I'm not sure is worth fixing. I suppose more counseling is the answer. I've gotten over a few hurdles in the past two years but I keep stumbling over this one.