I'll try to make my mess as simple (which it's not) and short as possible. This is my first post on this site, even though I have been doing extensive reading, researching, and soul-searching for some time now.
My wife and I have been married over 10 years now. She had two children of her own ("tots") when we met. We've had two since. We were friends first--she wanted no part of a relationship--fell in love, lived together, got married. All was blissful for the first few years.
Without getting into too much gory details, she had a nervous breakdown (and still dealing with depression) and I became aware I was a gambler. Even before these events, the marriage started deteriorating--with these events, it became co-existing. With both of us in counseling (she currently--I stopped) separately, we have improved as individuals. The problem being, I feel hopeless that this marriage will work--that we can't/won't improve--no, salvage-- the marriage. (Maybe it's a copout--I'm still working on that.) The other problem being, in the meantime, I developed a strong friendship--best friends--with another woman. There is no A going on--we already agreed it would be completely wrong--and it's not what our relationship is based on anyway. But certainly an emotional A. There are many other variables in the situation, but I've failed to give myself any jumping off point, any reference to where I should go, what I should think, what I should do. Any suggestions--any--will help. (As this friend said to me, I know I need to resolve the problems in my marriage. But these resolutions scare me as I don't think there are fixing them.)
Scared and confused.

<small>[ July 16, 2004, 01:16 AM: Message edited by: LINY ]</small>

I also wanted to note to the above, that even though these are two separate issues above they are running parallel, and obviuosly interwtwined in a lot of ways. I reread my post and Mortimer's string, and find myself in my marriage at this point only for the kids and my vows. I do love my wife--her well being, success, etc--but one of my dilemmas of life was just accepting things as they were. One of my growths over the years was not just accepting. (I was a "stuffer.") So, I did have to add a little more of the "gory details" to give me advice. Thank you.

repost from Not in love with me anymore??? thread

It's so sad reading this for me as it echos what my H has been telling me and told me once again today. I really hope that you can give your marriage another chance and try having NC with the OW. I'm hoping my H will give us another chance and I can only hope you will too because that would bring hope to many of the people here going through the same.

You may want to post in the Questions section under infidelity. You may get more responses there. All I can say is that you even being on this site is a step in the right direction.