Wrapping My Mind Around It

Posted this initially in the divorce forum, but I'm realizing now, it would probably be better off here: Hello everyone. As I start to write what I'm going through, I'm realizing it could fill a book, but I'll try to keep it brief... I am currently separated from my wife and we're moving for certain towards divorce. We have had plenty of issues in the three years we have been married, including a prolonged first affair of hers just five months ago during the summer with a married man online, as well as a situation where I got a little too comfortable with a woman at work and we shared a kiss. I don't blame anyone but myself for my failure in that regard, but I realized immediately it wasn't something I could do and wasn't who I wanted to be and cut it off and confessed it to my wife (upon learning of her affair). We had a bunch of false starts trying to get her out of her relationship with the guy she was involved with. They had only been hanging out in this game she was addicted to for a couple weeks, but had already had cyber sex multiple times and exchanged, "I love yous." Even being contacted by the man's wife, who was also a friend of hers in the game, where she asked her far too kindly to stop talking to her husband, they continued to sneak and contact each other. Anyway, I thought we finally managed to get through it. I was warned repeatedly (under another name) by users of this forum that I was caving too quick and that she would do it again, but I was so desperate to get out of the pain and try to save my marriage that I relented. She agreed to no contact once again, agreed to let me monitor her online accounts, and assured me she was done playing the game where she had met him and the group she had become part of on there that were toxic to the marriage. Eventually, I started to work through my pain, really doubled down on trying to improve the marriage, get us spending time together far more often than we were, going to counseling, etc. I started to get to where I wasn't even checking her online activities...which in hinsight was foolish. By October, I have since learned recently, she had already signed back up to the game she was playing and began immediately engaging with the same group of people, including men she has admitted had expressed interest in a relationship with her. From what I can tell she didn't resume the relationship with the first guy. She was diagnosed with thyroid cancer when the first affair started to come into the light, and I was just very focused on trying to be there for her and get her through it in the following months. When her thyroid was removed, I stood alone in the hospital room, holding her hand, wiping the sweat from her brow, and nursed her back to health after the recovery. Then months later, I took her to have her radiation done, drove her back all while probably getting an unhealthy dose myself, and had to be out of the house for a few days. That as it turns out, is where things went even further south. When I was able to come back home, I was vaguely aware that she was cooler than usual. I chalked it up to still recovering after having to be off her thyroid replacement horomone medication for three weeks prior to the radiation. We got through Christmas, which mainly seemed to be just the kids and me as she rarely wanted to leave the house. We had to get and decorate the tree ourselves, and I had to do the vast majority of the Christmas shopping. The day after Christmas she took the kids to go visit her family, which had been the plan for a while. I thought it was a little weird she didn't ask me to go, but things were still a bit strained after the big blowup during the first affair, that I didn't push it too much. One night while I was on my own, I was browsing around on Facebook, when I noticed pictures of my wife with a woman she had met from the game. I though that was really weird she wouldn't bother mentioning that she was going to be meeting someone down there. Then I also noticed that the woman had added, what was obviously a secret Facebook account of my wife's filled with only the same group from the game she was so fixated on. I called her to see what the deal was, and on one of the rare occasions she was honest with me and didn't try to deny it. She started dropping hints about neither of us being happy with the marriage, which caught me way off guard as I had been working my ass off to improve things and get us through these challenging times. Then it hit me...there's another guy. I asked her if that was the case, and she of course denied it. I tried to impress upon her that we had just been through an extremely challenging year, but that we would just keep working and could almost definitely be looking at a brighter future together. The next morning...I still had that nagging feeling that there was someone else. She had that disconnected, foggy feeling that I became so familiar with from the first affair. So I managed to guess the email account she used for Facebook, as well as her password. I was shocked to see that not only had she been video chatting with the group of friends I mentioned earlier, but the majority of the video chats were one on one with some guy. Most of them went up to 3:00 in the morning, going back to the night I had to be out of the house during her radiation. I also found a poem, clearly written for him where she was arguing with herself that she wasn't going to love him, though she would imagine them as lovers and everything else... I called her to confront her on it. She tried claiming at first that the poem was just a general poem and wasn't aimed towards anyone, until I poked holes in that story by referring to details. Then she said he was never going to see it, and that they were nothing but friends. She ended up blaming me for things that had happened in the marriage to make her unhappy, and uncertain of the future, and suggested maybe we needed a trial separation. She said I didn't have to leave the house or anything, but I asked her how I could stay there knowing she was getting involved with another man. She repeatedly, with irritation told me he was just a friend and there was nothing there, and not to make it about that. I roamed the house like a ghost that day. I was utterly broken, thinking I wouldn't be tucking my kids in again at night, that I was losing my wife. Big mistake I know, but I texted her, begging her to think about what she was doing to our family here, that this all just felt wrong. She didn't give. A day two later, they got back into town, and I had to pick her up from the airport where she had dropped off a rental car. That drive was one of the hardest I've ever made in my life. I could barely stand to look at her through the pain. We sat on the drive for a long time, not saying anything, but eventually began speaking. She told me she wasn't sure what to do, and I tried to convince her once again that I wanted to work on the marriage and that we couldn't just give up on it. I impressed upon her that she needed to help me this time though, as I had felt like the last year I was just working hard on myself, on the marriage, and she was doing little to nothing on her own to help us. She again promised me the guy was just a dumb kid. I told her even if that's the case, if she keeps talking to him like she is, it WILL lead to something. She promised me she would stop talking to him and that we wouldn't make any hasty decisions as far as the marriage. Fool that I am, I wante d to believe her, and I did. We went on that way for a couple days, agreeing that we wanted to work on things. I sat chain smoking on the porch at my parent's house during the nights, knowing in the back of my mind she was probably taking comfort in him while I sat alone, away from my kids and my wife. Finally we reached a point where we both seemed to be intent on recommiting to things. I asked her before we went ahead any further if she had been talking to him. She tried denying at first, but finally confessed she had talked to him very briefly during the day, just about silly things regarding landmarks. When we went inside, I decided to ask her to log into the account she had previously been talking to him through, and I could tell the way her composure changed immediately that she had just been lying once again. After dragging her feet, trying to hide the screen from me saying she didn't want to see her password, she eventually logged in. I saw immediately where she had been talking to him until the 3 AM just that morning...the night, before, and on and on. She tried lying and saying those were just the previous times I had already seen, but I pointed out the date stamp. Hurt, angry, I called the guy an ******* through the chat program, told her it was over, and left. All through that scene my daughter was crying, knowing something was wrong and it broke my heart. When I got back to the my parents, she texted me saying she wasn't healthy and that she was sorry for the hurt she had caused and messing up so badly. I told her she was sorry. The next day when I went back to visit the kids, I was determined not to speak to her. She eventually talked me into going outside, which I did and proceeded to tell her how awful what she doing to our family for some stupid fantasy relationship was. She forced a hug on me, which I tried to push off at first, but eventually allowed while she sobbed on my shoulder. I decided to bluff and told her I knew everything, that I had installed a keylogger on her computer and knew what she was doing with him. Again, she tried to lie, but finally I pinned her on it and she confessed that just the night before, when I left, she had performed sexually on camera for him. I felt something inside of me break when she told me that, and literally had to steady myself against the garage door as I started to feel like I was going to pass out. She cried saying she was so embarassed and ashamed of herself for having done it, and that she never was going to again. That she wanted to work on the marriage and was done with him. If you haven't noticed already, I'm a fool, and clinging to the last desparate hope of saving my dreams with this woman, saving the relationship I enjoyed with my children, I started trying to bury it immediately in my subconscious. She hugged me again, kissed me, and somehow we ended up in the bedroom... She asked me to come hang out with her and the children the next day, which I told her I didn't think was a good idea, but I ended up doing it anyway. The whole day, I felt this...pyschological and emotional agony just radiating through my core, but I wanted to pretend on some level that everything could still be ok. When we got back, she did something sneaky with her laptop that completely triggered me, and we started arguing. She started blaming me again for all the issues in the marriage, and in the face of what I was swallowing, I blew up and told her to go put on another f'ing show for some guy online if that's all she was worth. Go be a ***** if that's what you are. I left, but came back a little later after I had cooled off. She was pissed and didn't want to have much to do with me. She told me that that was the kind of thing that made her hate me in the first place. The next day I went to go pick up the kids to come stay with me at my parents. On my way there, I decided to stop and get a VAR as I had read about them on here. I thought at the time...I could use it and pray I heard nothing, and then maybe I could still hang on to some small scrap, or...if I did hear something, maybe it would be the kick in the ass I needed to let go already. On our way I out, I know I looked filled with pain and told her I didn't want our marriage to be ending this way. She acted sympathetic and assured me it wasn't. I had a great time with the kids, but obviously my mind was in turmoil. When I brought them back, she wanted to go outside and talk. I noticed she had obviously slept in in makeup, which was odd since she didn't have any on when we left. She tried denying it saying she did have eyeliner on when I had been there the day before. She told me she had been crying all day and all night, and that she wanted me to come back home. She said he's not my family. She also confessed that she had gone off her antidepressents when she had gone off her thyroid horomone a month ago, because she wanted to see if she didn't need them. I asked her how she could be making these kinds of rash moves and crazy decisions under all the conditions of the last month, including her grandmother suddenly dying. She assured me the guy hadn't been around online lately and she hadn't even spoken to him. We talked for a bit more, and she told me that I can't fix her.I told her I knew that, but I didn't feel like I could just abandon her. Still, I thought maybe she was coming out of the fog a bit and trying to be more open with me...Hah... When I drove home, I listened to the recording. I heard her going into the bedroom where I had left it, obviously intoxicated, video chatting with a few people. Eventually there was a pause and I heard...him, apparently singing to her. She laughed and joked about her presex hair. They laughed about how they had almost given themselves away earlier to their group of friends. From there...it was one of the most brutal experiences I've ever had. I felt literally like my soul had been stabbed with a spear. He asked her to take off her clothes...to which she replied, "Hahaha, (guy's name) what would you do with me with my clothes off?" "Explore." "Ok, I guess I should take off my pants, who wears pants to bed?" It basically ended up with a full demonstration of our vibrator, in my bed with her climaxing for him, saying, "God I want you to F me." I'll never forget those words as long as I live. I confronted her immediately after, asking her how she could do this, and she was cold as hell, even had half a smile. Blamed me again for the failings in the marriage. I told her to give me her laptop if she had any interest in saving the marrage. She said she doesn't work on ultimatums and couldn't make that decision so quickly. I tried reasoning with her, tried to wake her up, but she just kept plugging away at it acting like I was just an annoyance, so I left. It's been downhill from there. I decided to expose her affair to her group of friends, her mother, and discussed it with my pastor and his wife. She was infuriated, especially about me having told her mother. She told me the marriage was over, that she was still talking to the guy, and was going to keep talking to him. Things have cooled somewhat, but there we are. I told her a few days ago that I was going to be filing for divorce, and get things moving. She said, "I hope this isn't a mistake." I told her it was her choice, so I hope not too, but that it was probably for the best. I was still trying to convince myself of that at the time, but with each day I see it more and more clearly. I just still...can't believe how she just threw it all away, and in such a brutal, and cold fashion like we did. Like our marriage, our family, just meant nothing. I feel so lost...so empty. I have good days, but on some twisted level, I miss her so bad. I miss us being a whole family. I realize now I only miss what I had imagined her to be, and as my Pastor has advised me to look at it, the woman I married died. That actually helps, but there's still the grief in that lost. Sorry for being so long-winded and aimless with this post, if you read it, thanks. I see so many others on this forum going through similar things, that I just wanted to put what I'm going through for someone else out there who might be lurking and in the middle of their own marital turmoil.

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