what lies are beneath.

Here is a brief history on my situation. Been married for 24 yrs. and have 2 children ages 6 and 13. Got married at 20 yrs old and my wife was 18 yrs old. At 7 yrs of marriage I decided that my wife and I needed a separation. But we first tried going to a marriage councellor and my wife did not agree with the councellor's assesement. I felt that she needed to mature and the counsellor agreed. Today i don't agree with his assessment! Our/my problems were deeper than that. At that point I kicked her out of the apartment. Not proud of it now and realize that I was very unkind. During our separation I had several affairs, yes another regret! You will find that at this point I have many regrets. We both decided to give it another chance. So my wife wanted for me to come clean and let her know up front if I had any affairs. At this point I did not want to loose her so I lied to her and told her no. I thought for sure that if I had told her the truth it sure would end our relationship. A year passed by and I gave her an STD. So she confronted me about it and I told her that there was this one affair that I had. My wife forgave me. Again I lied to her for the same reasoning. Well this lie has really impacted our relationship through out the years. I'm sure you can imagine. Our first child was born. My wife named my son after me! What an honor! For such a disappointing man! keep reading. I started to close up on my wife and got defensive when ever I felt that she was probing me. I know that my wife started to push away by this point. We would get by day to day and every once in a while we would argue about needless things. Usually because I would disrespect her some how. 6 years later we had a little girl. What a lovely family. People would think. In order for me to be able to handle all the built up lies I picked up several habits I turned to pornography and video games. My habit of video games became an addiction it was my escape. I forgot to mention that when my son was 4 yrs old I went out with a friend of mine to a club and had some drinks and my wife found out about it and I tried to lie to her about it. Do you see the trend. My wife again let this one go. What a fool I am why can I not see what was going on! Blinded by my past! last year in 2012 our 25 high school reunion was coming up. So i thought it would be a great idea to catch up with old friends. So I got a facebook account. I let my wife know about it, she was surprise to hear that from me usually I don't care to catch up with old friends I only have a few choice friends from high school. Well i sure got a lot a friend request from female friends in my mind set i said sure there is nothing wrong with that. Again what a fool I am. I caught up with a friend back from elementary and pretty much gave here a time line of where we were and mentioned in there that my wife and I had had ups and downs and that our children were our saving grace! not much more was exchanged with that friendship. Another friend of mine, female got a hold of me and said that she lived in the DFW area like we do. she wrote me a letter that indicated that she remembers when she had a taste of me in high school. All we did was kiss. And that she would like to meet up and catch up before the reunion. with no thought to my wife's feelings I accepted her lunch invite and we had lunch and talked that was it. during all this time my wife and I were getting along OK but we would still have spats here and there. On March of 2012 we had a bday party for my 6 yr. old at my moms house. My wife had asked to me do something and somehow her tone really aggravated me. I made a big mistake and got in her face in front of my family and hers! What an *******!!! I know it! Well my wife had just about enough so she knew something was up. So she started to go through my emails and text messages etc. At the time I had a nudging feeling that she was and I thought to myself you should erase the emails from the two friends of yours. No, I did not and she found them. She questioned me about it and she gave me the ultimatum to come clean or it was over. So I came clean and confessed my 8 affairs during our separation and the pornography viewing. I let it all out! I no longer felt the heavy shield around my heart! Perhaps too late. It was time she had enough! I don't blame her she has done all she could and I had not due to my lies. She asked that we go see a counsellor and this was hard on her due to the last experience, she is a very private person! She told me that this was my probation period. I still could not talk to her about the lunch date or the letter to my elementary friend because it seemed like we would argue rather than talk about it. I thought that counselling sessions were going OK untill I felt I was getting attacked by the counsellor on our fifth session so I pretty much got into an argument with the counsellor. Today I feel different about it and the counsellor was right she basically told me that my video game addiction was hindering father hood and man duties! I started reading books. I had not picked up a book to read since college unless it was work related. I've read so many books and started to realize that all along I was the problem due to my lies. I had completely shut down. I started to see things different and I started to feel different about my wife and children I started to truly love and open up. At the beginning of the new year my wife told me that she was seeing a counsellor so that she could get things strait in her head. I agreed it was a great Idea. But I begged her for us to see a counsellor together and she refused. She had been seeing a counsellor for 2 sessions and she pretty much tells me that it was over and that we were getting a divorce. She wants her independence. Was I surprised a little, because it seemed like a switch had been flipped. She is on her 5 session today and the mind set has not changed she still wants a divorce and we are making plans for that. I don't want one! I know where I screwed up and how much growth I need and am willing to do. Well by chance one day I was doing laundry and found a "rough draft" that my wife had written to some another man. She apologies for not doing this in person but that she needed to end things because she did not know where she stood with this man. That it had been a guessing game. That she is getting mixed signals from him. That she does not have the heart to play games. She never had intentions of doing things but there are no regrets. She is a stronger person than she was before she met him. She felt that he tore down her walls and that he would always have a place in her heart etc... Well yeah it hurt when I saw this. So i asked her about it and she played it off like nothing and that it was my fault that this happened. Perhaps it is. Well come to find out that all this was taking place while we were in our sessions together. So I approached her about it and tried to explain to her that where she is now is because of what I have done but also because of the what had happened with this other man. She tells me that it was all emails, text and phone calls. That we were in counselling because of what I did. I never had a chance with that situation, I feel. I believe her and I forgive her whole heartily! I know I've wronged her many times but I laid it all out to her and came clean and yet she didn't and now we are in the middle of a divorce she wants her independence. Art

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