The first 15 years of my marriage were awesome. My wife and I met in college and were very much in love. Lots of love throughout our marriage and great physical and emotional intimacy. We have two elementary-age children.
But the last 4 years have been a struggle. New jobs and relationship led to lots of conflicts over careers and priorities etc.. that slowly deteriorated our relationship until my wife had an affair with a woman starting in 4 months ago. I just discovered it. She had been going through an identity crisis for the last year due to the loss of a career and was at a low point in our marriage. She has recently broken the relationship off to attempt reconciliation, but is questioning her sexuality and if reconciliation is even possible.
She is currently living at home and is willing to seek counseling (we are going next week), but ultimately she is torn between a potential new life with her girlfriend and her loyalty to her family and husband. She is concerned that if the sexuality issues are unaddressed, once the children leave, we will split up and it will be too late to start a new life. It wasn't a fling - they had long-term plans to raise children etc...
I realize that there were many many things that I did to drive her away, and regret them immensely, and am willing to change everything and do anything to save our relationship. Ultimately, I love her more than anything and want to save out marriage. My current plan is to make extraordinary effort to show her that I can be the person that she used to love and see a counselor for advice along the way. She has agreed... at least for now. I hope that with time with the new me and counseling to help resolve our issues, her love can be rekindled and we can save our marriage and family. Faced with losing my wife, all the old issues that seemed so big at the time are suddenly insignificant. But if she truly is a lesbian (vs. it being a situational thing), there is not much I can do.
Fundamental problem #1: Wife says she is deeply questioning her sexuality (and has been for the past year) and thinks she might be a lesbian but doesn't want to risk the family breakup unless she is sure as that has devastating consequences. I think that she is/was trying to escape a deteriorating relationship and an identity crisis and was able to find a loving, supportive partner who filled all the emotional voids left by my emotional distance and my continued driving her away over many years. I believe our relationship is fixable, but am afraid it might be too late.
Fundamental problem #2: Wife is still is unsure of which relationship she wants. Without both fully committed to rebuilding the relationship, chance for reconciliation seems small. If my wife is here merely out of obligation to the marriage and family, can a reconciliation happen?
Where do we go from here? How do we rebuild our relationship? How do we recover from the affair?
But the last 4 years have been a struggle. New jobs and relationship led to lots of conflicts over careers and priorities etc.. that slowly deteriorated our relationship until my wife had an affair with a woman starting in 4 months ago. I just discovered it. She had been going through an identity crisis for the last year due to the loss of a career and was at a low point in our marriage. She has recently broken the relationship off to attempt reconciliation, but is questioning her sexuality and if reconciliation is even possible.
She is currently living at home and is willing to seek counseling (we are going next week), but ultimately she is torn between a potential new life with her girlfriend and her loyalty to her family and husband. She is concerned that if the sexuality issues are unaddressed, once the children leave, we will split up and it will be too late to start a new life. It wasn't a fling - they had long-term plans to raise children etc...
I realize that there were many many things that I did to drive her away, and regret them immensely, and am willing to change everything and do anything to save our relationship. Ultimately, I love her more than anything and want to save out marriage. My current plan is to make extraordinary effort to show her that I can be the person that she used to love and see a counselor for advice along the way. She has agreed... at least for now. I hope that with time with the new me and counseling to help resolve our issues, her love can be rekindled and we can save our marriage and family. Faced with losing my wife, all the old issues that seemed so big at the time are suddenly insignificant. But if she truly is a lesbian (vs. it being a situational thing), there is not much I can do.
Fundamental problem #1: Wife says she is deeply questioning her sexuality (and has been for the past year) and thinks she might be a lesbian but doesn't want to risk the family breakup unless she is sure as that has devastating consequences. I think that she is/was trying to escape a deteriorating relationship and an identity crisis and was able to find a loving, supportive partner who filled all the emotional voids left by my emotional distance and my continued driving her away over many years. I believe our relationship is fixable, but am afraid it might be too late.
Fundamental problem #2: Wife is still is unsure of which relationship she wants. Without both fully committed to rebuilding the relationship, chance for reconciliation seems small. If my wife is here merely out of obligation to the marriage and family, can a reconciliation happen?
Where do we go from here? How do we rebuild our relationship? How do we recover from the affair?
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