Betrayed and fooled for a long time.
Hello, I'm sorry but this have to be a pretty long post to explain my situation.
I am a man at 51 years old. I Found out 1,5 years ago that my wife have had an affair. I am trying to get our marriage to work now but it is very hard.
Back story, we had been together for 10 years and marriage for only 8 months when she started the physical affair, I am sure the emotional affair had been going on for longer. She had the physical affair for about 1,5 years. But then she didn't tell me about it and kept it a secret for 17 years until I found out 1,5 years ago.
I feel as if she has stolen 19 years of my life, we have a son who is 17 years old now. I have been going to a therapist for my anxiety and problems efter finding out. I couldn't sleep or eat, lost 15kg, that is better now. We went and talked to a marriage counselor, but it didn't work because she was focusing on marriage communication and almost nothing on the affair.
We are now talking to emotional therapist that is specialised in infidelity and recovery.
I'm still having bad nightmares, triggers and memory flashbacks. My wife is trying to help me, but I think she has her own childhood trauma that makes it hard for her.
We are at so different places I have more or less just found out, and she has had 17 years of time to try not to think about it.
I am a mess, but my morale makes me go on and keep everything going. My son doesn't know and none of our family or friends knows about this. I have none to talk to.
Please help me make sense of this and how am I to handle the horrible scenes and memories that plays in my mind?
Thanks