u/Sweet-Novel-598

I (31F) have been with my husband(31M) for 11 years and a month ago 6 days before our wedding anniversary, he told me he emotionally cheated on me with a woman from work, and he was in "deep like" with her but he was willing to work on us and go to therapy, and he cut ties already. So I was ready and willing to go to therapy for myself to better myself( I am still in independant therapy and so is he) and he and I agreed to marriage counseling. We set boundaries in place which he continuously broke to talk to her and go see her(his best friend told me this and he confirmed), even after she was fired from their job. All the while telling me he loved me and as he put it "wearing a mask at home" until he figured out his next steps and met with a divorce attorney. His best friend is the one who sent me screenshots and stuff and told me the truth about how far his affair went. After that, Him and I went to our first marriage counseling session and immediately after he hopped in his work van and went to go to work at least thats what I thought. He actually went to go see her(again his best friend told me). And came home and immediately said we needed a divorce and that he didnt love me anymore. He and I still live together while we get our house ready to sell and its really hard to be around him. We have a one year old daughter so I am being strong for her and I never say anything untoward about her dad in front of her but I know she feels my heartache. A mother can tell.

I guess my question is, how do I start to heal while I am still living with him, and how do I stop myself from doing all the wife things ive done for 11 years. I don't know how to not care about him or to not love him. I want him to be happy but the thought of this woman being in my life and our daughters life absolutely wrecks and terrifies me as she is in a cult and has a rough background. I don't know how to be okay with the fact that the man I love already moved on from our marriage and our relationship and is basically throwing me and what we had away. Granted we BOTH have made mistakes and we both were not happy and I was struggling with PPA/PPD at the time of the affair and he was struggling with depression. I guess I was the only one willing to put in the work to try and fix our marriage which also hurts.

I just hope I gain the strength to move on and grow and come out better on the other side of this. I know I have a lot to work on within myself before I even think about dating so I am trying to focus on healing and our precious girl.

Thank you in advanced for all your words of encouragement and advice!

​I still love you more than words can carry. When you looked at me and told me you don’t love me anymore, it felt like the ground beneath my feet simply vanished and shattered my whole existence. There is no pain quite like watching the person you swore your life to pull away, yet even in the middle of this devastation, my love for you hasn't wavered an inch. I would walk through hell a million times over if it meant saving you, saving us, and taking away the heavy weight you’ve been carrying.

​If walking away from this marriage is what you need right now...so you can search for the peace and happiness you believe is out there without our family...I will step back and let you go. But I know your heart, and I know your soul. I know that once you finally face and heal from the shadows of your past, once you have the space to grow and learn how to be better for yourself, the fog will clear. When that day comes, I know you will find your way back to me, and we will finally pick up the pen and rewrite our love story the way it was always meant to be.

​Until then, I am holding onto the truth of who we are.

​Always,

Wifey