u/diligent_twerker

My wife and I have been together for 11 years and married for seven. We have two young children, and I was a stay-at-home dad (this was our plan before trying for a kid) for about six years.

My wife had an affair with a coworker that, from what I've learned, went back about a year. She told me she fell in love with him. He was also married with a small child, trying for a second.

I also discovered sexually explicit messages between her and another man (who also has a child and his wife was due to give birth this past summer) going back at least seven months. They talked explicitly about sex and meeting up on at least 10 occasions. My wife says they never actually met. I don't know whether that's true. Based on what I read and everything else I've learned, I'm having an incredibly difficult time trusting anything anymore.

I'm devastated. I'm hurt. I'm angry. I'm confused. I have a million unanswered questions.

And yet I still love her.

We had some communication problems. I interrupted her. I could become defensive. I pointed out hypocrisy. There were times when she didn't feel heard by me. Looking back, there are things I genuinely wish I had done differently, and I'm working on those things in individual therapy. Shes painting a picture at this point that this was a daily occurrence when in reality we could go months between an argument (not sure if I'd even call them that). These would usually immediately get resolved and intimacy would return to normal usually the next day. She now says the frequency decreased because she would "cater situations to me."

But I loved this woman. I supported her career. I spent six years raising our children as a stay-at-home dad. I took care of our home and our kids. I loved being her husband and being a father with her.

We also weren't living like two completely disconnected roommates. We had regular intimacy through June of this year. I knew our marriage had communication issues at times but I didn't believe it was about to disappear or anything remotely close to that.

Now my wife describes me as having been emotionally abusive.

That's incredibly painful to hear. I'm trying to take seriously that she experienced parts of our marriage differently than I did. At the same time, I don't recognize myself in the picture of our marriage I'm hearing now. I'm not in any way, shape, or form an iota of an abuser. I'm loving, thoughtful, and supportive.

I can acknowledge interrupting her, being defensive, communicating poorly, and yes sometimes using swear words or making an asshole comment, without pretending those things erase everything else our marriage was. I know this because everyday through June of this year she told me she loved me. She told me she appreciated me. We had an incredible sex life. We curled up on the couch every evening after the kids were down, held hands, gave massages, watched our TV shows...

And I struggle with the timing. I don't know how much represents pain and resentment she carried for "years", how much I genuinely failed to understand about her experience, or whether any of it has become intertwined with how she makes sense of the affair and leaving our marriage.

I genuinely don't know.

After I discovered the affair, we actually seemed to reconnect for a while. We became intimate again. We read together at night. We went to couples therapy. She told our therapist that opening up to me felt bonding and good. She said she felt somewhat hopeful and excited about where this could go and that there were moments when she felt close to me.

For a brief period, I thought maybe we had a chance.

Then everything changed. She said she was done. She wanted emotional and physical space. Couples therapy ended. Eventually she told me not to text her unless it was about our children.

She's filing for divorce and I can't even talk to her about our marriage, our life. It's just abruptly done.

Now I live in the same house as the woman I've loved for 11 years and she barely wants to speak to me.

And it fucking hurts.

Logically, I know what people are probably going to tell me: let her go. Stop chasing someone who doesn't want to be with you. Accept that the marriage is over. Protect yourself and concentrate on your children.

I understand that intellectually.

Emotionally, I can't seem to get there.

This isn't someone I dated for six months. She's the person I built my adult life around. She's the mother of my children. There are 11 years of memories everywhere I look—our wedding, vacations, bringing our children home, birthdays, holidays, and literally thousands of ordinary days together.

And somehow I'm supposed to process that while I thought I was living that life, the woman I loved was falling in love with somebody else.

I'm hurt beyond anything I've experienced before.

I'm hurt by the affair. I'm hurt by the other messages. I'm hurt that I don't know what was true and what wasn't. I'm hurt that she apparently carried so much resentment toward me without me understanding how deep it had become.

And despite everything, part of me still wants my wife back.

My brain tells me I have to let her go while another part of me keeps screaming: this is my wife, this is my family, I have to save it.

Then there are our children. I've been home raising them for years. The thought of going from seeing them every morning and every night to having days when they're somewhere else absolutely destroys me.

I don't want my kids growing up between two houses. I don't want any of this.

But I also know I can't force somebody to love me or stay married to me.

I'm not looking for people to tell me my wife is evil. I understand now that she was deceitful, selfish, manipulative, and an incredible liar who didn't give a shit about her family or her affair partner(s) families. She's a complicated human being who I still love despite being incredibly hurt by what she did.

And I'm not pretending I was a perfect husband. I wasn't.

I wish she was honest with me. I wish she thought about her actions and what it would do to our family, our kids, her affair partners family and his kids. I'll never understand.