What to do...

I have been married 10 years. We have 3 children.

I recently found out my wife had a physical relationship with someone for 2 years, starting from about 2015. She continued that relationship in an emotional capacity afterwards online (we moved abroad at this point).

She said it was my fault when I confronted her about it, but I told her that she decided to have the affair, not me. Since then, she has changed her stance a little and accepted the blame for having an affair, but still said overall it was my fault. I said I am leaving, but she said she made a mistake and has deleted her Facebook account. I don't think I can see her in the same way ever again.

We live in a country where I don't speak the language. I can't find any work in my field, so I have been trying to do work in my field in a self employed capacity, but my work requires a lot of time before I make any income from it. My wife is not qualified, and she works basically every day in a medial job to make ends meet, though she does enjoy it (apparently). Of course I feel bad with the situation, but before we moved here, I had my own company, and after that I was won a scholarship to do a PhD. I was not able to complete it, and part of the blame I place on my wife, because she had been treating me like a housemate, rather than a husband (probably because she was having an affair, but perhaps also because I was not spending much time with the family).

Let me get this out of the way - she has been very controlling in the past. Before we married (and I regret my decision here, but I do not regret my children at all), we had an argument about something (probably trivial), and I said "I'm going to my parent's house", and I began getting a change of clothes to leave. She then took a sharp blade and cut her wrist open in front of me. I was shocked, and very upset. I ended up taking her to the hospital, but I stayed with her even after this, and we married (I was very lonely at the time, and I did love the time we had shared, other than that incidence).

So after I found out she had the affair, I told her I am leaving. I can go back to my own country and find work; if my kids decide to stay here with their mother, all of my savings can be put in trust for my kids, or I can buy things directly for them (nothing to my so-called wife, and I feel she is just a little too psycho so I don't really want them living with her). She has said she is sorry, although she blames me for being distant with her. She apparently doesn't want me to leave, but I feel like I can't trust her. She hates all of my family for no reason too.

I love my kids, I don't want to leave them - I also don't want to deprive them from their mother. Should I leave, or should I try to just stick together until they are old enough to start their own families? I'm totally fu*cking lost. I am drinking a lot every evening. If I stay in a situation that does not change to something more positive, I probably wont be around next year.

I feel like perhaps I could stay here, but I would not be able to share any kind of positive relationship with my wife. I would just try to complete my self employed work, wait until my kids had all reached an age where they didn't need to live with their parents, and leave.

What should I do?

Am I the one at fault here? I have been more and more distant with my wife, but I did it because I felt she was becoming more and more distant with me. Even when we have had any kind of physical interaction, it feels like she is not interested at all anymore (this is going back 5 years now).

Am I the one creating the problems? I just cannot see through the depression any longer.

Who is supporting all you you at this time? It may be best to divorce and go back to your country.

How would you support your children if the affair didn't happen?

Please stop the drinking. You are not being good for your children while drunk. You are setting a poor example.

First of all - Definitely NOT your fault that she had the affair. If she felt distance from you, there are 1001 other ways to deal with that before affair ever gets on that list.

Might be a good idea to take a break for the moment from the marriage. Don't jump straight into divorce because if she is emotionally unstable that just might throw her over the top.

Instead - Go for a 6 month separation where you can go back to your country and try to reestablish yourself in your line of work. Get your feet under you, build a foundation. Then go back, get the kids, and file for divorce

You're both at fault.

You both allowed your marriage to become more and more distant by not making efforts to stay close and then blaming each other.

You both went about it the wrong way when it came to arguments. Her idea of expressing her upset was to show you physically, your idea was to walk out.

Both of it was very destructive and very harmful.

Don't get me wrong, leaving the scene for a while to cool off is healthy, but packing and walking out is punishing. Her hurting herself to express her upset and to make you stay, was beyond destructive. She needed mental health help and was practically screaming for it.Did she ever get any kind of proper counselling?

The cheating is not your fault though. As bad as the issues were in your marriage, cheating is never okay. She should came to you and told you how bad she felt and what thoughts she had, BEFORE doing anything about it. At least give you both a chance to fix your marriage and to get marriage counselling together.

But this is no longer about her or about you...this is about your children. They now have a broken family and need BOTH their Mum and Dad more than ever.

I know you are hurting and you need help, but please consider that you have children who still need you and who are hurting too. They need your support and love and guidance, and they need that from their Dad every bit as much as from their Mum.

Don't ever downgrade how much you mean to those children or how much they need you.

So for their sake, please get yourself help. Go to a mental health center and get a counsellor or therapist or psychiatrist, even talk to a social worker if nothing else. But reach out and ask for help in any kind of form.

You can get through this. You can heal, but give yourself a chance at least.

The ending of a marriage can be very painful, but it IS survivable. Many of us on this site have survived it. So if you ever need to talk or vent...write on here. There are always people willing to talk to you and help if they can.

She has said she is sorry, although she blames me for being distant with her. She apparently doesn't want me to leave, but I feel like I can't trust her.

Please stop blaming one another. It's not going to help. You both made mistakes that brought you to where you are. If she doesn't want to leave, then try to both calm down.

Give yourself a separation period. A few weeks or months. Whatever works best.

If you are both willing to keep trying, commit to going to marriage counselling. Not with the intention of finding out whos right and who was wrong, but with admitting you both made mistakes and finding ways to heal together.

And yes, STOP the drinking, it's not helping anything. It's making things much worse.

There is a way through this, but you both need help with it. Marriage and personal counselling and finding ways to heal.

This is doable if you both want it.

my wife had a physical relationship with someone for 2 years, starting from about 2015. She continued that relationship in an emotional capacity afterwards online (we moved abroad at this point).

She said it was my fault when I confronted her about it, but I told her that she decided to have the affair, not me.

- No no.. Anyone who chooses to mess around, they do on their own account. Was her choice.

I guess you kinda regret all of this now, huh? :/

Yes, she is controlling and messed up.. not good..

Any concern is for the children at this point.. Not sure thei ages- but I assume young. *sigh* :/.

Bad position at this time.. Too bad you couldnt fight to have them in YOUR custody and be able to prove

she is messed up?

I do see your point with just moving back to your own country.. sounds like you're nothing but miserable.

The first thing cheaters do is lie, lie some more and then when that doesn't work they blame the victim of their cheating. It happens all the time and strangely enough most cheaters use the same tactics like they get it out of some playbook. Basically she is extremely selfish and cold hearted. She cheats on you and then blames you for her actions? Nice...

She is only telling you what she thinks will get her out of the mess she caused but she cannot even bring herself to accept responsibility for her cheating.

This all sounds pretty bad and I don't see it ever getting any better with her attitude and selfishness. She will eventually cheat again and is probably still in contact with the other guy secretly.

Why don't you offer to take the children and go back to your home country for a while and she can work out what she wants. She may make the choice easy for you.

No matter what you do the marriage is not salvageable in my opinion and I usually try and get people to at least try and work things out!

You need to get away from her but you also need to protect your parental rights.

Lost

I have been married 10 years. We have 3 children.

 

I recently found out my wife had a physical relationship with someone for 2 years, starting from about 2015. She continued that relationship in an emotional capacity afterwards online (we moved abroad at this point).

 

She said it was my fault when I confronted her about it, but I told her that she decided to have the affair, not me. Since then, she has changed her stance a little and accepted the blame for having an affair, but still said overall it was my fault. I said I am leaving, but she said she made a mistake and has deleted her Facebook account. I don't think I can see her in the same way ever again.

 

We live in a country where I don't speak the language. I can't find any work in my field, so I have been trying to do work in my field in a self employed capacity, but my work requires a lot of time before I make any income from it. My wife is not qualified, and she works basically every day in a medial job to make ends meet, though she does enjoy it (apparently). Of course I feel bad with the situation, but before we moved here, I had my own company, and after that I was won a scholarship to do a PhD. I was not able to complete it, and part of the blame I place on my wife, because she had been treating me like a housemate, rather than a husband (probably because she was having an affair, but perhaps also because I was not spending much time with the family).

 

Let me get this out of the way - she has been very controlling in the past. Before we married (and I regret my decision here, but I do not regret my children at all), we had an argument about something (probably trivial), and I said "I'm going to my parent's house", and I began getting a change of clothes to leave. She then took a sharp blade and cut her wrist open in front of me. I was shocked, and very upset. I ended up taking her to the hospital, but I stayed with her even after this, and we married (I was very lonely at the time, and I did love the time we had shared, other than that incidence).

 

So after I found out she had the affair, I told her I am leaving. I can go back to my own country and find work; if my kids decide to stay here with their mother, all of my savings can be put in trust for my kids, or I can buy things directly for them (nothing to my so-called wife, and I feel she is just a little too psycho so I don't really want them living with her). She has said she is sorry, although she blames me for being distant with her. She apparently doesn't want me to leave, but I feel like I can't trust her. She hates all of my family for no reason too.

 

I love my kids, I don't want to leave them - I also don't want to deprive them from their mother. Should I leave, or should I try to just stick together until they are old enough to start their own families? I'm totally fu*cking lost. I am drinking a lot every evening. If I stay in a situation that does not change to something more positive, I probably wont be around next year.

 

I feel like perhaps I could stay here, but I would not be able to share any kind of positive relationship with my wife. I would just try to complete my self employed work, wait until my kids had all reached an age where they didn't need to live with their parents, and leave.

 

What should I do?

 

Am I the one at fault here? I have been more and more distant with my wife, but I did it because I felt she was becoming more and more distant with me. Even when we have had any kind of physical interaction, it feels like she is not interested at all anymore (this is going back 5 years now).

 

Am I the one creating the problems? I just cannot see through the depression any longer.

Hey Toast,

I feel for you, I am tempted to write a similar post.

I found out my wife of 8 years, 2 children cheated on me about 1 and a half years ago, she was “working away” but turned out she was having an affair for about 2 months, denied it at first but fessed up eventually. Heart breaking reading the texts. I done some digging and found she had been messing around about a year beforehand as well.

We tried to work things out, told myself it was my fault for being a partner. Only just this week we had an argument and as usual she threatens to leave, I said fine, had enough. I felt a duty to try and keep it together for the kids, but it’s not possible, I will go crazy. I dug some more and found she’s been unfaithful basically our entire relationship on and off, even the honeymoon period when I thought things were awesome. Emails to an ex about a year into our relationship to meet up, tinder and kik when our first was about 2. Then the affair over the last 2-3 years. Then noticed she downloaded a private messaging app late last year (assumedly upto no good). It’s devastating. I wanted nothing more than to raise our kids as a family, but I really can’t stay with her after all of this.

I hope you get on ok, you’re not alone though. You could try forgive the affair and blame yourself, went ok for me for a while, but we were back to our old ways before long.

Salty