Marriage imploding but I desperately want it to survive

[Deflatedhusband]

First time on MN. A married dad (early 40s, 3DC - 11, 8, 5) who has known DW for 15 years and been married for 13.

The punchline is on Sunday evening she told me she was desperately unhappy in the marriage and wanted out. It came as a complete shock to me in some ways but in hindsight we had been having a very tough time in recent years.

Marriage has become functional, basically all about the kids, no romance. We both love each other dearly (I certainly love her and I think she still loves me) but she says there is an emotional void and she doesn't think the marriage can ever meet it. She said she had been suicidal frequently in recent months. She has suffered from
Depression but she said the suicidial thoughts were more driven by the emptiness and loneliness.

I fee awful. I feel that I have let her down massively and have been blind to her needs. I think (and she has said so) that I am a hard working, reliable husband and loving dad but I have clearly fallen well short on the emotional support for DW and I am devastated that I have let her get to such a state. She has repressed a lot in recent years and now it has spilled out.

One added complication is that it appears now that she has developed an intense online relationship with a man in another country (where she is from originally). We share the same computer and on Monday evening I logged on to check my email and her account was open. I casually looked at it as I was shutting the page and there were loads of email of a very graphic detail from a man I had never heard of before.

I was stunned and quickly scanned some of them to find pretty much pornographic language of what they wanted to do to each other and it sounded like they had been sexting etc.

My wife is a refined Cambridge postgrad and this guy appears to be a very working class tattooed chap. Someone I would have never expected her to go for. But I guess I have let her emotional tank run dry and this guy is filling it.

She also had booked a flight to go see him.

After I pulled myself together late on Monday I asked her if there was anyone else and she completely denied it. I then asked her about this guy (naming him). She was pretty unrepentant and said she had met him online and he was filling a void but she would never actually want to be with him.

Up until this point she and I have known each other's password and pins - that has now all changed. At least she has changed hers. I know they are still in contact and that is killing me, even though I brought this on myself by my failure as a husband.

I asked her if she would do marriage counselling and she said she would so hopefully we can pull back from the each. She has cancelled the flight (I think) which is something.

The thing is I really love her and I am devastated I have let her down. I want us to work and repair, even if it takes a long time. I don't know where she is at. She had always been a little dubous when it comes to the compete truth. I am not sure if the counselling is just a ploy to give her time to sort out leaving.

I really hope it isn't. We are still in the same house, things are surprisingly civil and cordial, and the kids have no idea.

I am not sure why I am here really. I have nowhere to turn I suppose. Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks for listening.

Oh sweetheart please stop making excuses for this behaviour.

She's not the woman you loved. And who was that woman anyway, one who cheated in the early bloom of your marriage?

One who'll put her children at risk of losing a mother by flying to meet a total stranger who could be as dangerous as anything?

Someone so selfish that they put their own sexual thrill above the destruction of their marriage and so hurtful that they rub it in your face?

Someone who detached themselves sexually and emotionally from their relationship by choosing to sleep in another room and then filled up the other person with guilt for giving them space?

Someone who blames depression as an excuse to behave badly?

I hope you've taken some legal advice as urged by others.

You sound like a bloody decent guy. But I feel like you're going through some kind of hysterical bonding with your wife which is understandable as the unknown can be a frightening place. But you deserve happiness and trust and security in life.

I'm sorry but I think at present you're being used. You are a security blanket for her, and it's enabling her to continue her bad behaviour knowing that you are afraid of the consequences. It will only spiral as she'll lose respect for you as a husband in letting her do this.

You've given her enough time and consideration now start planning and thinking on what you want.

Hi OP. I agree with other posters here, you need to see a lawyer regarding asset split and maintenance etc with her not working. I think you need to then just get the ball rolling with her and divorce, I think once she knows you are serious she will then make up her mind once and for all. Right now she knows she can get away with this

Firstly OP I am sorry about all this. Who knows exactly what your wife's thought processes are. I don't think you have the luxury of considering that or of trying to focus on the relationship with her (which I think is over anyway but even so). You need to get your priorities straight or you could look back on this and really that the thing that mattered most was not protected, because of trying to understand your wife or unsubstantiated or vague hopes about saving the relationship.

You can't do everything here, and you can only succeed in doing something if you focus totally on it. So do the thing that matters most to you, and it isn't your marriage or your wife.

It is clear throughout this that your children are your priority. If you put any energy into trying to save the marriage or help your wife then you could lose them, because right now all your focus needs to be on preventing that.

If I were you, they would go to Canada at half term over my dead body, so to speak. Seeing their grandmother right now is not important in comparison to the risk of never seeing their father. If your wife wanted you to be trusted with trips like this she should have behaved very differently. She goes alone or not at all. You must wake up to the gravity of the risk of losing the children, because I know that in comparison to that nothing else matters and you could live to regret not making in your total focus. Do you have their passports?