How do I forgive her

[Totallyconfused3]

My wife and I had an argument July 4th and she decided she didn't want to be around me. She didn't go with me and the kids to watch fireworks. She says she went to her parents apartment who were out of town to drink. She ingored me and didn't return home until 3:30am. I feel like she was with another man. She has admitted to meeting a man at the apartment playground for our daughter and his daughters to play and after reviewing phone records for the last 3 months I see they have texted each other over 300 times and she has called him about 12 times speaking no longer than 8 minutes. She says there was no affair. I am 98% sure there was. How can I forgive her?

Yes, I am but surprised by some of the responses, but it's worth it if I read something that can help me understand what I feeling and make sense of how to deal with it.

Bit

I am definitely not trying to make this your fault, but in order to make things better you need to start from the basis of truth. If you are finding it hard to offer her love and affection then this needs to be considered.
She has two very sick children and if she feels unsupported she may be desperate for some consolation.
Yes she could to the church/support group/counselllor but most people from find support in every day life.
I don’t think we can leap from texts to an affair personally.
She doesn’t sound like someone who wants to leave given what you have said. Hold her in your arms, love her and see where that takes you.

To - go

You have both been under so much strain. Dealing with such trauma with your children is so hard. Offer comfort to one another, remind her your family is everything and ask her to stop contacting him. Some honesty and intimacy could bring you back together

I think you need to dis - invest in her and the situation. Focus on the children and yourself.

I really don't think it matters anymore if she's banging another dude, while pissed out of her brain.

Her emotional treatment of you, ( And we can only go on the information you give, whilst having no idea how you treat her ), is pretty shitty......

And surely it must be having an effect on the kids. At the point, the truth is irrelevant, to a large extent.

Focus on yourself and the kids.

I've been where your DW is and tbh I could imagine my DH writing a similar post to you a couple of years ago. We've been married for 15 years and there have been a lot of tough things to deal with, so basically we stopped communicating.

We have 2 adopted DDs, 9 and 6 now, and DD1 has very serious anger issues and can turn violent. I've been dealing with horrible memories of the childhood SA that DSis and I went through. We both had young DC and that was the trigger for the memories to come flooding back. We've both been diagnosed as suffering from PTSD and I'm on Sertraline, probably for life.

Like your DW, I've had problems with alcohol, in my case white wine. A couple of years ago it spiralled out of control. I did things that were entirely out of character for a few months, which I won't go into now; I was probably having a kind of breakdown, looking back. It wasn't that I'd stopped loving my DH, I just had nothing left to give. I was able to care for the DDs, we both were, but other than that, I was in a really dark place.

In the end, I was able to pull out of this myself. But I couldn't move on if I didn't confess every to my DH, accepting that he would have every right to give up on me. But he forgave me, knowing what it was really all about and we were able to rebuild our marriage. Things are so much better now.

I think your DW might be in a similar place. I agree with the PP who said that loving her might save this relationship, you've been through so much together after all.

But it's absolutely your decision. What you shouldn't do is just go on like this, being suspicious. You need to have a totally honest conversation with her, preferably with a therapist there (we did), and then you can decide whether whatever it is she's done (and obviously you don't know what she's done) is something you're willing to live with.

If you go on like this, it will be very damaging to your DC, and your relationship will completely break down eventually.

The relationship can be saved, but only if you both want it to. That's why you need a completely honest conversation.