I recently found out that my wife of 20+ years has been having an affair with someone she met through work. This has been going on for 4 years.
Our relationship had been very difficult for a long time as we have two children, one who is disabled and the stress caused rifts and tension between us.
In the 4 years that she had this affair I had just started a full time job that took up additional time out of work hours and caused me to overwork. We then moved house to rent somewhere closer to a more suitable high school for our son. This caused me a lot of stress as I had to get our own home ready for the rental market and move into the new one.
I was then seriously bullied at work and suffered work related stress and had a breakdown. My wife refused to rent our house out as she didn't want the hassle of dealing with tenants and was extremely picky....and this caused further stress as I was paying for almost all of the bills in both houses. (I was earning £2k a month and paying £1600 on bills, rent, mortgage!!)
I then developed a gambling habit to deal with the stress and financial strain - which then put me into huge debts. My mum was then diagnosed with cancer, I started to take drugs occasionally to deal with the stress of all of this. I went back to work and within a few months my mother passed away from her illness.
In the last 12 months I would say that I was a victim of emotional abuse as my wife would only communicate with me to be negative, would shut me out and generally find reasons to stay late at work and stay with her friends more often at the weekend. I had no support, no gratitude for the huge financial burden I had to take on with two houses...or support emotionally while trying to cope with a breakdown and the death of my mother.
Everytime I tried to speak with her I would be shut down or be picked on. It all came to a head a few months ago when I confronted her with the evidence I had found about her affair.
She claims that it was an emotional affair with someone she worked with that then became sexual. She claimed that for her it was more emotional and their time together would be spent with her crying or being hugged and very little sex. Her AP suffered from depression and had a low libido due to his medication. He wanted her to leave me and our children as he wanted a girlfriend and she acquiesced in his plans as it was the only escape she had from the stress and unhappiness of our relationship.
When this was all in the open I admitted that I had been unfaithful 5 years earlier, that I had an on/off very sexual affair and had also slept with a few other women that I met for sex. That it was a time of my life that I felt completely emotionally and sexually neglected and that I made a decision to make my relationship work and wanted to focus on my family and so stopped it.
Unfortunately when I did try to make things work it was clearly too late as she was neglected already and found attention elsewhere.
I was completely celibate for the past 3 years while my partner showed no interest in me and claimed she was depressed, while she carried on her affair.
We have both been completely honest with each other when all of this was opened up a few months ago and we've been trying to work through it.
We've been the closest we've been for years, had a lot of intimacy and connection, communication and fun, but the scars for both of us run deep.
I cheated years ago and was more focused on sex but then amended my ways, she cheated emotionally and sexually (to an extent) for a long period of time. The damage caused will take us both a long time to get over and move on from if we can.
Any suggestions to help repair trust would be most welcome!