Need help with moving on
Hi all, throwaway account to keep anonymity. This will be a long post, so apologies in advance and thanks to everyone who reads it.
I'm looking for support and some advice on what to do going forward. To be clear I am not wanting to leave the marriage if there is hope of fixing it, but I am prepared to if its the only answer.
I (38m) and my wife (37f) have been married for 9 years and together 14. We have 2 kids together (9 and 6).
We had a rough start to the marriage with my parents causing issues and trying to get me to leave as they were not keen on my wife. My parents were very controlling and not particularly nice people. I excised them from my life for me, and partially for her as it was causing huge amounts of upset and anxiety. I havent spoken to them in years. I mention this as I think it had a huge effect on our marriage going forward.
We married in 2017 and things seemed to be going great until Covid hit in 2020. I was working on an ambulance at the time, it was stressful and I was out of the house a lot. Obviously she was stuck in the house during lockdown and pregnant, she was also stuck at home with 2 small children after our youngest was born.
Towards the end of the year I discovered that she had been having an emotional affair with an ex boyfriend (from years before we met), and that she had met up with him at least once when she was visiting family in our home town. I only saw a couple of messages and she confessed to having had an emotional affair and sexting, with pictures sent between them (some of the pictures were very explicit, with toys etc) but she had deleted them before I could read all the messages and make sense of what had happened. She swore blind that it was only ever over messages and that they hadn't been physical when they met up at his house. I foolishly reached out to the AP and he apologised and also said that they hadn't had sex.
We rugswept and I accepted that it was over. She was talking to him again a month later on Snapchat and I packed my bag and left. I eventually returned home after some long conversations and I believed that this was it dealt with and we could move on. Things did genuinely improve and I thought our marriage was doing great for years.
We have moved back to our hometown to be closer to her family and for work. We both have good jobs, and I was promoted. However, the stress levels have increased due to the demands of the roles and our marriage had begun to suffer. She did say that she needed me to be more focused on the family, as I was working long hours and trying to make sure I was being a success in my new role. I was getting very stressed and burnt out by it, which obviously didn't help.
I discovered that she has been having another affair at the beginning of March. I saw a single message whole she had the phone on her hand, and didnt confront her straight away. She deleted the entire chat at that point thinking I'd seen it. I was in disbelief and thought I'd seen something completely out of context. I didnt sleep all night. If I'd snooped it wouldn't have mattered, she'd already deleted it.
I confronted her the next morning and she admitted it straight away. She admitted she had been having an affair since November 25, with someone she had met at work (works in a different department). She had been messaging him and going out for walks once or twice a week with him when I was at work, and she said that she had been falling in love with him. I knew about the walks. I thought he was just a friend from work.
They apparently had oral sex once, on my sofa (he gave her oral) and some time kissing and using his hands when they went for walks. They also went for breakfast dates. She also took my children out on a day out with him and his wife and their children, after they had kissed and told each other the loved each other. She said they said it often.
She had also planned days out with all of us. She says she doesn't really know why she did this or what she hope to achieve. She also says that he wanted her tonleave me for him and that she didn't want to. I dont think it was for my sake, but because she wants the relatively comfortable life we have.
We are now several weeks post discovery, she is doing some of the work to help me heal. It took 2 weeks and a massive argument for her to block him, but she did. She has deleted everything to do with the affair before I could see it, and its not recoverable.
We have talked, lots and she seems genuinely remorseful most of the time. She has been clear, and so have I thatbthe affair was her fault. However, she isn't doing all the work I want and we aren't in a position to afford therapy, but she does answer questions if I ask. On th other side I have listened to multiple books, podcasts and videos, and read tons of resources in the last few weeks. Literally everyday im reading or listeing to something to try and get through this. She is reading some things, but won't listen/read to the books and I havent mentioned doing a couples workbook. She is also really reluctant to give me full, unsupervised access to her phone and always seems to want to talk about the relational issues we had and how we're going to fix those, instead of what concrete steps she is going to take to fix things. I've asked for a timeline as there are no messages etc, but she hasn't done one yet.
I am really struggling to believe that I have been told everything about the affair, or that I will ever really know the full extent of what happened. Im also realkybstruggling with working out of she is truly remorseful or just faking reconciliation. I do sometimes feel thatbshe just wants me to get over it, although she hasn't said that. She does want to have sex all the time and is doing things she hasn't done with me for a long time. I dont feel bad after having sex, and its always been something i need for connection. I worry by doing it that I am letting her think things are OK, when they aren't.
What do I need to do to get through this? I will be incredibly grateful to anyone who can give me some advice or support. And sorry for the rambling.