I am lost...

You need to step back and start on lesson 101 of affairs.

You say you love your wife to death - change that attitude as it places you in your own fog . I am not saying you must not love your wife I am saying you have to switch to tough love .An assumption you must make and accept is your marriage is dead , this will help you take the steps to help recover your marriage.

Secure the love letters so your wife cannot find them.
Assume your wife is in contact with the OM, you wont be the first BS who thinks they have not gone underground.
Once done expose her affair to her parents, if you have the courage , do so with her present and state your love her and are fighting for your marriage.
Expose the affair to the Om's wife , adult children, co-workers. By doing this you are making sure he knows the affair or any future prospect of contact with your wife is going to be unpleasant .

Have her hand write a no contact letter to OM
She writes a timeline of the affair
Give her a secure shoulder to lean on , remain calm and listen to what she says

Do not take any blame for the affair or let her imply its your fault

We all have areas that require change , identify yours and work on them.

Read the book , "his needs,her need" by Harley , the book gives guidance on affairs and identifying the needs of a husband and wife.

I will post a link to the newbie link, read it as there is a wealth of accumulated knowledge therein
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MrFish said:

Yes she has mentioned she is depressed. For what I am not sure... either. I know I am depressed which is a reason I am going to this site. I need to find a way to help myself before I burst.

Her actions do not show that she is still talking to him, she does not text or email him. To be honest I need to get more control of her assets she uses to communicate with others.

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I have to re-iterate : the majority of affairs go underground , waywards become specialists in deception . If the affair is dead or the OM has stopped or slowed contact that may explain your wifes depression. Breaking out of an affair is like a heroin addict going through a withdrawal, her fix is the love letters and any other reminders, or contact she may have even if it is a hello to the OM.

Go to a doctor to get help for yourself, until your wife has done all the suggested items and evidenced her total break from the OM any individual counselling or MC is a waste of time.

Your wife needs to see the dark cold reality of the affair and accept it is not what she wants or desires. Only when she does that will she see you through a clear lens and know what she has to lose.

You cannot force her to change , you can however drag yourself out of the state you are in and show the way forward. Giving her advice is a waste of time, she needs to be out of the fog before she sees sense.
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Thanks Eli-Zor, well at this point pretty much everyone knows. This OM previous fiance, his son and my wife's sister and friends.

I will definitely take your advise in hiding the letters, and having her write a timeline.

The blame game... oh is the tough part she always blames everyone else but her. She did say her actions were wrong and that she cheated, yet she mentions she was manipulated and taken advantage of.

I honestly think there is a big lack of respect from her. I have tried to help and tell her things yet she will not listen. She acts as if she is the "Adult" and I am a child at times. Just because she may have a better understanding of words, or thinks she is smarter than me.

I do agree she has better skills in certain areas, but never gives anyone a means to demean anyone else... just annoying.

MrFish said:

Ok bare with me, I have a TON of things to say, its a little complicated.

My wife had a EA and eventually a PA with a Older man whom she used to work with. At the time she told me, of what was going on, I was away for several weeks.

Well we had some bad times, for several months after that time, once I returned home. I have read several books about marriage and have spoken to a counselor.

She is no longer talking or communicating in any way with the OM. She never really apologized directly about what she has done, but has mentioned that what she has done was wrong.
Our communication is not to the point of where I would like it. She still avoids certain conversations and pretty much went back to the way it was before this EA and PA.

I acknowledged that we have some issues and I am more than willing to try to fix our issues, but she still seems to not want to put the effort.

OK... I thought she threw away the love notes from the OM. I found them hidden in the other room.... bad sign right?

Currently I do pretty much everything, I take care of the house, our son when I am home, and cook when I am home. I even give her massages, yet she will not be intimate to me, we do not have sex. Yet I try quite often and she knows it bothers me.

What are the reasons I stay... to be honest, I love her to death, and my son. I will try my best before I have give up my family. She has been dreadfully honest to me, telling me details I do not want to hear, but is good she tells me. Which is a big reason I am still committed to this relationship. I do not mind doing the things I do, taking care of the house and son, etc. All I want or need is the passion, intimacy, sex, and of course communication from my wife. I would like to feel wanted from her and I would like to know how she feels.

She is giving me nothing, but very rare kisses, and what she calls "cuddling" when we go to bed...

Any suggestions will be appreciated, a women's view would be definitely helpful. Thanks.

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It's not really all that complicated. Your wife is staying with you because other man is not an option for her. Either she needs you financially or other man will not commit to her or she is staying for the sake of your son or she does not want the stigma of an affair and divorce. Whatever the reason - she "loves you but is not in love with you," you are the father of her child, you are a really nice guy, but she is "in love" with the other man, and has saved his love notes as a way to re-live all of the romantic times and great sex they had. She thinks of him as her soulmate. She thinks of you as her roommate. She is being faithful to him until the day they can meet again. She had sex with him, why not with you?

Why has she not left you for him? I would bet that there either are financial reasons or other man won't have her, or maybe both. Do you know why she didn't just leave to live with him?

Your wife is very complacent. She must be wondering why you tolerate this type of marriage. A rare kiss and a "cuddle"? Sounds like how people treat their pets. Yet you will not under any circumstance let your wife know that this is so intolerable that you would consider leaving her over it. What would happen if you told your wife that if things didn't improve in the sex, passion, and communication departments (what other areas of the marriage are there?), you would divorce her? Do you take solace in the fact that you don't argue with your wife? Maybe you need to argue more.

I know that you love your son and want to keep the family intact for his sake. If your wife knows that you will do this at the cost of sex and marriage, apparently she will just stay in this sexless, passionless, uncommunicative marriage also. Again, why? She can't be happy without sex, passion, and communication either. Why does she stay and not work to improve this?

How do you know that your wife doesn't communicate with the other man any longer? Really, that sounds impossible to KNOW for a FACT unless you have your wife wired up for sound 24/7. How do you know that she no longer sees him? Again, it seems like something that is just about impossible to KNOW for a FACT unless you can monitor her 24/7. If he lives within driving distance, he could come and stay at a local hotel; even if he lives far, he could fly in for a weekend. Because her willingness to stay with you sexless, passionless, and uncommunicative and not work on fixing things would make more sense if she still was getting those things elsewhere.

You have to be willing to lose your marriage in order to save it. You have to tell your wife what you expect out of your marriage - sex, passion, communication - and if she doesn't want to give it to you and won't even work on it - then you don't consider this any type of marriage worth being in and you will move on without her.

Here is advice I posted for someone else. It fits your situation, too. It is just about the same as what Eli-Zor posted.

The first thing you have to do is to find out what is really going on.

I have very bad news for you: Your wife probably still is having an affair. Maybe with the same other man, maybe with a different one. Whoever it is that your wife is having the affair with, the affair is not over. Look for a prepaid phone. She wouldn't still be acting this way if she wasn't in contact. I have a very strong suspicion. At the very least, other man still is in her head. He may be contacting her.

Buy a few voice-activated recorders and some heavy-duty velcro. Put one under the seat of her car and in the house in places where she is likely to talk on the phone when you are not around or if she wants privacy. Keylog the computer if you can. Give it a week. I'm betting you will find out what's going on with your wife.

After the voice-activated recorders are in place, have a talk with your wife. Tell her that you love her and want to save the marriage. Tell her you are willing to work hard on improving yourself and improving your marriage.

Get your wife alone, no kids, no interruptions. Tell her that if she wants to save the marriage, she has 15 minutes to agree to meet your conditions or else you will file for divorce and she can pack up her stuff and go live with the other man. Here are the conditions:

1. She must handwrite a no contact letter to the other man stating how horribly ashamed she is of her behavior and how terrible she feels for risking losing you, her husband, who is the most important person in the world to her, and that if other man ever attempts to contact her again in any way shape or form, that she will file harassment charges against him. This is the content of the letter, nothing more, nothing less. It begins with other man's name, it ends, "signed" and her name. It contains no terms of endearment, no sorry it didn't work out, nothing else. She gives the letter to you for editing and mailing.

2. She gives you access to all communication devices and accounts, all passwords. She lets you know her whereabouts 24/7. She does not delete any emails, messages, texts, or calls from her devices or accounts - everything gets saved. If you find out anything has been deleted, you will assume the worst. There is no place for secrecy in a marriage. You have agreed to share your lives together. You can have privacy when you go to the bathroom, but there should be nothing phoned, messaged, or texted that your spouse shouldn't be able to see. Married people don't have things to hide from each other. Many if not most married people are NOT constantly checking up on each other, although they could. Would you care if your wife looked at your email or text messages? Would you care if she asked you where you were going or with whom? This is normal stuff EXCEPT for cheaters.

3. She blocks other man on facebook, deletes him from contacts, blocks his number on email, does everything possible to block him from her accounts.

4. She handwrites a letter of apology to you.

5. She gets tested for STDs and gives you the results.

6. If you want the details, she tells you the whole truth about the affair, when it started, how it started, and WHY it started, etc. Tell her to handwrite a timeline of the affair, starting with the first inappropriate contact, and ending with the last time she had contact with him. If the story doesn't make sense, she will take a polygraph to prove her truthfulness.

7. Your wife should destroy all of the clothing she wore when she hooked up with the other man. Shoes, dresses, lingerie, pocketbooks, jewelry, etc. It's a consequence of her cheating. When people know there will be negative consequences, they are less likely to repeat the action. It helps you to feel she truly is repentant and not just giving you lip service. It helps her to make amends to you in a material tangible way, which will make her feel better if she is truly sorry for what she did to you.

Tell your wife that you cannot control her. You can only control yourself and what you are willing and not willing to accept in a marriage, and how you react to her actions.

Cheaters are liars. They say anything to get what they want. Talk is cheap. Make her do these actions to show she really wants to save her marriage to you. Do not accept any verbal promises unless they are backed up by actions.

If she doesn't agree to these conditions, file for divorce. She really is not remorseful, not interested in committing to you, just interested in appeasing you with words. Divorce is a long process, if she later agrees to your conditions, you can postpone it to work on your marriage. If she is not willing to accept these conditions, which, if you really look at them, are not that much of a sacrifice on her part to save the marriage and which pale in comparison to what you will have to live with, then you are going to wind up getting divorced down the road anyway; might as well do it now and get it over with and save yourself weeks, months, or maybe even years of the pain of trying to negotiate with a lying cheater.

If she does agree, leave the voice-activated recorders and keylogger in place. This is to verify that the affair truly has ended. You should keep it up until you are comfortable in ending it, but monitor closely for at least two weeks.

Trust is important in marriage. Constantly monitoring is not healthy. However, in the initial few weeks after infidelity is discovered, it can be extremely healthy and helpful in restoring trust. You can cut down on the monitoring as you continue to discover nothing and your trust builds. Or you could catch her continuing the affair, which would save you a lot of time and trouble and heartache.

If it weren't for the kids, I would say just dump her, she is more trouble than she's worth.

If you think it would help, expose the affair to her and your families and friends. Tell them other man's name, that your wife admitted that she had an affair, and you have no way of knowing that the affair still is going on or not but that because your wife keeps deleting her messages with other man, you think it probably is. Ask for their support of your marriage and your family. Definitely do this if you find out the affair is ongoing.

I think the affair never ended, maybe took a short break, but they still are in contact, maybe even other man visits your area occasionally for sex. That's based on hundreds or thousands of stories on this website and my reading of your situation through your post. They were physical once, saw each other for sex, she's holding on to his love letters, this thing isn't just going to die an easy death.

As wil kane said this affair is not over.

Your WW is still addicted to the OM. She needs to go through withdrawal. This is done by writing a NC no contact letter, which you check and approve, then you send to the OM.

Cold letter stating the affair was wrong, she is sorry for the pain she caused her BH, she is recommitting to her marriage, NC with the OM forever. Short and to the point.

No sex with you is because she does not want to cheat on OM.

Get a VAR to hide in WW car and the house to see if the affair is on. Key logger for the PC. Real time GPS for WW car. Then sit back and gather intelligence.

I could not make sense of the way you wrote how the OM is connected to people you know. Thing is you must have NC with the OM as well.

Used to work with OM? Did he quit or did he relocate with the same company?

You must expose this affair. Tell the OMW, siblings, and parents, WW parents and siblings. If you have kids they must be told as well.