Help! Getting nowhere after affair. - 03/30/16 11:55 AM
I am 35 and my wife is 33. We started dating when I was 17 and married at 25. We have 2 boys, age 5 and 6. Up until late 2014 we had a good marriage. The sex was may have been boring/bad/infrequent for a few years while the kids were in the infant phase, but began to pick back up when the youngest was 2 or 3. My wife was always very pretty but had always carried around a little extra weight and didn't pay a lot of attention to her style/dress. She was a stay at home mom until July 2014 when she landed a job on television. When she got the job, she immediately dropped her weight and updated her style. She went from frumpy housewife to a knockout almost overnight.
At first, her new-found confidence and appearance was great for us. However, by September 2014 I noticed a sudden change in her. She became distant and unavailable. After a couple weeks of that I confronted her, I got the the "I love you, but am no longer in love with you." Two weeks later, I discovered that she was having an affair with her co-anchor. Ever since then, my life has been a living hell.
At first I went into complete shock and depression. I tried to get her to quit her job, but she wouldn't. I read a lot of stuff on this site and others and began to try to get a life. I ran a half marathon, I got a new job, I started to do a lot of charity work. Throughout it all, I was constantly begging her to see what she was doing to our marriage and our family. She agreed to cut off things with the other man after about a month or two, but continued to work with him.
In June of 2015, the OM got a new job far away. Up until that point our sex life was non-existent and she refused to do any counseling but remained at home and married to me. I thought him leaving would be a good thing and give us new life. The day after he left, she stayed in bed for 3 days and admitted that she was miserable without seeing him at work everyday.
Since then, she has seemed to have gotten over him, but everything remains unchanged at home. We sleep in the same bed and do things with the kids, but as soon as they go to sleep she avoids me. I go through cycles of withdrawing to complaining to try to spice things up and nothing works. Occasionally she will agree to sex, but just lays there. She still refuses to do counseling until she "decides if this marriage is what she wants".
I feel like I have become a completely better person through all of this. I have a job that I am more passionate about and am more involved with the kids and the community. However, I have lost the wife I had in the process. We are getting nowhere and every time I ask for answers, she says "I don't know" to everything.
I can't stomach the thought of breaking up my family or losing her. What can I do? I have read DB and many other books. My head is swimming with knowledge and theories, but nothing works. It is like a switch flipped in her that can't be undone. Help!
At first, her new-found confidence and appearance was great for us. However, by September 2014 I noticed a sudden change in her. She became distant and unavailable. After a couple weeks of that I confronted her, I got the the "I love you, but am no longer in love with you." Two weeks later, I discovered that she was having an affair with her co-anchor. Ever since then, my life has been a living hell.
At first I went into complete shock and depression. I tried to get her to quit her job, but she wouldn't. I read a lot of stuff on this site and others and began to try to get a life. I ran a half marathon, I got a new job, I started to do a lot of charity work. Throughout it all, I was constantly begging her to see what she was doing to our marriage and our family. She agreed to cut off things with the other man after about a month or two, but continued to work with him.
In June of 2015, the OM got a new job far away. Up until that point our sex life was non-existent and she refused to do any counseling but remained at home and married to me. I thought him leaving would be a good thing and give us new life. The day after he left, she stayed in bed for 3 days and admitted that she was miserable without seeing him at work everyday.
Since then, she has seemed to have gotten over him, but everything remains unchanged at home. We sleep in the same bed and do things with the kids, but as soon as they go to sleep she avoids me. I go through cycles of withdrawing to complaining to try to spice things up and nothing works. Occasionally she will agree to sex, but just lays there. She still refuses to do counseling until she "decides if this marriage is what she wants".
I feel like I have become a completely better person through all of this. I have a job that I am more passionate about and am more involved with the kids and the community. However, I have lost the wife I had in the process. We are getting nowhere and every time I ask for answers, she says "I don't know" to everything.
I can't stomach the thought of breaking up my family or losing her. What can I do? I have read DB and many other books. My head is swimming with knowledge and theories, but nothing works. It is like a switch flipped in her that can't be undone. Help!