Damn, I lost a lot I was typing when the tab closed on me. I will start again because you really need this.
I am not buying the narrative as presented here, even though I am sure it is accurate to the best of your ability.
In the beginning (before knowing about the affair), I was so struck by how bad things had gotten without me realizing, and how deeply my wife seemed to have been hurt, that I practically hated myself. I was so distraught, believing that I had brought my own marriage to ruin.
How much do you know about the affair. Do you know when it started? How much do you know about the POSER?
Long lost to the archives I posted a summary of "7 Types of Affairs" based not on the actions and events, but on the WS's behavior, motivations, and how they justified it. This sounds like a classic My Marriage Made Me Do It. The truth is, these are not caused by the marriage. Rather than a bad marriage causing an affair, it is far more likely that an affair caused a bad marriage. When a bad marriage causes an affair, it usually appears totally different, and we have a few WS's around that can tell you about those, but they do not sound relevant to your case.
I dealt with one of these, and recovered only for her to do it again a few years later. For what it's worth, I think she now understands, but as she knows I am unwilling to consider getting back together, she is unwilling to com right out and say it. I was really good at tracking down communication between her and POSER, and all her co-conspirators, traced it all back to before it started with the co-conspirators. I traced so much that I could even outline how everything from her friend the "professional astrologer" was a cold read. I was thorough and relentless in getting the facts, and I now know more about her first A than she does. I can give you a brief summary of a few years here, though I have not told the story in a long time.
Had a stressful business I had started with some pretty serious commitments involved, bought a house, got married, were happy. Her father was diagnosed with fatal disease, I helped her mother in looking after him in the hospital. Her mother had a sudden fatal heart attack, and we were there to watch as they disconnected the machines, and I was mostly left alone to look after her father's last couple of months while we also planned a funeral for her mother right at Christmas. Then her father died and she sank into an almost catatonic depression. I handled everything I legally could regarding the estates and such, and spent my time caring for her. We suddenly had 3 houses, so we moved to her childhood home as it was familiar to her autistic brother. To minimize triggers I redid the interior to completely change the look of the house so it was healthier for her to live there. Between all of this and the business (there is no stress or bereavement leave or sick days when you own the place and have to meet payroll), I was exhausted, yet I still tried to care for her. She appreciated this, and all of her communication with everyone, including the stuff I was never likely to see expressed this, and the most common phrase used to describe me was amazing. She had always loved acting, so I encouraged her to take a class she found, as it was something she would consider fun, and it would mean at least once a week she had to get dressed. She slowly began to perk up while taking this class (and getting dressed at least once a week), and all her communication still described me as amazing, how wonderful I had been in looking after her and caring, how I had kept her from being institutionalized, and how much she was enjoying her class. Then one day in a PM on a board like SI she mentioned to her astrologer friend some people in the class, including POSER. I was still the greatest husband in the world, but not for long. The conversations started to shift to less about us, and more about her class, and how much fun she was having acting with POSER. Eventually, without changing anything, I started being mentioned again in the conversations, along with the marriage, but now it was not so good, all the good stuff was related to POSER. To me it appeared there was a relapse to her depression, so I tried to care for her and engage her in conversations, but it was no use. I had to be away on business when her aunt went to palliative care, and I got an angry phone call about it. I said I would be home as soon as possible, and she said she would get a ride that day. I spent the day completely rearranging the employee schedules to cover for me, booked a flight for the next day, packed my stuff, drover for over 8 hours to the city with the airport, arriving just in time to get a ride to the airport, caught a plane and got an hour and a half of sleep on the flight, took a cab home and drove her to the palliative care facility across town and stayed with her. I was unaware of the A, so did not know that the previous day POSER had driven her across town and dropped her off. Guess which one was the big fucking hero, and who was the cold insensitive asshole that was never there for her?
You with me so far? Ready for a nice checklist?
How well does this block quote describe your WW?
Characteristics of the person who says that a bad marriage made me do it
• At one time was clingy and fairly passive in the marriage
• Does not want to take responsibility for his/her behavior
• Attaches self to others. Others become the guiding star
• May have bouts of sadness and dejection
• Deep down thinks of self as inadequate and weak Reluctant and seemingly incapable of expressing own desires wants, needs, ideas (doesn't know what they are)
• Can be very generous and has difficulty saying no
• May be naive or Polly Anna like
• More passive, does not like competition
• May be closely attached to parents
• May be overprotected by parents
• May typically express put-downs about self
• Complains. Whines. Things are never right or good enough
• Those who know him/her well will usually be exasperated and frustrated
How about this sequence of events?
What can I expect will happen?
1. Expect that your spouse will have a very powerful attachment to the other person. The other person will consistently be on her mind. Your spouse will shift energy away from you, the children, the household and her career to her affair relationship. She will be focused, but not on you.
Your spouse will attempt to push you away by avoiding you, ignoring you, closing off communication or walking away.
2. The affair will most likely be a long-term affair. It will be very difficult for your spouse to walk away from the other person. He may try on a number of occasions but will continue to gravitate back to the other person. He will hold on tenaciously.
This is probably the first or only affair for your spouse. Your spouse is not interested in playing or fooling around but powerfully attaching to the other person. The other person is the savior!
3. Don’t believe that the affair was planned before hand because of a bad
marriage. These affairs usually just happen. They usually happen with someone in close proximity: co-worker, neighbor, friend (frequently of friends with whom you socialize), etc.
The other person is usually the aggressor, your spouse lacking the confidence to seek out the affair. The rationale that it happened because of a lousy marriage comes after the affair is in bloom.
4. The more you try to persuade, convince or pursue, the more strongly he will attach to the other person. He will perceive your efforts as weakness and will want to attach more intently to the other person whom he (at perhaps an unconscious level) deems to be the powerful and loving answer-to-all.
5. Efforts to use moral or religious arguments to call a halt to the affair will be strongly resisted. Your spouse is not guided by rightness or wrongness. These standards have not been internalized and do not carry much weight, especially when it comes to the important chunks of her life. The actions and thoughts of your spouse primarily originate from her need to attach to another person. Any behavior or concept that serves the purpose of maintaining the attachment will be valued. Others are discarded.
6. Expect you will spend a significant amount of time and emotional energy in the next 2 to 4 years (especially if there are children) attempting to resolve the relationship. By resolve, I mean, coming to a point where each of you are fairly free of the emotional entanglement that holds you together and generates the pain and fear. It will be important for you to resolve the relationship whether you continue to be married or separate and divorce. Again, if children are present, it is vital, let me repeat, vital, that you and your spouse or ex-spouse come to a working relationship freer of emotional baggage and game playing.
Here is the authors advice for this type of affair. Call it a ProTip.
Tip: If your partner/spouse is having an affair and blames it on the” marriage,” don’t buy into it. The “marriage” is not the problem. You are not the problem. Your spouse/partner chose the affair out of ignorance, fear or inadequacy.