My wife and I were married for 5 years before she had an affair with someone she met through her work. It was devistating. The world turned itself upside down and inside out. Everything before that came into question. Her honesty, loyalty, integrity all were haunting me. In hindsight I wasnt handling this properly. I wasnt fighting hard enough for progress. I didnt push for fair resolutions. Due to the pain I felt I took strongly to her passionate pleas and apologies. I saw the ease of pain as progress to feeling normal. Where, mutually benificial progress was needed much more. I was quick to dismiss the actions of infidelity after heartfelt converations and many tears spilt. We spent many moments together. Huddled on the couch, bed and floor, sharing our love and hope for the future. She and I spent the next two years working on our marriage this way. She was never one to argue or make much of her emotions. Sure, she would and could communicate the dislike or distaste of the mundane things in life. But when it came to matters of the heart and mind, she was inept. Often she would plea that she just didnt give it(her feelings) much thought or dismiss the importance of the topic to her. Before the affair, I accepted this as her and a part of her personality. Due to the nature of how the affair was discovered it was clear that she wasnt emotionally inward. She spent a lot of time and effort expressing herself to another man. There was a physical relationship as well. It only lasted about 6 months due to him being arrested and sent to prison. (What a catch, right?) So, the discovery of the affair came by way of finding the letters they were writting to each other. There it was. In her cute, neatly uniformed hand writting. Physical proof that she did have a sense of her own emotions and did give careful consideration to what she says and how someone else interpreted it. While painful as it was to read. It was surprisingly theraputic. The woman I loved and cared for so long was pouring her emotions out. I literally held them in my hand. It was powerful. To discover such passion that seemed non existant. I was broken but hope wasnt lost. There was still a fire burning inside for her. Hope. Thats the best way to describe it. She had commited the ultimate betrayal. She was not only caught but attempted to save face by drip feeding me the details that I thought I needed hear. The details that some how would give me an insight to her reasoning for risking everything. Mind you, at this point we've had two children together and been together as a couple for 9 years. The reason for wanting to turn away from all of that history wasnt clear. Her reasonings were rational but her actions werent. She continued to be the emotionally inward person as before. My expectations of her had changed since witnessing the effort she put into expressing herself to someone else. She was still being her. The woman that I fell in love with. A thoughtful person. A loving mother. A caring wife. The trust was gone. I questioned her efforts no matter their magnitude. I carried the anger for a long time. The lack of trust and the depth of the betrayal drove me to question everything. It allowed me to withhold forgiveness for her that I owed myself. I couldnt see her actions for what they were because I was blinded by what I thought they werent. Fast forward a year and half. About 6 months ago from todays time there was another lie. Honesty again an issue. I was hurt. I was shocked she hadnt understood that this was a value of mine that was non-negotiable. It was the moment I decided we needed to seperate and have some time to ourselves. She and I needed to have the time to apart to re-establish our values and boundaries. Create something firm that we both could rebuild on. We decided to separate physically. She moved in with her parents. I stayed in our home. We agreed that the separation wasnt conditional. We were free to make decisions that reflected a singular interest. We agreed that starting over isnt an option based on reality but a new beginning was.  A clean slate if you will. A clean slate that comes with a lack of prejudice, conditional only to the boundaries and values we set. That slate never came. While we spent this time apart she again made the decision to lie about her time spent with someone else.  She lied to me when there were no conditions or expectations. It was at this time that I first felt that she was one of two people. Either someone I never really knew or she had become someone else. I realized I couldnt trust either person anymore. As you can imagine it propelled the distrust. We spent the next 6 months ignoring the signs. Feeding each other false hopes about dreams we had long ago. Blinded by the love and history, scared of being alone and heartbroken I decided that I wanted her to move back in so we could work on our relatioship together. Again, in hidnsight, I wasnt ready to lose her nor was I ready to let go. To my surprise, she said no. The surprise wasnt from the response though. It was the emotion. It was the passion behind it. There it was. In all its glory. The words she said had meaning and emotion. So much thought was obviously put into the words that she spoke. It was the true meaning of bittersweet. While she began to explain that she was done and had no more fight left, I could hear the confidence rising. The bravery she showed in expressing herself was everything I had hoped to see from her. Of course, this was never the way I wanted to experience it but strangely I was proud. I was happy for her. So here I am. Heartbroken. I know she doesnt deserve anymore chances to prove that shes trustworthy. She too admits this. Given her revelations, I insisited that we divorce. She agreed and we are cordially going through the motions as we promised. We've always been civil and respectful to each other (minus the trust issues) . We are both adjusting to life with the definite knowledge of the marriage being over. Im struggling with letting go. Ive fought for our marriage for so long that I cant imagine a life without her. I feel like I need her but I know its a want. Im scared of being alone. Im scared of being without her. Im scared for the sanity of our children and how they'll cope with our divorce. I have the urge to fight for it. To some how convince her that we need to work this out and stay married. I know that wouldnt work or be healthy because Im still angry for what she did and havent forgave her yet. How the heck do you pick up the pieces after this? My world is upside down and inside out. Im lost and found at the same time.