My story starts a year ago almost to the day.  My wife had seemed distant for some time.  She always seemed to have a reason and I tried to just understand and accept.  I had a strong desire to work on my mariage to get things in a better place for us and I wanted to feel happy again.  

My wife left on a trip for work to a conference.  I had felt hesitant about her going because she seemed to spend much more time and effort at these events trying to party it up more then be a useful career enhancing event.  Anway she left and while she was gone I resolved that when she returns I would confront her about trying to work on things.

She came back in a week and seemed even more distant and standoffish then before.  I confronted her and she said she had been feeling alone and wanted to take time with me as a friend.  I suggested we start doing date nights and start marriage counsoling.  She seemed agreeable but different.  We went out for a date night a couple weeks later.  We had a great time and seemed to be connecting.  When I went to the bathroom and walked back I saw her sending a message to someone that I know I did not know.  I asked her about who he was and she just played it off as a friend she met at the conference.  I knew things didn't feel right.  We talked and she told me that she really didn't feel attracted to me anymore and asked if I had felt attracted to other people.  We drank a lot and she talked and opened up a bit.  I was beside myself.  She was suggesting having an open relationship.   I did a gut check and this was something I myself could not live with.  I would drive myself crazy thinking my spouse was out with other people or having sex with them.  I told her that would never work for me at all.  I drove home the sitter and when I returned I saw she had sent this person more messages but was deleting them as soon as she could.

The next morning I confronted her about this person and she said she was going to tell me that she "met" someone at this conference.  I myself am thinking you don't "meet" someone as your married but got some excuse about just didn't tell me about him yet.  She kept telling me he is such a good friend and that she was so depressed she felt like killing herself and this person helped her.  I am thinking she never so much as mentioned anything about being depressed to me, her spouse of 11 years.  I knew this was not an OK relationship at all but she would insist it was just a friend.  I asked if she would be embarrased if I saw what she was typing and her response was "So what if I have a flirty relationship with him".  So I played dumb and looked an our phone bill. She was gone on her trip and started texting this guy and she texted 3000+ messages in a short time.  So not OK any anyones book.  I did not bring it up.  We started marriage counsoling and it really didn't seem to help. I pleaded for this relationship to stop and it wasn't.  I saw him sending her messages early in the am and late and night.  She would go home sick and I would see her sending messages.  I sent this person several messages demading he stops contacting my wife. I also found out more about him from my wife.  She created a fake contact for him so the messages would look like they are from a person I know.

One day I just lost it and saw that on our family trip she was sending him messages and lying and covering it up.  Her phone was locked down like fort knox.  Her messages wouldn't even display on the screen anymore and I can only imagine what the content was.  She stopped using text and started using facebook messenger so I could no longer see all the times she contacted him.  

She seemed to be going through some type of midlife crisis at this point.  She suddenly decided she needed to get tattoos(never had she expressed interest in this before.)  She also said she needed to go on a girls only trip to another state.  I really didn't know what to do at this point but she went.  I don't know if she met with this guy or not.  She had said she didn't but with all the lies and deciet I really don't know.  More about that later.  

She kept playing it off chattinng with this guy until one day I told her she has to stop and she agreed to while at marriage counsoling.  She said she told him she would work on her marriage and needed to stop or at least that is what she told me and our therapist.  I too started to see my own therapist because I became a complete mess trying to deal with this. I felt like we could start putting things back together.

I waned to reconnect and try to feel like I had a wife again.  I wanted to rebuild us but we really didn't have a plan.  We did an ambitous family vacation this summer for us and our 2 small kids.  It seemed great.  I was hoping that we were on the right track.  

One other new thing is that in the past, my wife and I would go out together pretty much exlclusivly.  Only going out with other couples sometimes but if one went out the other was always invited.  That all seemed to stop during this mess.  My wife would schedule and plan times to go out to lunch with her friends, and out at night as well.  She never scheduled time for us anymore at all.  Then one night back in July she went out and when she came home she didn't have her wedding ring on.  She was drunk and said something like she was putting on lotion.  With all the bad things that happened I really didn't trust her anymore and I looked at her phone while she passed out on the toilet and I saw she was sending this person messages again.  The one she promissed not to.  I was livid.  I asked her about it and she lied and lied.  I waited until the next day and she said she got mad at me and started contacting this person again.  She also told me that her and her friend tried to see if they could get free drinks so they both took off their wedding rings and had some guys buying them drinks.  All of this is a complete bunch of BS that I am still pissed about.  Anyway I had told myself hundreds of times that if I ever saw this again I would just get divorce papers signed and delivered.  I went to see my own theripist and she suggested my wife start going to counsoling and that things don't look good for us at all.  This was just 2 months ago.  

Now my wife has been going to counsoling and was working on our relationship issues.  She also had a messed up childhood so she started working on those issues as well.  I can't say that I really feel like my wife is terribly sorry for all that she has done.  I can tell you that this is the worst thing I have been through in my whole life.  I might add that I am also a cancer survivor and that this is far worse then cancer.  Right now she says she doesn't have the capacity to work on both things or give me more affection.  I typically get a very small ammount of affection each day and once in a great while we have sex.  I feel like my relationship is stuck and I can't really live while I feel stuck like this.  We have been together for 20 years and married for 12 years.  We have an 11 and 8 year old.  I want to move forward or end all this.  If I had to pick I would like to save my marriage and keep my little family together.  I love them and I love my wife.  I feel I deserve much better then 5 minutes of affection each day.  We do seem like we are connecting a little more.  My wife came to see my theripist and she agreed to try to do some activity with me on a regular basis like luch, dinner, night out etc.  She has done that but it feels like she wants to fulfil the bare minimum for us while she continues to go out with her own friends as much as she can.  I am looking for suggestions.  I also have a big problem with her going out with her friends.  When I have been out with her she drinks too much.  When she was out with her coworkers she was sitting on their laps and appeared to be throwing herself at them.  This is embarrasing and unacceptible.  She agrees to not drink as much.  I want to start working on rebuilding trust.  With all the play off stuff, lies, etc, I would like to get a comprehensive story from her if she even ever stopped sending messages to this guy.  Or if she slept with him or met him out of town.  She said she hadn't but with the fresh injury to our relationship I really don't know what to believe anymore.