Hard time going through this

(38M) am doing a 6 month seperation from my wife (39F) after 18 years of being together 16 years of marriage. We have 4 kids, 2 teenagers and 2 toddlers. I will start from the beginning. Towards the beginning of the marriage I started watching porn which was against one of her boundaries. She was very anti cheating and anti porn. I was caught multiple times but kept doing it. That was about 3 years into the marriage. 12 years ago I stopped watching porn because I knew I needed to change. I had a lot of shame and remorse for what I did and put her through. From finding out about multiple times put her in an I don't care mindset. Even after I quit and adjusted my priorities to more to her and the family she maintained that mindset.

She got to a point a couple years ago where she did not care about anything. Me, the marriage, nothing (except kids). I could tell she was changing without her saying anything and it caused tension. She was not acting herself and not acting towards me how she had for years. When I would bring it up she would get defensive. A little over a year ago we tried an in house seperation, but it was hard with all the kids.

Last May we started couples therapy. It was going ok, but my anxiety was bad because I had found out she was sending pictures to guys on snapchat (this was a couple months before therapy). Things were still rocky, but very slowly improving. We had a stint where things were good for about 2 months. I came home one day recently and she was way off. Hiding in the backyard on her phone all night. I did some digging and foud out she was messaging other guys. Through my investigating I found out she was sending nudes to other guys and had an affair last year. Shes says something is broken in her and she had the affair and talking to other guys to see if she could find what was broken.

We are going to do a 6 month out of home seperation with her moving to an apartment. I do not feel any remorse or regret from her which makes this feel like it will be really hard to reconsile. She justifies what she did by saying she was trying to find herself. I do want to try and reconsile and I want to have my old wife back. If she is justifying what she did, it does not feel like she is in a place that she wants to, although she says she does. She said she needs space, but I have so many questions about the infidelity it builds up my anxiety really high and if I ask it pushes her away and makes her anxiety high. I just don't know how to navigate all of this and feel like i am losing my mind and my life is falling apart.

3 comments posted: Tuesday, May 13th, 2025