I'm not sure why I am writing. I guess I just need to talk. When I was in my early 20s, I was deeply and utterly in love, and I married a wonderful person.

After 11 years and two children, I found out my wife had an ongoing relationship with another man. I would say affair, but I don't think that does it justice. You see my wife's affair started five months after we married and continued 11 years. When I found out, I was devastated and wanted to leave her. Looking back, I should have.

The affair stopped, she apologized, and I changed. My kids, my wife, and our home were my life. I learned you don't just stop loving someone when you find out this type of thing. It takes three or four years, but eventually it happens.

I told no one but my dad. I told him I would stay with her for the kids, but it was really for me. I wanted to prove to her she had made a mistake. Now, seven years later, my kids are bigger and happy, we never talk about the situation, and I have become a very sad person. I spend a lot of time wondering if the kids are mine.

The life and relationship I was trying not to lose is gone. I'm left with a nice person who I care for, but it's not the same. I want to be in love the way I used to be, the way she must have been with the other man. I really don't need an answer. It was nice, almost therapeutic, to be able to express my feelings.

Basil


Basil, your silence is the only thing holding the situation together now. Writing made you feel better, but in a little while the effect will wear off and you will be left where you were. When that happens, you will seek to take another step.

Now you are doing nothing productive. Are you going to wonder for the rest of your life if the children are yours? What if they are? Then you will have wondered for nothing, and at least unconsciously, shown you doubt your connection to them.

Children are the emotional barometer of a marriage. To think they are ever fooled about the state of their parents' marriage is a mistake. Finding out can allay some of your fears. If they are not your biological children, you won't abandon your fatherly role, but at least you will know.

Underneath your sadness there must be a great deal of anger because nothing, absolutely nothing, allows for what your wife did to you. While you remain silent, you must conceal your anger. Until those feelings come out you won't know what to do with your life.

Ultimately you have to decide how much of your life and its possibilities your wife is allowed to determine. Step by step you will find your answer.

Tamara