Help please.

Useless,

I think that your wife deserves to know you have been suffering from depression, at the very least!

Now thereafter, living together for 9 years and not being intimate! It sounds as if there have been "heads in the sand" all round. Surely your wife has an inkliong that things are not great.

I agree with Pete, the marriage is between the two of you. Sort that out and then figure out how to tell the kids. I suspect that she is going to be shocked - if you have lived like that for a while she;s probably going to wonder.. And when she finds out about a third party! I suspect she might be a little upset.

Not usre what advice to give other than be prepared for some emotional ups and downs!

All the best.

Do it fella.

I think I know what you are going through. During a bad patch in my own marriage I became close to someone else. We never did anything other than talk, a couple of dinners, that sort of thing. hell, I never even kissed her.

For various reasons we didn't pursue things. She went off with someone else who treated her like dirt. He(proposed to her, rented a cottage with her, planned a £25k wedding, got her pregnant. 2 weeks before their marriage, he admitted that he was still married and that he couldnt marry her. The next day she came home to find him in bed with a neighbour. He left her broke, and with a child that he wants nothing to do with and providing no financial support. She had to sue him for half the costs of their planned wedding...in return he sued her for unpaid rent! She has had to rent her house out, is living with her parents and trying to support a kid by herself. She was financially and emotionally ruined by this toe-rag.

Recently she has contacted me after 4 years. She has told me that she wanted me at the time. I am properly destroyed over this as I really liked her. There is too much water under the bridge now, but every day I regret what has happened, and what might have been.

If you really feel like your marriage is over, then make the break. I didn't at the time, and have spent the last 5 years living in regret. I threw myself into my career, and although I have done OK for myself, I am now 40 years old and realise that I have no love or joy in my life.

I apologise for pouring my heart out in your thread, but writing this has made me realise so much.

Even if the new person in your life doesn't work out, then at least you will have tried, and you will be able to look for someone new. Don't let her slip away and then spend years thinking "what if".

Gadfium, It helps me hearing other peoples similar predicaments.

Thankyou everyone for the advice you are giving. I am feeling stronger by the minute. I know it is the right thing to do but just keep getting so worked up about the "doing it". Know it will be bad, but what I know is that it cant be any worse than what i live with every day in silence.

I know theres not a right time to do it. Seem to be always waiting for that right time though. My wife seems oblivious to everything.

I need to "man up". Ive always been the "nice" one.

Although i don't condone what you are doing i have been there myself and it will be an awful few months ahead i kid you not. i hardly saw my ex husband and had absolutely no intimacy for many years despite both being young. i begged him to go to marriage guidance he would not. so if you trully feel you have explored all avenues in saving your marriage then you must simply be up front. I lost many friends have had an absolutely time off it but those who know you will support you. i have come through the worst of it and love my partner deeply and we are happy now although the guilt will always be with me and at times it is hard to bear. Its like you are always branded your the one that went off and everyone always thinks you are the awful one but no one will ever know what i had to live but its still no excuse and i wish i could have had the strength to leave without embarking on a relationship first but had i not have met my partner i never would have. there's a difference between a spouse going off willy nilly whilst married to one that has unfortunately met the person they should have been with all along. good luck i wish you well be strong you have a long road ahead but it will be worth it in the end just ask yourself the question who could you not bear to live without your wife or your partner?

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that you can only make the decision based on what you know at the time.
The future will allow you to look back, and the power of hindsight will tell you if the decision was the right one or not. however, at the time, you can only use the information that you have available.

I wish you every luck. I am going through the same thing myself (I have asked for a divorce), so I know (in part) what you are feeling.

My user name is very appropriate, because thats how I feel.

I still haven't got up the nerve to tell her. Still want to say again how much I appreciate the help you have all given me.

Well if you don't tell her she will find out eventually and that will probably be worse. Just do it!