Dear Ben:

You wrote on one hand that if you stay with your wife, you “are not allowed to feel betrayed by her if she does not change her mind”, but soon after you wrote: “I do think she has caused all of this turmoil due to a lie of omission for 8 years”.

Putting the children topic aside for a moment, you are in a pickle: you already believe that you were betrayed by your wife, so you don’t have the choice now: to feel betrayed or not. You already feel betrayed, lied to. Having been lied to not once, or twice, but ongoing for eight years.

The problem is that you feel incapable of leaving her, incapable of leaving the person you believe lied to you for eight years.

This is what I see happening: you are angry at her on and on and on except for the times you or her consider ending the relationship, then you get scared. When you get scared, you forget angry. But once the relationship gets a bit better, the threat of ending is not imminent, you get angry again.

Angry-Scared-Angry-Scared… is exhausting. I see it leading to a situation that is too impossible to maintain.

anita