So just had another ding ding, initiated by her on the back of me sleeping in the spare room. Yes I got dragged into another stressful conversation, but managed to resist giving details of exactly what my thoughts were related to last weekend, although I did end up saying so this is all my fault again is it, rather than just talking responsibility, and I pointed out that she never takes responsibility for any of it and only gets angry, this made her almost tearful, but quickly turned back to anger.
So I am feeling stuck again and wondering if I will ever escape! Would it be best to just say I don't love you any more I want a divorce? Or is that not likely to work.... I'm trying to simplify of course but I am genuinely starting to wonder if there will ever be a route out of here....
I did consider trying to find her previous partner and talk to him in order to find out how similar his experience was, has anyone done this?

You're right of course Elle, and I can feel that strength rising in me albeit a tiny glow, it is accompanied by sadness, fear and an empty lost feeling, but it is there, and I am holding onto it for dear life. I have already noticed that she dosn't want to talk about it either, she has noticed that I am stronger and less attentive towards her, I can feel it, the energy has changed as Ordinary Guy talked about, she is struggling with my new lack of eye contact and apparent focus.
Today has been better, despite last weekend being another visit to her friend for the day while I was working, which of course she lied about. But I am also now starting to think about the past, now I know about the affiar, which continues right under my nose, I can't help but look back and ask myself when did this start, the answer seems to be going further and further back, I am in fact now thinking that this could have begun as much as 10 years ago when her friend split from her first partner, of course I don't know this, and I am hoping I am wrong, but I can't stop myself thinking about it.

So what do I tell the kids when they ask, which they will and want to know all the details about why, what, how.....

Yesterday was a bad day, I couldn't hide my upset face, I had to keep going to the bathroom to cry and for my stomach to rebel. Eventually had way through the afternoon my wife asked me what's the matter, your stomach is bad, what's going on etc....
I didn't know what to say, she kept asking just tell me what's upsetting you and we can do something about it. I just kept asking her what have you done? I couldn't stop myself....
We has a stressful circular conversation for 10 minutes in which nothing really was said then she got angry.
Last night I slept in the spare room, today I am going to try and meet a friend. Mindfucked!

Thank you all for your thoughts and comments, you are right Rob the hugs feel as real as anything I have felt in a very long time. I am sending them back all your ways, the more I read all of your stories the more I realise how many beautiful innocent people have been effected by this issue and despite this being a place of sad stories and hurt people, it is even more of a place of hope and love and support, I am so pleased to have found you all.

As for narcissism I never thought of my wife as a narcissist, in fact if I am completely honest I didn't even know what one was. But I listened to Ryan King's pod cast yesterday and was dumbstruck by a couple of things he said. Firstly that he didn't realise he was being narcissistic until after everything had ended and he spent time reading and hearing the stories of many of those affected by this, it made him realise that much of his behaviour had indeed been narcissistic.
The other point he made which came as a shock was that he thought nothing of his wife’s feelings at any point during or since, he was only really interested in his own self and situation. I find this most upsetting as it would appear on the surface that my wife does love me and care for my feelings, but I am now beginning to realise that this is to some extent connected with what she is thinking and doing, or planning to do than my actual feelings.
Thanks for your list of actions I can do and plan Longway, thinking about practical things that will make the next steps easier is something I have been putting off, and it is good to have some guidance for when I get the courage together. I am lucky in that I have lots of things I like to do and will try to focus on getting out and doing them over the coming months, something I think we have all been struggling with in these strange times.
Elle this is exactly what I do on a continual basis, reading your post reminds me of this cycle, I go through it over and over again, and I still can’t help myself st

I did post on here years ago but got scared and asked for my account to be removed. Well nothing has changed in that time and I find myself reaching out to your amazing organisation once again, thank you for being here.
I have been married for 21 years and together for 24, I have thought my wife is bi or gay for probably 10-15 years, and for the rest before that I was simply confused and scared and tried to understand what was wrong, all of which was met with ignorance, denial, and anger on the part of my wife.
Our relationship is perfect except for sex, our sex life has never been good, well I say that but looking back I guess the first year or 2 was, but it quickly reduced to little (like a few times a year), I decided to spice things up and brought some fun clothes and toys, my wife seemed offended that I had done this, and this resulted in our sex life stopping completely. One day I came accross some lesbian magazines and one of the toys I had brought, accompanied by about 2 dozen dead batteries. I confronted my wife about this she assured me the magazines were from her X, and refused to even talk about the toys, in the heat of the argument that ensued she said 'My sex life is nothing to do with you, and I want nothing to do with yours'! As you can imagine I was shocked and didn't know what to do with this news, I decided at this time to leave, I can't tell you how I wish this is what I had done at the time, but I didn't. I was vunerable when I met my wife as a result of previous sexual trauma I had happen to me when I was a teenager, this was the first relationship of any kind I had ever really had, I was 26 and my wife was in her 30's with 2 kids and an X partner, who it turned out left her for another woman and has never had any contact with any of his friends or family ever since, and little to no contact with his children who are now grown up with families. At the time I didn't know what to think, I had no expireence of relationships or x partners and didn'