I know that I left my husband & it wasn't because of infidelity on either side, but the fighting had been horrible from the beginning.....issues started even before we got married, but I ended up staying in the marriage for 33 years before finally leaving......we couldn't get a divorce because of the financial mess he got us into.....lack of being responsible when my depression hit & I was no longer able to be the financially responsible one.

Interesting thing was that after I left & was able to look back, I realized that there really was no LOVE in the marriage from the beginning on either part......I don't mean the words "I love you" but the actions that prove it (& I don't mean sex). I finally left because there were certain issues like being lied to about financial things & sometimes the lie wasn't specifically a lie, it was not saying anything at all......I couldn't continue living with a person like that & after realizing that there was no love, leaving was the best thing I should have done long before I ever did. My last comment to my husband was that if he chose to change, he would let me know & would be able to prove to me the changes & only then would I ever consider even reconsidering the possibility of returning to the marriage. It's been 5 years since I kicked him out of my life & I still feel it was the best thing I have ever done.

There are certain things that happen in a marriage that destroy the love that needs to be in a marriage. I know that all things are possible through God & that he can help fix the most broken marriages......but the main thing is that God knows the hearts of both people in the marriage & it takes a pure heart for a marriage to be reconstructed after all the damage that has been done.

I truly believe that my lack of love for my husband & my lack of respect for him from even before we got married was the destruction of our marriage from even before the wedding.....some things aren't possible to repair because of the length or time & the damage that has really been done. I feel it's better to just cut the losses & call it the end if you can afford the divorce. If you are honest about your love for your wife.....they it can be proved all over again & your life together can happen again after the divorce.......but the things you have said & the way you have said them about the lady you ran off with, you have an issue with your marriage that if you aren't able to resolve.......the reason you left in the first place is only going to be there for you to do the same thing again.

You also commented that your job was your love (btw....have you seen the movie Fireproof?)....it sounds very similar to your situation.......

my career was my escape from my bad marriage....my engineering career was a goal I had all my life.....to have a professional career & be more than my parents ever were. Maybe the love of your career has something to do with escaping a problemed marriage in the first place even before you had an affair & another affair.

I know that unless you really learn who you are & what values you really have, getting married in the first place is not the right thing to do let along going back to a marriage that was rocky.....probably because neither of you had your own lives well defined or they have grown apart rather than together.

It's definitely more important to figure out who you are & what values you truly want to bring to the marriage & be honest with your wife because if you don't change your values & the way you are looking at life, you ready to make a marriage work & probably weren't from the beginning just like my husband wasn't.