I did not know that a person in the military can be punished for adultery. Thank you for explaining that. That might be why your wife is so nonchalant. As you say, she is not subject to legal repercussions, but you are - big time. To my mind, that makes what she is doing seem even meaner.

Your counselor knows you better than I do, but I wonder about her point of view also. Saying "you can't put a time limit on love" strikes me as expecting a heroic commitment from you to a person who seems to have no great sense of commitment, if any. You and your counselor know more about the circumstances of the marriage and what stresses on the relationship that may have been caused by you. And you don't have to go into anymore detail than you want to. The fact that this is your second time facing possible marital failure gives me the idea that you do have a problem in your relationships with woman. That could mean you have work to do on yourself. Alternatively, it could mean you gravitate toward women who don't make good marriage material. I would ask you to consider both possibilities. And it doesn't have to be an "either or" scenario. Maybe both those things are true. You seem to be very quick to take the blame. And your therapist seems very quick to think you are the one who needs to change. Of course, helping you try to change is how your therapist makes a living.

We all need to work on ourselves. You've sounded pretty patient to me. You are only human and a person can only take so much rejection. If your wife has some legitimate major grievance that could explain her going this far in her behavior, then it might be wise to try and resolve that . . . . if it can be resolved. Even if you were very wrong, in some way, your wife may have passed the point of being open to reconciliation. That's how it's been sounding to me. But I don't know this woman. You do. I'm not seeing where she still feels any love for you, but what do I know? If she would ruin your career over you being with someone else, when she is refusing to be with you, then I don't think this is a woman with much of a heart. But, like I say, I don't know her.

Loneliness is about the worst thing in the world. There is no amount of club joining and recreational activity that fills the emptiness of not being loved and cared about. At least, not when you're as young as you are. I expect to lose my boyfriend within the next few years because he is in seriously failing health. But I'm at the stage of life where friendships will be what I look forward to when he is gone. I have no desire to find someone to replace him. That is the good thing about being at the stage of life I'm at. However, when I was your age, I found being alone almost unendurable. My guy and me had very serious ups and downs . . . split ups and reunions. TBH, it was about as crazy a relationship as it gets . . . at times. I even left him and had other relationships. But I came back. So it's true that women sometimes do come back, even after there have been other men. I never completely stopped loving him, even though I got to a point where I completely could not put up with chronic drunkeness or chronic criticism. He's sober 20 years now. People do get through some awful ordeals and manage to save relationships that might have seemed doomed. Sometimes, when a woman (or a man) is frustrated or hurt long enough, she (or he) will find some way to even the score. Sometimes that has to happen before things can be turned around. Whether or not a bad situation can be turned around depends, I guess, on how much love was there in the first place.

Having said all of this stuff, you may reach a point where - for the sake of your military career (as well as your sanity) - you may have to initiate divorce proceedings. I suggest you google "marital abandonment" and "constructive abandonment." Also, google how those concepts apply specifically in your state. And please have a lawyer that you are talking to. Who knows what your wife may accuse you of tomorrow, or at some time in the future. There is something fishy about her not wanting to pursue either divorce, or counseling.