Asking for insight

Married 17 years. I got hitched up because I wanted to. She was attractive, energetic, excited as hell about me and eager to have my babies. She grew up with a narcissist father, and she’s not entirely not crazy herself. But we seemed to want the same things.

Three of the four kids later, she lost her steam. I was fat and depressed and not enjoying my life and she went looking for another way. Byebye stay-at-home mom, hello strident career-minded independent woman.

Another kid, grad school for her (I was a professor at the college so it was free for her), and then comes an internship. At a police station.

It only took me a few weeks of seeing how that place affected her to say fuck no and drag her out. She left kicking and screaming but she left. Or so I thought.

Things got worse, we separated. And I mostly got my shit together. Lost 60 pounds, didn’t care if she stayed or not, was not going to go back down the hole of trying to mend all her emotional problems and keep her happy. Got more friends, outside activities, tripled my income. We always had a lot of sex, but it’s been every night (but for period sex that I don’t love) for the past five years. She’s always eager to please me and thankful for the opportunity.

That seemed to work. But it didn’t. A couple weeks ago I discovered her affair. A piece of shit cop. One even the cops disapprove of. She kept his number from when she was at the station. I realized later I even met the dirtbag. Ugly, mean, pathetic. Human cancer in a baggy uniform. I think you guys call his sort the dark triad type. It worked on her. Five years of dirty and/or controlling texts, four meet-ups for a few seconds of rough sex, his demanding and her sending naked pictures. He called her “cunt” as her title and she responded. She had the loser of all affairs, if that’s what it was. All the while, completely devoted to me sexually.

I found out two weeks ago. What the fuck?

To see her now, she’s so thankful I saved her from the hell she created for herself. I have seen and believe the relief she has to be on the other side of this stuff. She called her parents and my parents, all her friends and her boss. She took her cell phone to At&t to trade it out, telling the clerk she needed to swap it because she had been unfaithful to her husband with it and it brought her pain. She’s on her way over from her office to mine right now because she “gets uncomfortable after a couple hours” of not being around me. The damage and repercussions of her association with this dirt bag have shocked and terrified her. I believe that.

But what now?

I could certainly lean up. I am pretty built for a 45-year old, but I don’t lift. I play soccer and work cattle. I make a good living at an unusual but prestigious job. I love my wife’s company and having her in my bed, but I’m no longer a validation addict.

There probably was a defense against the dark triad douche, but I missed it. Today is today and I have to live with it. I don’t really want to get rid of my wife. She said she’d leave if I made her, but she’d buy the house next door so she could come over and clean and put out for me whenever I’d let her. I think she’s a keeper.

But, askMRP, this leaves a lot on my shoulders. Whatever she feels, I have to have respect for myself. I have to look myself in the mirror and say “You get to have what’s left after she did this to herself.” I had a lot before, during, and so far after, but she defiled herself and lied to me for five years.

What’s the thinking on taking back a wife after something like this?