First post on here, found this sub a couple of months ago and have been lurking & reading. 8 months ago I found out my wife of 10 years had a ONS with a guy and had been involved in multiple other incidents in the 4 months prior with other men (all appears to have happened in the last 12 months). I’m certain I know the vast majority of what happened from a VAR I put down and phone backups I did where I found the messages / pictures etc but I know there is probably more I will never know about. All of these actions seriously crossed the line from Kissing, Sexting, and ending up in a guy’s bed in a hotel before changing her mind (apparently).

Basically she hit the wall at 32 after three kids and went off the rails, began acting like a teenager wanting freedom. She spent a year or two seriously improving her SMV post the last kid, I sat there thinking this is great and what a wonderful life I have. I was Beta, a “Nice guy” who was coasting at home though with a very good career. I had (have still to some degree) a serious dose of Oneitis, zero frame and sat her there on a pedestal doing everything to make her happy at home. I wasn’t bad looking, but I was not making the best of myself. I was putting my wife first and was certainly not leading at home nor did I have a plan of where I was going in my life. Clearly to her my SMV had disappeared.

I was so BP when I found out that I allowed it to be flipped back onto me for breaking her privacy and she told me I was single. If it would have ended there it would have probably been for the best as she was clearly asking for me to end it, but I went about trying to fix her and save the marriage so we stayed together. I organised the MC (pointless waste of time and money), I organised date nights, I stopped doing things she said annoyed her etc etc etc I did all the running and really it got me nowhere, it probably made her think even less of me if that was even possible.

At some point a few months later while searching the internet on how to “fix” my marriage I found MMSL, got the book and I started to understand. Next came the MAP and I had a plan in place. Lifting, diet, clothing, getting a life of my own, making male friends and trying to decipher the difference between a shit and comfort test and pass them. Then read NMMNG, found Rollo, TRP side bar and over the months she started to change, started to defer to me more, accepted my lead more, told me she had fallen in love with me all over again, said she would rather die then be without me etc. But at the same time even now she still runs our marriage / me down to her friends and continues a friendship with someone who knew and encouraged the original behaviour despite me being clear I don’t agree with it. Clearly she still doesn’t respect me and I’m not surprised given everything I did before and after finding out.

The more time that has passed the more angry I’ve got. I’m so pissed that I let myself get to this point. I dug myself into a monumental hole to start with then made it worse by trying to fix things. I’m now in some half way house where I have her starting to respond to me but I’m moving towards the exit door as my eyes have opened. The biggest issue is my kids. My wife is not from the country we reside in (moved here for my work a few years ago) and would not stay here if we split taking the kids with her. I’ve looked at my exit options with a lawyer and there is near zero chance I can stop her leaving with the kids for more than the time it takes the divorce to go through and that assumes I can even persuade a judge to make a court order during the divorce. The legal system here will favour the mother even if I’m divorcing her for adultery.

So I’m left with three options:

1 – Divorce and accept that I will be a once in a month / two month father.

2 – Divorce and relocate / follow my kids, potentially impact my career, leave behind my current life and rebuild again in a place I don’t really want to live.

3 – Wait it out, see how it the next six months go and re-evaluate while continuing my improvement plan.

My youngest is preschool so it’s not like I can wait this out for a year or two then have a relationship with grown up kids who understand. I don’t now doubt my ability to start again and will eventually get to the point where I don’t rely on others for my happiness or validation, but I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place here.

I’ve seen many posts on here and TRP Reddit advise a next with a wife who cheats and I wouldn’t be surprised if I get that now. Has anyone gone with my option 3 and it worked out, or am I just delaying the inevitable?

Edit : Thanks for the posts and advice. Lots for me to work through. I'm clear I need to continue to work on myself for myself to gain some self respect back. Time to refocus on my path through, get my frame together and lay down some boundaries while I work through the next few months.