Wife one night stand - heartbroken

Feel dead inside. Met at 15 years old, been together 26 years, married for 20. Hasn’t been smooth sailing for most of it (normal ups and downs) but never infidelity in marriage. Both have felt life has created anxiety, stress, depression, kids, busy lifestyles. I have not been easy and not been the perfect husband (emotionally, financially etc…) but I have NEVER strayed in our marriage. Wife went away overseas 3 months ago and had one night stand (after dinner) with guy she met on the plane. Long story short about a week ago lost my phone so needed to make a call from hers. I saw Facebook message exchange on her phone and at first she said it was "just dinner". But it didn’t add up. I knew deep down and finally she confessed after my probing saying she didn’t want to hurt me with the truth. She asked me to promise her that I would not leave her if she told me the truth. I want to make the marriage work and we start counselling in a week. She is very apologetic, crying, feeling worthless. It’s never happened before but she was away, curious (we met so young and never had ‘loads of fun’), she had company and one thing led to another. She is not a bad person, she is a wonderful mother and has been a good wife but she has broken my heart. I will not break the family for the kids sake. PLEASE NO JUDGING but just looking for feedback to start the journey of re-building the relationship from scratch. Just devastated and feel such grief and loss.

51 comments posted: Wednesday, October 26th, 2022