Look... it's very simple. Aging isn't about getting ugly. It's a change, is all. You can't prevent it, but you can surf it. My grandmother is 81. She's beautiful. She's active physically, gardening, working out, walking and playing with her two massive dogs. But she's also beautiful because her spirit is beautiful, warm, playful, loving, generous... young. A friend of mine saw a picture of my grandmother in a group family picture taken three years ago. Granted, it was from enough of a distance to take in a group of 15 or so, and she was wearing sunglasses... but my friend still asked me who the woman was in the green suit and the fantastic legs.

(Yes, he cringed when I told him. And I still tease him about it. But...)

As a woman in my 30's, I can definitely understand how strange and slighly scary the manifestations of age can be. They're very slight at my age, but I still can feel them. I see that I have the beginnings of wrinkles that will deepen over time. You know what? They're laugh lines. I might feel a bit strange at the changes to come that those deepened lines might signify. But I honestly won't mind that the fact that my face shows how much I have laughed and smiled in my life. Why would I ever feel shame about having had a happy life?

Someone very wise once told me that the years between 40 and 60 are the years when you reap what you have sown in the first 4 decades of your life. Maybe that's the real fear? The fear that somehow, the changes that come with age will not bring a happy or satisfactory harvest? I think it would be a terrible thing indeed to have so much of my self worth or sense of personal power wrapped up in something that's so transitory. My advice to the LW echoes what's been said before: Volunteer. See beyond the mirror. And everyone else will, too.

Speaking as the child of a marriage like the one you describe, let me give it to as I see it.

Your kids know. They may not entirely understand it as an adult would, given their age... but over time, as they gain more understanding of the world and see more of this drama play out, they will put two and two together. They might even be drawn into this as kinds of decoys... as in, excuses for absences (had to drop the kid off/shop for a present for a party). My mother, at one point, got very gung ho about a kids organisation that my brother and I had very limited interest in as kids. She not only signed us up for it, but volunteered us for about every project under the sun it was involved in. Turns out the guy she had a thing with the guy was a sponsor of the program. They weren't all over eachother, but even as 9 yr old, I knew something wasn't quite as it should be. Other adults involved in the organisation knew, as well. Do you really want your kids to be involved in that sort of situation?

She's been telling her friends about this other man and how much she loves/misses him - even while she's on a trip with you for her birthday? Friends tell other friends... and she might have told several friends about this, swearing each of them to secrecy. In other words, I doubt very seriously that this is as much of a secret as she and this other man want to try and pretend it is. How do you feel about that?

He rebuffed her, then met with her later on. I'll bet you that she repeatedly asked him to meet with her and kept contacting him until he relented and did meet up with her. Not a good sign, particularly if she's telling you that she wants to be with you and work on the relationship.

I doubt very seriously it's about this man in particular. My brother & I figured out together at one point that my mom had three relationships over about a 20 yr period, each with about a 4 yr cycle. All the men were very similar sorts of guys (looks, older authority figures). All followed a similar arc, at least from what we as her children can see. In all cases, from what we saw, she was chasing pretty hard. I think that if my dad had decided to leave her, she would have never wound up with any of these clowns. My dad didn't leave. He stuck around, for the kids, I'm sure, and because he loves her. She promised to stop and didn't, and we grew up in a house with lots of secrets and denial.

I think she's taking you for granted. You've cheated, but there have been no real repercussions to her actions. You both need therapy, as do the kids.

I know you don't want to damage your kids with a divorce, but take it from me - if you continue on papering over the cracks, your kids will suffer. Not saying that you need to divorce, necessarily, but your wife has to stop. Given how much she's involving her friends in this, I'm betting she won't. Which do you think would be more damaging for your kids to be around?