Alright, so I'm asking for advice but, in a way, writing this is also therapy for me. I fully expect people to email me and call me an asshole, a hypocrite and make fun of me. That's fine, I probably deserve it. What I'm hoping to get at least a little of is something constructive and helpful. If anyone has had a similar experience to me, that would be especially useful.

So I met my wife in lawschool. We hung out all the time, drank, did drugs and basically did the friends with benefits thing. We also had sex with other people. I wasn't jealous about that at the time. Towards the end of school, my wife took a job in Hawaii and I stayed in SF. I told her that we weren't an item and that we should see other people. I don't think she liked hearing that. She was going to stay in Hawaii for at least a year.

She hated Hawaii, at first, and I hated my corporate job in the city. I was having sex with other people and I knew she was having sex with other people in Hawaii. We lied to each other and said we weren't seeing or screwing anyone. Eventually I had a second thoughts about her so I asked her to move in with me when she was done in Hawaii. We still asked each other whether we were sleeping with or seeing other people. We kept lying to each other about that and, since we aren't stupid, we each knew the other was lying the entire time.

She said she wanted to move back with me and that she loved me. She said it instantly without hesitation. We talked on the phone almost daily. When her voicemail came on on a Friday night, I figured she was with someone and I'd get a little jealous even though I was doing the same goddamn thing.

When she got back things were tough at first. We weren't living in a very cool place, we weren't making good money (I got fired and had to get a new job), she got an abortion (mine), she couldn't find a job she wanted. When I'd get home from work she'd be all mopey all the time. Sometimes she'd be wearing just sweats and hadn't showered. It wasn't like she was dirty, she just wasn't trying to impress me.

She'd gotten to like Hawaii while she was there. She was always telling me how in shape she'd been, how tan, how she would always go out and get drunk or do drugs. I could tell she wasn't happy that she'd moved back. She kept saying she hated it back in California and the only thing worth coming back for was me. I'm not sure if she meant it all the time.

We fought constantly about virtually everything. I wasn't interested in having sex with her. I sometimes regretted asking her to come back. The fact that I knew she had had sex with people in Hawaii didn't bother me in the slightest. In the first year when she came back, it came out that I had slept with some people while she was out of state. She freaked out, cried and swore up and down that she had never slept with anyone while she was in Hawaii because she was being honest about our "long distance" relationship.

Over the next few years, things got better between the two of us. We fought less. We took better care of ourselves and looked generally better. Our jobs got better and we moved to a nicer place. Things became pretty happy and I think we were both honestly content. I proposed, bought a big ring and she accepted. We eloped a short time later because planning for the wedding had become annoying. It was wonderful.

Right after our first year of marriage she got the dream job offer in the dream place to live. We were both ecstatic. We prepared to move and she flew to a seminar for training. While she was gone, I happened to read her email. She had saved emails to a friend and they detailed how she had had sex with five people while in Hawaii, how the sex was incredible, how she did drugs and drank and basically went wild. She had rated all the people she had sex with. I was a 10 but so was some other guy in Hawaii and another was a 9.5.

Bear in mind that I had been with six or seven people while she was gone. Even so, I got pretty pissed about the whole thing. I confronted her about the other guys, she admitted but didn't apologize since I admitted I had done the same. I figured it was no big deal and I don't think she ever cheated on me. She also wrote in the emails that she missed me incredibly but that didn't stop her from having sex. She wrote about how she had second thoughts about coming back how she enjoyed her independence. She didn't mention that she wanted to stay for any particular guy.

That was three months ago. Since then, I haven't been able to keep the emails out of my mind. I get angry with her, stop speaking with her we fight about what she did while in Hawaii. I know I have no right to be angry since I did the exact same things but I am angry and insanely depressed. I think I'm actually more depressed than I've ever been in my whole life. When I wake up until I go to sleep I think of her having sex with other people, I think how she's a slut and how she probably bragged that she was doing this while her long distance boyfriend was none the wiser. I simply cannot get the thoughts out of my mind. I have tried to think about other things and I can't, I've tried to rationalize that it doesn't matter since I did the same stuff and I can't.


I think about suicide constantly. I think about divorce. I think about moving to Hawaii myself and leaving her. I think about how she was in her best shape then, tan and fun and drunkenly getting the **** ****** out of her by hot surfer guys. I know the kind of screwing I do to be a 10 so I'm pretty goddamned sure what they did to be a 10 and 9.5 respectively. I think about how she came back and was mopey and wasn't the same for me. She's still hot, but not as hot as she described herself then. I feel they got the best of her and I got seconds.

The other odd thing that's happened is that our sex life has really improved. At least, I want to have sex with her constantly now. For the the past three months, I haven't even watched any porn or jerked off to anyone else but her. That is one thing I'm actually kind of happy about. But I get upset when she doesn't want to and sometimes I bring up the people in Hawaii when she says no as if to say "if you were a slut for them why not me?" We are having a shitload of sex though. Immediately after sex is the only time I'm not insanely jealous and down.

I also get angry since she doesn't smoke now and hardly drinks. I'm so depressed and angry I drink more now and took up smoking again. She complains about how I smell after I smoke and sometimes doesn't want to kiss me. I bring up the fact that one of the guys she was ******* in Hawaii dipped and we fight some more. I see double standards in everything.

I don't want to leave her and I don't want to feel this way. But I can't keep going on in this kind of misery, it's just a constant torture that's driving me completely insane. I know that it's unfair of me to feel this way but knowing that doesn't make it go away. I need to know what to do. Is there some pill I can take to mellow me out until this passes? Will this pass? Will therapy do something? Should I just leave while I'm still young (33)? If you've gotten this far, please, please email me and tell me what you think I should/could do.