I discovered my wife of 21 years' affair May 4th. She had met her AP seemingly innocently through the chat feature of an online game "trivia crack." Flirtations quickly escalated to pictures and sexting which led to 3 physical encounters over 18 months. The sexting escalated gradually from once a week to practically daily the last 6 weeks. It appears this was the only infidelity in our 21 years of marriage and I was completely blind sided - the behavior seemed to make no sense to me at all - especially as it appeared she was almost immediately able to cut off the relationship without missing the AP and quickly had much remorse and shame. She has explained numerous times the behavior was easy to compartmentalize, she knew it was wrong, but it gave her a much desired sense of control. She says that the last couple of months, as the frequency escalated, all the plates spinning felt like they were crashing down around her. This seems like a completely different person than the loving, professional, well educated mother of 2 I thought I was spending my life with. Through much counseling and the ems weekend she began to disclose much more sexual abuse than I realized existed in her childhood. She grew up with a father who was an alcoholic, mother was unfaithful, experienced multiple rapes and other abuses prior to age 16 - much of which had been suppressed and never told until now. Her ACE score was a 5 or 6. I love her deeply and we both want to make this work. She is taking responsibility, is in AR coursework and continues individual counseling. As I try to wrap my head around this, I am trying to understand, am I confused as to whether the process of now working through the underlying childhood traumas and abuses will eventually serve as a relief to the urge to act out sexually in this way or is this addictive behavior a new burden all unto itself? Thank you for this tremendous resource and your insight.