Surviving marriage after partner cheated

Hello everyone,

Little context about what happened.

I (32M), have been married to my wife (31F) for 4 years and a half (January 2022).

We got together in May 2021, and quickly felt like we were soulmates (stupid now that you read this post I know), and decided to get married, and we had 2 daughters, 1 born in 2022, and the youngest in 2024.

We had some issues during our time being married, a big argument after our wedding event, that dragged on for years along other issues such as her saying that we might not be compatible sexually speaking. The problem here is that she never actually tried anything to raise the bar, stopped touching me, never truly explained/described what she like or wanted, and never took the lead nor any initiative during sex.
She did say a few time however that we might not be compatible and she did not know what the path forward for that would be.

Extra context: I am working, providing for my entire family, she used to be working in retail when we met, she then stopped to study a few different domains (changed every year since 2022), and has not made any money. She has never been a stay-at-home mom, our kids have always been going to daycare / pre-school, I take care of them 50% or probably more even though I'm working, and I handle about 50% or more of the chores around the house. We own a nice house, share a mortgage 50/50 although I pay everything.

In may 2026, she started going out after her final exams, and going out until very late, sometimes without even sending messages. She started going out 2/3 times a week for about 3 weeks, coming back at 2.30am, 5am, 7.30am, sometimes even 12pm, and acted more distant towards me.

She invited her friends from school at a BBQ event at our place, including one guy (23M, shady af, went to prison as a teenager, has an 8 yo girl, which he obviously never sees), that clearly was into her and spent the evening trying to kiss her and all of that stuff. She pushed him away multiple times during the evening, I did not witness any of this otherwise I would have kicked him out.
The next day, the friends left (including that guy) and she cried, saying he really pressured her, she did resist but felt really badly about that.

A few weeks later, she came really late once again after a party (3am), and I had a lot of doubts, something was going wrong and I knew it, I found out that she was seeing the guy often, although she had told me multiple times that she had blocked him, and would never speak to him again. So I confronted her the next morning, she told me they only kissed 2 times, I decided to accept it, not forgive, but focus on the things that needed work in our relationship.

This whole time, she was gaslighting me into thinking I was the problem, that she kissed him because she felt lonely during the year, that sex was still not as she expected and that she had to stop going out after creating a family, and that she really needed that. I was stupid in believing that, and decided to put our relationship and problem at the front to fix it, rather than talk about divorce at that time, which I should have done.

A few weeks later of couple therapy, not going as well as expected, her still going out a lot, coming out next mornings, me taking care of kids with an absent mother that comes back home in the early morning, heavily drunk and crashes in the couch.

Anyway, we're now in the last week of July, and once again I felt something wasn't right, she was supposed to be out and back by 1am, she came back at 3am. She was like "let me show you my phone, I have used a bus ticket that would prove I left town at x, and came straight home", and while she did that she received a text message "I love you, it was so good to be with you tonight" etc, I had the time to open up the conversation and read some of it really quickly before she found out I was reading. It was basically love messages, "I want to spend all my nights with you, I love you, I love the way you make love to me" and all of that shit. The guy she was cheating on me with was that same guy from the BBQ 23M.

I did not talk about it straight, I first met with a lawyer and my therapist to process all that and find out what were the next steps to file for divorce.

2 days after the discovery, I finally confronted her, after a couple therapy session that went well, where I hoped that she would have talked to me about all of the cheating, which she did not (she did not seem to remember that I saw the messages in the phone as she was really really drunk). She first started lying, "No, I told you I blocked him, why are you inventing this ?" and gaslighting me further, until I basically read her (from memory) the message about "I love the way you make love to me", and she started saying "Ok, so it's over you're filing for divorce ?", we talked about it for a few minutes and she went to do whatever she had to do. In the evening, I went out for a few hours with a friend, and when I came back she was waiting for me, and we discussed it further, she was not showing remorse, although she had been spending the evening drinking heavily so she was not in her right mind, she also spent the evening talking with her lover, even more "I love you, my husband found out ..." kind of discussions.

We made love that night, I guess that this part of ourselves receives more importance during dark times.

We had sex a few more times in the upcoming days, we both had breakdowns, I was just so hurt, the woman that I chose to share my life with, for whom I did absolutely everything, and accepted/forgave so much, all over in ashes.

Still, we decided to try and have some good time with our daughters, as we do not want them to suffer from this.

Since, we had some really good times, I felt strong emotions, strong desire, and deep passion for her, although these are temporary.

Now, on the 3rd of August, I feel angry, I do not know if I will ever be able to forgive her for what she did, nor put trust in her again. I do not want to support her "forever studying" life after what she did to me.

Yes, our sexual life isn't perfect, like in every marriage, although grown ups fkn talk about it and take steps and initiatives to heal it, where she's most of the time acting like a teenager, that always rejects the fault on everything around her but never on herself.

So, I am unsure if we will be able to fix the underlying problems, like sex, and I don't know if I will ever be able to go forward with her.

I'm going on a 2 weeks vacation with our children, she was included but got "kicked out", as we'll be spending 2 weeks at the beach with my family, so we do not want her to be with us during that time.

She has since blocked the other man, spent all her time apologizing for what she did, although I have a strong belief that I did not confront her, she would still be going out till very late, having sex in hidden public places outside the house at dark hours of the night.

Have any of you ever been in a similar situation ? Were you able to save your marriage ? Or just divorce and move on ?

I know I can't move forward with her and still respect myself, at least at this stage.

I feel humiliated, lesser than I really am, for what she did and who she decided to do it with, and I'm certain I do not even know everything.

Thanks if you read it all the way to this point, have a good day.