26 years married, both had affairs (mine physical, hers emotional) — now having the best communication of our marriage. Am I crazy to let her still take the trip to meet him?

Am I crazy to let my wife go meet someone she's been emotionally involved with, after my own affair years ago and a huge personal breakthrough in therapy?

I'm looking for perspective from anyone who's navigated a mature marriage through simultaneous affairs (mine years ago, hers now virtual/emotional) and a major personal awakening in therapy — specifically: am I being naive by encouraging her to take this trip, and is it realistic to rebuild real intimacy on this timeline, or are we both caught up in the intensity of the moment?

My wife (48) and I (51) have been together for 33 years and married for 26 of those years. In many ways, our life has probably been fairly predictable. We both are the oldest of our siblings, and both dealt with different types of trauma earlier in our lives. We hardly ever really fight, and many people over the years have told us they envy our relationship.

Those close to us have at times suggested that we are both people-pleasers and codependent. I've never really addressed childhood anxieties or a trauma I experienced as a young man living alone for the first time. In my adult life, my anxiety and depression have been steadily increasing and mostly untreated. Therapy never really caught on with me because I didn't know how to really be honest with myself.

About 6 years ago, I made a dramatic decision to quit my job of 20 years and move back home to start a business. My wife stayed behind while our child finished high school. We would see each other on weekends for over a year.

Living back in my hometown was a mix of nostalgia but also the first time we had spent a lot of time apart. The stress of starting a new business coupled with years of untreated anxiety was a disaster waiting to happen. Fairly quickly, an old mutual friend reached out, and we struck up a friendship that escalated into an affair that lasted over two years. It was a confusing time, to say the least, and it ended dramatically.

I confessed to my wife, and it was devastating to her, but we decided to work through it with a therapist and a marriage counselor. We knew the rebuilding period would be long and difficult. During this period, my wife made extensive progress with her own therapist, establishing boundaries with toxic family and learning about self-love.

I, on the other hand, added new anxiety to my life built around shame. I'd spent my adult life compartmentalizing and slowly retreating inside myself. The past year I didn't notice but I had been withdrawing even more as if I was trying to make myself invisible to avoid hurting anyone around me or allowing them to hurt me. In the process, I had been withdrawing from my wife too.

She loves me and has tried many times to tell me she needs more from me and that she doesn't feel I'm in love with her anymore. I would go through the motions and make conscious attempts to engage with her, but it was like I had built blinders on myself and couldn't see the forest for the trees. I didn't see how desperately lonely and emotionally neglected my wife had become.

About 2 weeks ago, I accidentally stumbled upon a strange photograph in our shared photo album that led me into a frantic investigation and revealed that she'd been having a long-distance, virtual, emotional affair with a man halfway across the world. This rocked my world in a way I never expected. I confronted her, and we had a really amazing conversation.

I had already begun seeing a therapist again a few weeks prior, but in many ways it was going much like every therapist I've ever had. I tended to keep things at surface level. This new revelation about my wife had really changed things. I was devastated and confused, and my therapist expertly guided me down a path to really look at my role in our marriage. I ended up isolating a moment in my early 20's where I had started the process of putting my life into boxes and hiding from the world. I went into some sort of manic episode, sobbing and blurting out every painful thing I'd hidden deep inside — things I've never confessed to anyone. My therapist called it a primal release.

The past two weeks have been the strangest time in my life. I've felt like I'd lived my entire life with blinders on and now my vision had expanded to the full range. I had spent so much time building protective barriers around myself to avoid all those feelings that exist on the edges. There was safety in this for me, but what I didn't know was that I was not only allowing myself to feel the full spectrum of emotions, but I also wasn't giving my wife the full spectrum of love she deserves.

I feel like I've fallen in love with my wife all over again. One of the strangest things was early one morning as we were just starting to wake up, she was lying with her back to me, and I reached over and touched her shoulder. It was like an electric shock coursed through my body, and I swear it felt like we were 19 again. Needless to say, these past two weeks have been a roller coaster for both of us. It's like someone has opened my faucet on full blast and my wife has whiplash from how much I'm talking and sharing in ways I never have. I've almost felt bipolar in some ways as I try to juggle my newfound perspective on myself with the reality of the anxieties I've kept locked up for so long.

So where are we? My wife says all she's ever wanted is to love me and be with me. I feel like a new person, and I'm ready to be the man she needs. My wife describes this person she's been messaging with as a friend who has been there for her when things have been so dark over the past two years. Before I discovered her affair, she had already booked a two-week vacation to meet this other man for the first time in another country. She's described the trip as sort of an Eat, Pray, Love experience — something she wants to do for herself. She says she has absolutely no intention of this other relationship being anything more than it has been and that this other guy feels the same way. He's happily married as well and lives in another country.

This has obviously raised many questions and concerns, and we are currently working through them. I've told her I want her to go on this trip because this guy has been there for her, and I never want her to feel any regrets. It's obviously a lot to digest and make sense of, but my therapist has told me that I have to just let her go. Either way, only she can decide what she wants for herself, and I have to let her be free to do that.

This whole experience has opened up how we talk to each other. We've talked about sex and intimacy in ways that we never have before. We both used to be kind of awkward with sex and just sort of going through the motions. We've both been a little shy with each other and afraid to upset the other by suggesting something new or risque. We are still working through what this other relationship means to her and this trip. It's opened up conversations about open marriage and related topics. I don't know how that would work, or even if it's something I would want, but everything feels so new and real for the first time, and I'm trying to stay open-minded about it all. The trip is not planned for another 6 weeks or so, and we have time to continue to let all of this digest.

We're both in individual therapy and are about to start seeing a marriage counselor together as well.

My question is: has anyone else been through a similar situation in a mature marriage? We are both saying that we want to make it work out between us. She's beyond excited to see me succeeding with my therapist for the first time in my life. Am I crazy to let her go on this trip? Are we crazy for thinking we can make things work out?

TL;DR: Married 26 years, together 33. I had a 2-year affair 6 years ago; we rebuilt through therapy. Two weeks ago I discovered my wife has had a long-distance emotional/virtual affair for the past two years and has a trip booked to meet him in person in 6 weeks. The confrontation cracked something open in me — I've had a major breakthrough in therapy about childhood trauma and emotional avoidance, and we're now communicating and connecting more deeply than ever. I've told her I want her to take the trip because he's been there for her when I wasn't. We're both in individual therapy and starting couples counseling. We're discussing open marriage. Question: has anyone been through something like this in a long marriage, and am I crazy to let her go?