Married for three years, my husband has been having an affair outside of marriage, never coming home, wanting to die yet unable to abandon my child.

Hello! I just wanted to send you a warm hug from afar.

I'm glad you've asked for help. I hope my input can support you and provide some guidance. I can sense the frustration, anger, confusion, and helplessness you're experiencing when faced with infidelity.

From what you've said, it seems like your husband wasn't like this from the start. So, it's important to understand that his extramarital affair is just a result of the conflicts in your marriage, not the cause.

Marriage is a joint effort between a husband and wife. You can't control how your husband behaves in an extramarital affair, but you can respond to his betrayal with the right attitude. That means being brave and sincere about your feelings and needs, and also being clear about your bottom line and principles in the marriage.

Don't judge his behavior, though.

Then try to think about what you did or didn't do to make him the way he is today. From what you've said, it seems like when you were going through a tough time, you were more focused on your child than on yourself.

In other words, over the three years of your marriage, have you ever taken the time to think about yourself, apart from your husband, children and family?

It's important to understand that in any relationship, the foundation of being able to give the support you love the most is that you first take care of yourself. Otherwise, if you've lost yourself in caring for and loving the one you love, they may treat you the same way you neglect yourself.

The more you give, the more pressure they feel to reciprocate, and the more guilt they feel, the best way for them to relieve some of this guilt is to distance themselves from you and end the relationship. That is, in any relationship, the premise of what you can give must be based on self-sufficiency, and what you give is exactly what the other person wants, not just what you want to give.

I suggest you read "How Others Treat You Is What You Teach Them" and "Intimate Relationships."

Hi, I'm Lily, the little ear of the Q&A Museum. The world and I love you.

Hello, questioner. Your question is very brief, but I can see the weight of the relationship on you. It seems that your husband's infidelity has led you to consider ending the relationship, yet you are reluctant to leave your children behind.

The weight of the relationship can have a significant impact on one's life and decisions. It can be perceived that you are a highly emotional individual. It can also be assumed that the pain of betrayal experienced by someone as emotionally invested as you may be more profound than for others.

In such circumstances, it is natural to question what one can do to alleviate the pain. It would be helpful to understand what motivates you to find a way out of this situation.

There is a theory in psychology called attachment theory that may help to understand the cause of the pain of losing love. It suggests that attachment is an instinctive need, equal to the instincts of survival and reproduction. All instincts in life are insurmountable. For example, we cannot overcome the instinct to eat, because if we don't eat we will die, and we cannot overcome the instinct to reproduce, because if we don't reproduce species will die out.

It seems that we cannot overcome the instinct of attachment. Currently, there appears to be no intuitive cause-and-effect chain that would allow us to conclude otherwise. However, it seems reasonable to infer that a human baby will find it difficult to survive if it is not raised and cared for by anyone. In the spiritual development of human beings, relationships appear to have a developmental significance. Perhaps this is the reason why attachment theory regards attachment as the third instinct.

It may be helpful to consider that to overcome the pain of separation from love, in a sense, it is necessary to overcome our instinct of attachment. This can make the process challenging, distressing, and agonizing.

It is fortunate that eating is important, but it is not necessarily the case that we have to eat only one kind of food. Similarly, attachment is important, but it is not necessarily the case that we have to be attached to only one person. Some children who have lost both parents have the option of growing up eating food from many different families. It is also possible for attachment to be switched to different people, especially adult attachment.

I recall reading a story some time ago about a woman whose husband had betrayed her. At one point, she also stood on the roof of a building and contemplated the potential consequences of jumping. She then asked herself, "Is it really worth dying for someone else's betrayal?"

"Could this perhaps be seen as a little ridiculous?"

I hope this story can be of some help to you. I also believe that both you and the woman in the story have experienced thoughts of not wanting to live when you were betrayed. It is enough to imagine the pain of being betrayed, and it may not be resolved by a little reason. Perhaps it requires confrontation and patience with emotions day and night, mourning the breakup and loss of a beautiful love, picking yourself up to take care of daily life again, and rebuilding the order of your life, etc. I just hope that my reply can bring you some kind of response. At least, someone has read your story and is walking with you. You are not alone in the world.