Should I leave my wife for my new lover?

I am 28 years old and have been married for 3 years. My wife and I have been together for 8 years and have a 2 year old son together. We've had many good years together but our relationship took a hit after our son was born.

I have not always been faithful to my wife and have strayed from my marriage on a few occasions. These were not affairs but simply one night stands to satisfy my sexual needs. I am not proud of this at all and I am hoping that I can one day be a faithful husband.

Approximately 5 months ago, I had an affair with a female co-worker, whom I'll refer to as RL. RL was new to the office and I was assigned to coach her in her new position. We spent our entire days together and got to know each other very well. What started off as a friendship quickly turned into flirting and inappropriate behaviour.

Within a few weeks we started sleeping together and agreed that we were only doing that to satisfy our sexual impulses. RL is single and 4 years younger than me, and she was aware that I was married and had a son. The arrangement worked out for a few weeks but it didn't take long for feelings to start creeping up.

We had amazing sex together and truly enjoyed each other's company. I couldn't get enough of her and hated parting ways at the end of the day. This behaviour obviously affected my marriage which was starting to fall apart. My wife suspected that something was going on but never called me out on it.

RL never asked me to leave my wife but made it clear that she wanted to be with me if my marriage didn't work out. We both fell in love with each other and our feelings have gotten stronger as time went on.

Approximately 1 month ago, my wife caught me texting RL in the middle of the night. I erased the conversation which was obviously inappropriate and confessed to having an emotional affair with RL. I couldn't tell her that we slept together as I felt like she would walk out on me right away and hate me forever.

This crushed my wife emotionally and I could never have imagined the amount of pain this would have caused her. I stopped seeing RL and told her I needed some time to sort out my life. My wife and I went to see a marriage counsellor in an attempt to get some insight on how to repair the damage I had caused. The counsellor decided that we should first seek therapy on an individual basis in order to work on our personal issues.

I have done 3 sessions with a different counsellor so far and I feel like I'm not making much progress. I still can't stop thinking about RL and what my life would be like if we were together. I'm also unable to leave my family because I know it's the wrong thing to do.

My biggest challenge is that I still run into RL on a weekly basis at work. We are no longer in the same office but my wife knows that we will still have to work together. This is affecting her greatly and it's also affecting me because every time I see her my feelings for her creep up. To make matters worse, RL lives a few blocks away from me and we are in a small town (approximately 1500 people).

To sum up.. I simply don't know what to do anymore.. Do I leave my wife to be with RL? Or do I stick it out with my wife and try to repair the damage I've done? And if so how to I get over this affair which has gotten so complicated and affected so many people…