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Does it ever feel like a mistake? Like I have been struggling very much over the A. The official dday was Oct 11,2021. I have had inklings of possibilities before, but was never sure. I feel like I am In a nut of sorts... like I love her, as a friend. But having a hard time loving her as a wife. Sex comes and goes, but I continue being hung up over the PA. She sent pics of solo play doing things and she never has or does it with me. Just feeling very lost the past few weeks....

Some people describe year 2 as "The plain of lethal flatness". It’s when the shock and anger have worn off and you are left with the reality of what happened. And you are tired. You may just emotionally need a break after 2 years of being on high alert.

I didn’t R, but wanted you to know you are describing something others have experienced.
Hang in there.

Hey sorry you are still struggling. But unfortunately it is somewhat to be expected.

You now view your spouse through a whole new lens. There is the "before" aspect of your spouse and then the "after". Unfortunately the after forces you to look back and see things in a whole new light. As you mentioned you had suspicions about her fidelity and now that you have proof of the infidelity, it makes you question everything.

Understand infidelity is a trauma. Only people who have been through it truly understand it. In my dating days I had many guys cheat on me. It hurt at the time but my solution was to just move on and dump them. However it was t the same as my H cheating - the pain was unbelievable and I could barely cope. It took me well over a year into Reconciliation before I stopped thinking "I’m D him" every day. Every day I woke up thinking "I’ve got to get out of this".

It wasn’t that my H was doing everything he could - it was that R really went against my common sense.

Understand that for some people, cheating is a dealbreaker. And you just may be one of them.

Funny story. Sad but true. Husband is a serial cheater and after 25 years of marriage the wife finally had enough. She had a revenge affair. She felt so guilty she told her serial cheater H what she did and apologized. She admitted her mistake. His response was to promptly D her because "he couldn’t be married to a cheater". Wow! Double standard and all that.

So please don’t be hard on yourself. There are stages to recovery and R. Right now this is one of those stages. You may end up as a happily reconciled person OR you may decide the betrayal was too much and you just cannot remain silent about it and remain married to someone who could betray you like that.

I hope this helps you.

I can relate to your post and my d day was March of 2022 so similar timeline. My healing process has been all over the place but I have the same loss of romantic love at this point. I still had that prior to discovery even after two decades of marriage. I still care for him and have a strong attachment. We are still very sexually active but I have always been a very sexual person and I do not need to feel romantic feelings for a person to enjoy sex. Go figure I am the one that doesn’t have a problem with that but yet I took vows and was fiercely loyal to my husband. We’ve been married 21 years. But as far as romantic feelings or generally loving feelings toward him they are not there. He is doing everything possible to reconcile so it is not because of lack of effort. I think 1st wife says it well that we see our spouses differently after d day. And I think for some people the deceit and betrayal really causes a huge sometimes permanent damage to the romantic part of those feelings. We have had a lot of good days lately so I am focusing on that and continuing to focus on myself and my healing. I think my feelings may come back but I really don’t know. I think you may need to really question if there is enough there in the relationship that you can feel fulfilled and that you feel like those feelings may come back eventually.

I think the way one feels about R is directly related to what one has done to heal, so where are you in healing?

This is your 2nd post on SI. What have you been doing to heal between posts?

You say d-day ('official) was in '21, but you registered in 2017. WHat has been happening to you all these years?

Are you comfortable that you know enough about the A?

How well do your feelings flow - are you sometimes sad, angry, cared, ashamed? Does one feeling predominate?

Does your WS answer questions?

Does she take responsibility for her actions?

Is/was your WS in IC? What changes did she make as a result of her IC?

What does she do that you wish she didn't?

What does she not do that you wish she did?

I'm sorry you're in pain. I suspect you can get help from some SIers, but I think we need to know more.

Personally, I question almost everything as a matter of course. I did a lot of questioning about my choices WRT my W after d-day, but I was mainly concerned with things like : did I still want R; did my W still want R; were we doing the right things; what did I want, and what was I willing to do to get what I wanted, etc., etc., etc.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 11:38 PM, Tuesday, December 5th]

What work is she doing to become a safe partner?

Maybe the affair was a deal breaker. Sometimes it takes awhile for the BS to realize that. If it was..it's ok.