You have been given some good thoughts. I will just add one more.
At one year out of course you are feeling this way. It would be pretty out of the ordinary if you felt the same about him as you once did.
Recovery comes before reconciliation and by my best estimate in watching patterns on this site, I think recovery usually takes six months to a year and usually the year is more common. This is when both spouses are working through what just happened and why. It’s a very painful time with a lot of information gathering and the grief is so thick.
The ws has a lot of work to do before they are in a place they can help create a new healthy relationship. It’s a painful goodbye to what once was but the work of creating what will be is long and arduous. So you are in that in between place, where the connection is naturally very thin of not non-existent. It requires going through a lot of things that may not work well before finding what it does.
Of course you are angry, and you want for him to suffer like you do. Truth is any ws who has a conscience and really strives for change does suffer a lot over what they have done. I am thinking that perhaps he is not demonstrating that and may not even be experiencing it. Not a good sign. I am not saying if he is suffering it should heal you, I am just saying I think sometimes the feelings of unfair are deepest in those left to navigate it alone.
Some will divorce at that point. Others will reengage to see what can work. Those who truly reconcile it takes you from a process of individual work to shared work to shared vision and for us, eventually a picture of shared loss. Yes, I created it but I lost a lot because of those decisions and I have a deep sadness about that too.
All this to say, if you aren’t seeing your ws trying to draw you near, struggling through their issues, where there is no smoke there is no fire. A we should be full of fire when it comes to trying to fix themselves and make amends. And hopefully that gives you a description to gauge from.
But infidelity is insanely not fair. You are dealing with things you didn’t cause and don’t deserve. Reconciliation can happen if what I describe above is there and the rest happens in time through the grace you will have as an extension of the energy he is providing. A year out, you sound very normal and you might be putting too much pressure on yourself to feel or do things that aren’t grown back yet. May never grow back, that’s true but it takes longer than this to do it.
[This message edited by hikingout at 9:15 PM, Wednesday, May 15th]
