Choc, I'm glad she finally saw the light. I will, however, warn you and you already know this, but coming from someone first hand (me), there is going to be so much healing YOU are going to end up needing to do once the dust settles. I know you know all of this, but I'm still going through it months later. Once things are grand and wonderful from her POV, you are going to be thinking "what about all the sh*t you just put ME through?" And when she's absolutely so in love w/ you again, you're constantly (at least I do) thinking "and you almost threw all of this away!!" However, I think all of that goes away w/ time. The trust seemed to be the easiest thing for me to deal w/ because I know he has no desire to do that anymore and he knows if he does it's over, however, the aftermath of the whole D sitch and the things he said & did to me are what are the hardest to deal w/ at times. You may find that you don't see your W the same way anymore and you probably never will. She will be an entirely different person to you, because the W you married would never have done & said the things she did. I think those are the hardest things to deal w/ when rekindling an M from the "almost left" person's POV.
Cadesmom,
I know. A couple of the very good books that I've read have warned me well of this, as has NOP. I think what has helped, as someone else said above, is for me to remember those areas where I'm a knucklehead and a sinner, and not to "lord this over" her. Just because I've been faithful (and I have), doesn't mean I don't have my issues -- just in other areas. So that humility has helped.
It's also helped that she HAS been willing to talk about it, and she shows genuine remorse and contrition in nearly every conversation about it. This is new for her; she is normally a person who does NOT like to "deal with her own chit," but she shown more introspection and communication with me about it than I ever would have imagined. This has really helped me. When I read in some infidelity books about how many, many WASs don't ever really show this remorse, but rather just want to "move on," I don't know if my personality type could have dealt well with that.
Finally, we have talked about the fact that this (her affair) won't ever go away; it will be a part of our shared marital (and even family) history forever. This upsets her, but she knows it's reality. But I've also told her that MCs, books, message boards -- others who have gone thru this -- have ALL said that the marriage often emerges stronger and better than it's ever been before. That in short, you won't ever have "apples" that were as good as your old apples, but you can have -- if you work at it -- "oranges" that are better than your old apples were.
