my W doesn't regret her affair

[Deep]

Hi future, your sitch does suck and I'm sorry to read of it. Part of it reminds me a musing post I put up some time back on how the betrayed spouse often as this need for a sense of empathy and justice.

I totally get how you need your W to tell you she is remorseful and she wants you / the M. The truth is sadly, proably closer to that of her not wanting to lose you as an option, a standby, a fallback. The way she feels right now just isn't in line with what your ideal may be. It's your call whether you want to hang in there and work on things till the day comes when she is closer to where you wish her to be.

As Puppy puts it, there are variations of the hard / soft stance, even many variations of when and how you apply them, and if you apply diferent tactics at different points of the sitch. If you look at knittedscarf's threads, she can arguably be said to have (perhaps unconsciously) used tough love and got results that many LBS would kill for. However, it seems it was more tough period than tough love, she wasn't just acting "as if". Whether one chooses to use the tough approach to get a result, and ease up in the acceptance of remorse / forgiveness part is unpredictable.

And don't buy any of your W's bullcrap for a second. People don't have As because of a broken heart, perhaps more of a broken conscience.