Puppy, I know this might poke at old wounds, and for that I'm sorry, but how did you do it? How did you get past the reality that your W went from a SSM with you, to a torrid A with another man? How did your ego handle that? How much of your reconciliation was dependent on your own strength vs. needing something from her? How did you return to trusting her? Do you trust her feelings for you?
This sucks.
First of all, no need to apologize, Future -- it's why I'm here (to share my own experiences, good and bad, in the hopes of helping others).
My first, gut answer is "you don't." You DON'T fully get past it -- ever -- I don't think. It remains not a wound, but now a SCAR, and like bodily scars, it can be simultaneously a reminder of a wound, the reckless behavior (by both of us) that caused it, and also a symbol of healed flesh.
Secondly, I would say that our reconciliation was dependent almost ENTIRELY on me, at least at first. After my wife's affair, she felt foolish, guilty, blamed and shamed, and she was a mess. She didn't really have much to give me, and told me so. The physical affection helped, but then also was THE biggest "trigger" for me of what she had done, so it was ALL tough. Eventually, she started giving more, or at least TRYING to, but she's still a fairly self-centered person, emotionally, and I pretty much have to self-soothe in that department.
As for trust, that only came with transparency. I STILL check the cellphone records from time to time, and I still get a knot in my stomach if there's a text(s) on her phone to a male and the contents are deleted. Every tunnel I've taken the time to check out more fully, however, has been cheeseless, infidelity-wise, and so -- over time -- I guess trust has slowly built up in that I realize that it's now been three full years without a re-conflagration of the affair, either with OM or with some OM2.
As horrible as affairs are (and I think that unless you've been betrayed, you cannot even really IMAGINE the wound or the pain), I think an affair-following-a-longterm-SSM is its own special kind of Hell. And though I know it isn't what you want to hear, I'm not altogether sure that I have ever figured out how to fully deal with my pain and my wound.
