I should have let him go at the beginning too. Hindsight would have had me doing several things very differently.
Perhaps you did the right thing for you? If you had not built that friendship you might now be reproaching yourself as well. My husband, as I have said, was mean and vengeful, and cut me out of his life [which he now denies!] I wish I had been able to forge a friendship, as spiritually it puts us in a good place. We are reaching a point, slowly, slowly where we may be able to have a precarious friendship, divorce and all. This is mostly for my h, but also for me. I find it hard to be at emnity with someone with whom I shared most of my life, and with whom I had children.
The OW is a hard one. My h still has some sort of relationship with her, but of what nature I don't know, and in truth I rarely think about her. It is 'unwinding' according to him, but clearly he still feels some sort of need for her. They are a symptom of an underlying dis-ease, hurtful though it is that they turn to someone else.
I agree that at this stage you let go. Do what is right for you, but never feel like a failure. We did the best we could in difficult circumstances and without a guidebook.
