although i know she is holding back a bit on the timeline. I know because i found other stuff (stumbled across it) which confirms she has been fantasing about it for longer. So even if PA was only last 6 months or so she has been EA for a lot longer. I dont care about that. It hurts but im no angel If she felt safe with me she wouldnt have been interested.
Bull$h*t. You may be (and probably are) 50% responsible for the conditions that led to your marital dysfunction (not standing up to your mother's meddling, for example), and eventually her VULNERABILITY to an affair. But the affair itself -- and its subsequent, long-term DECEIT -- is strictly her doing. Do NOT accept responsibility for that, and you actually do HER no favors by letting her off the hook for that part. The emotionally healthy (not to mention, moral/ethical) way to have responded to her deep unhappiness in the marriage would have been to TALK to you about it, and try to work it out (if anything, reading your early posts it sounds like YOU were the one that would at least try to address the emotional and physical distance?) . . . or, if all else failed, to end the marriage BEFORE hooking up with some other guy.
Sorry, but this is just more moral equivalency from you, and yes -- she's messing with your head and your detachment here.
Your response to her pain and her thousands of words should have been "I hear you -- you were hurting, and for my part in getting us to that point, I'm truly sorry. But you still shouldn't have invited someone else into our marriage, and I won't take responsibility for that -- that's on you."
She's looking to you to soothe her destructive choices, and you're looking to her to soothe your pain. If you're truly DONE, and you want to be friends and co-parents that's fine. But if you're still DBing it needs to start with RE-ATTRACTION, and as I was told (repeatedly!) in my own sitch, "Melty Man" does NOT re-attract a wayward spouse.
