Thank you so much for the input. I'm embarrassed to admit that after my initial few posts here, I became so embroiled in the day to day with H that I didn't come back here to gain the support I so desperately needed. That weekend in September will always stand out to me as one of the worst weekends of my life and causes me PTSD like symptoms whenever I revisit it in my mind.
Because of that, I missed some very important, very helpful replies because I either didn't see them, or didn't fully soak them up and implement them as I should have. I don't intend to make that mistake again.
I would be very interested in any input as to how to regain any dignity at this point. I have indeed read DB - in fact I've reread several sections of it. I wish I had taken a hardline DB approach when H was still fully in his affair three months ago.
But what of now? I don't even know what to call what he has been doing for months now. It hasn't been a PA since September, and within a couple of weeks it dwindled down to not even being a full emotional affair. It was more him feeding his addiction to her by repeatedly going back for little "hits". Those hits did become a little fewer and further between, gradually, over the three months. So I guess in the end he has gotten "his way" with his fade away approach. Call me a child, but that infuriates me to no end. Because he lied, and because I fell for it time and again, I subjected myself to demeaning treatment by allowing his cake eating. Sometimes knowingly, but mostly unknowingly.
So what are my options now? Now that there is really no more affair, just his pathetic withdrawal symptoms over the course of many weeks - what DB methods can I possibly employ, and to what end? To punish for what's already been done? Kick him out because I said I would if he messed up even one more time for 30 seconds, and he did for over an hour?
I just feel like I blew it. And I have no earthly idea how to get any respect back now at this point.
To make matters worse, even though I absolutely KNOW better, I am plagued with the impulse to contact the OW. I mean, there are times when I feel obsessed about it. I know it's wrong, I know it would be useless and ultimately make me feel horrible and look like an idiot. But one of the first things H told me about her was his concern that "trouble always follows her, but somehow she always gets off smelling like a rose - it just never sticks to her." I believe that "trouble" is her knack for using men and acting like she just has no idea, it's not HER fault everyone falls all over her. And because men are always drooling all over her, none of them ever has the nerve to call her out on her actions. I'm not a man and I can see right through her. And I can see why she always gets off Scott-free. Men look at her and lose their minds and let her get away with murder. Once again, she got off not only without a hitch, but while she helped get my husband fired from his extremely lucrative job, SHE ended up not only keeping hers for a while and then getting an even better job on the west coast.
My H says she is very messed up and much like a man in her ability to compartmentalize and deny to herself the havoc she creates in her wake. And yet even my H remains addicted. I fantasize almost daily now about confronting her so she can no longer feign innocence that she didn't know what she was doing.
Yes, I am absolutely aware of how insane that makes me sound and that it wouldn't do a thing but elevate her importance in her eyes. So screw her. But it consumes me with anger and rage that sure enough, she managed to rip through several other peoples' lives, shred them and burn them, and she's escaped to sunny California for a bright new life where she will undoubtedly destroy someone else's life. All because no one ever has the balls to confront her and bring her down.
And that's when I have to remind myself yet one more time, life isn't fair.
