I am having trouble giving up hope of R, apart from buckets of self-recrimination, because I still think WH is a good man. A weak man, yes, but still a good man. I don't think he would have cheated if I hadn't treated him so badly. In the spirit of honesty, I was vicious. Really vicious. When I think of how I treated him and imagined if he did the same to me... I would have walked ages ago, much earlier. I wouldn't have cheated because that's not who I am, but I would have walked for sure. I was emotionally abusive and I didn't realise it. And now that I do, all I want to do is make amends. I see his leaving for this OW as cosmic payback.
My therapist thinks his cheating was definitely a coping mechanism, a way of self medicating the pain.
