Appreciate the long post about your religious upbringing and your beliefs over time. I don't really have much to comment on that, but I do understand the difficulty in developing a strong conviction. I think you have to become comfortable with knowing that you may never have a complete black/white level of conviction. In my own case, I don't know if the path that I have chosen is the right one from a spiritual standpoint. However, I do know that my path is the one that is truly reflective of my values and how I see the world. I went back to the drawing board to square one and disassembled all the religious beliefs and values that I was 'supposed' to follow, and did a deep dive in understanding them and why they mattered or didn't matter to me. I questioned all of it and removed any emotional attachment, experiences, or how I was raised to create as much objectivity as I could. We can never be fully objective, but I wanted to remove as much bias as I could. And after all of that, I was able to hone down the values that mattered to me, and more importantly, why they mattered to me outside of any religious decree or interpretation of any holy text.
And then I came to the conclusion that my values mattered more to me to live a truthful and honest life, and I wouldn't try to compromise them so that I could be part of a religion. But the question that I used to work through all the noise was - why do I believe what I believe and why does this value matter to me? If the answer was - because it says so in the religion, even if there was some explanation for it - I would highly question it and see if it was how I truly felt about it. That was my process. I am not suggesting it is a correct process, but one that I could live with and the answers it provided. I am much happier now and I can use that as a gauge for my decision and process.
I am a lover of words and language and I really believe in crafting empowering and truthful ways to express myself. How other people use language can also be revealing as well. This is just my read of what you wrote, and I may be wrong, but I wanted to point it out to you.
You talked about how the OW 'inserted' herself into the life of a married man. I found that super intriguing. To me it suggests that you are giving your H a wider berth on his actions and that the 'fault' resides with this woman rather than your H. She didn't insert herself into anything that your H wasn't willing to get into. In fact, she wouldn't have inserted herself at all if your H hadn't decided to step out of the marriage. I just feel that at some mental and emotional level, you are letting H off the hook for his behaviour as you want him to come back and restore the marriage. For me, this aligns with what you said about your strong convictions towards marriage.
I point that all out because you're selling yourself short. There is plethora of evidence that points to his character, including what you just found out about the house, and yet, you would rather stick to your conviction than move on. I would really question that if I were you. Why would you want to stick to a garbage marriage with a terrible partner, vs. eating up the losses and charting a new life forward? What is it about the idea of 'marriage' that you can't let go of? Yes, people vowed to be there through thick and thin of life, but they broke the rules of the game and that $ucks and it's unfair and tragic, but why still desire that when the past M is completely over and done with?
If nothing, find conviction to be good to your present and future self, and forgive the past self.
