Thanks, Beth. Part of the reason I did want to add in what happened was I know your situation is close-ish to mine, to be honest. I am sure you've thought about that as a possibility. I know I was suspicious sometimes stemming from insecurity during the time, but not suspicious due to his behavior. He was a huge mess! And yes, the volume of things. So many things to recap that it gets overwhelming. H and I only talk about the As to our ICs and MC, but the talks we have had together about it alone are exhausting, let alone recounting stuff to anyone else.

It's been A LOT to work through, and fortunately we had done a lot of work on the "what went wrong to cause H to leave" piece already. I feel we have worked through the As more now and are back on that previous issue, in a repairing way. I am not feeling constantly 'triggered' by stuff, and have felt more even keeled. I think just time and having asked what I needed to ask and had 10000 discussions about stuff. H is still set to deploy in a month, and I feel much more solid about things. He has had a lot of eye-opening moments on his own with regards to why he did stuff and how to proactively NOT do that again. He has set boundaries with people that he needed to, and thought deeper on some less obvious friendships that may need boundaries also. One of the girls he took on a date actually called him about a month ago, and we were both at home. He didn't walk out of the room to take the call, and I could hear her. She was "worried" about him being back home because he had seemed "so sure" that he was done with me and that I was abusive etc. He handled it awesome - he was nice to her, but defended his decision and reassured her of his safety, and then she kept repeating over and over that she is there for him if he needs someone, and he said that those kind of conversations are inappropriate and that he made a lot of mistakes while we were separated, but is fully committed to working on our marriage. He didn't say any of this in a show-boaty type way - I could tell he did not want to take this call in front of me, at all. He ended up having to say that over and over, and she was being super weird, so he had to finally hang up on her.

I've also had trouble discussing it because of how just distrusting I am of people in general, and I know how objectively what I am saying can look to outsiders, and it can be difficult to convey nuance, tone, and overall demeanor to strangers on the internet. I am not in denial or fooling myself. There were days where I was not sure if I wanted to stand for our marriage anymore due to feeling so hurt. I am glad those days are behind me. I am glad that H isn't spiraling into self-hatred over what he did - he has grown a lot.

I had my first appointment with a new IC this week, and I really liked her. H and I are going away tomorrow night for a little romantic stay close to here, and are really looking forward to it. He has been out the past 2 days with some of our guy friends doing a hobby construction project together, so I am glad to see him spending time with our friend group (that he inherited from me). They are all also married and it's good for him to have that comraderie.