Less than two weeks after BD, I went from an emotional wreck from feeling our mutual dreams were shattered, to being excited about being single again. I'm not even convinced I'm still in "divorce busting" mode. This feels like a "superpower" since I don't feel pressure to change myself or to follow a plan with the main purpose of eventually having her fall back in love with me again. I now want to live the rest of my life as I choose.

I wonder how common this attitude progression is, particularly among husbands.

It would take a lot for me to permanently want her back.

I haven't mentioned this before because I couldn't bring myself to write it publicly, even though I know we're anonymous on this forum: she had an affair that lasted a couple months about 20-25 years ago with someone we hired to help her business at the time. About 8-10 years afterwards she confessed this to me out-of-the blue, unprovoked, because she couldn't live with the guilt of hiding it. I was crushed and felt my world collapse. I was so naïve I never even had a concern at the time that anything was going on. I thought it was a given that we had complete and total trust with each other in this area.

I forgave her and we stayed together; I never seriously planned on ending our mutual commitment over this for the following reasons:

>She showed great remorse
>Our teenage kids were still at home
>We had strong religious convictions that marriage is for a lifetime
>At that time we believed almost every difficulty can be overcome with prayer, forgiveness, and God's help if people are repentant

It's a blur now but I think the reasons given for the affair were the typical "you weren't showing me enough attention" or something like that. I vowed to change.

After her confession, I also confessed some secret sexual sins of visiting strip clubs (as an "observer" with no contact or lap dances, if that makes a difference) early in our marriage so she wouldn't feel like I was trying to come across as a "holier-than-thou" victim.

So even if she does eventually try to come back to me after the recent BD, this memory will haunt me and I think my trust is over that she won't have another crisis in the future.