ZB, I can understand why you hedged a bit in telling your story. I've been pretty frank on this board about the "sins" I've committed in the past and, haven't felt a whole lot of understanding from the crowd. So your wanting to save face is totally understandable. (I guess I'm the Mary Magdelene of the group. )
It seems irrelevant to me in the context of this forum to discuss or even care whether what you did was a "sin." The "sinfulness" is between your God and you. None of us was inside your head or inside your marriage or inside the OW's head. And contrary to what we allow ourselves to think, no one is inside the mind of God, or can even fathom the mind of God.
While you're quoting scripture, don't forget the woman who was about to be stoned for adultery until Jesus that anyone who was without sin should throw the first stone.
You've been flogging yourself with this for a long time.
Have you ever seen the movie The Mission? In it Robert de Niro plays a guy who through some twist of events kills his brother. He feels so bad that as a penance, he carries around on his back a bag of rocks. He becomes well known for this and after a few years, people just accept the fact that he goes everywhere with this bag of rocks tied on his back. Jeremy Irons plays a Franciscan priest, and the Franciscans have all these natives engaged in building a mission on top of a hill. (Some of these details may not be exact). Robert de Niro is working with the natives, carrying rocks up this hill in addition to his own bag of rocks on his back. At one point the native chief sees Robert(and Robert may have done something heroic right before this-- don't remember), and asks Father Jeremy why the bag of rocks. Jeremy tells him that it's a self-imposed penance because Robert killed his brother. And the chief says, (God-- I get goosebumps as I remember this!) I think he's done enough penance," and he steps up to Robert, pulls out a knife, and cuts the bag. All of the rocks go tumbling down the hill into a ravine. It is one of the most moving moments I've ever seen on the screen. I cried and cried when I first saw it, because I really "got" what forgiveness is. Yes, he erred, and yes he did penance, but no one-- and certainly not God-- expects him to carry that bag of rocks forever!
I suggest that your W has punished you by reminding you that you're still carrying that bag of rocks. And that somewhere in you, in a perverse sort of way, you derive some prideful satisfaction over the fact that you are strong enough to keep carrying the rocks, AND to take her unkind attitude, too. There can be a sort of backwards pride and satisfaction in clinging to this kind of guilt-- like Robert de Niro did in the movie.
What you did was human. It's over. You've repented. It was years ago. Time to zero out the odometer. Stop beating up on yourself, and don't let anyone here beat up on you either. And btw, the statute of limitations has run out on your W's entitlement to have the upper hand. I mean, people forgive murderers before they forgive someone who has had an affair! What's up with that?
I'm comin' at you with this knife-- hold still while I cut that bag and let the rocks fall all the way down to the bottom of the cliff! Now stand up tall and let the circulation come back into your shoulders! You're just a regular human being-- no better than some and no worse than others.
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