Frank, nice to hear you consider your story a pseudo-success, or maybe better to say quasi-success, maybe success-in-progress. Whatever, I have always considered you a success because of how you approached the process, if not for the outcome.
I, like always and a few others around here, am feeling this exact way too. The only thing I am jealous of, and I think you need to appreciate about your sitch, is that your W IS part of the process with you. She went to C. She KNOWS this is a self-growth process as well as a marriage saving thing. She knows it, and respects it. I think part of that is your W's nature and a larger part of it is that through all this, you maintained as much openness and honesty as you could while still DBing your a$$ off, and it's paid off in a much smoother transition from holding everything back to opening up to each other than many of us have.
Frank, I don't have that openness in my marriage yet and since I never really did before, and certainly didn't during the height of the affair/DBing, it's really hard for me to establish. I think you can and will establish the kind of open, intimate connection that you need to heal. I believe that because I think you never stopped having that connection, it just pushed WAY into the background. I think that's what we all saw and believed about you.
I am so glad you are continuing to post and keep it real here. It would be so easy to take what you learned in this time, and go away, only returning to "guest" post every once in awhile.
Please, get your work done, put a LOT more energy into your "real" life and take time out ever now and again to keep us posted. You ARE one of the "super helpers" here. Thank you.
