I checked her phone records today and there has been. No literally contact from the other man besides when someone else called on her behalf. Now I feel like I’m making excuses to justify this
Everyone tries to fix problems in their marriages when the other person cheats. You are doing the right thing by detaching a little. Soon she will beg you to come home. Don't give it 1 more day at a minimum when that starts up.
Put the shoe on the other foot. If you were drunk and hooked up with another woman you would be pleading her to not be mad and make it work. Doing anything you can to fix things. Has she shown anything even close to how you would have reacted? I doubt it. Now that the AP is outed he is going to be in save his butt mode. That means your WW is cut off. Now that you have cut her off too due to the 180, she will scamper around first for safety, then try to realize how she fixes her marriage. Give her time alone to work through her issues that got her here.
I have a couples therapy soon and some individual therapy coming up
We kind of didn't want you scheduling the couple therapy because she needed an unforeseen amount of time before you talked to her again. This is so she can experience you being gone and understand what the affair was triggering. This is like divorce light. She gets to feel you gone and realize that you leaving empties out a part of her too.
Ok, so you need to walk through on a piece of paper what you expect from the couples therapy session.
Do you want her to admit she screwed up?
Do you want her to put down this other guy and lift you up?
Do you want her just to hear how screwed up you are now?
Think of the feelings you want to clear up during the therapy session.
It sounds like your therapist wants to Air things. Why? Will this fix or improve your mental state? Nope. Sorry, but the therapist works for you not the other way around.
So walk in with a game plan or be ready to drop the therapist, because this was him/her not putting your emotional well being first. They just are trying to slow down your actions.
Something I went into MC with, "Why shouldn't I be able to tell other people what you did to me? I have scars from all my other injuries and this was by far worse? Is it because it reflects badly on you(WW)? So why should I carry the pain and then feel shame for the pain you caused me?" She didn't have an answer and kind of what triggered her getting it again after she relaxed a bunch.
But that was 6 months after she was out of everything.
So go in with a game plan. What does her getting it look like? If it is a feeling in you, only you can control that. So what do you expect.
Also, if she brings up any issue about you during the session outside of the affair(She so will. Like about the time she caught you looking at her friend's cleavage or something stupid like that), just shoot them down and say, "That has nothing to do with why we are here. This is about talking about how we move forward together or not."
Good luck.
