CantBeMe -- I hope you won't leave. I hope you will keep posting. My BH and I have been quietly following you and Flawed while we go through something very, very similar. I haven't posted because I felt like I ought to get my full story out in Wayward before I started commenting on anyone else's, but if you're on the verge of leaving, I'm going to go ahead and say something that I think you both need to hear.
Extremely short version: I had an EA/PA in 1989 when my BH and I were dating, but before we were engaged. We had been together for three years but were attending colleges several hundred miles apart. I had asked for and received permission from him to date someone else, but the understanding was that it would be casual. It wasn't casual. I slept with the OM and became romantically attached. I ended the PA and admitted the sex to my then-BBF as soon as I saw him in person after the PA. However, I also lied, trickle truthed, and minimized both the physical and emotional extent of the relationship, and I refused to go NC, insisting that OM and I could just be friends. My BBF, in turn, disclosed a prior ONS (not sex, kissing/petting) with his sister's best friend. His view was that he now had a total hall pass for this transgression, since my affair (even just the parts I had admitted to) was so much worse. I agreed that what I had done was worse, and swallowed my resentment that he had cheated and lied to me for 18 months without any admission that this was wrong. My refusal to go NC tortured my BBF, and he sought validation with another ONS, this one with a girl who was attracted to him in college. He again did not sleep with her, but he engaged in other sexual behavior and cut it off only at the moment that she was getting into position to do the deed. He told me in advance that he was going to do this, and I was heartbroken but didn't see that I had any right to tell him no.
At this point, the odds should have been in favor of both of us calling it quits and walking away. We were still separated by hundreds of miles, no kids, no financial entanglements, no trust. But we still loved each other, so we did what any two apparently insane people would do -- we got engaged, I cut off all contact with the OM, and we rugswept the entire thing. My BH, like you, got married without knowing the full extent of my betrayal; like you, he remained traumatized by the things he did know. It's only in the last two years, after the trigger of our 25th wedding anniversary, that all of this has come roiling back up to the surface. Unknown to me, my BH never stopped having PTSD and mind movies about my affair. Unknown to my BH, I still resented the fact that he was both the first and last person in our relationship to be involved with someone else, and yet somehow I was still cast as the villain in our story. The irony is that despite everything that I've described, it's been an amazing marriage. I'm sure that many people will chime in that that's an absurd statement with all the lies and baggage, but it's true. Most of the time, we've been very happy. Neither of us has strayed in any way since the day we got engaged. But the rugswept lies and denials preyed on us anyway, for more than twice as long as they have preyed on you.
We've been making steady progress since DDay 2 in October. My BH finally knows the full extent of my PA and EA. I understand things I was too selfish and immature to recognize or admit about my decisions and behavior. We are at the start of a long journey of whys and hows. But the point of this post isn't to tell my story. Rather, I offer all this as credentials to address your designation as a madhatter on SI, and I hope you will believe that I'm doing it as someone who has experience and really, truly wants the best for you and Flawed as you decide if and how you can reconcile.
Gently, you are a madhatter. The SI admins did what they had to do. I have been watching your thread with a growing level of surprise that it wasn't moved out of JFO long before it was. While everyone else seemed focused on what you might do, I was focused on what you had already done. Your references to your "almost affair," "poor boundaries," "some might call me a madhatter but I don't think I am" -- I think that under the surface, you've known all along that it was an affair. It's possible that you just couldn't look at it in light of the walloping pain that you now know betrayal causes. There was (again, this isn't meant as an attack) so much wayward thinking in the justifications you were giving for your behavior. Your involvement with the COW wasn't an affair because you lied, but you cut it off before things became physical. Your plan to sleep with another woman wouldn't be an affair because you'd be physical with her, but you wouldn't be lying. Your WW might be hurt by it, but that's just an unrelated outcome of you getting what you need, which has nothing to do with her, and is also a natural consequence of her behavior, and therefore pain she deserves. This is all right out of the wayward handbook. Having this pointed out to you is not an attack, it's a gift... if you really want to R.
I'me here to tell you from personal experience, and my BH agrees with me, that if you had succeeded in rugsweeping your affair with the COW, it would have been a ticking time bomb in your marriage. Is this the time to address it? Probably not. You're still on your knees dealing with the terrible trauma of your WW's actions and lies. I lied for 30 years, so I live every day with what that has done to the person I love most in the world. If you don't believe that I get it, I hope you'll believe that my BH does. And he says the same thing as me... this probably isn't the time, but sooner or later, you were going to have to face what you did as an affair, not an "almost affair." BS's on SI have left their spouses over the things you've admitted to -- heavy flirting, repeatedly allowing the AP to expose herself to you, a relationship that progressed right up to the offer of sex before being cut off. Remember, too, that although your WW lied to you, you didn't know that at the time that you got involved with COW. You stood up and made a vow to be faithful, not to "not do anything worse than what you did when you kissed that guy." And you broke that vow. It wasn't until later that you discovered that the vow was made under false pretenses, so you can't use that as a justification (even if such a justification would hold water, which is a whole other subject for debate).
You need SI more than ever to help you navigate these truths. Flawed does, too. I hope that even if you stop posting, you'll keep reading. There's so much to learn here, and the gut punches are, unfortunately, often very instructive. The best things I've read here are the posts and comments that made me see myself for what I am -- as long as the post came from someone who was trying to be supportive, rather than just venting their own bitterness.
I hope that nothing I've written here qualifies as a vent, and I apologize in advance if it comes across that way. I wish you only the best on your journey.