I hope you don't mind hearing from a WS on this. My wife answered earlier, however I'd like to add my own perspective.
Contrary to what some may think, cheaters don't typically "come out of left field" even though it usually feels that way to the BS. No one wakes up one day and thinks, "Gosh, I'm bored. What to do? I know, how about I destroy my marriage, my family and the lives of everyone around me by having an affair! That might be tons of fun!" It doesn't work that way. Cheaters are "born" long before an affair occurs. In order to have an affair in the first place, certain conditions must exist in a person's life. That person must have poor or missing dignity, self-respect and self-love. They must have poor or missing boundaries. They have unhealthy relationship skills. They often lack the ability to "self-soothe" and have an unhealthy dependency on others to make them feel good about themselves. Many of them experienced trauma in their youth and lacked the support and skills needed to deal with the loss and pain of trauma in a healthy way, so they learn instead to "artificially self-heal" by avoiding talking about pain and replacing it with things that make them feel special in some way. I could go on and on, my point however is that most cheaters were badly broken and missing critical tools for managing life long before the infidelity occurred, and that kind of life experience doesn't come naturally. It falls under the "hurt people hurt people" category. Sadly, in my personal experience so far, most cheaters have no idea they are even capable of cheating until something happens and they find themselves unable to cope. They almost never understand this about themselves until it is too late. Cheaters are typically "suffering" from lack of self-love and healthy boundaries in the first place, which is how affairs begin. They are seeking out ways to make themselves feel better, but lack the tools to do so in a healthy way.
During the affair, the WS lives a double life. That double life includes constant and unending stress and worry. Lies have to be told, have to be consistent, have to be believable. Affairs are built on stealth and secret, and so there is a constant need to hide, cover-up, obfuscate and otherwise protect the affair from coming to light, and that takes a ton of work with a ton of risk. WS's are constantly looking over their shoulder in case someone they know sees them, in case someone comes home early, in case clues are left behind by accident, and so on. None of this falls under the phrase, "They had their fun". It's not fun. It's hell. For many WS's, there is a duality, this knowledge that what they are doing is wrong and hurtful to themselves and to others, but like a druggie, they can't stop themselves, because the lack of their "fix" causes their minds to think in ways that make no sense to those around them. Why would a mother choose to leave her kids and family behind and go live in an abandoned building and shoot herself full of heroin while laying in a pool of her own piss? Not because it's fun. It's because she's so damn broken that she can't function like a normal human being anymore. Infidelity feels a lot like this, it just lacks the ugly imagery of addiction and is portrayed on TV as something really sexy instead. Infidelity is a disgusting business. WS's suffer through the affair the same way a heroin addict suffers in their life, because both share the same mentality. They hate themselves and lack the tools to face the reality they need to face in order to heal. So they go down the rabbit hole instead. (Not making excuses or justifications here, just explaining the process as best I can so you can understand the thinking to some degree).
After the affair is discovered, the WS's world is flipped upside down and falls apart. In fact, aside from actual guilt, most of the outcomes for the BS and the WS are very similar. Both lost their marriage. Both are experienceing truama from the discovery of the affair and the fallout afterward. Both have to deal with the after affects on the children, family, community, work, etc. Both live in a daily hell where their lives suck and they just want to stop the pain. Both need IC, both need MC, both don't know how to talk to each other or how to stop hurting. But the WS actually has one extra thing to deal with that the BS does not - guilt. The BS has a million things to hurt over, but the one thing they don't have to accept or overcome is the knowledge that they caused this mess to begin with. The WS holds the blame, the shame, the guilt, the ultimate burden of not only their own suffering, but the suffering of those around them. They lit the match that set off the bomb and destroyed everything. And yes, of course, they brought it on themselves, and they deserve whatever consequences that come from it, so often, we brush aside WS suffering because, "Who cares, they shoulda thought of that before they..." kind of thinking comes in. And while that is all true, it doesn't mean the WS isn't suffering from it.
And then comes the long-term after effects. This is where I am now, at the start of year 6. I've managed to pull my head out of my ass, rebuild my dignity, rebuild my integrity, and have spent thousands of hours in IC learning to address and fix all those broken things in my life. I'm back to feeling like a human being again, but with that, comes the knowledge that what I did, still remains, and will always remain, no matter how much growth or healing occurs. My kids are all struggling with relationships because they watched me degrade myself and them, because I abused them emotionally by having an affair in the first place, because I marginalized and demeaned their mother, because I disregarded them and betrayed them in the same way that I did my wife. They now lack a healthy model of how a marriage should work, and how a parent/child relationship should work, and I can see those long terms effects in all of them as they struggle with relationships now. My wife still jumps when I touch her sometimes, and she still carries the burden of remembering every single horrible thing I did and said to her during the affair. She can never live a life in which she was not tossed aside by her spouse and disregarded completely. I suffer because the people I love the most in this world are the people I decimated. They never did anything but love me, support me, protect me, appreciate me. I repaid them in betrayal and worse. I repaid them in indifference. No matter how much I love them, they will always have the picture of me in their minds, as I disregarded them and shoved my affair in their faces as if they were total strangers to me.
The pain I carry now is in my soul. All I ever wanted from life was to be happy, to be the best father and husband I could be, and to give my wife the kids the love and attention that my own family never gave me. And for a long time, I had all that. But my past became my present, and regardless of what I wanted or intended in my life, what all of us are left with is what is. I bear the burden and responsibility of all the damage and pain that I've inflicted on my innocent loved ones. Every day, I have to wake up and struggle to find some reason to put my own shame and guilt aside, and forgive myself enough to at least function, because I need to be there for them. I need to be a better person than I was, and show my kids and wife how someone who loves and respects both myself and them, moves forward after the impossible happens. I need to make good on my promises and responsibilities the best I can because they, and I, deserve that much. But there will never again be a day in my life where I can think of myself as someone who never hurt others. I can love myself but I will always be disappointed and disgusted by what I did.
So yeah. The WS can suffer, and should suffer. Many of them instead choose to stay in "la la land" in order to hide from the accountability and pain, but that doesn't mean they aren't suffering, it just means they are so overwhelmed by their own pain (and lack the ability/tools to work through that) that they can't find a way to move past themselves. Their pain becomes their new "normal" instead. and they'd rather face the devil they know than to face the pain of their truths. Some people fall into a hole and learn to crawl out. Other fall in and stay there until they die.
I'm not sure if this helped to answer your question at all? My point of view is that no one escapes infidelity unscathed.
