I'm nearly three months out and in immense pain. I'm scared to write this next line for fear of minimizing my WW's A. With time, the pain changes. It hasn't been three months and it's already changed.
At first, it was paralyzing. Now, it's a mixture of paralyzing pain and a deep sadness at other times.
For the last three months I have thought about nothing else. People talk to me in personal or work life and all I visualize is the A.
But more and more I can focus on life and I'm back to about 2/3 productivity at work. On most days. Some days are too hard.
We're attempting R. I don't feel she's fully committed yet and I don't feel I'm anywhere near ready to forgive.
Accepting that the pain is going to last years is helping me compartmentalize it so I don't lose everything else in my life the way I lost my marriage.
I don't believe the pain will ever go away, but from what others have posted here, not only can you eventually live with it, it'll change enough that you can be happy again.
That takes time.
For now, I'm on anti-depressants. They help immensely. This is going to sound ridiculous. I'm a guy who had never baked before. I learned how to bake bread and when I'm home alone with my thoughts I bake bread. Weird, but it's been helpful.
At work, I'll sometimes vent on SI before I can attend a meeting. That helps, too.
Going to the gym has been good, although on more than one occasion I cried on the exercise bike. Before the A I hadn't cried in something like a decade.
I'm sorry for your pain. It's with you -- and us -- for life. But it changes into a different kind of pain with time AND with work. We're in MC and IC. Time alone wouldn't have helped.
Also, for me, it's been helpful to have my WW around. It doesn't mean that we're going to stay together. I'm following the advice of some of the veterans here and waiting about a year to make that choice. It's been helpful to have her in MC as far as understanding her reasons for the A -- they're all faulty and she now sees that.
I can also vent to her -- she used to be my best friend. Most of the time she doesn't want to hear it, but it makes me feel better to vent anyways.
Good luck. Just don't ever give up and don't be shy to ask for help. You need it. Affairs are incredibly damaging. There's a signature on SI that reads, "guns don't kill people, affairs do."
That people even compare the two, it shows how destructive affairs are for all persons involved. Even the stupid WS.