steadfast,
I've been through more than 2 ddays.
My whole story is in my profile, but here's the Readers Digest version.
We married in 1996. Went thru infertility before conceiving our younger ds who was born in 1998. When he was 8 months old, I got pregnant again and miscarried. 2 months after the miscarriage, my H confessed to a ONS. (more of a one DAY stand, as he was hanging out at the lake, drinking and met up with some skank he knew in hs, and had sex with her in the water.
) We totally rugswept that.
There was also a cyber/online A at some point in 1997. I threw an enormous fit, we both stopped online chats, etc and rugswept that as well.
In 2008, he started talking to an old GF with my permission (at first). He told me he had treated this girl and her family horribly and wanted to apologize. I was okay with that, but drew the line when they started chatting daily and calling each other "sweetie" etc. When I came home from a mandated 28 day rehab stay, I discovered he had been talking to her multiple times day and night...sometimes he would call me for my one 10 minute phone call I was allowed, hang up in 5 minutes, then call and talk to her for 2 hours. I again threw a huge fit, demanded MC. I went NUTS on this girl. Harassed her and (if I'm honest with myself) stalked her until she begged me to leave her alone.
JM came to one MC session with me then refused to go back. I made a decision that I needed to stay sober and could not do that and go thru D/S at the same time, so again, I rugswept. But I told him then that I would not go thru this again. He insisted he had not done anything wrong with the old gf, but "understood" why I was upset. He would NEVER do anything like cheating on me again.
So imagine my surprise when I found an email he had written to OW on our wedding anniversary. I confronted him, asked him to leave. We were inhouse S for a month until he could find an apartment. S for 6 months, then a 2 month false R before the final explosion.
Even with all of that, it took one more blow, when I discovered broken nc for months, before he finally put in the effort to fix his brokenness.
Today, we are fully reconciled. He has changed 100%, almost to the molecular level. He even looks different in some ways. He makes eye contact. He is comfortable in his own skin. He is proactive in taking care of me and our M. He has developed boundaries and is willing to do whatever he has to protect them. I feel safe with him. Even when I fall back and respond to him as if he were "old" JM and not "new" JM, he responds with patience and compassion for me.
The difference was when he became desperate and willing to do anything he was told to make things right.
And when I became willing to turn him over to God and trust that I would be okay no matter what.
I totally understand the "more scared of staying" feelings. I felt like such a giant fool when I discovered the broken NC. I was SURE that was a dealbreaker, but when it happened, I couldn't pull the plug. I am certain, however, that if he had not done the amazing turnaround that he did, we would not be together today.