Thank you for your responses and your insights. The SI family has been a great support. As you stated, Tripletrouble, this site has been a god send for my heart, mind and soul. No one understands the pain we go through unless they have experienced it for themselves. I had no idea how many people are wounded daily. And given that, how many of you have survived and kicked ass with your continuing heroism and strength. You breathe your strength into me through your words and advice.
I haven't fully decided on R with my WH. I am distancing myself emotionally from him. I do not trust him and I do not believe him. At some point, I feel I need to move forward with a decision and not be in limbo. I understand the type of love I had for him and what respect I had for him is gone. We had compassionate love and now I only long for him physically but not emotionally. I still have too much anger and hurt so that may be dampening my feelings for him.
He is working hard on building a new relationship with me. He tells me he loves me daily and holds me when I get upset. He is there even when I tell him to get out. I told him one time, in a moment of clarity, he will have to fight for me like he never has before. We went out of town for 1 night to get away after I had a blow up 5 days ago. I discovered that he was calling that whore soon after they started sexting. He told me originally he didn't call her until about a month into their sexting. He apologized and said he didn't remember and that everything happened so quickly and it all happened in a blur. I told him the phone calls hurt because it wasn't just an online fantasy when you can hear someone's voice, their cadence, their tenor, their timber and the resonance that is uniquely theirs. He said he didn't realize all that he had given away so easily and foolishly. I cried in front of him when I thought of him saying, "I'll talk to you later", or "I missed you" to this nobody. I told him he wouldn't have given this whore 1 second of his time IRL. He agreed. I had to track this tidbit down by going through some google activity detail which he said he didn't even know existed. He is in his early 50's but you would think he is going through early memory loss. He doesn't want to re-visit the sext messages or the images shared by the whore.
I told him, from now on, we say good bye in the morning with a kiss (which we did even during his affair) and welcome back in the evening when he came home with a kiss. I think I am trying to build some type of emotional bond. Why is it feel like I am coming up with all of these suggestions but nothing from him? I can only imagine he is too scared to do anything.