I just don't know if I'll ever get passed the image of another man screwing my wife.
Let's start with some real talk: I don't think this is possible. By that I mean, you won't ever get that image out of your head. I don't mean you won't heal. I don't mean you won't get to a point in a few years where you can function better.
But I do mean, at least, I can say that as someone nearly 5 years out from D-Day, I still think about my WW's affair and her screwing another man (in my home, no less) all the time. It's part of the reason I post here on SI.
You'll think about it less as time goes on. But not a day passes when I don't think about it.
Much of the time, when my WW expresses physical affection for me, I think about it. And when we have sex, I definitely think about it (though not as much as intense as the "mind movies" in the first few years -- yes, the first couple of years the mind movies will be intense, most likely).
As one poster succinctly put it not long ago, you will never be able to forget the fact that your wife schemed to be penetrated by another man and then walked around with his DNA inside of her.
So that means reconciliation is a "count the cost" decision.
Count the cost, brother.
The price is very steep. As one WW told me here on SI recently, the cost is TOO high. Another WW said here on SI recently she wonders all the time if her betrayed husband would have been better off divorcing her, and she thinks maybe he would have been.
There's no squaring that circle. That doesn't mean you cannot reconcile, but you have to look at things realistically. As I'm often fond of quoting Orwell, "To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle."
This is why Orwell recommended keeping a daily journal in your life, as a tool to ensure you would "live not by lies" in the words of Solzhenitsyn (I find a lot of parallels for the funhouse mirror of gaslighting, trickle truth and lies inherent in infidelity to the totalitarian movements of the 20th century).
If you really believe you can reconcile with your WW, go into it eyes wide open knowing you will most likely always see her in some sense as tarnished (and she EARNED this, by the way), that the image of her screwing another man will not quickly depart from you, if ever, and that the cost of reconciling with her is so exorbitantly high as to be entirely unreasonable.
But it's too preliminary for you to really count the cost yet. More concerning is what you've reported here. We've all had our hearts scorched by the fires of infidelity here. We know exactly what it's like. We also have had rose-colored glasses ripped from our eyes. We've seen a lot of situations.
And I can tell you from what you've reported here my spidey sense is tingling so much I'm about to crawl out of my skin.
I don't believe you have the full truth to this very day. And I think there's a decent chance that either your WW was carrying on a longer term relationship with this other man (or at least there was a runway of some kind leading up to the "ONS"), or that she's done this to you previously in your marriage. Or both.
Here's something very important: Most mature adult women like sex. They like it every bit as much as men. They fantasize about variety. They lust after men just as much as men lust after women. Adults who are attracted to each other who want to have sex with each other and who have loose boundaries within monogamous commitments will have sex with each other. Guaranteed. And women will never place themselves in proximity, contextual situation, and isolation with a man if they can help it unless sex with that man is ON THE TABLE.
Your wife didn't inadvertently fall into the sack with this man. She thought it through. She probably planned ahead for it to some extent, considering you were out of town. She sent strong indicators and signals to the other man she was available for sex. She may have even bluntly told him so. She encouraged an invite at 130 in the morning, or may have invited herself, or simply asked him straight up to bed her. Let's be honest: as police officers routinely say, nothing good ever happens after midnight. A lot of shady shit goes down after midnight, including infidelity. If she was out past midnight, it's because she wanted to get down and dirty with this man.
She wanted it, she sought it out, she planned for it at least partially, and she completely shoved you out of her mind. Disregarded you. Thought you wouldn't find out and it would be her secret.
Think that set of observations through carefully with respect to your wife, because THAT is the human being you are dealing with here. Not someone else. Not the woman you probably idealized.
Think about that carefully. Think about the story you're being sold. As has already been mentioned, I would recommend you:
1. Have your WW write out a detailed timeline explaining how she got to the point of this ONS, what their relationship was like previously and so on. There's very little chance that the two of them had not expressed in some way a previous attraction.
2. Schedule a polygraph to test the written timeline against.
3. Ask her to turn her phone over to you now for recovery software (Dr. Fone)
4. Ask her to take a full STD/STI panel. This is for symbolic reasons as much as anything else, but it also is a litmus test.
5. Have her read "How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair" and then she writes down a plan for how she intends to implement the book's recommendations.
6. Sign yourself up with a local individual counselor who specializes in betrayal trauma. Do this this week. AVOID MARITAL COUNSELING!!
7. Go see a divorce attorney. Most consults are now about $400-500. Do this so you will understand the divorce process and it won't be mysterious to you.
Those are some quick steps you can take in the next week or so. You'll notice that most of them are in some sense "stress tests" for your WW personally and for your relationship with her. She can fail several or all of them, and many WW's do fail spectacularly. When they fail, it makes them very bad candidates for reconciliation. It also means they are hiding something.
Those with nothing to hide, hide nothing.
If she won't write down the timeline and says "I've already told you everything" odds are she's lying about some aspect.
If she won't do a polygraph it's because she's afraid she'll fail.
If she won't do a full STD/STI test to set your mind at ease (even at this late date it's an honorable thing to do) then she's not interested in helping you heal and she may be worried she'll come back positive for some creepy crawly.
If she won't read "How to Help Your Spouse Heal" or tells you the book is heavy-handed, then she's very far away from being a good prospect for reconciliation.
I'd also recommend reading "Cheating in a Nutshell" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy"
The first book is a realistic, no holds barred appraisal of the physical and mental impact of betrayal trauma on a betrayed spouse. It examines infidelity in the cold light of day. Full disclosure: The authors of this book do not lean toward reconciliation. It's a bracing read, but it's grounded in reality, as opposed to happy clappy fantasies about "stronger, better" marriages after infidelity. Infidelity doesn't make things "stronger" or "better."
"Cheating in a Nutshell" is also a deep dive for explaining in rational and scientific terms exactly what is happening in your brain and why you feel the way you do.
The second book is an eye opener about male psychology and some traps of thinking you yourself may have fallen into. I don't say you are suffering from what is known as "nice guy syndrome" but you may be, and this book can help you begin to extricate yourself from these harmful feedback loops. It is not a guide for becoming an asshole. Far from it. It is a guide for becoming a more integrated man.
[This message edited by Thumos at 10:32 AM, July 26th (Monday)]
