Just giving you more to think about so you can have as many points of view as possible while making up your mind....
I can't understand how my sacrifice and service can breed resentment in someone else
When someone lives with someone they consider "near perfect" because that other person is always giving and taking care of others, it can breed a bit of resentment in the other party for having to try to live up to the perfection that they feel the other person deserves.
However, baring our souls to someone who managed to betray is not wise. If you have a proven and convicted thief would you give up all of your defense mechanisms? I don't see it that way. We always take risks, but why taking this risk with someone who betrayed you so much. Why also talking a risk without protection!?
In other words, once a thief, always a thief? There are some people that say that given the correct circumstances, anyone could become a thief. (Would you steal a loaf of bread to feed your young children if there were no other options available at the moment? If your loved one needed medication in order to live, but the medication was way more expensive than what you could ever afford, would you look at other, illegal means in order to get that medicine to save a life?) I know these are philosophical questions, but for me, life is not always black and white.
Obviously, your wife's life was not in danger. But there are reasons that she went against what you feel is her normal behavior.
I also explained to Merida why I don’t think there will ever be true or authentic love between us and anyway me protecting myself doesn’t take the chance at true intimacy. The cheating has indeed done it. Maybe it's possible to rebuild love but I'm not sure about the exact nature of that love. And anyway, if rebuilding a new love, then why not with someone new where it can be authentic again? Those are the questions that I'm struggling with and find no answer to them.
Ok...I'm going to take a stab at explaining this...if I don't make sense, please just ask.
The cheating did indeed blow up your marriage and hurt you and the marriage very deeply. Maybe irreparably. For some, that is true. For others, they do find a way to reconcile. However, as another poster said....you are NOT in reconciliation. Reconciliation takes two, and although you are putting in the effort, your heart and emotions are absent. So you are not reconciling. If you know, deep in your heart that you can never get past this, then you owe it to yourself and her to leave so you can both find someone new to start over with. Finances may be a consideration, but is staying for the money worth the heart-ache of living with something you just can't get past? For me it wasn't. I was quite comfortably middle-class. Now I am single and for a while had 4 small children to raise on my own. We ended up on food stamps. I was the one with all the money, he had none, but now he has half of mine. Oh well. I would rather be poor than stay with someone I didn't love. I can always rebuild financially. I can NOT rebuild trust with someone who is not safe, as you said before. That was WS #1.
Now on to WS #2. I feel much safer with him, even though he betrayed me a bit earlier. I feel safer with him than I would with someone else, even if that someone else says they would never cheat. Because I am of the mindset at this point that anyone could possibly cheat given the right circumstances. The reason I feel safe with him at this point, and it has been 3 years so it took a long time, is because he has done the hard work of baring his soul and looking within. He made a mistake but I don't think he will ever do that again (which is what you say about your wife). The remorse and guilt she feels may make you feel safer, but what is really important is getting to the core. Why did she do this in the first place? Have you had all your questions answered? "I got drunk and made a mistake" is not an answer. You have to ask at least 3 why's to get to the core of any emotional questions.
"Why did you cheat?" I got drunk and made a mistake?
"What made you get drunk?" Everyone else at the party was drinking
"So if everyone else is doing it, you feel you have to do it also. Why?"
And so on and so on....until you get at the core. My SO did not get at his core for quite a while. He had to take therapy (which helped a bit but wasn't all the answers) and we read that book I referred to, which opened up a whole new can of worms for him, he posted on here in wayward for a while to get REAL answers on his mindset and his thinking, because the waywards here BTDT and don't play games and can see through lies we tell ourselves and our defenses, and then we talked and talked and talked until he could figure out that growing up in an alcoholic household made him susceptible to needing ego stroking from others. That is his core. So in order to fix the problem, he had to figure out how to not be susceptible to ego stroking anymore.
Even though when I caught him he swore he didn't want to lose me and it would never happen again, I didn't feel completely safe until he did the hard work of baring HIS soul and figuring out what was broken in him. And then he had to fix it. It took a long time.
So, now I feel I have a safer partner than before this had happened. I had to do counseling on myself also, to get past the PTSD aspects of betrayal, and that also takes time. And I do still trigger from time to time. But he deals with my triggers in a way that works for me.
So, if you stay, in order to feel safe, those are some of the things that you would need to have answered.
But, from some of your other posts, especially the one where she got suicidal....I wonder....is part of you staying because you have a knight in shining armor complex and you feel you need to save her? That is a whole other issue, and staying with someone just to protect them from themselves is not a good reason to stay. You aren't responsible for her mental health. She is. She is responsible for getting the help she needs in order to keep herself safe.
I think, with the military background, that you are showing the military mindset as far as honor and duty towards your family. (I have a lot of military in my family, so I get it.) My dad has that honor and duty mindset. I know he stayed and my mom also stayed through times when they absolutely hated each other. Somehow, they worked through it though and now, at 54 years married, they have one of the deepest loves I've ever seen. But they went through the trials. But the fact that you are posting here says that you are unhappy enough to be to a breaking point. You need more than what you are getting right now.
This makes me feel that you are needing something deeper, and you are also looking for a way to heal.
There are different paths to healing, but being authentic to yourself is usually crucial to any path that you take.
I'm so sorry for your pain, and it IS admirable that you are trying to take care of your family as best as you can given the circumstances. Infidelity/betrayal is one of the worst things a person can go through but there is healing and happiness on the other side. It's just a long and tedious and painful journey.