MT,
I am short, balding, a bit heavier than I would like to be. My wife is younger, attractive, and considerably more powerful than she was when we got married.
She cheated on me with an older gentleman who has nothing on me. The dude is kind of fucking ugly to be honest, and she even agrees. However, he was at the right place at the right time and as you, gave her something that I wasn't, but it wasn't looks. It was attention. It was flattery. It was respect. At the time it started I was depressed, had lost my job, put us in some financial difficulty by selling some assets to pay bills. It was a crack, but not an opening. She violated my trust, our marriage, our vows, the promises we made to each other which were witnessed by our family and friends.
She was intimate with him three times over 8 years which I believe as he lives in New Mexico and we live in the east. The one that hurt the most was when she actually left me with the in-laws to go be with him under the pretext of "riding horses." Their last encounter was in 2013 when she was home visiting her ailing grandfather.
Yeah, it sucked. It still sucks. I'm three weeks in and have only been back with her (we were apart for business reasons) two days. I have read a ton in the healing library, seen a therapist, got some xanax. Therapist recommended three books, I've read one and am half way through another.
WW read one and is stalling on the other. She has agreed to IC for herself and MC for the two of us.
We agreed to R as we both recognize what happened. The signs were there. My gut told me. She wasn't in it for the long haul with him, just wanted a roll in the hay (or in the back of the truck to be more literal).
I'm seeing my therapist tomorrow for the second time. Going to work on how to discuss and set boundaries, which we have already verbalized, but haven't really gotten down to brass tacks.
So far:
1. No physical contact with men
2. No sexting with non-anonymous men (don't care if it's an internet thing as long as it is completely anonymous with no pics traded of faces and NO planning physical encounters).
3. Transparency - I have all passwords, access to phone, access to browser history (not to be deleted), access to e-mail trash (not to be emptied), etc.
4. Truth - I want and believe at this point I know EVERY detail ... and believe me the mind movies are much worse than the vanilla encounters she described.
5. Honesty about sexual requests (both of us), needs for relief (internet or other women for her, mostly porn for me)
6. Honesty regarding becoming attracted to others so we can approach it together (both of us).
If she is remorseful she needs to do work too. I suggest making her read some of the books mentioned in the Books section of this site. I suggest you mandate NC (hard in a small town, but doable). My guess is that you both already know you need to make some changes in your relationship. Now is a good time for both of you to come completely clean. To make a commitment to each other to avoid any lies, even the small white lies which grow into bigger lies.
This site is great. There are a lot of helpful people on here who understand what you are going through. Your self esteem is at an all time low ... I get that. Imagine if he was an ugly fuck like the one my wife fucked. Think how that makes me feel as I know I'm not a body builder, but come on .....
It gets easier. Read, Cry, Vent (here), find someone to talk to. Get therapy and meds if you are feeling very very down. The anxiety and mind movies were killing me. Much easier to tamp down now.
Take care man. We're pulling for you dude.