To me -
he always used viagra, was always drunk and that he didn’t enjoy the sex.
does make some sense bc of this:
it was with someone who worshiped him.
I think many (most?) WS get kind of "hooked" on the latter (and the sense of entitlement that comes with it), but just use their handy dandy deck of rationalizations (eg, the love/soul mate stance, or the "it was just sex" stance, or whatever else comes up) to avoid owning that they were willing to forsake all to get that rush of adoration.
Of course, that may not make a hill of beans of difference to the BS, the pain of the details, and how to heal (whether R is in the cards or not).
As to getting the sexual details, IMHO that's something every BS needs to decide for themselves. I am in the want to know camp. The deets I did get, were hard to handle. I also ruminated a ton about them. Definitely not a pleasant experience. However, I guess I was able to process them, and it didn't take long before the sexual details I did know really didn't bother me (with one exception). It was the gaps and changed stories that haunted and tormented me - for a long time - and sometimes still do. So - even though I did get some details, each tidbit of info had to be painstakingly extracted, after weeks/months of "I don't remember", and even then there were holes big enough to drive a truck through.
For me, I believe it has less to do with needing to actually know what they did. Rather, I think it was my way of trying to rebuild trust - with having a sense that he will be HONEST with me, even if he knows it will hurt me to the core. That he had enough respect for me to lay it all out, raw and bare and vulnerable.
And - that's just my experience. In a weird way, if he were to tell all today, I honestly don't think I'd be that freaked out. Partly bc I've got some healing under my belt. Partly bc of time. Partly bc it would be some objective indication of his making any progress towards becoming a safe partner.
In any event, not all BS have that view of getting the sexual details. I suspect for some its bc the WS pretty quickly began to work on rebuilding trust (and stopped lying about all the other crap they did). For some it may be they came to dday in better emotional shape. For some it may be something else I'm not smart enough to think of.
My WH's LTAP was also in his car, and I don't know if they did anything sexual other than kissing/making out (I suspect they did, but doubt my WH would ever be honest about it). We got rid of that car about 6 months before dday, and it took me a LONG time to move past the anguish and rage I felt about being in that passenger seat for the decade of his LTA - even tho the car itself was long gone. Took me at least 2 years to not be pretty much full anxiety sitting in the passenger seat of the new car - that his AP was never in. I don't know why the invasion of personal space (car, home, etc) hurts so badly, given the invasion into the emotional space is the core of things. But it sure as h*ll hurt like the Dickens for me.
Good Grief I hate saying it, as I remember how much I felt hopeless when it was said to me early on, but (yeah, a "but" ) you are SO early in your healing journey. I remember feeling as if I couldn't breathe - and those were the "good" moments. I'm confident that my own healing would have come quicker had I been better at stopping the obsessive thinking. But - like you, it sounds - I was that kind of person LONG before dday. Things would get under my skin and I just could not let them go. Something about this trip through infidelity has lessened that - in all areas of life.
I wish I had a magic potion about calming that thinking, but I don't. If possible, I would try and work on it in smaller areas of my life. That person who cuts you off in traffic? I try to use some Brene Brown and repeat the "they are doing their best" mantra (vs my old habit of screaming profanities and then thinking about it for another hour! Imagine all the brain power I'd have if I'd been able to harken Dr. Brown all those years). Or the email from a boss or coworker that didn't make sense, where I'd spend hours trying to figure it out RATHER than just go ask and clear the air! Another waste of energy that could have been spent more productively - even if it was used to daydream about a vacation or nice long bath.
I am not myself anymore, I’m this new shell of a person that I don’t recognize - an angry, depressed and overly emotional person that fluctuates back and forth.
I suspect just about every BS here on SI could say the same about themselves during the early months (some even years later). Have you educated yourself about trauma? Not just infidelity - but PTSD? Have you read "the Body Keeps the Score" by Bassel Van der Kolk? It's a long book with a lot of history, but it REALLY helped me validate what was happening (vs beating myself up about why I could not seem to break through it all) and gave me a ton of hope about healing. There IS healing from PTSD. Not easy. Likely not quick. But healing nonetheless. We have to work and put energy into rewiring the brain paths that got all cattywampus from the trauma of dday. EMDR is one thing that can help (I didn't find it to be a magic bullet, but it did help on some fronts). There is trauma informed yoga. There is bioneurofeedback. There are other therapy modalities. There is incorporating joy and gratitude. Not every method works for everyone, yet IMHO, it's something to explore.
Finally, as hard as it may be, I may consider trying to think less about R and more about YOU and YOUR healing. Your thoughts about trying to talk yourself out of R, or your WH leaving bc of your trauma response, cause me to wonder if R (or fear of D) may be driving things more than your desire to HEAL. No one knows what the future will bring. I'm sure some folks are able to work on their healing AND work on R at the same time. I'm not one of them (and my WH's head being so firmly planted up his backside didn't help). The day I realized that I was going to have to heal myself and only when I had some solid trauma management would I even be able to consider R, was kind of the day I began to actually begin healing.
Godspeed.
[This message edited by gmc94 at 12:21 AM, November 26th, 2021 (Friday)]