Or whether once I've lost that feeling of attraction, there's no going back and jt would be disrespectful to my WS to continue to fake it until we made it.
I think one of the silver linings of recovery from infidelity is not having to fake anything ever again. I’ll never be glad about infidelity, but it allowed me to be 100 percent me, no more games, no more masks, no pretending everything is okay.
You feel what you feel.
I struggled at times, and I told my wife when I was having a tough time feeling to connected to her at all.
I don’t know if I would call your feelings any particular ‘stage’ — if you’re feeling good enough to talk to women at work, I think it sounds like some level of recovery. If you’re feeling better about you, that’s a damn good thing and build from there.
As to your M, that becomes what you aim for.
If all you will ever see in your spouse is what she did wrong, R isn’t in the cards (and we never, ever OWE R to anyone, we gift it or we don’t).
At some point, I saw my wife as a complete person, flaws and all. That’s when the M started to heal. If we can’t see the good in the person with are with, it doesn’t leave much to build on.
That said, again, you seeing you as the prize, that is 100 percent good stuff, because now, whatever you choose, you choose from strength, and not fear.