Sigh, I am so sorry that you had to join this group. Listen don't decided anything at all in the next three months. You just started the roller coaster of emotions that is going to fully still hit you. Your mind and your body is in shock. You are kind of still in denial but a bit numb etc. Your emotions is gonna get A LOT worse before it gets better. There are gonna be days where you feel loss, then days you hate him, then days you can't stand him touching you. Then the questions is going to haunt you like a demon. Then you want to know everything, then you want to know nothing. Then you will cry and be sad, and feel depressed, then you are gonna be hurt and angry and this is going to go on for a looong time. Don't fight any of those feelings. They are ALL normal. As your mind starts reconnecting to your body and the shock wears off a bit, you will start thinking a bit more rationally. For now, just feel what you feel BUT REALIZE every single emotion you feel is NORMAL, and you are NOT going crazy. You will be in zombie state for a while, just BE... and just survive. Take it one day at a time, and then your husband (if he wants advice as to how to get this passed fast). To be BRUTALLY honest, and tell you every detail you ask for. Tell him if he tries to soften the blow, the rest of the shit will come out eventually and for those of us with experience, it prolongs the healing because every time new evidence comes to light, it throws you right back to square one. I pray for you and we are here if you wanna blast and vent. I'm so sorry...

That is a normal feeling. In a sense, I was lucky my wife had no ambivalence about wanting me and ready to dump the OM (not that she didn't struggle with feelings for him, it wasn't easy for her, but she was 100% committed to saving our marriage).

On dday, we had sex that night. At first I didn't know how to approach that. But I did two things that allowed me to process it so that it didn't come across as letting her off the hook, so to speak.

1) I gave her trust on loan. The fact is I didn't trust her at that point. But I knew for rebuilding to work, I would have to give her some. But she'd have to make "payments" on that loan by being totally transparent, honest, and doing all she could to work on herself to heal her and me from this mess.

2) Before i could have sex with her, she had to understand what sex meant to me. That in having sex with me, it was a commitment by her to have no one else but me, and never share that with another man again. It is a uniting act of marriage, and I couldn't have her divorcing me and remarrying me over and over again by marrying another man by having sex with him. Fulfilling that commitment was part of repaying that loan back.

I would caution you, what you had before has to a large extent been destroyed. The history is there, but this A changes everything. It is called rebuilding for a reason. You are not getting back to what you had before, you are building something new. To do that does take perseverance, as your pastor said. But it is also true that due to his hardness of heart, if he goes that way, there may not be much options but to part ways.

I'd recommend you read the following article, and the one linked to it that it is based on. It gives a good paradigm of what needs to happen for rebuilding.

http://healinginfidelity.blogspot.com/2013/10/narrative-reconstruction.html

You sound like me when I found out. I had a hard time with all of the conflicting feelings and while I'm still learning and working through all of this I've learned a few things that have made a huge difference.

So far, I've learned not to minimize any of those feelings and to communicate those feelings. Let the feeling be whatever it needs to be at the moment and go with it. It's ok if you want to cuddle one night, be distant the next and want to jump him the next....the key is communication. Let him know how you feel and what you want at that moment. It sounds like he is remorseful so hopefully he is supportive of whatever you need.

The next thing I discovered is I needed to let my H know what I needed during those distant, "I hate you right now" moments. Someone in another forum gave the idea of using a word or phrase to let your spouse know it's just one of those days and since you have (hopefully) communicated what you need during these times, your spouse will know what to do.

All in all, each person deals with pain and hurt in their own way but I think a one factor that is always the foundation of whatever path you go is communicating what you need and what you expect.

Cole was very patient and affectionate during the hard early days. His main goal was to see me redeemed from the spiritual danger I had put myself in. He wanted to be sure that he did all he could to help me heal, especially as long as I was doing all I could to help myself heal.

While, on the one hand, he was never punishing to me but was loving and affectionate, on the other hand, he made it very clear to me where his lines were and what he needed from me. I knew beyond doubt that these things were not negotiable if I wanted to stay in the marriage. I saw one BS post that she was tired of her H not doing what she felt he needed to do so she made a list of what she needed from him. She held nothing back and put on that list things she didn't really think he would do. Guess what? He did them all plus some. I thought it was a great idea. I hope the two of you are reading books together. It is a powerful rebuilding activity.