I’m so sorry for your anguish. I mean, even if the marriage was problematic with fights, financial stuff, sexual (medical) dysfunction, etc that’s still not the green light to stray. You guys entered into a bond/agreement “good times and bad”. If he was so unhappy, retrospectively, did he do anything to remedy it? If he was unhappy with HIMSELF that’s another thing. Either way,,cheat? F that.
What does the therapist think about his reluctance.
If I were dumb enough to cheat, got caught and my wife wanted to repair the marriage, I’d crawl thru broken glass that was on fire on my belly daily to get that back.
Sounds like he maybe forcing your hand. Only you know that. It’s hard to represent the dynamic on this forum.
You have my respect and support and a hug for your plight. Stay with it but realize your worth.

So, all of a sudden he’s happy now, but wasn’t happy for 28 years? Either he’s trying to figure out how to appease you so he can go back to business as usual with other women or he is happy with they way things are...

Refusing counseling is a big red flag. It does seem, as others have said, that he is just appeasing you to trick you into staying with him.

My wife has been in bi weekly and now monthly counseling for the last 2 years and a bit of her own volition.

Believe me when it takes a whole lot of professional help for most people to change as well as a strong will to do so. Your husband isn't getting the help and doesn't seem interested in changing.

You don't want to find out he is doing it again.

It's all about you and you need to set your demands, boundaries, expectations, etc. His state of being - happy/unhappy is his
responsibility, not yours.

Insist he stay in counseling. If he doesn't, don't warn him, just ask
him to leave. He will get serious about your relationship once he sees
how serious you are.

So many times the cheater manipulates the betrayed so the cheating can continue and that is what you are dealing with now. Delivering up a nice set of consequences for the OW is in order as well.

I outed the OW, I also told her H. And I was (and still am) willing to keep it up and expose the cheating to management at their job. Cheaters understand actions. So get tough.

You need someone to talk to so get your own therapist.

And as a side note, the line about being unhappy for 28 years? That’s a lie he made up to justify his behavior to himself.

Thank you all; this is where i come when i need support I am trying to go to counseling myself. I am going to try it for a while and see how it goes . I agree --28yrs you were unhappy so you stayed for the kids- why stay now the kids are big.. He is trying in a way going back to church , telling me where he is , gives me access to his phone but hates it when i look and i have access to his location. However, I am trying to figure out why he wants to stay. I might just outsmart him and when he thinks he is safe just leave. I feel he wants to stay to look good for everyone- he is the one you will least expect to cheat. He is big on perception and how others sees him- this nice guy.
To me he will always be a cheater and will never trust him again.

He sounds so much like my H! He, too, is very aware of how he looks to other people. Impression management. That's what it is.

He wants to stay because he wants to stay! Remember it's actions that we need to pay attention to. Forget what he says. He's a liar.

You need to work on yourself right now. You need to feel better about you. He cheated because he wanted to. You didn't make him. If you were so horrible to live with, he'd be out of there. Obviously, you are not.

Make your plan, you will feel better. Start setting aside money for yourself. I have tried calculating what my H spent on his A and I have set aside that amount of money for myself. Next I will double it, then triple it and so forth. You do not trust him, so you need to make provisions for yourself.

Keep an eye on him though. I know my H would like to go back to those days of cheating - it was a real high for him. But he does understand consequences.

Has he done individual counseling? It sounds like he has a number of things to work through if he was miserable in marriage for 28 years. It also sounds like he needs to continue to work on himself- being unhappy in a marriage is not a good reason to have an affair.

Agreeing to marriage counseling is a pretty basic part of reconciliation in my book. The marriage was broken before the affair, and you two need to work together to fix it. Additionally, he hurt you deeply and destroyed the trust in your relationship. You are offering him a gift by considering giving him another chance- for him to not agree to your terms of marriage counseling is really spitting in your face and to me, that speaks volumes about where his mindset is at. He wants to stay married...but doesn't want to put in the work it takes to fix and strengthen the marriage. He selfishly thinks of his own feelings about going back to counseling vs prioritizing your feelings about counseling being necessary. He doesn't want to face the fact that part of rebuilding trust includes loss of privacy. Sounds like he is still pretty foggy to me.

Perception is big for most CS. A reason many get into affairs is because they need feed their ego and self image which is low. It is the drug that keeps them afloat emotionally.

Losing their public dignity is a double hit because they know who they are inside and what they have done. Exposure destroys their outward image and exposes their inward self at the same time. Would feel like having your darkest secret broadcasted to everyone you know.

It is like kicking the crutch from under a person with a broken leg. The ego was fragile to begin with and now it has lost it's last legs.

I don't think the pain will ever go away, I just found that my wife of 21 years has been cheating.

Idk if it will help, but I have ve been through 3 relationships where men were cheaters. At the 6 month mark, their true intentions begin to surface. A man who is truly remorseful is not going to be tired of nurturing you through your pain and his own burden of facing his ugly behavior.
When someone begins to expect you to get over it when HE thinks it’s time, this means that he really hasn’t changed at all.
This behavior only further fuels your insecurities and grief. At 6 month mark, you should only begin feeling some security and developing trust, because this is how much effort it takes to rebuild the relationship that was broken so savagely.
If you are still feeling horrible 3 months from now, maybe it is time to consider trial separation. You need space to feel some sort of order and peace.
I hope you will be able to work through this.
Hugs

can you give us an update?