My ex wife’s only regret on her affair was, “the order in which she did things.” At no point did I hear her regret her affair. This was from the perspective of a wayward wife (not mine).
The worst part is that before all this happened, I was convinced he didn’t even love me anymore and just felt sorry for me; like he HAD to be with me because we’ve been together since we were kids. I was shocked to see how much I’d hurt him. I’d convinced myself he didn’t really care about me as a romantic partner and more as a friend. I would live in that feeling for weeks and months on end while trying to find new formulas to get him to love me.
I wish I could go back and talk some sense into myself and tell me that’s the mental illness, not reality, and to tell your therapist how bad you’re really doing and stop trying to make the therapist feel like she’s doing a good job when she’s not and you’re not ok.
The first person a waywards betrays is themselves. Look at cognitive dissonance. Your mind has to reconcile all the bad things you are doing with not being evil so it fabricates reasons. In Individual Counseling, you should be able to walk you through this. Note that it can take six months to a year for a wayward to unwind those altered realities.
From another perspective
I identify with this very much. In my affair I told myself many lies while acting out, and one of the biggest was that my wife didn’t care about me anyway. I mean how could she? I’m a bad person and no one could really love me. If they do, it’s because I’ve fooled them well enough and if they really knew who I was then they wouldn’t love me.
It’s taken me a long time to accept how low my own opinion of myself was. I never considered myself as someone with low self esteem. Since I’ve aged I’ve become very comfortable in front of audiences and I would have thought that I’ve actually done a decent job building my self esteem. Not thinking too highly of myself was a sign of humility, atleast that’s what I thought.
In reality I have been an insecure person since my teenage years. I never learned how to cope properly with it and work on the right things. I used sex to gloss over this pain and I used lies to keep anyone from knowing who I am. This leads me back to how I could so honestly believe my wife didn’t love me. She just loved the things I provided for her like my income and labor around the house. I viewed it as if I kept doing those things, then I was delivering what she needed and so what is the harm if I act out with other people.
In reality she did love me. I didn’t love me. I broke us. I hope I can repair the damage I’ve done. I admit this to her frequently but I’m still a work in progress on my other flaws and I know that scares her.
I hope you share your insights with your spouse.