catwalker thanks. I want to talk about two things then; the boundaries that were traversed on the lead-up to the hotel and furthermore, its aftermath and then, your inability to feel empathy for his actions. In relation to the love he felt and feels for you, I want you to recall your whole relationship.
I also want to reassure you that this particular wall is very familiar to me and want to share with you, how we dealt with it.
When you first posted all those months ago, I asked you to wrack your brains to recall his behaviour on the run-up to the assignation. This is made so much more difficult for you I know, because discovery was 18 months after the event.
One of your difficulties empathising with his actions is because you are perhaps thinking of how premeditated the assignation was - and you might be starting the clock from this point - and not before the hundreds of steps that were taken to get to that point.
What happens in an affair like your H's is that there is a slow build-up, where various things become permissible, all more dangerous than the last. But each one doesn't seem dangerous, because by that time he had normalised it. Let's work with your example (and it would be worth discussing this with your H).
If in the early days when their relationship was friendly but professional, if he had gone to her house, or met her in a hotel lobby and she had suggested sex, I suspect he would have refused point blank, even after a few drinks. You see at that point, he wouldn't have given himself permission to do anything untoward and the leap would have been too great.
So what happened instead was that when this first started, he would have been telling himself that this was a friendly relationship that was mutually profitable and therefore "safe". That was the first permission given. Then came some more personal discourse and compliments exchanged, more conversations about their lives. That's another barrier broken.
Your H might recall another watershed moment, when he started looking forward to the contact and the buzz it gave him, but he may also recall that he still didn't predict danger.
By the time it came to expressing a mutual sexual attraction, that would seem like a big barrier to you, but by that time it wouldn't have seemed like it to him - he probably still felt safe.
On and on it went, with more steps taken, more delusions of safety and the ability to back out, until the moment when he realised that he was going to go through with this. By that time, he will have been normalising it as no big deal - and minimising its meaning and effect; on him, on the OW and especially on you and the DCs.
I expect he is adamant that he kept telling himself that this was nothing to do with you or the DCs and therefore he was safe. The OW was never going to be an alternative and therefore the danger was nullified. You describe him as a measured, calm man who is not prone to over-reaction or dramatisation. He may have thought at the time that this served him well, because he was keeping a perspective about all this. In fact, the reverse was true and his character led him to under-estimate the effect. I wonder whether this is holding him back right now - and he still has this tendency to under-estimate the effect of all this?
After the hotel, for the first time, he might have had a more realistic view of the danger, especially when it became evident that the OW had fallen in love. So the fear kicked in and explains some of the damage limitation he engaged in for such a long time afterwards. For the first time too, he was able to make a link between all this and you. It is I think why your relationship improved from this point onwards.
Because he is a "minimiser", he didn't sense danger or feel fear until it was way too late. When he did start to feel these emotions, it caused him to value you so much more. He realised then that he had done something that if discovered, could cause him to lose you. It then became a battle to stop discovery happening, while at the same time cherishing you more.
You evidently aren't a minimiser. What you may self-deprecatingly believe to be volatility and over-reaction might be more accurately described as a good grip on reality. You are able to bargain away these differences in your approaches to things and it could help you if you recognise that of course you would have seen the danger at the different barriers breached by your H, but the minimiser that your H is, wouldn't.
And I do think the gender politics that I've mentioned are relevant here, as relevant at least as the culture your H has been exposed to, where respected colleagues voice a belief that a chap can't be expected to say no, that infidelity is ok if no-one gets hurt, that the really stupid men are the ones who fall in love with the OW and wreck families - and the mantra is "don't fall in love and don't get caught".
All of this might help you with your empathy and to imagine what a minimiser with low-self esteem and poor influences, might have been feeling.
Now, what was he feeling in terms of love for you when all this started, I wonder? I imagine he will say he has always loved you and that his actions do not equate to a loss of love at all.
Because of this, he wouldn't have said "yes" to an affair straight away.
But love is an action as well as a feeling and what happens in these slow-burning affairs where barriers are being transgressed all the time, is that the soon-to-be errant spouse starts to create a gap. It is almost entirely subconscious.
In the months or weeks leading up to the hotel, you or he might recall seemingly trivial things changing in terms of his attitude to you. Perhaps he stopped making you cups of tea as regularly, stopped complimenting you as much, stopped making efforts to please you in a myriad of different ways? Do you ever recall being exasperated that he hadn't done something promised, or properly - and instead of an apology, being met with defensiveness and a counter-attack of nagging or over-reacting? Any body language, such as eye-rolling or sighing when you remonstrated with him, even in a calm manner?
Do you ever recall saying or thinking "How come I'm the bad guy here?"
Do you recall, looking back, feeling unsettled and out of sorts - and pinning your unease on other things, such as the DCs, school choices, work etc.?
All of this gap creation is subconscious, but has the effect of reducing your marital connection and the love he felt for you. I reiterate, he wouldn't have known this was what he was doing, but in order to go through with this, he simply had to get to the point when he felt less empathy for you, even if he was telling himself throughout that he still loved you, so this wasn't dangerous.
What you might be able to agree on therefore that by the time he walked into that hotel, he wasn't feeling much love for you, because there was now a distance.
But regard this as an illusion catwalker. In reality, he never stopped loving you - but I suspect he created a situation where he allowed himself to feel it less keenly, otherwise he could never have done what he did. It simply wouldn't have been permissible.
One of the ways we got through this wall about the "love felt" was to recall other times in our long marriage when we had felt less loving towards eachother. This is why the Glass book is so helpful, because it suggests you review your entire relationship and timeline your feelings.
Of particular relevance was my H's recollection of the love he felt for me just before and after the OW got in touch out of the blue. He recalls feeling huge love and marital satisfaction and because of a key event around this time, we were able to pinpoint feelings very accurately. But we both recalled very vividly, his sense of disappointment at work and the low esteem he felt at being turned down for yes, a job that "had his name on it". This was out in the open, but what was hidden were his feelings of being out of his depth in a job he'd come to hate, or how incompetent he felt. These were feelings he was too proud to admit, even to me.
We were therefore able to settle on the affair not being the low point at all in the love felt, throughout our relationship. That there were other times when the love had seemed more fragile - and in fact, I'd had far more low points than him.
It might help you then to see what you regard as a lessening of love for you, for the illusion that it was. But talk this through and timeline it, it really did help us.
What a tome! I don't know if any of this helps you whatsoever, catwalker but I recognise so clearly the turmoil you are
in and the constant wrestling with your doubts. What I hope most of all is that this provides you with some talking points with your H, because you will and should, be talking about this for a long time to come.
I recognise the exhaustion too, but at some point there will be a difference noticed in the way you talk, that will seem more calm and healing. But you will feel anger and incomprehension for a while yet.