It was a risk Solost writing all that down and I have fretted that it might have hurt you, but in my judgement you need to know just how much your H engineered this situation so that it looked like he wasn't responsible for it. But he was responsible for every last bit of it.
Thank you for adding some extra information as it does provide more insight.
The most important thing I need you to understand is that this affair started as soon as there was first contact with the OW.
I would find it interesting if you could recollect how things were between you from Summer-October 2009.
As soon as he became aware of this woman, whether that was as you believe at that first meeting, the die was cast. You will know that I always tell people that there is nothing we can do to prevent infidelity in another person, at any time, but once an affair opportunity has been identified and is wanted, the spouse's influence has never been less. It wouldn't have mattered what you did - or didn't do - nothing external would have deterred him from that path - apart from himself.
I held back a bit in my last post because I thought it might be too much, but when I referenced all the interactions, at the meetings and the undoubted E mails and texts in between, I want you to see that your H would have been "fishing" in the early ones and blatantly flirting in the later ones.
I want you to understand that none of this happened out of the blue.
Oh Solost have you read the chronology of an affair that I have posted on a few recent threads? In this I say that there are three distinct phases in affairs; the friendship/mirroring stage, the pre-affair permission-giving phase and the affair itself. It is a major part of the second phase that soon-to-be-unfaithful spouses start setting tests for the faithful spouse that they know she can't or won't achieve.
It is my view that the more emotionally retarded and irresponsible the adulterer, the more unachievable and manipulative those tests will be.
It therefore doesn't surprise me in the least that he asked you to accompany him on that second trip. He knew full well that you wouldn't and I bet he did precisely nothing to facilitate you being able to say yes. Had he really wanted you to go, then he would have arranged things so that there were no obstacles in your way to saying yes - arranged the childcare, bought you some new bikinis, booked a dinner in a restaurant there. He might have tried to persuade you that the children could cope with a 5-day absence, but if you were stuck firm on the duration being the barrier, he would have considered ways around it, like you both flying home a day earlier than the rest of the party.
He didn't want you to come, I assure you, but he needed to blame you for not coming. I feel very angry that he has continued playing this card long after the event and that this has been one of your "if onlys". Rest assured, it is an absolutely common manipulative trick in the script.
These are my thoughts on your Dad's death. It is often the case that a parental bereavement in the family triggers a realisation that a man is now grown up and expected to be a fully responsible adult. Because your H is at heart a sexist, paternalistic man, it would have occurred to him that you had lost your first patriarch. However, because he is also at heart a man who won't take responsibilty for his own actions and rebels like a child, he wanted to rally against the responsibility.
His thought processes and his bizarre views on women should make you very angry - they do me - because you might say that you didn't want him to become a replacement father and as an adult woman, you were responsible for yourself alone. But I think the only connection between your father's death and his affair was that he was bucking what was a ludicrously self-imposed responsibility.
A man who was essentially good and decent would have provided support long after the funeral (where he could act the part and bask in the glory of reading in the pulpit) but instead, your H decided to pile on even more agony by having an affair. That was a terrible wrong inflicted on you Solost and I am so sorry to learn that you coped with all that and then his betrayal and desertion.
Throughout this affair, your H manipulated everything. Every text he sent the OW would have had a question on the end of it, to invite a reply. Every E mail would have invited a more direct response. Every action in her presence would have been designed to get a reaction, without him ever having to "own" what he was after. He manipulated her at the same time as he was manipulating you. Every deceit was a manipulation, he even manipulated the discovery, FGS.
He has gone on manipulating you both ever since, never taking responsibility for his feelings for either of you. Please see now that he will have been painting you in a light to the OW, that you would not recognise. If she also knew how he was depicting her to you, she wouldn't recognise herself either. He is a horribly manipulative individual who puts himself first every time. His biggest flaws in my view are his manipulative character, his sexism and his complete failure to take personal responsibility for anything that happens in his life.