Tom, ha! I'd be happy to. and please I hope none of this comes across as criticism of you at all. I think you're brilliant. I only humbly hope to offer another perspective on this from personal experience. In full disclosure I have been betrayed by my partner in the past, but before that with someone else, I myself had an affair. So I speak from both sides of this and the psychology involved. Good luck and I know that him hearing the narrative fro your side will challenge his own romantic, heroic nonsense.
With the greatest respect, my view is that the language you use here suggests two pretty important things that you may want to consider in the coming months.
1 One is that there seems to be, as there is in many relationships, a power imbalance that has emerged in your relationship. His explaining to you 'what is going on' from his counselling perspective. you talking about having the book as a roadmap to 'help him through this'. The references to his work and his entitlement within it. Of course I know you are not a shrinking wallflower but you seem to default to him as central and empowered in the relationship, even now. As if he is worthy of attention and decision and you are lectured by him and there to 'help him through this'. Almost as if he is the protagonist and you his sidekick. almost as if he thinks he is the real one with the understanding and the truth and you aren't quite real, or perhaps also on some level, lucky to be with him. This is extremely common in relationships where there's been an infidelity. He is an individual with a glam job and a love affair you know nothing of and you are defined in your relation to him. You may want to think a bit more about this and see how you interact with him in person. I have concerns that he has fundamentally more power or status in the relationship than you. Many individual counsellors actually work hard to support their client's point of view (because who returns every week to pay to be told they are wrong?!) so he will be being further empowered there. I suspect your husband is fundamentally secure in his entitlement and that will take some shifting, and I would actually encourage you to look at your own independence to challenge this, which brings me on to my second point.
- This is always tricky but I have found it to be the case that very few relationships survive healthily after affairs unless the betrayed partner genuinely and meaningfully detaches from the cheater, and realistically imagines and even lives their life without the other for a while, and is not afraid of it.
It is only by truly knowing we would be fine if we left that we can ever truly CHOOSE to stay. Otherwise it is clinging on and taken for granted and all negotiation from weakness and return to status quo. When you say things like 'to agree how to rebuild' it pre-supposed a lot. It suggests that rebuilding is inevitable when frankly, it is not. It may be impossible, or at least impossible to do in a way where you will be happy and him faithful. And accepting that might seem negative or scary but I think it is essential to changing the power dynamic in the relationship and changing the mindset of the betrayed to something much more liberated and powerful.
Cheaters are motivated by the reality of loss. Someone can sense if their partner wouldn't ever really leave them. That mindset is so so different from someone who genuinely feels they have lost something. it keeps all the power ultimately with the cheater and forced the betrayed to still quietly do the 'pick me' dance, even though it's not on the surface. It means you are afraid to make totally reasonable demands like, 'it would be meaningful to me if you read this book and we could talk about it'. The fact that you seem unwilling to make such tiny demands suggests on some level you are frightened of angering him, and then of course, losing him. Of being 'that woman'.
It is within your expectations and beliefs that the greatest change must take place if you truly wish to see a meaningful 'change' in him (and what does that mean, really?). that's terrifying but true. your future is not secure. You cannot hold this relationship together as inevitable. Words mean NOTHING. Only his actions. Towards you. As the new centre. There is fundamental stuff here. you don't have to address it right now, of course. But you will need to address it.