“He knows what he has done, how it looked. I see him in pain, wanting the future to be okay for us but also wanting his hobby friend in his life, albeit under a totally different set of 'rules'.”
@FourAndFive my husband had an affair. It was full on, physical, so different to your husband. However, I believe that your husband has had an emotional affair with this woman, so to me at least, I feel there is a parallel.
Because I love my husband, even though he was a total shit at the time, his horror at himself and shame/ anguish at what he’d done afterwards, desperately wanting the whole episode to go away and desperately wanting us to be ok, I was moved and saw his pain, even in the middle of mine.
However, his pain, like your husband’s, was a self-inflicted choice and my pain, like yours, was at my spouse’s hands.
I had genuine compassion, but at the same time I was very much aware that he might use that in the same way he used my trust: to manipulate me and the situation.
We are still together, but had he even hinted that he wanted to remain friends with OW or continue to work at the same place, I’d have ended it. His word was worthless and only actions held any weight. It was a non-negotiable for me. Not because I thought if he stayed there or talked to her that it would start again, I’m wise enough to know that nothing would prevent that happening if he wanted to, but because at the time her being in our life or him wanting her in any possible way, was out of the question for me, forever.
He was different in that it was a no brainer for him, he wanted out of the affair himself and nothing more to do with her or any of it.
Until your husband accepts that his relationship with her was totally inappropriate and takes full responsibility for that, understanding that in the light of that, any more contact is totally unreasonable and unnecessary, he is not a safe partner for you. Until he demonstrates in words and deeds that to him, you are more important than her and the hobby, he is not a safe partner for you. Work this all out together, absolutely, if that’s what you want to do. It is possible if he does his work on it and shoulders the weight of the load he put on yours.
Just bear in mind that to me, his pain appears here as him wrestling with how to maintain what’s good for him, not wrestling with the shame of the impact the realisation of what he has done to you.
Until that changes, you need to be aware that the penny still hasn’t dropped and although you feel sorry for his pain, it is his to bear, work through and also to set aside, to help you heal from yours.