This is an awesome update. So happy for you!
Between my own situation and the stuff I read on here, it is truly amazing to me what people do once they become wayward. I do very much understand why some mistakenly rush to call it "mid life crisis" or whatnot because it's like people just fall off the edge of reason. Their entire decision making ability just seems to crumble and whatever identity or semblance of who they were just ceases to exist in many cases. It's very bizarre.
Some of management at my work knew my WXW fairly well before she was wayward because we would all hang out now and then and it's like how you describe your husband's former employees reacting. They usually say she just "snapped" if the topic comes up, like she just went off the rails or the lights went out. I have said very little about my situation at work....but, people see that wayward mindset and even if they can't connect the dots between the irrationality and infidelity, they can identify that something went very wrong.
There are SO many misconceptions about cheating and infidelity because of how it's portrayed in the media and it's just interesting to me that when people get close to it in real life as observers, they are so strongly impressioned by the symptoms even if they don't understand the disease.
Your response is so interesting to me ax, and you are just so right on with it. I just don't recognize him anymore, and I think his family doesn't either, let alone the folks at the restaurant. I think for me, I struggled even in the later part of this mess, with having sympathy for him. I honestly felt sad for him, and I don't know why. I felt worse for him, than myself. To watch him mope around, be so stressed, and sad, it was hard to watch. But, having said that, he took it to a point where he made a decision to screw me over to get something he needed, and that's the point where any sympathy I had for him ended completely. I don't understand him, and I don't know that I ever will. I know he is not happy with his OW, or the choices he made, but it is no longer my issue. It's to late, at this point to go backwards just makes zero sense to me.