I have full awareness that my ENs weren't met but also that I had no right to have PAs. I plead guilty every day. I wish I'd known about methods such as MB but I didn't and thought my EN would be fulfilled with PAs but they woren't; it was an escape.
You are confused about what emotional needs are. I think it would be helpful if you named them "emotional wants" instead. You could name them "roses" if you wanted.
An emotional need is not something that you NEED.
An emotional need is what you need
in order to be in love with the person giving it.
You only need it for the purpose of being in love.
Your "love bank" is not just a big pile of love units, like a vault. It's a real bank with separate accounts for every single person you know. Male and female.
When one of those accounts gets high, beyond a certain threshold, you experience the feeling of being in love, which feels wonderful.
Sadly, you DID let women you were not married to meet (partially) one or more of your emotional needs. This made love bank deposits, even if they weren't enough to make you fall in love.
Even if you had fallen in love, that wouldn't have done anyone any good, because YOU WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN IN LOVE WITH YOUR WIFE. Deposits go into the account of the depositor. They make you fall in love with someone else.
It's not about filling your vault. It's about letting your wife fill her account, and not letting anyone else fill theirs.
I wish I'd known about methods such as MB but I didn't
That's still not the reason why you committed adultery. Lots of people never knew about MB and still live their lives without committing adultery.
You believed you were entitled to try to "fill your vault" from any source, if your wife wouldn't fill it. You wanted sex, or whatever, and since you weren't getting it, you believed you were entitled. You didn't protect your wife's account from competition with other accounts. You believed you were entitled to do anything with a woman that felt good, including participating in conversation, affection, recreational companionship, and/or sex.
You were wrong. You promised not to do those things when you got married. You said "forsaking all others," and then you didn't keep your promise.
I don't want condemnation from you guys. I need constructive advice please.
First piece of constructive advice: you need to accept the condemnation. You probably won't move forward until you do. If you want to redeem yourself and become someone who even can help your wife, accept and agree with the condemnation, and then start working all the practical steps people give you.
There will be a lot of reading and the need to change a lot of your thinking. The condemnation may not feel good, but if you'll just accept it it'll be one of the quickest ways to help change your thinking.
Your brain is like a computer with a bug. People are trying to fix the bug.