Krazy, I appreciate your input and I feel like this is exactly where I am at. I want to try and stay and be strong for everyone say that it will be worth it for everyone 30 years down the line.
I don't think ws understands the trauma of watching the incident and finding out that it's been happening for four months under my own roof. Hard to suppress what i seen...

I don't know how it is possible to forgive such a transgression. She was screwing this other man in your home for months on end putting your health constantly at risk for STD's. In addition she apparently had no prolem not only constatly screwing him in the basement when you were home but also admitted to screwing him in your kids room and in your bedroom in your bed. This has to be the ultimate in betrayal. By doing this she showed utter disrespect and total distain for your relationship, marriage vows and your feelings. Only a person that would have such total disgust for their spouse could do such a thing. You state that if she had not been caught by you then she would still be doing this to you. What does that tell you?

If the roles were reversed do you honestly think she would have been so accepting as you have been? Her actions shows that she has absolutely no respect for you whatsoever. If you do not respect yourself then who will? I almost feel by what you have written that she had no problem screwing this man in your home under your nose because down deep she had nothing to risk because she knew you would suck it up and forgive her if she got caught. Please don't waste your precious life on someone like this. I wish you luck.

Krazy, I appreciate your input and I feel like this is exactly where I am at. I want to try and stay and be strong for everyone say that it will be worth it for everyone 30 years down the line.
I don't think ws understands the trauma of watching the incident and finding out that it's been happening for four months under my own roof. Hard to suppress what i seen...

Unless she understands this, the extent of the trauma and the horror you have been through, you have no chance. She needs to really take a good , hard look at herself and her actions.

SC,

Within context of what began this thread... (http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2267144&page=2)

When you think of anything to do with OW, your emotions follow right behind. Not emotions based on anything NOW but based entirely on the memories you are recalling. The pain, sorrow, anger, fear...all of it is stored as part of your memories. You don't just recall the emotions, you recall the details and experience the emotions all over again. The same chemicals that cause the feelings when the event first happened are all the same when we remember. The idea of emotional memory management is to recognize when we have a memory that has as part of its make-up a strong emotional component and then to change our thinking before the neurotransmitters are released into our brains. We can't control the emotions but we can change what we are thinking. The emotions follow a minute or longer after the first thought occurs and so if we can identify when we have been triggered BEFORE the flood overcomes us, we can lessen and eventually reduce those emotions because when not accessed for a while, the emotions too begin to fade.

As for your comment about him having a fondness for her...

Would you feel any better about her or about the affair if he had simply found someone who had sex with him on a regular basis and neither of them had any emotions about the other at all? I would guess that it wasn't just the fact that it was her but that he did attach emotions to her that is the greatest cause of sadness. I know that is the case for me.

We can't decide how we react to a memory, but we can decide what we will think and THAT is the basis for this. We choose to think something else before we get hammered by the emotions associated with the memory file we never even knew was there...

Have you ever found a file on your computer that you couldn't remember what it was. When you opened it it took a minute before you recognized what it was about and then you worked through the details of what was happening when you first saved that file. If there were any emotional things going on at that time, those same emotions begin to rise up and before you know it a spreadsheet with expenses for the garden you never even got around to building has set back your emotional state for the whole day.

That file is your memory of certain events and things surrounding the affair. You are triggered when you open one of those files. But if you open a file and see what it is about and then close it and open another instead that you know contains, say a love letter from your husband instead, your emotions might begin to rise up in a negative way, but soon as you focus on the much better memory before you, the emotions of THAT file start to show up and replace the negative. Eventually you reach a point where you stop opening those bad memory files and they end up as something that is still there but is never accessed any more.

The memory files that effect us most are those that we open the most often. If we stop opening them, they no longer have any power over our emotions because the emotions follow the thoughts and by changing our thoughts we change the emotions...

Mark

This is tough stuff you are dealing with and it will take time for it all to sort out. You can darned well plan on a few years. You cannot expect yourself to handle this in less time than her affair lasted. You cannot expect yourself to handle all of this for less than a few years. Things can and should get better, but it will not only take time, and patience, but a lot of rethinking things on both of your parts.