[2xloser]

Understand that she has suffered severe trauma, and will not (and frankly should not) simply or quickly forgive and move on. It will take time, if it happens at all, and she will never forget it.

She needs to re-assess the entirety of your marriage in her own mind, because what she thought, believed, and trusted she had is in fact now dead...and unfortunately, you're the one who killed it. So it's sort of like she's dealing with the loss of a loved one (your marriage), and you directly caused that death.

As she assesses your time together, it all now feels like one big lie, a fallacy that you had a "happy" marriage, even if you actually did. She's sorting through this, and will take time to process. All the time, she's trying to figure out "Can I ever really trust him again?" I will tell you, the answer is "no" -- she can't and won't ever completely and fully trust you again the way she did before. A casualty of your actions, unfortunately. So then she's got to decide if she can live within a marriage that doesn't have that trust. And only she can determine the answer to that...in the meantime, as you're doing, you need to demonstrate as much as humanly possible how great every other aspect of you and your marriage can be and will be moving forward.

I told my WW to never stop acknowledging her regret and remorse, to find ways to tell me she's sorry whenever she's feeling that way, even if she thinks I don't want to hear it. Recognize that this is the first thing she thin ks of when she wakes up, and the last thing she thinks of when she goes to sleep, and literally hundreds of times a day whether she wants to or not. It envelopes and takes over; be a willing participant in that process, too, but also be prepared to simply leave her alone to deal with it in solace if she wants that.

Recognize she wants an answer to a question that you probably can't give her ''Why?"

If at all possible, urge the MC to start asap. If nothing else, it will help to structure your communication about all the emotions swirling through both of your heads.

Good luck to you.