Thank you so much for your thoughts and recommendations. I do believe she is a predator and a pro. She and her husband were fairly new at our congregation and red flags went off in my head very early on - but that something was not right with them - never that it would eventually involve my husband. She because way too friendly way too fast. She emailed us both, asked intimate question and shared intimate personal stories of her unhappy marriage way too fast. I knew it was not right, I was naïve in not knowing why someone would be like this. Clearly my marriage was two people cohabitating and there is much in our history that we have talked about that leads to pieces of the 'why'. There is history of self messages we both brought in to the marriage and we have even talked about how his messages to me early on in our marriage shut me down. But all marital therapy before the affair was to 'fix me' - that I needed to get over what he said to me early in the marriage (a few months in to the marriage, he said that he loved me but 'not that way - not IN love'. Which we now know was a defense mechanism he had established after being hurt in a previous relationship and a belief of my husband that true love had to look like his parent's courtship - instant love, connection, and married within 4 months). There is a lot of healing talk in regard to how our broken marriage developed and led to where it all ended up; knowing it is not an excuse but a factor that presented 'opportunity.' I believe she is skilled enough that she saw something in us that told her our marriage was vulnerable. In all our healing talk my husband told me that she had asked a woman at church whom we had known for 15 years about the status of our marriage. Unfortunately, (and it hurts to know this) the AP told my husband that the woman said we didn't seem very happy. Anyway, it is a sick, twisted story. My husband was a deacon. Their infidelities occurred in the church building, in my home, in my neighborhood, at the park by our home, in a hotel near his office, in hotels when he was out of town on business but within driving distance for her. I can't run from the triggers short of us moving. Church - Sunday - is very much a trigger. But, because of doctrinal beliefs there are not really other nearby options. Everything is on the table still when it comes to moving, changing churches etc. We have not made any quick decisions but are seriously considering selling the home we raised our children in - as there are horrid memories/triggers now of my husband's infidelity as well as what trauma was done to our son - which we learned of when he was in treatment - the same week and place my husband confessed his affair. (My husband first confessed to our sons therapist and they agreed it was best for him to confess to me in a safe place - during the week of family therapy with our son. 2 very surreal truths were revealed back to back).
8 months in we have made a lot of progress in talking about our relationship, our broken marriage. But we do differ in that he expresses desire to 'just move on' , that he never thought his affair would have caused such damage to an already broken marriage. He doesn't really get the pain and empathy is not his natural bent. There is still much self-protection on both sides. I am well in to the Harboring Hope. I want for him to want to seek 3rd party understanding of how this has affected me, that where I am at is in the realm of 'normal' for what I have been through, that I do need to hit this 'head on' as you say in order to fully process and fully heal. I have days I battle back and forth between the trauma of the affair and the trauma of what was done to my son - it changed his whole childhood - everything, everything. No one seems to get the impact of the 2 together. Actually, only a small handful of people know even one or both trauma stories. Most family and friends just know our son went away for treatment for addiction - they don't know the why of his numbing and they don't know the 2nd trauma . Our sons trauma story is not ours to tell. Our trauma story - well, we don't necessarily want everyone to know - at least not for now and maybe never...
Sorry, I am going on and on. The thing is - the intimacy I spoke of is sexual intimacy. It was pretty nonexistent for a long time. It is the part that was unfulfilled for my husband and the part I cared nothing about because I didn't feel loved, cherished. I think we are getting the reasoning behind that disconnect. But I fear he will get discouraged waiting for sexual intimacy - and that scares the tar out of me. I feel our covenant was broken and I need to build a new covenant, feel safe, feel loved before I can give myself again. That is where it is complicated. That is where I think we both fear not wanting that critical part of a healthy relationship to go back to where it was before. I just don't know how I am going to feel safe unless he is able to continue in hitting this 'head on' with me.