Q&A How Can the Unfaithful Work through the Deception Regarding the Infidelity?

For me, when my spouse and I talk about the infidelity or the affair partners, I still seem to have a lot of unclarity or deception about what happened with them. For example I struggled with the question “Did I use them?” and I didn’t know if I thought that or not. There were a lot of problems with questions if I thought the affair partners were special, or how I thought they looked or what I thought about their personality. We are about two years out from D-Day and no contact with them and stopping pornography. In those two years I journaled a lot, went to several different therapists, took Hope for Healing and talked about everything a lot with my spouse. I struggle a lot with shame, not trusting myself and uncertainty when it comes to a lot of questions. I tried to avoid thinking about the affair partners, and when I journaled about them I was very afraid of positive things coming up and had trouble differentiating between intrusive thoughts and what my real opinions were. I think due to fear I also avoided journaling about them or talking about them with my therapist and am afraid that because of this I didn’t fully process all of it and that that holds me back.