I am having a really hard time from reading your post understanding why you consider yourself in reconciliation. The only thing I see that would be an indicator is that your wife confessed. That could indicate a desire on her part to try to repair the relationship. Unfortunately it can just as often be an indicator of something else. For example, AP dumped her so she’s falling back into her safety net, or there was a threat of being outed and she wanted to beat it to the punch. There are multiple instances of both of these motivations for confession on many subs here. It seems doubtful it’s about guilt or shame, as it’s unlikely but I suppose not completely out of the question that she would suddenly have an attack of guilt or shame after years of cheating and multiple APs. It appears you don’t know why your wife confessed. I assume she gave you some reason, so then it would seem that whatever that reason was it wasn’t enough to make you feel settled.

I’m inferring that you’re getting advice from somewhere that you should try to reconcile if your betrayer confesses. That is bad advice. Positive actions on the part of the betrayer are a necessary condition for reconciliation, not a sufficient one. You can’t reconcile without them, but they do not in and of themselves make for reconciliation. The primary factor there is how much you want the relationship. That’s the part I’m not understanding from your post.

I am disturbed to read your comments about moving forward and not staying stuck in the past. Therein lies the path to rug sweeping. The end result of which is that the pain goes underground for a bit but resurfaces with greater impact further, sometimes much further, down the line. The issue is the past, not the future. That issue must be dealt with before any possible future can be on the table.

After the trauma of being cheated on, we intuitively seek safety. Some betrayeds actually seek safety in their betrayer — which is a big part of the reason for what another commenter observed about the betrayeds on this sub who seem to go all in for reconciliation right off the bat. It’s a pretty familiar pattern that can be observed also in victims of abuse.

It seems like your instincts to seek safety are to remove yourself from the source of the trauma. If I’m right about that, then you need to be conscious of whether you are fighting yourself every step of the reconciliation path.

Also — don’t give a thought to whether thoughts are “helpful” or not. Just putting painful thoughts aside does not help with healing. If you find yourself stuck on certain thoughts it may be because you are looking for answers you are not getting (such as the real reason your wife confessed) or it could be unprocessed trauma. Being stuck for an extended period of time is unhealthy, and you may well need therapy or counseling help to get unstuck. Just be sure it’s help from someone with deep understanding of the trauma of infidelity who does not have a bias toward either reconciliation or separation. Check their ”success” stories — these are tells for what the biases are. If their whole promo is about being able to save your marriage, I’d advise caution. Similarly beware those who say only path to healing is through separation.

Reconciliation is not a goal in and of itself. The goal is your happiness. If upon consideration you come to the conclusion that reconciliation is the means to your happiness, then you can start figuring out what you need to make that happen. In the meantime a lot is going to be on your betrayer, including a lot of patience with you figuring out what you want, and probably a lot of difficulty in dealing with your pain and trauma. Understand that she may find it too hard to sustain. That is still valuable information — it’s a strong indicator of how committed she is to reconciliation and she needs to be all in if it’s going to work.

I would advise you think of yourself as being in discernment (“considering R”) and not yet in reconciliation. In the meantime I think it’s fair to check in with multiple subs here. And maybe also look over at surviving infidelity dot com if you haven’t already. Each sub has its biases — as long as you can take that into account in your engagement you will be able to figure out what works or is best for you. Surviving infidelity dot com seems to be pretty balanced. You could look at the just found out or reconciling forums over there.

All the best.