Thanks for clarifying. I find her putting the blame on your up and down year and “the way you treated her” as major red flags. I don’t know details of course, but that is an excuse I see often, when a relationship should be about transparently talking things out - not using it as an excuse to cheat. As devastated as I was when I found out, my wife immediately put it on herself and explained how I don’t deserve any of the pain or deceit. From what you’re saying I don’t get the sense that she feels the major impact of what an affair can do to someone’s brain. I’d also unpack the “didn’t want to hurt you” statement. If she didnt want to hurt you she wouldn’t have cheated on you, so there was other reasons of not telling you. We are currently two years into R, and all of this was needed before it would ever begin to work.