It's been a rough few days. I've been reflecting on the responses in this thread and (as trite as it sounds) doing some soul searching. W and I had a serious talk Monday night. I'd brought up the affair several times in the last few months, explained that I needed to discuss it to be able to heal from it, but W never opened up all that much. I brought it up again and he actually talked for a long time about how it started, what they did, what he was feeling at the time, etc.
I told him I felt betrayed by him, not just because of the affair, but because he let me meet H, hang out with her, and everything else that followed...and never put a stop to it. I raised some concerns I've had about H's motives, intentions, and comments she's made that didn't add up or were truly hurtful and insensitive.
At some point we were talking about the affair...that if he told me he had a meeting and actually went to her hotel room, he would have come home afterward and I would have been totally unaware. It irritated me that he could maybe look back and remember that but I'll never know what was going in that day, if he behaved differently, if we had sex that night...
So, I looked at him and said that's what K is going through right now. That he might be the biggest douchebag in the world, but he doesn't deserve to be cheated on or betrayed. I pointed out that we are complicit in H's cheating/lying. I was surprised to hear that W had been thinking about that recently and feeling uncomfortable. It's like, we hear about how awful he is and he probably is an asshole...but even if he is that doesn't make it right.