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FPP,
He’s very proud of himself, as you can imagine to me his pride is like holding a red rag to a bull.

H said that at work she was just like his other male colleagues, everyone treated her like one of the guys, she never was offended by man talk and would talk about sex etc very openly either in a group or alone like a man does.

Exactly that FPP, his hit rate was pretty low. He tells me none of those things were ever meant to happen he got caught up in the moment. The flirting and dirty talk was the vast majority of the time fruitless and she was like that with other guys.

At the time he was unaware she was actively pursuing him but says he can recognise it now.
At the time because she was floating around the workplace involved with other men and she’d tell H about her sexual escapades from over her weekend he thought that she was just like one of the guys.

H said after every time they would end up going too far and kissing, he’d apologise panicked and she’d make out it was not a big deal and tell him to relax it was nothing and to forget about it, but if you saw her videos my goodness!, he had no idea how hard this woman was trying to get him.

H told me that she had her nipples pierced and showed all the men at work her boobs, full front without a bra or anything, she showed my H and said ‘you can touch them if you like’, this was in the workplace. Disgusting.

I only wanted the label because I ask myself all the time, what on earth was that!, what happened? What was it?. Since H and I have talked and talked and talked some more I’m getting a clearer picture but still wondering what on earth to call it.

I don’t know what to call this years long back and forth w/ your H and the OW.

I don’t think anyone can give a rational answer as to "why" he kept giving her rides home after the first kiss or interaction.

It’s like he wanted to kiss her but then was horrified with himself when he did. But he kept allowing himself to be in that position again and again.

Listen I had plenty of men hit on me in the workplace. Some knew I was married but figured it was "safe" b/c we were both married and it wouldn’t amount to anything. But I knew where to draw the line and not encourage things.

Clearly the OW has issues if she’s showing her boobs to random men at work. But…….your H should have known when to disengage.

Don’t make excuses for him. I did that after the first affair and it made it easier for him to have a second affair. Don’t rug sweep this or try to justify him as a victim.

He should have stopped giving her rides home. He lied by omission to you. He was behaving very poorly and he was being shady.

Can you reconcile from this? Yes. But it’s now up to the cheater to prove to you that he’s no longer that sneaky cheating guy and he recognizes ALL of the mistakes he made.

And he has a way of plan to avoid the same situations in the future.

IDK ... if my W had only kissed someone other than me ... I think I'd still think she betrayed me, and I still think I'd feel awful. I expect I'd still have to go through the recovery process, and I'd still consider splitting. I'd still want my WS to go through the process of changing from betrayer to good partner.

Bruce,

To heal, IMO, you need to attend to your own pain and process that out of your body, no matter what your H did. You hurt as much as you hurt, whether your H kissed and fondled or he kept a stable of NSA sexual partners.

Your pain is your response to what he did. It may seem to be too intense, deep, wide, long-lasting, etc., etc., etc. than it 'should' be, but healing requires dealing with what is.

1st wife,
He said because he’d apologised and she made out it was no big deal he’d brush it under the carpet. They’d go back to treating each other like regular colleagues and after sometimes months the inappropriate talking would start up again.

Dirty talk is H thing, it doesn’t even have to be directed towards him just talking about sex or anything sexual will get him going in an instant. H said he would get aroused, at the time he got caught up in the moment and yes he admits he wanted to kiss her in that split second but once he did it would stop and he said he would think to himself ‘what the f*ck are you doing?’.

I think this is what I struggle to accept, he tells me none of the kissing/touching was ever meant to happen but then he put himself in the position, he said he enjoyed the banter/dirty talking and flirting but it was not meant to go that far. I asked if every time they kissed he was the one that instigated?, he said that a couple of times he was the one who instigated but the rest of the time it was her that leaned in to him to kiss.

H said it is all his own fault, he should not have even been talking to a female colleague let alone having sexual banter with her, just because everyone else spoke to her like that doesn’t mean he had to. He admits now he should not have even given her a lift home and he should never have kept putting himself in that position. He tells me that when he thinks back even he can’t explain what he was thinking when she asked for a lift, he says he wasn’t thinking at all he just did it.

Sisoon,

The question is how do I process the pain out of my body?, CBT doesn’t help much. Throughout the day my mind starts working overtime and I’m constantly trying to make sense of this ‘thing’ my H did and weather he had feelings for her which he strongly denies, why this why that etc and by the end of the day I’m in bits.