Working on a better relationship after infidelity

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The original was posted on /r/asoneafterinfidelity by /u/AppointmentPrize8989 on 2023-07-03 13:07:37+00:00.

About five weeks ago, I found out about an emotional affair that my partner of almost seven years was having with someone in his lab. The affair lasted 18 months and involved lots of secret meetings, texting, expressions of devotion and desire to be with each other (she is also in a relationship). He still swears to this day that it never got physical and that he never told her he loved her. I am now trying to figure out if we can reconcile.

In the immediate aftermath of me finding the texts on his phone, we had a huge fight and I left the apartment that night and went to stay with my parents a half hour away. The next two weeks were living hell. He was in shock and exceptionally defensive and cruel; I have seen texts to his friends from that time period, and they were horrible. He said he could never get back together with me because me telling the other woman's fiancé about the affair was a "red line in the sand" for him; he wrote horrible things about me- that I didn't have any friends, that I was trying to control him by trying to talk to him about the affair, that I was being hysterical, etc. He told me during that time that his mother (a sore subject for us) had never wanted us to get married.

We had a few conversations and one day two weeks in, something changed. It was like the dam broke and he gave in to the guilt and shame. In that conversation I held space for him to express that he had been feeling unhappy in the relationship. I had no idea he was feeling the way he was feeling, and I cried a lot out of sadness for him and said that if he had let me know about it, I would have worked on those issues with him. Instead he had kept them buried for two years (at least). At the end of the conversation he said he had never felt so unworthy of love and yet so wholly loved by another person. And he said he wanted to reconcile. It was a very powerful moment for us, he says now the most powerful moment he has ever had with another person. The next two weeks, we went on dates and kept things civil while still talking about issues that arose, we had sex, we looked for a therapist. I was still an emotional wreck, but I felt safe talking to him about how I was feeling and he was very, very kind and remorseful- we did so much crying together, and he apologized to me every single day.

This week we have taken another step back after I discovered that the affair had actually sort of started in 2019, not 2022. She was his student in a college class he was teaching, and I discovered emails that proved that they had gone out for a drink very late at night the day that the class ended, the day before I got back from a work trip. He claims that things died out almost entirely (except for some scattered texting) during COVID, and that "he was completely mine" in 2020. The thing that is hardest for me right now is that he lied about it post-reconciliation. Last Monday I put two and two together and asked him if she had been his student. He denied completely that this was when the affair had started, said that she was his student but that they never met privately, that he didn't know who she was because it was such a big class, that he hadn't mentioned it because for him it was unimportant in the story of the affair. He even said "never say that you haven't denigrated me during this recovery process, because I would never date a student." Which turned out all to be yet another huge lie, because on Wednesday I followed my gut and went searching for the emails, and found proof that the relationship had started then, that he had given her his number when she asked him during that class and knew where she lived (on our street) and had gone out for at least one drink.

I was devastated. Dating a student goes against my values; the additional lies about when the relationship started really hurt because I thought he had committed to transparency and that I was starting to understand the story; it extends the timeline for the affair another 2.5 years. He claims that he didn't reveal this information because I had an extremely important work deadline that Friday (which is true), admits that it was wrong of him to try to control the information flow, but in my heart I am not sure if he would have ever told me or not. When I told him I had found out, he literally collapsed to his knees and started to sob. We had a conversation in which I said I wasn't sure if I could take this anymore, these revelations were so painful, and we got 90% of the way to breaking up.

Here's the problem: we were originally supposed to be getting engaged this summer, and I am so in love with him that my heart hurts all of the time. He was the only one I wanted to be with, and those two weeks gave me a glimpse of what reconciliation could look like, and it was beautiful. But he is in such a fragile place right now, and seems so full of guilt and self-hatred that I am actually worried for his physical safety. He seems convinced he is completely unworthy of me, whereas I am dying for him to step up and fight for me, even though I know that he needs to heal a bit and come to terms with what we did and deal with the self-hatred before we can move forward.

Reconciling at a distance of 30 miles is hard. I am trying to figure out if I should move back into the apartment and if he (and I) can handle that, since I still have a lot of anger (suppressed right now) about the latest set of lies. Right now we are still talking, but I get the sense that he has given up on himself and on us right now. For my part, after this latest revelation I am questioning everything again, and most painfully whether or not he was ever actually going to propose this summer like he said he was, if he ever actually loved me enough to do that. If you've read my other posts, you'll know that the planned timing of the proposal aligns very closely with his affair partner getting married (which happened last month). Any thoughts would be appreciated. I thought we were on a path to reconciliation, but with the latest revelations I don't know anymore. Should I move back in with him to try again?