My wife had an affair, A long time ago.

You posted about this a few months back didn't you? As far as I remember you and your wife both thought he was manipulative and tried to suck her back in when she was trying to call it off. It did come across like your wife wasn't taking responsibility for the affair, although of course none of us know exactly what she's said to you and how much remorse she's shown.

You said that for your wife this is boxed away in the past, how does your wife respond if you bring it up now? Are you allowed to bring it up now or does she keep telling you it's in the past? Have you got angry at your wife or is that emotion suppressed with her because when you found out things had been great?

I think some find that it gets 'easier' in that they don't think about it nearly as much, but they're still left with the damage from the affair so while the affair is less in their face and they seem to cope better there's often an underlying sadness and pain that really seeps into everything. Only time will tell.

You said you spoke to a therapist about it, often talk therapy isn't the best option for this or it can only take people so far, you might benefit from trauma therapy which might help you to process the emotions better than talk therapy can.

Thirty years of being together? That puts you both probably well into your 50s.

Nobodies perfect, we all have good and bad points, weaknesses and strengths etc.

It's kinda unlikely she's going to have another fling now and if you're both happy together otherwise, just live with it. What's the point of breaking up an otherwise good relationship at this stage of your lives.

Which is short enough and not long till you're both approaching the last laps.

3/30 or 10% rocky years

27/30 or 90% good years

why not focus on enjoying the future and the present and forget the past

Where is the evidence she is hurting also? Sounds like her biggest regret is the affair ended because he was sniffing around someone else.

Unfortunately many would have doubts inside as to whether all those 27 were "good", or whether they contained similar behaviour which is not known about yet

Sounds like your wife looks after no.1. If it was a one night stand situation years back it might be viewed differently. But She had an affair not over days, weeks, months but over several years.

Why on earth would anyone stick around with someone knowing their partner has done that to them.

Sorry but I'd be running as fast as my legs could carry me.

I couldn't stay with someone who had cheated on me. Its not the physical its the emotional breakdown of trust.

And if I cheated on someone I loved I would never tell them, particularly if I had remorse and if I loved them. I would put myself in their shoes and imagine their hurt! Its hard to believe a spouse would openly admit immediately to having an affair that lasted years and not expect it to devastate their other half!

You’re a more forgiving man than I, OP

Whatever about a drunken one night stand full of regret, but consecutive years and years of betrayal? Years??
Just the sheer amount of deceit to loved ones that would be required over that time…

I don’t think I could ever respect a person that would do something like that, much less love them again. How utterly selfish and flippant with other people’s heart and lives. Would fill me with disgust.

I picked up the semi validation of the situation too. The OP seems to consider himself to have been/continuing to be punching with this 10. Maybe a bit of a power dynamic being taken advantage of which wouldn’t work the other way. Given the sheer amount of lying that must have gone on, it’s fair to think there would be parts left out and the idea of neglect could be exaggerated in lieu of just being selfish.

I understand the posters saying to leave her and I agree for the most part but it comes down to whether the OP thinks this is something he can accept and live with in time. Can he ever fully trust her again? Probably not.

It's just a clear and obvious 

Seriously? You can be dogmatic about that on the basis of half a dozen posts from one party to the situation?

Given what the OP has said, it's far more likely that Mrs A_A was driven half demented by having to put up with him whinging about his gammy leg and his money worries and family breakdowns and even though she loved him, she just really needed a a good **** every morning so as to be able to get through a day's work and come home in the evenings to be a "good wife" and put dinner on the table for him until such time as he got himself back on an even keel.

Sometimes sex is just that: a bog-standard physical act as practised by damn near every mammal on the planet, and in a human context can also serve as a form of stress relief. For all kinds of reasons, keeping an affair such as this to the workplace makes a lot of sense; there's no justification for you to be spinning all kinds of fantasy scenarios out of it solely because you've convinced yourself that Mrs A_A must be a pathological liar.

I agree that she should have demanded it of you regardless of what that other poster said. She should have said that she felt like the marriage was in serious trouble. I can see how you might have been difficult to live with and draining, but I think in that case you sit your partner down and say the marriage is in trouble and you're struggling and something needs to change, at least give the partner a chance to try to turn things around before doing something that you can never undo.

If you're on a wait list for marriage counselling then it might be good to stick your names down on another couple of waiting lists if you can, sometimes the counsellor wouldn't be the right fit.

Your wife's affair ended due to drifting apart from her work colleague, and not some unbound desire to make things right with you or a realisation that she made a mistake or what she was doing was wrong. That to me is an enormous red flag that she's fallen back to you out of circumstance rather than deciding to come back. What's stopping it happening again? Because it doesn't sound like it's you.

All folks are different but for me that says an awful lot and I couldn't live with that betrayal and lack of loyalty.

You deserve better OP, you shouldn't be in this relationship. This betrayal clearly won't leave you but you can leave it.

This is so simplistic. Loving someone doesn't magically fix deep betrayal. I love my wife and she loves me, that's not a free pass for either of us to do what we want.