I've offered passwords but he just says that he trusts me. He says he doesn't want to divorce and that he loves me. I tell him that I love him and that it wont happen again. I try to be transparent. I ask if he forgives me. That's what I do. Right now I feel like I'm living through a love drought.
What your husband has done is to give you cheap forgiveness. Many conflict avoiders do this. By doing this he has devalued himself in his own eyes. This on top of the feeling that you don't love or value him either. Otherwise you would not have cheated on him and tried to remain friends with the OM. You have hurt him, insulted his manhood, emasculated him, destroyed him. And you want to know why he is distant?
He is devoting so much of his time to work because frankly he has nothing else. You've proven to him that you don't want him. At least that is what he believes right now. Will this change? Maybe, maybe not. But you need to know that he will never be the same or see you as the same person he fell in love with. That person is dead to him. You need to become a different more empathetic lovable loving woman that he can fall in love with. Right now you are a monster in his eyes. Work on making yourself better for him and see if his attitude changes.
I would think that any continued contact with the OM would be a deal breaker. It shows that you aren't really sorry you had an affair. It shows you aren't really committed to a full reconciliation. If it were me I might lie too about forgiving you and trusting you, while I got my ducks in a row for divorce. When he says he doesn't need your passwords it doesn't mean he trusts you. It means he just doesn't care anymore. That's on you, and it can't change as long as you still have contact with your boyfriend. Was your boyfriend exposed? Were you exposed? Or was this whole thing swept under the rug?
She slept with her best friend and then told her husband about it and then got upset that her husband didn't want her to have a relationship with the "best friend" anymore. She wanted to continue the friendship despite her husband's protests and saw nothing wrong with it. Then the bf showed up at her house/porch and her husband was either there or found out about it.
I cheated and was wrong I know that really. It seems my H doesn't love me as passionately as he did before. I fear he'll never love me like he used to. I know people here have been through this. Did you ever love your WS as much after you found out about the affair?
He says that part of him still doesn't trust me. I don't know if I can continue on if he is going to hold this over my head the rest of my life and not forgive me. I try to do what I can so he can forgive but it never seems like enough. I want his love back but I don't know that it will ever come.
When is he going to trust you? When he no longer cares what you do and has no reason to neither trust or distrust you.
Keep those best friends coming around and he will eventually trust you because he will be gone.
I didn't read your other thread but you refer to this guy as your 'best friend' and therein lies the problem. YOUR HUSBAND SHOULD BE YOUR BEST FRIEND. Period!
I cheated and was wrong I know that really. It seems my H doesn't love me as passionately as he did before. I fear he'll never love me like he used to. I know people here have been through this. Did you ever love your WS as much after you found out about the affair?
He says that part of him still doesn't trust me. I don't know if I can continue on if he is going to hold this over my head the rest of my life and not forgive me. I try to do what I can so he can forgive but it never seems like enough. I want his love back but I don't know that it will ever come.
Put yourself in his shoes. Would you trust him, if he cheated? Would you feel passionate toward him.
In another post you said the distance is the same as before you cheated.
Well, the time to address that distance, if it bothered you, was to seek counseling. Cheating is often an attempt to slap down the BS for some real or imagined slight and a bid to get his attention, but that always backfires.
Cheating only makes things worse not better. It's likely the issue of his working to much and lack of passion could have been addressed in counseling.
Now, because cheating is involved, there are trust issues and many other issues to first address before you can focus on his working and perceived lack of passion.
In counseling they also help the WS face their own issues in the marriage. No one is perfect. Perhaps you BS was also feeling disconnected from you do to some real or imagined slight from you.
I just "like" how it's her husband's fault for not forgiving her fast enough.
People really can't stand having the tables turned on them, it seems. It's okay for one to be distant (or cheating or whatever), but the second someone does it back, it's a "love drought."
My wife just visited a guy behind my back, didn't sleep with him, it's been a year and I'm still having trouble with it. Betrayal of trust is HUGE, not going to read the entire other thread but suffice to say, any contact whatsoever with this other guy EVER is not allowed.
Your husband has been extraordinarily forgiving already, you need to be patient with him, and understand that it will take a long time to get that trust back, and you may never fully earn it.
My wife just visited a guy behind my back, didn't sleep with him, it's been a year and I'm still having trouble with it. Betrayal of trust is HUGE, not going to read the entire other thread but suffice to say, any contact whatsoever with this other guy EVER is not allowed.
Your husband has been extraordinarily forgiving already, you need to be patient with him, and understand that it will take a long time to get that trust back, and you may never fully earn it.
I won't post this again in the largest font like I did the last time. (Nor will I paraphrase James Carville, since that probably goes over the head of anyone born after 1973.)
It's all about the lies.
It's the one thing that cheaters never seem to understand.
You'll never get 100% of their love ever again. They'll always hold a little something back just in case. Get used to it, it'll never be the way it used to be. It can still be great, but if you're stilling looking for love from the past it's not gonna happen.
You have to start looking forward and building for the future. You screwed the past, let go of the past.
I dont mean to sound insensitive. I do care for him and love him vary much. It's just that this what it felt like before I had an affair he cared so much about work and not me. But he wasn't like this the first couple years together, he was very passionate.
And with him not really working on any issues it seems like it will always be like this. Like he wont address our issues but continue to say it's ok. I honestly cant tell if it's still affecting him because he is the same as he was before I had an affair, distant. More concerned for work than anything else.
All I can say is that you don't really have a leg to stand on.
If he neglected you for work in the past there was a proper way to handle it. You handled it in such a way that you can not fault him for being distant now.
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Re: I Cheated, Distant H forever?? 
I honestly cant tell if it's still affecting him because he is the same as he was before I had an affair, distant. More concerned for work than anything else.
