I think that your choice to not engage was fine. If you are hurt and angry, which you clearly are, it's better that you don't talk when you are that emotional because you will probably just get angry and any conversation will end up getting too emotional and I have a feeling you end up expressing too much anger.

What you have said here is that you feel deeply violated and how you feel that the companionship went too far and crossed the line into becoming sexual. I know exactly how that feels and what it's like to have that play over and over in the mind the way you have described. I had to distance too, I was way too angry and hurt to have the ability to sit and talk.

I will say that alcohol definitely played a role in the cheating that my husband engaged in. It happened in our early 30's too. Had I known about the cheating I probably would have divorced tbh. It's hard to say for sure but I do know when I did find out I was devastated. And I know how you feel about "do I even know what I want?".

That being said, what you will need to do is step back and slowly look at the entire picture. I do think you have been trying to do just that and you have made it a point to reach out for help. In order for you to be able to make a logical choice about your relationship you do have to see your own part in the picture that contributed to the outcome that you are becoming aware of now. You have to get to a point where you can say "I did not appreciate what I had even though my wife was a good wife and part of what I am experiencing now is a result from that, so I have to learn how to see the entire picture and not just how "I" feel cheated on". When you just focus on one part and not the whole of it, you are not being honest about all that went into what happened as a result of "how many years did you not appreciate her?".

One night my husband came home from an AA meeting and he talked about what the discussion was in that meeting and how I should have been there because of how it touched on exactly what I am experiencing. He told me that what a lot of alcoholics don't realize is that once they get a certain number of years being sober, FINALLY, the wife gets to grieve what could be "years" of how the problem they had affected "her". I appreciated him sharing that because it was nice to know that was discussed among these individuals who were all absorbed in their own problems which in this case was the alcoholism and how just because they have gained, the wife or SO, will get to a point where they need to work through all the harm/hurt/emotional challenges it caused to them. It's a hurt that a simple "I am sorry, cards, flowers and promises" don't suddenly "just" fix. The truth about this is the years of living in an unhealthy relationship and all the damage that causes that accumulates.

Maybe what happened with your first wife contributed to not appreciating your second wife. Sometimes that takes place on such a deep level that one is not consciously aware they are protecting their hurt from one person hurting them and taking it out on another person that doesn't deserve it.

Also, it could also be that your wife was hurt in her first marriage and that hurt that affected her self esteem and sense of self worth carried on to your marriage with her where she unknowingly accepted not being appreciated even though she was a good wife to you. All it took for her to "break" was just seeing you texting another woman.

It could very well be that once that happened and then you went away for 9 months she was lost and emotionally confused and began using alcohol to help her distance from her confusion. And then she began combining alcohol with socializing and began trying to figure out her own deep hurts that "accumulated" over the years.

I have a very strong feeling that when this other guy entered her life as "just friends", your wife began to experience something she had needed for YEARS, and that includes two marriages where she was not appreciated. Some of what you have shared that she has said, "I need to do for me" is her slowly recognizing that she did not do that in either marriage, she was a good wife but was emotionally neglected.

The problem with your wife is that because she did not experience therapy where she could slowly learn to see "her own hurts" and years of being neglected emotionally, she doesn't know how to communicate it. Instead, she uses the alcohol to numb herself emotionally because she never learned how to resolve all these confusing emotions she has inside her.

You are looking at this as "the punishment doesn't fit the crime" and you are seeing "self" in this big picture, but there is another side of this big picture you don't really see and your wife doesn't have the skills and knowledge to understand it herself let alone be able to talk to you about it. Your wife doesn't know what a healthy relationship is, she never experienced it, except for some guy that showed her different things and while she liked it, it also confused her too.

This whole idea of "friends with benefits" comes from people who don't know how to have a healthy relationship so all they do is this "friends with benefits" so they don't get hurt.