Groot, My wish for you is that you stop beating yourself up. Just accept your imperfections and move on.
We all have to find our own path to healing. Yours apparently is via asking a lot of questions. Some people may not need as many questions as you do, but that is just normal variation among human beings. Actually, I interrogated my W for weeks, I'm sure. It was probably months, but I'm not sure of that. That's what I needed, and it's OK. You need answers to your questions. That's OK, too.
My reco is to assume you're within the range of normality and that you're as loving, lovable, and capable as pretty much everyone else.
You've been traumatized. You're doing your best to recover. That's all we can expect of ourselves. (I'd send a slightly different message if you wrote about self-harm or harming others, but you don't do that.) Notice the support you get from SIers. You've moved people. You've connected with people. You are a person people here want to know. Think about that - you've been accepted because you've been honest. People like the real you.
The next step is to like and trust yourself. Instead of thinking you're screwing up, give yourself a lot of kudos for doing what you need to do.
*****
There were questions that scared me. I knew those were the ones I needed to ask. The big ones: 1) Do you love me? 2) Are you in love with me? 3) Will you commit to monogamy going forward? A single 'No' would have ended our M.
*****
We ask questions for a number of reasons. Needing to know if there's a deal killer in the A is one of them.
More important, IMO: answers help demonstrate honesty and remorse. Asking the same question from different POVS test consistency and honesty. Any honest technique that helps distinguish between truth and lie is fair to use, IMO, as long as it's honest - I'm not a fan of, say, catfishing or other trickery. Every answer is a test of truthfulness.
Every honest answer does a little bit to rebuild the bonds between BS & WS, Every honest answer helps the WS take responsibility for themself. Every honest answer does a little bit to rebuild trust. IMO, it takes thousands of bond-rebuilding, trust-rebuilding actions to rebuild the bonds and trust. The questions that start on d-day begin the rebuilding process. That's so even if the answers hurt, IMO.
Or not, of course - every dishonest answer helps the BS detach from an unremorseful WS....
We're 13 years out, and occasionally I ask a new question. For the past 10-11 years, I don't ask my question unless I think doing so will have a positive outcome, but at first, I asked whatever I wanted to ask, when the question occurred to me, and I asked however many times I wanted to ask.
*****
Sometimes, especially when I had a hard time finding a positive outcome, Sometimes I asked a question because of what I was feeling. What worked then was talking about what I felt with my W. That, too, tested her - it was an issue we had to resolve. Her helping was positive for R. If she hadn't helped it would have been negative.
*****
...if "we" have a problem - how is bringing another person in to YOUR life helping US?
The 'if' is important here. The WS doesn't cheat because of a 'we' problem. They cheat because of an 'I' problem.
[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:47 PM, Tuesday, May 21st]