How to get over being cheated on?

I’m 41, my wife told me last year that she cheated on me, and I’m still mad as hell about it; it’s been eating at me every single day, and I can’t figure out how to get over it no matter what I do. She sat me down and confessed like it was some noble act of honesty, like I should clap for her bravery because she finally told the truth, but the timing was absolute bullshit—she kept it hidden for over a year, and I was living like a clueless idiot thinking our marriage was solid, meanwhile she carried this secret around like a loaded gun aimed right at me. Now every time I look at her, I see betrayal, every time she touches me, I feel disgust, and every time she says “I’m sorry” I want to scream in her face that sorry doesn’t cut it, not even close. People keep throwing advice at me: “Go to therapy,” “Work on forgiveness,” “If you love her, you’ll get through this.” Do you know how empty that sounds when you’re the one living with the images in your head, the constant mental slideshow of her with someone else? I’m supposed to be calm, rational, mature about it, but all I want to do is smash something every time I remember what she did. I don’t give a damn about psychology terms or self-help mantras, because none of that makes the rage stop, none of that makes me trust her again. I still love her, and I hate that I do, because it makes me feel weak and pathetic, like I’m tolerating something no man should tolerate. I’ve read quotes like “Forgiveness is for yourself, not for them,” but what does that even mean in practice? Forgiveness feels like saying it’s okay, and it’s not okay. Forgiveness feels like lowering my own value just to patch up something that should never have been broken in the first place. Maybe cheating is “a symptom of deeper issues” like people say, maybe she felt disconnected, maybe she was insecure, maybe she was bored, but I honestly don’t care what the excuses are—at the end of the day, she chose it, she decided I wasn’t enough, and that decision lives in my chest like a damn parasite feeding off me every single day. I can’t stop imagining it, I can’t stop asking myself questions I don’t even want the answers to: Did she enjoy it? Did she think about me while it was happening? Did she laugh at me behind my back? Sometimes I catch myself staring at her across the table, wondering how many more lies I don’t know about, wondering if she even respects me or if she just fears losing the comfortable life we’ve built. It makes me sick that she can sleep peacefully next to me while I lie awake at 3 a.m. replaying everything like some endless punishment reel in my brain. Friends tell me time heals, but right now time feels like torture, just dragging the wound open again and again, and I don’t feel closer to healed—I feel stuck, like I’m living in some half-life where nothing feels solid anymore. I look at other couples and wonder how many of them are hiding the same crap, how many smiles are just masks covering betrayal. Do you think it’s possible to ever really get over being cheated on, or do you just learn to live with the scar? Because honestly, I don’t know how to let this go without losing a part of myself, and I’m not sure if that’s worth it. Everyone says marriage takes work, but this isn’t “work,” this is demolition, and I’m being asked to rebuild on a foundation that’s already cracked and rotting. She swears she loves me, she swears it was a mistake, she swears she’ll never do it again—but how do you believe words from a mouth that already lied for so long? Sometimes I think leaving would be easier, just walk away, burn it down, start over, but then I think of the years together, the memories, the stupid little routines we built, and I feel paralyzed. I hate this limbo. I hate that she did this to me. And I hate that no matter what I decide, I’ll never be the same again 🤬

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