Adultery hurts because you trusted, committed, and now the past becomes a lie.
You question everything, most of all yourself.
Few things devastate one’s ego as much as adultery. It makes the victim feel less than nothing, full of faults, and close to worthless.
When one lives through it, realising that one is strong, that one doesn’t need a man to validate them, the effect is positive.
You know you are strong, resourceful, and have value.
To collapse and never rise is defeat. To rise and persist, and succeed, so that he returns to you, that is the ‘victory’; but only if you never make yourself secondary again.