Q&A How Long Will It Take for My Husband to Retrain His Thinking?

My husband and I have been married 27 years and for 18 of those years he had an emotional affair with a work colleague. He wanted to have sex with his affair partner. She did not. However, she readily agreed to frequent dinners out, and accepted jewelry, clothing, collectibles, cash for cab rides, and more from him. She also frequently denigrated my character, telling my husband that I didn’t deserve him, that I wasn’t worthy to be his mate. We are 7 months out from D-day. My husband and I have found great encouragement from the AR courses--Harboring Hope, EMS Online, and Hope for Healing-- however, I am still feeling overwhelmingly hurt that my husband allowed the affair partner to speak so ill of me for such a long period of time. Even though his relationship with the affair partner is over, I sometimes feel as though she’s still with us because he will disregard me or act unloving. I will then point out that he would never have treated his affair partner that way, and it is frustrating for us both to recognize this pattern. We both feel his affair partner brainwashed him. How long will it take my husband to rewrite his idea of me and not subconsciously fall back into thinking of me the way his affair partner trained him to think?