Don't bury the feelings. Even if you have to get therapy work the feelings out. I punching bag helped me a lot.

YOu didnt forgive yourself. You still have issues to deal with. I recommend Ylana Vanzants book "In the basement" its an amazing book about how we brutalize ourselves with self punishment, blame.. and attract the wrong people into our lives... I read it 15 years ago and it changed my life. FYI Ylana is an afro-american woman who lived in the ghetto on welfare with kids was severely beaten by her husband for years who eventually had enough and went to college, graduated law school and now writes books and holds self-esteem building conferences.. she has been on Oprah many times.

Take or leave this as you will, but any sense of esteem dependent on an outside source isn't "self esteem". Judging yourself - your sense of your own beauty inwardly and outwardly - as conditional on the love, affection or loyalty of another person is not "self esteem". It's just esteem - you lost your sense of his esteem for you and unfortunately were very dependent on it. I want to be clear about this point because it may help me explain a really difficult idea that may or may not be helpful to you. When we're in love we have this internal sense that our identities essentially merge with those of another person - that's how his actual external esteem could feel like it was your own "self esteem". In the language of love, a lover is someone who is inside your definition of who you are - you're a unit, two parts of a larger whole. His infidelity challenged that dyadic relationship completely. I want to dissect that because it's important to what I'm trying to convey. The moment he cheated, from his perspective, some element of his esteem for your was changed or withdrawn. This was not immediately palpable to you - you didn't feel it withdraw. You weren't spontaneously crushed from miles away - there was no psychic tether that was suddenly severed. It took him communicating the truth to you before you realized his esteem for you had been altered. I have to repeat this because it's important: even though his esteem had been altered for some indefinite time, you weren't aware until he told you. This is important because YOU were in charge of all of the esteem you felt - he couldn't "give" you any self-esteem, you just derived a sense of self worth cognitively from him. You did. You have the power to regulate your own self-esteem through belief in someone's perspective of you. You have the power to regulate your self esteem through belief - period. All of your ideas of self-esteem were derived from a series of belief structures that are inside of you that had a limited basis in reality. But that doesn't mean your self-esteem is untrue or invalid. What it means is that you have the power to make yourself feel good. You have the power to feel great. You don't need anything external in order to manifest self-esteem; it is derived from a sense of your own worth. Your worth hasn't changed because his perspective on you has. It never defined you. You define what your worth is every day. The worst thing you can do is allow your husband's warped perception dictate your behavior - instead, learn to center yourself. Ground yourself in the awareness that you can make the choice to be in control of your own internal reality.