I never said she'll have to forgive. What I said is that when cycling through arguments in my head, one of them is that she'll either have to forgive or she won't and then we'll both move on with our lives. Meaning that if I were to have an affair and she ended up finding out, she either has the option of forgiving me or not forgiving me and ending the relationship.
I did understand your original comments. I probably didn't explain myself well enough.
I said you are a scumbag if you are seriously thinking as you seem to depict, where you appear to be roleplaying the future where she
possibly forgives you (ie, you having your cake and eating it, too).
I'm not entirely sure whether that would be easy for you to understand, but it's a very subtle, but extremely selfish thought. It's the talk of somebody thinking about himself only - who is already thinking strategically that maybe he can pull shit this shit and keep on truckin with the wife.
And like I said, that is cold blooded - because the worst thing to happen is for your wife to find out and then be forced to forgive you, because she fears finding a new man and starting again. That's terrible and that shit happens all the time and the person who cheated profits, richly from that, whilst the other person has the worst time, imaginable.
I think you'll probably find your dalliance to be sub-par, so I wouldn't say "break it off with her", but I would say this - if you do do it, you absolutely must never, ever tell her. If you find yourself addicted to it, you must break it off with her and again, never, ever tell her that you've already strayed.
And that might seem like selfish commentary but actually, I'm just thinking about your wife and how to minimise the harm to her and it doesn't matter how much she wants to know the truth, the truth will only make it worse for her.