31M just broke up with 28F I’m feeling instant regret like I’ve made a terrible mistake have I made the right decision?

Hi all,

I posted here before about my girlfriend who I loved greatly and have been with for 8/9 years, my best friend and someone I did everything with. essentially I found flirty messages to her work colleague on her phone, some bad stuff about sex fantasy stuff and planning to meet up before she left that job near her parents place and move closer just to be with me.

I was devastated to say the least and it took a long time to process this, but we decided to stay together.

However I kept having flashbacks of the messages and I struggled with intimacy, it was visibly hurting her as I was avoidant and not giving affection (it’s been a year now we’ve working on it).

The thing is she was also deeply sorry and showed remorse and did everything she could to make things better, she also went through a lot of emotions saying it wasn’t truely her, it felt almost like a different person in her body and it’s the worst mistake she ever made, apparently nothing physical went on but there was definitely emotional cheating over the past 3 months and some evidence of flirting way before that.

After upsetting her again with being distant I decided it would be best to spend some time apart/split up as I thought it would be the best and least painful in the long run, however it was incredibly painful to see her pack up her stuff and remove the pictures all over the house and put them back into our memory box (which she’s now left on the floor on the middle of our lounge) she was crying relentlessly all day.

I’m immediately regretting my decision and I keep thinking of all the great times we had together and all the great things we did. And take down the artificial vine I stole from the dance floor to give to her when we first met 9 years ago.

I’m at a loss on what to do I’ve never felt pain like this before