*Using new account for TRP because of personal details

Wall of text warning.

TL;DR: Wife has never been more attracted to me than the time I was fucking her and my mistress. How to achieve that confidence again?

I got married in 2005 to the hot girl I had dated all through college. Did I need to get married? In retrospect, no. But I didn't know any better and she was (and still is) a fantastic person.

Then I got a job, and another job, and bought a house, and another house, and I slid further and further into suburban blue pill stupor. I wasn't happy. I knew about game but had never done much reading or cared to - I'd been with the same girl for nearly a decade already. I would be cocky and arrogant with girls at work but never crossed any lines because I was married.

Then I met her. Sexy, confident, totally new to me. We met on a cross country flight and I tapped into some core, instinctual game and effortlessly won her over. I was cocky, funny, teasing, and confident. I've approached very few women in my life - always met girlfriends through friends - and I surprised myself with how easy it was. I realize now that I was smooth and confident because I had nothing to lose. If she put her headphones on and zoned out I would still go home and fuck my wife. Outcome independence ftw.

Oh, and I was wearing my wedding ring and mentioned my wife fairly early on. I think I said something about "marriage might not be the best thing for me" and "it's complicated".

We continued talking in the terminal before our respective connecting flights. Every couple minutes I'd drift out of my head and observe what I was doing - this girl is hanging on everything I say. I felt 10 feet tall. The conversation wrapped up with exchanged contact information and no real physical contact. A month or two later she admitted that she was dying for me to kiss her there in the airport, and that she was having thoughts on the plane of a quick fuck in the lavatory.

We kept in touch and realized our work travel was overlapping the same city about a month later. We made plans to meet there. We met there. Ridiculous sex ensued.

I came home from this and felt like an asshole for cheating on my wife. I told her I had met someone on a business trip and had sex, and that I didn't think we should be married anymore after what had happened. She was devastated (and felt blindsided). I moved into a co-worker's spare bedroom and tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do next.

This is where it got weird for me. I got together with my wife a few times to talk about loose ends (selling the house, who takes the dog, etc.) and we ended up having insane sex each time. We did it in my office. We did it in the car. She knew I had just been with another woman and she was in sheer animal lust for me. It wasn't her saying she wanted me back, or wanted to work on things....she just wanted me inside her with an intense urgency.

Another month or two and I decided to work on the marriage and moved back into my house. There was obviously a whole raft of damage that had to be worked through. Trust issues, insecurities, and a ton of other crap.

And then I slid right back into my beta fog. And my wife's attraction to me slid right along with it. We went through ups and downs over the next couple years and eventually had a kid. And then another.

I'm very much interested in keeping my family together, so please don't bother telling me to leave. I've always wanted to be a father and I have two amazing kids. The marriage is in good shape - there is good chemistry and my wife is an awesome woman (seriously, she's hot, intelligent, good mother, and very anti-feminist).

She's admitted that she has never been more attracted to me than the few months after I fucked the other woman. She says I was oozing confidence and giving her the best sex we've had. Since then I've avoided getting myself in potentially questionable situations with other women. And I've fallen into beta lulls where I defer decisions to my wife, don't work hard enough to stay in good shape, and generally do less attractive things.

So the advice I'm looking for: how do I recapture that devil-may-care confidence again without fucking another woman? Is it just rewiring how I feel about myself?

Are you still reading? I'm amazed.

TL;DR: Wife has never been more attracted to me than the time I was fucking her and my mistress. How to achieve that confidence again?