I'll never get acknowledgement from A. He won't look me in the eye and honestly talk about his inner self so I can only guess the why of it.
I don't even want to ask him hard questions because I feel any apology/admission should come from him. No prompting from me.

It was easier once the decision to leave was made...to put the thought of forgiveness on a shelf where it may gather dust but I can always dust it off if he ever finds a conscience

Elle

People tend to get very judgmental if you refuse to go along with "forgiveness" but I'm doing fine without having to forgive.  It wasn't just the cheating, and the lying about being gay.  I found out about a year into the divorce process, when I finally got a look at the bank statements, he'd been skimming off money for the entirety of our marriage.  I have no idea where he parked it all.  So my feeling is, in the unlikely event he ever expresses remorse, he's gonna have to make thing right.  And I know that's never going to happen.

In my case, I never got an apology for anything.  I could never “kill mine with kindness”.  It was a losing battle, no matter how perfect I tried to be, and how I changed my behavior as somehow everything was my fault.  BUT, leaving him and NO contact was one way to solve the problem for me.  That was the only way to kill the narcissistic abusive behavior.  I feel I never will forgive him for all the torment etc that he inflicted off and on for 20 yrs.  I forgive myself for not recognizing what was going on at first, and putting up with the narcisstic and emotional abuse.

The posts by M-kate and TeeWee made me finally register and decide to post because they spoke to me. These forums so often are filled with anger (while totally understandable because I also have anger), the anger is not helpful in getting out of this emotional hole.
I am struggling mightily with forgiveness and not feeling angry and resentful. Yesterday was the 1 year "anniversary" of my wife coming out to me. She never cheated on me, but very soon after disclosure started a relationship with her co-worker and said she was in love. 
She has apologized a thousand times to me, but it all comes off as words compared to the actions. We had been together for 16 years, I'm 40 now, basically our entire adult life, have two young children, and are scheduled for our divorce hearing in a month after mediating to an agreement last October.

There is nothing to be bitter about regarding the divorce, the child custody, money, doing things behind my back, etc. But to me, those are the details about life, love is what makes life worth living. Its all so soulbreaking, this was my person, my partner in everything, our relationship always felt to me like a dream. She is conscientious to me, but is also moving on from me and its heartbreaking. Like TeeWee is dealing with on the difficulty that their partner may have found someone else. It would be one thing to disclose this thing and make us both alone, but she never experienced what I have for the last year of not only being dropped by the most important person in the world to you, but to also be alone during that time and feeling the emptiness of that void in your life. 

I want her back in my life, but I would need to forgive her in order to do that. Finding a way to forgive and come face to face with her hand in hand with her girlfriend just seems impossible. 

Forgiveness is something you offer to yourself so that you can move on. It does not excuse or absolve the other person of any responsibility for actions they took. My 2 cents.