SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello,

I'm not sure if this forum is the best place for this question or not. My wife and I have been trying to "reconcile" for 6 months now. I put that in quotes because I only feel partial commitment from her in that area. There has been some resistance from her in getting rid of things related to the affair and continuing to blame me for anything and everything when we talk about the affair, etc.

Recently we had a long discussion where I told her that I was really tired of her always blaming me for things instead of taking responsibility for what she did, and she said she would do better. I said I needed her to be doing things that show me she is committed and that she is never going to cheat on me again. One of the things I listed was her not viewing her AP's social media anymore. This has been an ongoing issue between us where I have explained several times that I didn't want her doing that. I've brought it up in MC and the therapist didn't like the idea either. My IC thinks it's a really bad idea.

When I brought it up, she had a strange guilty look on her face. I asked her about it and she admitted that she is still looking at his social media (using a friends account since she is blocked by the AP's wife), and told me that it helped her when she was feeling very low, and didn't think it affected my feelings very much because she stopped for like two months and couldn't see a change in me. Then she told me that a part of her is keeping this connection alive as a fallback in case our marriage doesn't make it.

My head nearly exploded with that admission. Well I guess I know where all the resistance is coming from now.

The next day I told her that I really needed her to promise she would never look him up again in any form. She reluctantly promised. I don't fully believe she is going to keep this promise, or tell me about it next time. I just needed to make sure she understood what I need in this area and that I can't continue down the same path we are on if she continues this activity.

On the one hand I guess I should be grateful she told me at all, and that it's not a super serious issue like continuing her physical affair. On the other it is one directional communication, and if her AP is doing the same with her social media then it's delayed two directional communication.

I have read several posts here on SI where it's taken a long time (more than 6 months) for their wayward spouse to snap out of it and quit similar activities. Even in Maia's Withdrawal Survival Guide she said it took well over a year for her to really begin to move on.

This leaves me wondering if this is just an expected bump in the R road and I should practice patience or if there is a brewing problem. Like a volcano getting ready to blow, the signs happen long before that.

I tend to Catastrophize in my head and often go right to the worst case scenario. Thats a recurring theme with several of my posts here. I'm usually trying to make sure I'm not blowing things out of proportion and to figure out how to handle them in a more balanced way.

Thanks.

and I should practice patience

If she is visiting his social media, then the affair is still ongoing. It’s like a smoldering fire buried beneath a layer of dirt. It’s still a fire.

That means it hasn’t been 6 months. It’s been since the last time she took a physical action (mouse clicks) to keep the link alive.

Did you ever see the movie The Sixth Sense? I see dead people? There’s a scene in that movie where Bruce Willis‘s character is talking to the young kid. When he says something correct the kid takes a step towards him. When he says something wrong, the kid takes a step away. Eventually, the kid steps out of the room because he keeps being wrong.

Trying to reconcile is like that. She keeps being wrong. You should consider each time she does taking a step away and being obvious about it. There’s no reason to just wait in place, you are either moving forward or moving backward.. keeping an eye on his social media is moving backward.

What consequences has your wife experienced from her evil choices? And what have you done as a result of her breaking no contact?

If she experiences little to no consequences, she’ll receive that as your tacit approval.

I have read several posts here on SI where it's taken a long time (more than 6 months) for their wayward spouse to snap out of it and quit similar activities. Even in Maia's Withdrawal Survival Guide she said it took well over a year for her to really begin to move on.

This leaves me wondering if this is just an expected bump in the R road and I should practice patience or if there is a brewing problem. Like a volcano getting ready to blow, the signs happen long before that.

I wrote sentiments like this many a time. And I commend you for doing your homework and thinking thru things. There are examples of waywards who took a year (or more) to start getting serious about R. There are some who are committed immediately. There are some who never get there. I have no way to predict the outcome of your story. But it’s risky and precarious, that much is certain. You can choose to wait and give her time to come around, but nothing about what you describe should be thought of as "normal". It is awful and abusive, and either you are being wildly graceful or codependent to accept it, even temporarily.

I have been reading all your posts and have come to the following conclusions (that you may have a problem hearing, unfortunately):

1. Your wife does NOT love you. She may like you, and certainly is not comfortable with losing you, but the key word here is comfortable.

2. Your wife loves (or at least believes she does) her AP. She clearly was not happy with breaking it off and the abortion must have been the toughest thing that she had to do. She is keeping the hope alive that she may able to be with him in some "happy ever after" future.

3. Your wife is going through the motions in her "reconciliation" actions. It does not come naturally to her which is why she resists any of your requests.

4. Your wife told you about the affair for one or more of a few possible reasons: she did not want to bear the burden of sneaking around alone, the same for the burden of being pregnant and then aborting the baby (very selfish person), she thought you would find out anyway, and finally because she wants you to end the marriage and be responsible for ending it.

5. You must appear very weak to your wife in your pick me dance and "knowing that you wanted to reconcile immediately" has got to be the weakest thing she (and I) ever heard.

You really need to come to the conclusion that this marriage is toast if it every really existed. This will never end well and you will be in constant pain until she finally takes the step.

Two things you should understand.

1. Read up on the affair fog. That’s where your wife’s mindset is.

2. An affair can be like an addiction. The cheaters are addicted to the ego boost the affair provided. They miss the "I love you" and"you’re so wonderful" comments from the cheater affair partner.

From experience I can tell you I watched my H wallow in the affair fog for too many months. Then while I thought we were Reconciling he had resumed the affair and was still cheating.

I tell you this because I stupidly allowed him to make decisions and continue to cheat on me (even though I did not know it at the time).

Gently you telling your wife she MUST stop stalking the OM is not going to work. She has proven she will do it secretly. She is still in the affair fog and has not had a dose of reality.

I would suggest you read up on the 180 and start standing up for yourself in a more direct way. She’s either 100% into the marriage OR you need to start distancing yourself. You are suffering b/c of her selfish refusal to put you and your marriage first.

Last point, when the cheater realizes they are no longer in control one of two things happen. They wise up and get on board with being 100% committed to Reconciliation OR they show you who they are and continue to lie and disrespect their spouse and marriage.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 11:08 AM, Thursday, November 28th]

HouseOfPlane

If she is visiting his social media, then the affair is still ongoing

I think you are correct here.

That means it hasn’t been 6 months. It’s been since the last time she took a physical action (mouse clicks) to keep the link alive.

This is a very good insight. I need to get clear on my definitions and boundaries, and then communicate them to her effectively.

gr8ful

What consequences has your wife experienced from her evil choices? And what have you done as a result of her breaking no contact?

Not enough for sure. One of my weak spots is being too nice with people and allowing people too much leeway. I'm working on this. If she refused to promise me, I had a list of consequences that I was planning to pick from and implement. However she did promise. But as has been pointed out by The1stWife, she has proven that she is willing to lie before and is likely to do it again. Honestly the only way I can see to determine if this is happing is to:

1. Have her take another lie detector test.
2. Hire a PI or something along those lines to try and catch her.
3. Go on faith and hope for the best.

Maybe I'm missing an option here but if she is willing to lie and sneak around, it's going to be very difficult to catch her in the act. She owns her own business that requires that she is always driving to different places in the city and spending time with clients or contractors.

Of those options it seems like #1 is the best option. Clearly communicate my boundaries, then after some time have her take the test and see if she is actually adhering to them, then implement consequences as necessary. Of course if she outwardly continues to do things I am against I will have to take action earlier.

InkHulk

You can choose to wait and give her time to come around, but nothing about what you describe should be thought of as "normal". It is awful and abusive, and either you are being wildly graceful or codependent to accept it, even temporarily.

It's probably a little of both. I have always been easy on the forgiving people thing (see my previous mention of my character flaw above), and I am learning to hold my boundaries more and more from this experience. Mostly I have been
worried about three things in this process:

1. She is not really committed to R, or doesn't love me enough to go through this process.
2. It will get swept under the rug, and will spring up again later.
3. Pushing too hard and making things so difficult that no matter what she wants I push her away.

I am trying to find the balance between these concerns. I wan R, but not if she doesn't, or if she wants to sweep it under the rug. I want R as long as she is willing to change into someone I can feel safe with again.

Talisman

Thank you for your take on my situation. Many of these thoughts have crossed my mind for sure in the past 7 months.

At a minimum I think she feels like she loves us both, and is emotionally split between us. I have often wondered if comfortability is the reason she stayed, and also the reason I stayed. Thats one of the reasons I am trying so hard to make sure there is no rug sweeping going on.

5. You must appear very weak to your wife in your pick me dance and "knowing that you wanted to reconcile immediately" has got to be the weakest thing she (and I) ever heard.

I have felt like this many times. The reasons I chose to reconcile that same day were:

1. She willingly told me about the affair rather than me finding out through other means. If she wasn't interested in staying there would be no reason to do that were my thoughts at the time. Looking back on it now, one other explanation could be that she didn't think AP would divorce his wife and take her instead so maybe I'm second choice? But given the situation at the time, that reason was the only one that occurred to me.

2. She promised she would end the affair fully and be 100% honest with me. Clearly this didn't happen, and her promises I couldn't rely on. However at the time I was in shock and (stupidly) thought she would hold to her promises. But again that is the reason I am asking questions like this on this forum. There is a lot of stuff talking about how AP's path to R is rocky, and full of setbacks for the first few months. This is why I'm trying to figure out how patient to be with this process.

You really need to come to the conclusion that this marriage is toast if it every really existed.

Unfortunately the marriage I thought we had, and the woman I thought I was with were not real. They only existed in my head. This was very difficult for me to accept for several months.

4. Your wife told you about the affair for one or more of a few possible reasons: she did not want to bear the burden of sneaking around alone, the same for the burden of being pregnant and then aborting the baby (very selfish person)

Can you help me better understand what you are saying here?

The1stWife

1. Read up on the affair fog. That’s where your wife’s mindset is.

2. An affair can be like an addiction. The cheaters are addicted to the ego boost the affair provided. They miss the "I love you" and"you’re so wonderful" comments from the cheater affair partner.

Agree with both points. My concern is where is the boundary between affair fog (that I should be patient with), and continuing the affair or not being committed to R (and I need to start taking more intense steps)?

Then while I thought we were Reconciling he had resumed the affair and was still cheating.

How did you find out he was cheating? Is I've mentioned above it's very difficult for me to catch my wife in the act because of several factors. But most importantly she was very careful with the affair. Almost like she had planned it or something, which I could totally believe, but she said she didn't.

Gently you telling your wife she MUST stop stalking the OM is not going to work. She has proven she will do it secretly. She is still in the affair fog and has not had a dose of reality.

I think you are spot on here. It seems like I just need to figure out my boundaries, communicate them to her, and then (they hard part) hold to them.

Last point, when the cheater realizes they are no longer in control one of two things happen. They wise up and get on board with being 100% committed to Reconciliation OR they show you who they are and continue to lie and disrespect their spouse and marriage.

Agree on this point as well. However I'm trying to not push her away if there is a part of her that is willing to stay, which it seems like there is, but I could be wrong.

When I was in high school there was a couple of kids that really enjoyed tormenting me. The would do things that would make me really angry with them, but never things big enough for the teachers to do anything about. Things like throwing small items at me when the teacher was not looking. Or coming up with "pet" names they knew irritated me.

Anyway the point of the story is, sometimes the post affair relationship feels like that. She is careful most of the time to stay within bounds where if I do anything it looks like I'm the one giving up on the relationship, or it looks like I'm being the jerk. She is doing work to fix the relationship. She seems like she cares about me, and is just having a difficult time breaking it off with him. But there are these things that are irritating me. Not enough to take any big actions, but they are still there. I wish she would stop the actions and fully commit, or do something stupid that forces my hand so I'm not in this strange limbo state anymore.

To add to 1stWife affair comparison to addiction...
Ever dealt with an alcoholic? For many of us that might be more relatable than dealing with a wayward spouse.
Now imagine your wife had a drinking issue. We could possibly compare your wife’s EA to a long period of a bottle of Chardonay every day and maybe a couple of instances of getting away with driving while under the influence. However... the PA makes this more like chasing the Chardonay with shots and vodka and being caught passed-out on the highway after colliding with a couple of other vehicles. It raises both the seriousness and the consequences for the drinking.

Imagine – after you bail your wife out of the local drunk-tank at the police station – that she comes home and you are screaming at her she needs to quit drinking. Even she realizes the seriousness and agrees that she does need to make changes...

Experience and collective wisdom suggest that the best result would be total sobriety. A program like AA, getting a sponsor, doing the 12 Steps and so on. Part of that program is that (at least to begin with) you remove yourself from all temptations. You remove all booze from your home, you avoid bars, you don’t enter liquor-stores. While you are both physically and mentally weaning yourself off alcohol you stay away from it. Sort-of like we here on SI say total and enforceable NC from OP is necessary to end infidelity. Experience with alcoholics also strongly shows (like maybe 99%) a relapse rate if they don’t totally remove themselves from temptation and/or stay close to alcohol access.

Now – Imagine your wife was going to her 3x a week AA meeting. Imagine she removed all the booze from the family home... EXCEPT that one bottle... It might be a special bottle, like a Cognac that she was given for a special occasion. The brand itself isn’t that remarkable, and the occasion wasn’t really that remarkable. Like maybe a mid-rack Cognac she got for "Staff of the Month" – sort of like OM wasn’t really that remarkable, and whatever made her decide to have the affair wasn’t remarkable either. Only – she refuses to throw away that bottle, and occasionally when she thinks nobody is watching she might open it and sniff...
Just sniff...

Would that give you confidence in her ongoing sobriety?

If she had a rough day – like arguing with you about finances, a typical stress-inducer in a relationship, or if you go to her parents or yours for NYE – would it be easier for her to take a sip – to relapse – if the bottle was still in the home, or if she had to go out and find an open bar to purchase a sip?

Friend – While she is checking out OM it’s only a question of when she relapses. It might not be back to OM, but it keeps her in the infidelity-mentality. It keeps the option of finding what she’s missing at the wrong place. She is not committed to the marriage – as is seen as her admittance that OM is her backup-plan – so realistically your odds of a successful reconciliation are about the same as the alcoholic who hangs around bars – 1%...

--
The "what’s missing" is key to me. I think most (if not all) infidelity is about validation. Something we all need and most find in normal, healthy ways. Like... you might feel validated by looking at your nice house, or the appreciation of peers, or benching five pounds more than last week, or lowering your golf-handicap. We find validation in meditation, religion, at work, from family... all sorts of healthy places. For some the validation comes from thinking "I can still attract another man/woman", or "I am so powerful that I can have any man/woman", or "this person thinks I’m special, and its not from obligation like my spouse". If your WW can find her "what’s missing", she finds her "why". Only thing is that once it’s found, its so irrelevant and small that it takes a strong person to acknowledge the damage they did, the risk they took, for such a small issue.

--

You mention the affair fog and showing her patience while dealing with that...
That patience is limited...
The way I see it is that your whole marriage is now shrouded in affair fog. Your task is to get out of infidelity. At d-day you can offer your wife that she follows you out of infidelity, but you can’t force her. It’s totally her call if she follows and at what pace. Whether she follows is dependent on two factors; your offer to let her follow and her choice to do so.
Since there is so much fog, the course might be unclear. But you might have a general course – sort of like if you were lost cold and wet on a heath in heavy fog you might know that if you head in a westerly direction you are more likely to find a road and thereby help.
You set off... Due to the fog you might walk slowly. You might make frequent stops to reevaluate your course and even adjust as necessary. You might even go slower than you could simply to let her keep up. But you are constantly moving... You don’t head east for an hour just because she wants to, you don’t stop and wait for half a day because she isn’t moving in your direction. You keep pace, you know that if you take too long the wet and cold will get you, but you also accept that this might take 2-3 times longer than in ideal conditions.
Maybe she follows... Maybe even she leads at times... but you keep your pace based on what you need and what you can tolerate. The "patience" you show is based on the more frequent rest-stops and slower pace than you possibly could manage yourself. But you keep on moving...
With time you – and maybe both of you – experience the fog lifting. That’s when you can adjust your course to a more concrete and defined goal.

IMHO it sounds a lot like you two decided to get off the heath, but she’s still leaving a trail of breadcrumbs back to where you set off from and is constantly thinking "should I move on or should I turn back". IMHO you need her to commit to either, and therefore abandon one.

--

I think you need to make it clear to her that she does have options – as do you.

If she is so fond of her time with OM she can have that. She is totally free to chose OM and to pursue him. Only not as your wife.
You tell her that if she has any positive emotions towards YOU she will come clean and commit. Either to the marriage and YOU or to the OM. By remaining in this marriage half-heartedly or as a compromise is selling both of you short, and probably the least loving and most disrespectful thing she can do to you.
Let her know you want the marriage, but you want a MARRIAGE and not a compromise. The best and not left-overs. You know you won’t find happiness while you doubt her commitment, but know you could find happiness again outside the marriage. Of two evils, divorce would be better than remaining as her backup option.

Then get her to commit. To either the marriage or to divorce. IMHO both options are better than what she is offering while she’s sniffing at the bottle of OM, reminiscing of what she could have had.

Speaking as a WS and as someone with OCD tendencies, it is a very bad idea for her to be looking at the AP's social media. Part of recovery is shutting down those dopamine receptors that activate from memories of the A. Bigger's addiction analogy is very apt. Even if she has no intention of "actually cheating," she can't accomplish the necessary rewiring of her brain unless she cuts off that access.

In your shoes, I might alert the OBS that your WW is stalking her spouse through use of a friend's social media. With luck, the OBS will take steps to either block mutual friends or eliminate the AP's account altogether. It's also more than fair to tell your WW that her "fallback plan" mentality is a divorce level offense. I would expect to hear that if I said anything similar to my BH. But if you're still trying for R, I think you need to eliminate your WW's source for those hits.

Looking at the ap's SM doesn't mean she's still having sex with him. It does mean she still is in the wayward mindset. NC means in external life and in her internal life. I think the internal is more important.

I urge you not to give a shit about how you 'look'. Your internal life is crucial here. If you set and maintain your boundaries, you're probably acting from strength. If you act in ways you don't think will work in order to look strong, you'll fail. Besides, I see no point in pretending to be someone you're not, because that pretty much dooms you to being someone you're not for the rest of your M. If your W doesn't love you as you are, what good is she to you?

You get to choose how long you'll wait for your W to get straight. Her admission that her ap is plan B is a positive sign, IMO ... a small step in the right direction. But for R to work, the next step is/should be to commit 100% to R.

There's no way to know when/if she does that, but you can figure out what you want to see from her and monitor her behavior for those observable behaviors.

Common indicators are total honesty, total NC, IC with a goal of changing from cheater to good partner, acting like the partner you want, raising issues and working with you to resolve them, no blameshifting/minimization/trickle truthing....

You know she's not there yet. What makes you think she'll get there? Is your hope realistic? The fog is limerence. Sometimes limerence just lasts too long. How long will you wait? How long is it healthy for you to wait?

My biggest regret was being passive and allowing him to take time to make up his mind on what he wanted.

How did I find out about the affair resuming?

I called the OW and she told me. Now supposedly he had finally ended the affair w/ her a few hours before I spoke with her.

But the damage was done. I told him the next day I was D him. I did the hard 180 and fit the first time I was completely in charge of my future.

He very quickly snapped out of the affair fog at dday2. He begged me to R and I refused to even consider it. I had nothing left to give to him or the marriage.

I wished I had done that at dday1. Instead I allowed myself to be in a position of appearing weak and clingy and needy and desperate. Not very attractive qualities as the betrayed spouse. All things that annoyed my cheating H.

Once I stood up to him, things definitely changed for the better. I was in complete control and he no longer had any power.

My concern is where is the boundary between affair fog (that I should be patient with), and continuing the affair or not being committed to R (and I need to start taking more intense steps)?

My xwh "admitted" to his A too. And continued to lie and look her up on social media and do everything but the R work he should've been doing.

Couple things.

One, you don't owe her patience. You don't owe her nice. You don't owe her forgiveness. You don't owe her 'time to snap out of it'. You don't owe her any of it, especially if she's not doing the R work (which she isn't).

I know that sounds harsh, but I gave my xwh all that too and it only prolonged my agony. My circumstances only improved when I got tired of dealing with with his continuing wayward behavior and demanded change. I will add that you also must be willing to follow through on the consequences.

Which brings me to my other point. Right now IMHO, you need to stop worrying about what she's doing. Think about what YOU want. Is this game-playing nonsense what you want your marriage to be?

She is patently NOT committed to R, not even remotely. Maybe she will get there at some vague point in the future, maybe she never will. Either way, you need to speak up my friend. Don't worry about 'pushing her away' (cus SHE did that when she chose an affair) and lay down what you want. Stop being nice about it. The truth of it is if you honestly communicating your needs makes her run, she was never really gonna stick around anyways.

I'm not saying you need to S or D, but that you do need to find your voice. You're allowed to say that this is not acceptable to you, that her behavior is intolerable and that you will not put up with it indefinitely. And as an aside, any MC that does not wholly grasp that and support you saying that is a waste of money.

None of this is fair and I'm so sorry you're continuing to be hurt, but the power is in your hands here. It stops when you decide you've had enough; at that point she'll either get on board or she won't but either way you get unstuck.

My concern is where is the boundary between affair fog (that I should be patient with)

Being patient with the affair fog is like being patient with a horse standing on your foot.

It also kind of validates her feelings.

Not saying the fog isn’t real, just saying you don’t have to tolerate.

In short, as Ellie and others have noted, you have agency too. Find your voice.

Send strength!

I would like to thank everyone for responding to my comments and for all the advice you have given. Being in this place feels very lonely most of the time, and being able to get on here and talk with all of you means a lot to me.

Bigger

IMHO it sounds a lot like you two decided to get off the heath, but she’s still leaving a trail of breadcrumbs back to where you set off from and is constantly thinking "should I move on or should I turn back". IMHO you need her to commit to either, and therefore abandon one.

I think your addiction analogy is on point, and you are correct here as well. I am really tired of being in this odd limbo land.

Let her know you want the marriage, but you want a MARRIAGE and not a compromise. The best and not left-overs. You know you won’t find happiness while you doubt her commitment, but know you could find happiness again outside the marriage. Of two evils, divorce would be better than remaining as her backup option.

You said what I was feeling but haven't really been able to articulate yet!

BraveSirRobin

Speaking as a WS and as someone with OCD tendencies, it is a very bad idea for her to be looking at the AP's social media. Part of recovery is shutting down those dopamine receptors that activate from memories of the A.

Agree 100%. This is exactly what I've been telling her too.

sisoon

Her admission that her ap is plan B is a positive sign, IMO ... a small step in the right direction.

A positive sign because she told me about it on her own?

How long is it healthy for you to wait?

I really don't know the answer to this. I feel like this whole process has aged me ten years already.

The1stWife

I called the OW and she told me.

What made you want to call the other woman? Was he exhibiting signs of cheating again?

Instead I allowed myself to be in a position of appearing weak and clingy and needy and desperate. Not very attractive qualities as the betrayed spouse.

Unfortunately this is exactly what I've been doing and I'm trying to get out of doing.

EllieKMAS

Either way, you need to speak up my friend. Don't worry about 'pushing her away' (cus SHE did that when she chose an affair) and lay down what you want. Stop being nice about it. The truth of it is if you honestly communicating your needs makes her run, she was never really gonna stick around anyways.

This is well said.

--------------

It seems the consensus on these forums is that I need to find my boundaries, communicate them to her, and then enforce them.

This is hard when she is doing like half the things I want her to do (I've listed them in previous posts), it's the other (more important) half that she is missing, but she is doing stuff. She even thanked me today for being so patient with her. This shows she sees me being patient, and maybe that means she is on the right path?

I want her attitude to change but thats difficult to put a boundary on. I could use some help from everyone in coming up with observable boundaries though. What boundaries did all of you have?

Thanks again.

[This message edited by Theevent at 6:58 PM, Sunday, December 1st]

The1stWife

I called the OW and she told me.

What made you want to call the other woman? Was he exhibiting signs of cheating again?

He was acting totally out of character. The week before he swore he was totally committed to reconciliation.

Then he walks in the door a week later or a few days later demanding a D (yet again). I was not stopping him from D me. He was just saying "I want a D" but doing nothing about it.

So I figured one of two things - he’s either started doing drugs or he’s cheating. So I called the OW and asked her what was going on. It was a 3 minute conversation and I thanked her for letting me know they had been seeing each other the past 3 months.

How sad I had to ask a random stranger what was going on in my own life 😡😢

I don't know your earlier dday story but the betrayal sounds pretty high on the terrible scale, even for here. My question is did you ever show her your anger? Did you ever show her you are one more event away from walking out the door?

Being calm is a great attribute in so many situations but it can be overused to your detriment at certain times. In this one, continuing social media stalking of AP, it's ok to let out your anger, your frustration. It may demonstrate much more to her than a calm tone. I am making an assumption here and could be way off base but it just seems like you need to give yourself permision and let loose a bit. It may seem counterintuitive but I think it might help both of you.

So no, I don't think you're blowing this put of proportion; maybe just the opposite.

Failing to make a choice between the two of you IS a choice, and it's not you.

The only thing you control is you. You get to decide what you accept. And you need to do so now, not later.

When you allow yourself to be walked on, you will only ever be walked on.

My fWW also killed the OM's baby to hide the adultery. While that's not my sin to forgive, it was a highly informative indicator of who exactly she was, and a thorough palate cleanser of my own conscience when dealing with her with proper resolve.

You said what I was feeling but haven't really been able to articulate yet!

About a decade ago, I was with my mom while she was dealing with my dad’s last stages of terminal cancer. My parents had a loving and caring relationship.
When my mom and dad were talking to doctors about his treatment and prognosis there was so much that was on her shoulders. Like my dad letting her know that she should decide when to end treatment and simply focus on painkillers and the inevitable demise. The weeks she had to take care of him at home because that’s where he wanted to be, but could have sent him to a hospital...

It made me understand that either I or my wife will be the ones to take and make difficult decisions and possible sacrifices for the other. Basically – law and tradition decree the spouse has this role – but I would want any decision to be based on pure love and care.

Like... If the next phone-call you get is about your wife being in a coma and the medical experts telling you her odds of survival were minimal..., do you want to base your decision on end-of-life care or ongoing treatment on love and care, or do you want it colored by it giving you an easier "divorce"?
Switch the roles around... Imagine being in a non-responsive coma but hearing your wife whooping because with a flip of the off-switch she can get rid of you and even give OM your prized golf-set...

Yes – cold analogies... But truthful in the sense that your partner is the one that should know you best and therefore the one you confide in.
I know that after infidelity that’s hardly where you are at, but IMHO the goal should be to get there. Don’t settle for less – don’t settle for "only here until the kids leave" or whatever.
As part of attaining this goal – have this discussion with your wife. Let her know that she has those two options: Commit or not, that you want commit, but are fine with the other one because at least it sets you free.