Sounds like you’re doing most things right:
-You retained an attorney
-You are following their counsel
-Collecting and preserving evidence
-Taking advantage of all an At Fault state has to offer.
-Doing your due diligence, researching, getting educated
-Coming to SI, reading ahead on SI
Great.
Things to work on:
-Protect your dignity.
-Don’t subscribe to her "reasons" and any rewriting of your marital history. Her "reasons", her grievances, went right out the window with the marital vows. She de-legitimized her reasons when she exposed her broken character, and her regard for you, by resorting to cheating.
If you’re married to someone capable of cheating, it is probable that same character flaw has contributed-considerably, to any preexisting marital disfunction she’s using as her "reasons" for cheating.
-Stop trying to "convince her" to reconcile.
There’s many reasons why you shouldn’t do this. Here’s a couple reasons why:
First reason is, it’s undignified and unattractive. It actually repels WSs. You look pathetic in their eyes. Second reason, is that the WS is supposed to be convincing YOU. If she was a candidate for R, she should be campaigning for R. If R is in your future, she will initiate it and sustain it. She should do the heavy lifting of R. You don’t want her coming back to you because she feels sorry for you. You want her coming back because she regrets her actions, is remorseful, loves you, and wants no other.
-She is a free woman. Don’t try to manipulate or control her. If she wants to return to the marital contract then you can demand expectations, conditions and boundaries. If she wants to see her AP, then she’s free to do that, while not married to you. Do the 180.
Asking to go NC with AP is the least she can do I though if she cared at all.
She currently doesn’t care. Maybe down on some suppressed level she cares, but her actions thus far are completely uncaring.
Actions are everything. Don’t project your wishes, your agenda, or the sentimental perception of the woman you thought you married upon THIS woman. Let her actions project and impress upon you who she truly is. See her now as she is, not as she was, or how you thought she was.
she wants space to figure things out and I am not allowed to require her to go NC with the AP according to her
She doesn’t need space to figure things out. She needs space to cake eat, to be with her new boyfriend. You don’t "figure things out" while cheating. Give her all the rope she needs to hang herself and carry on with the D proceedings until she convincingly returns to the marriage.
emotionally I am very conflicted.
Of course you are. Ten minutes ago you were just married to this woman. She was your forever. The mother of your children. Like phantom limb syndrome, you will continue to have residual feelings for her, the memory of her, and many times more amplified as she’s walking out the door. Don’t put her on a pedestal that she has clearly demonstrated she doesn’t deserve.