first, you need to stop her from 'helping' you by cleaning or whatever. She needs to 'feel' your rejection of her. With my W it was important (as per my counselor) to make her aware of the concept of:
"We will NOT be friends. We will be FRIENDLY, but not FRIENDS".
Why say that? Well, in a separation you can be 'friends' because the marriage isn't ended. And like COG, yourself and others, it's the best way to do what you can to prevent the marriage from ending. You have been doing just that and I admire your strength.
In a DIVORCE the whole dynamic changes. It's unrealistic for the WAS to believe that you'll 'just be friends' after a divorce because of the following reasons:
1) They have violated your trust. Does a friend do that?
2) How would a person you start a new relationship with feel if you were 'great friends' with your EX? Is that fair to them? After a divorce you WILL be moving on with your life. Your WAS needs to understand that. Right now they are in the fantasy world where they can have their cake and eat it too. My W once said to me
"We fulfilled our purpose together and now it's time to move on. We'll always have a loving connection and be great friends!"
Uh, no. We made a commitment and you are bailing out. After we reconnected she told me that the most important lesson for her was to learn that she could NOT jut 'bail out' when things got difficult. But it was how she dealt with her life when she was younger and I had kept it 'together' for all these years until I couldn't, so when she felt unsafe she did what was familiar to her. She bailed out and found someone else who she thought would save her.
3) If you have kids, how does that make the kids feel? They will ALWAYS want you to get back together. If you are 'good friends' they will be very confused. Again, this is what you tell the WAS will be the case, and is the reason you will be FRIENDLY but not friends.
4) For yourself, how does being 'friends' with a DIVORCED WAS who has committed adultery affect your feelings about your OWN integrity? If you are willing to be a 'friend' to someone who has violated your own ethics and divorced you, will you be able to live with that?
Remember, I'm not talking about what you say or do while you are still in 'fix it' mode. I'm talking about how you present the REALITY of a divorce to the WAS.
You have got to let them 'feel' what the divorce will 'feel like' NOW. They are still in the fantasy world where everything will be 'peachy neato keen' and we'll all be 'such good friends'.
Don't be mean. Be honest and 'real'. You're the only one who IS 'real'.
You may be surprised at their response. Stay the course and do not let anything they say knock you off the course. They will try ANYTHING to get you to sustain their fantasy world of 'everyone will be so happy after this is over'. Well, everyone won't. and it sucks.
But more important, you aren't doing this to 'make them come back because if they don't their life will suck.' That is a misconception. What you ARE doing is breaking the bubble of their fantasy life. There WILL be pain. There WILL be difficulties. They WILL lose you as the 'safety net'.
Then, they have to decide if their 'fantasy life' is worth losing their 'real' life.
Some will choose the fantasy life. Some will wake up and see what they are giving up.
