C'mon, Gooch -- tell us how you REALLY feel.

As you know, I don't disagree with hardly ANY of that. I do think adding the "loving" part is important in that you can't just come across as a total DIKK to a WAS -- they have to still feel loved, and not just judged.

"I love you -- you know that -- but I also love MYSELF enough to not be willing to put up with an open marriage, one in which you continue to violate my boundaries of personal integrity" is, I think, the message they should be trying to convey.

Other than that distinction (which you're free to disagree with), I agree with everything you say.

Here's one of the other problems I'm seeing men, in particular, struggling with here: that's this concept of "I can't pull away, because her complaint is that I pulled away too much throughout the marriage." The problem with that is twofold:

a) "pulling away" (detachment) simply WORKS, and they're unilaterally disarming themselves of one of the very best tools they have to end their spouse's waywardness and draw them back to begin repairing the marriage; and

b) The complaint is usually bogus anyway, and is just another re-writing of marital history by a fogged out, usually-adulterous spouse -- the betrayed spouse is left responding to faulty data.

Puppy