WAW and 4 kids

[Deep]

Yeah I hear you. You did right in drawing the boundary in NC and it's a line you should stick to. I didn't and although things are so much better now, I know it was the wrong decision. You don't have to force her to adhere, but just understand that's where you stand.

In mitigation, the contact my W has is for "work" and she tells me she has minimised it as much as possible. This was AFTER 3-4 months of this "OM can be a friend" crap. To me, there was a subtle yet huge shift in her attitude from him being a friend to someone she had to deal with for work. I'm not sure when the turnaround happened but there were sudden outbursts. I particularly remember one day soon after our Retrouvaille weekend where she just told me it wasn't easy for her to accept how wrong / stupid she had been. "Look, he's an [censored], and I know he's an [censored] ok. But if I allow myself to see how much of one he is, the more I have to see myself as a stupid, cheap slut. If you really want me to face that every day and beat myself up for it I will, if it helps your healing, because I'm the wrong one here. But I don't know how long I can take that".
And the raw emotion that was said in was very convincing.

Of course, there will be some here who will point out (and rightly) how that could be so manipulative. And I'm way past the point of taking things at face value and/or just trusting like that. But I think sometimes we LBSs have to take a step back and look at what DBing/GALing etc does to us, and ask "sure, it's supposed to make the WAS want to come back, but where do you draw the line and not push her away when she does seem to take small, tiny, steps back". As you said, it's a freaking delicate balance, and you can't ever lose sight of taking care of yourself.

How much do you know of OM? And is there any possible (not destructive) way you can think of to lessen his contact with your W?