Hmmm; sounds like some BOUNDARIES need to be put in place.
Boundaries are for YOU, not for her. They are for you to get your self-esteem back, and not feel walked on. Have you set any? Or, having set them, do you not enforce them?
That was my SINGLE BIGGEST PROBLEM in my marriage -- my inability to set and enforce boundaries. So in my own sitch, when my wife had her affair, I realized I couldn't control her, but I COULD set boundaries, and for me they were:
- no texting or phoning OM from within our own home. If she wanted to do that, she'd have to take it outside or go for a drive.
- no meeting with or talking on the phone to OM in front of the kids, no matter WHERE.
- I will not pay for the things you use to conduct your affair, such as your cellphone, your tummy tuck surgery Visa payment, lingerie, Botox, etc.
- (this one was added later, and required a 2nd full confrontation): "I will no longer tolerate your DECEIT. Either you tell your parents and our adult daughters the truth about your relationship with OM (she had been saying "he's just a friend" and even accusing ME of "being crazy"), or I will, and I will show them my evidence. I gave her all of 5 minutes to decide, too.
If you don't have boundaries, you will continue to be disrespected, and that disrespect will not only slowly eat away at YOUR soul, emasculating you, but it will also cause your wife to lose her LOVE for you, since women tie their feelings of "respect" VERY closely with their feelings of "love."
