My husband wants me to come up with ways for him to prove that it is over with her and that it will never start up again.
a chasity belt?
Don't get suckered into this game.
Either he wants the marriage to work or not. There's no objective standard that would "prove" that he loves you. It's all about the actions and little else. The burden is on HIM, not you.
What it seems like, to me at least, is that he's subtly putting you into a Mommy/guardian role and not a Wife/partner role. The Mommy role is the one where you tell the kids to pick up their toys, do their homework, all things that show that you care about them. It's a great role because children are vulnerable and not yet cognitively developed enough to know lessons about life.
But your H is a grown-man, he's not naive...if anything he's far from naive in that he purposely deceived you and cheated on you. That shows intellectual sophistication. If he wants you as a partner, he will want to look for ways that you *equally* agree to the guidelines of marriage. It's two adults addressing complicated ideas. Think about when your marriage was happy. Didn't you want to do things to make the other person happy? It went both ways, yes? That's the goal you seek.
But like I said, don't be the one who has to mother him. If you play this game, and say: ok, I'll bet the house. One, it makes you the mommy-figure because then you're the one who has to be the one who doles out the punishment. Bad mommy.
And two, it shows that you can put a value on yourself, which means you can be bought. You're better than that. It's sort of like that joke by Winston Churchill where he asks a lady if she would sleep with him for a million dollars. She says yes, and then he asks her if she would do it for 10 dollars. She says: What type of woman do you think I am? He said: Madam, we've already established what kind of woman you are, now we are just haggling about price.
I know this is a hard time, but don't devalue what a good person you are.
