And I forgot to mention in my reply to your reply that I chose the word "arrogant" deliberately. My IC long ago used it with me when I was acting so very certain about XH's choices/wishes/future. I didn't like it when she used that term. Not one bit, lol.
But, she was right. And as that sunk in, it became very valuable to me. Too often, we are arrogant about how we think we know others, their thoughts, feelings, their choices, what will be good for them, blah blah blah. It is simple arrogance to think we know someone that well. It gets in the way of really knowing them at all. It gets in the way of being a good friend or partner. It gets in the way even of making our own choices properly, because too often we make choices based on our own arrogant beliefs about the inaccessible mental lives of others. Such beliefs are generally pretty darn error ridden.
And, DBers in particular, seem extremely prone to such arrogance. Even when they are blindsided, which most of us were, because we didn't know the WAS, DBers STILL continue to assume all kinds of things about the WAS's mind, heart, beliefs, dreams, choices, capabilities, etc.... You'd think the bomb would have been big enough to shake up that applecart of arrogant beliefs. But, no, it seems not. If anything, the LBS/WAS talk around here seems to strengthen that arrogance. The LBSs are holyfied, the WASs demonized, disrespected, dismissed... Thus, the arrogance becomes magnified.
Losing the arrogance is a HUGE step toward a better life and being a better partner capable of a much better kind of intimacy. Losing the arrogance is a huge part of detaching (along with finding genuine compassion.) Losing the arrogance is a necessary part of being able to find true forgiveness. Losing the arrogance makes our future much, much brighter in very many ways.
To be clear, I say all the above to explain my word choice, not because I think you are particularly arrogant, lol. From what I can see, you seem to be bypassing much of the overblown arrogance DB effect.
Overall, you seem to be doing very well in a very difficult situation. My suggestion is really pretty minor: don't presume to know the future when it comes to who W will be, keep an open mind.
Maybe this will help... You can shut the door on your M and hold your back against the door to keep in from opening. You can hold the back against the door by feeling certain about all kinds of horrible things about W and her future, things about which you can't really be certain at all. Or, you can close the door on your M, lock it securely with a key that represents respecting your boundaries, move forward with D, but allow in your own mind that W might turn out to have a copy of the key or not. You simply don't know right now.
