It's nearly impossible to combat infidleity AND maintain her LIKING you QS.. The person that locks the liquor cabinet on the alcoholic is ALWAYS the bad guy who is "way too controlling" etc... It's a position you can't win...
You just have to say something like "Everything I am doing I am doing out of respect for you and our marriage.. I will NOT allow some creep to violate our marriage and I will do EVERYTHIGN I CAN to ensure we maintain civil respect for one another.. I DO NOT DESERVE to be disrespected in this way... we were married for TEN YEARS and even in divorce civilized RESPECT is IMPORTANT... I will NOT allow him to disrespect our ten years together"
The key thing is, you KNOW this guy's a dirt bag... what kind of creep presses someone in secret for sex like this when she's clearly angry with YOU and living with YOU?
If she WANTED to live else where she WOULD wouldn't she? Seriously...
I wanted to circle back to this, and tie in something from my own sitch and my archives of something that I originally posted to someone else.
Mine was a little different -- more about the "DECEIT" than the "DISRESPECT," but it's not far off, and it goes to the point of honing in on a hard boundary, and one that might have to -- for now -- be a SUB-boundary underneath the main umbrealla "I will not live in an open marriage" one:
Boundaries/”Start with the DECEIT”
I would start with the DECEIT.
Once it became apparent in my sitch that my wife wasn't going to end her affair, despite confrontation, exposure to her parents, siblings, our adult children and her employer, I decided that I couldn't stop her. But I was DAMNED sure going to stop tolerating the DECEIT. She was lying to her own parents (whom I love and respect, very much, and who have been like PARENTS to me throughout our marriage), and to our adult daughters.
So my BIG boundary was this:
"I will no longer tolerate your deceit. I will no longer stand idly by while you have an affair with a boy half your age, and then not only LIE to your parents and our children about it, but you make wild accusations about ME, that I'm 'crazy' and paranoid. Well, that's over. You either tell them the truth, or I will, and I will show them the evidence that I have. You have exactly five minutes to decide."
And I was dead serious.
btw, my smaller boundaries were:
-- no calling or texting OM from inside of our marital home;
-- no calling or texting OM in front of our kids, regardless of where you are;
-- I will no longer allow our family's finances to be spend enabling your affair; you will have to get your own cellphone, and pay for your tummy tuck Visa payments, lingerie, haircoloring and what-not.
-- If you plan on coming home after 1am, don't bother coming home.
In your case, since you're living apart, I would start with the DECEIT boundary. It's incredibly disrespectful, and there's no reason why you have to stand there and be lied to, continually.
I dunno, maybe you can draw something from it, QS.
