Look you guys are in this action oriented mode, I get it. Your M is broken there's someone in the house (OP) you want to get them out and fix the freaking hole they crawl in through, right? Get the shot gun, shoot the SOB, get some wood, patch the hole???? Right.....Wrong!!!!!
But I will tell you something that could get you started that is sorta action oriented, that I recomended to someone else today. Sorry, no GPS, no voice activated recorders, no shot guns, no hammers and nails. Sorry, tip the hat to Tim the Tool Man ERR ERR.
I would like you to start thinking about something and write down what you come up with.
If I were to sit down with your wives/(husband Sunny D )and were to ask her what her marital complaints were/are about you, What would she say?
Be honest, don't defend yourself. After you write them down re-read what you wrote and rate them two different ways.
First rate them in the order that she would rate them #1 would be her greatest complaint about you, #2 would be her second greatest complaint and so on.
Second, rate them in the order that they "sting" you....#1 would be the complaint that you feel you are most guilty of , #2 the next one and so on. You get it right? Now add the 2 scores for the complaints.
The lowest scoring complaints need to be looked at first. Don't beat yourself up over this exercise, this is just to identify things that need to be looked at in YOU.
This is part of making YOU a better YOU. Look at this time as a Gift from your Wives/Husband. This is time that you are going to use to grow and improve yourself.
This is a great exercise. I agree with it.
But do it to make you a better CD, CD -- don't think she's going to be emotionally open to your "changes" right now, because she's not. Not while she's still addicted to her OM.
See, everyone (esp. over on MLC) thinks I'm a pro-exposure, bust-the-affair, don't-work-on-yourself guy. I'm not. I'm a HYBRID guy. I think you need to SIMULTANEOUSLY work on yourself (on those changes that you genuinely believe need work, not some re-writing of marital history complaints of a wayward spouse), while you play legal hardball and EITHER:
a) aggressively affair-bust ("2a"); or
b) Set them free ("2b").
For the record, this is my stance, from my own personal archives, originally a "P.S." to my own sitch story:
Throughout all of these "tough stances," I maintained a "loving detachment" towards my wayward wife. Oh, we had our moments -- three or four real blow-ups -- but for the most part, we managed to keep things civil. I laid out some boundaries (no family finances used to enable your affair, no TMing or phoning OM from inside our home, no TMing or phoning OM in front of our sons, from ANYWHERE, if you're going to come home after 1am, don't bother coming home, etc.), and I must say, she respected them almost completely.
The "loving" part of "loving detachment" comes easier for you, trust me, when you maintain full intel ("snooping") and you hear and see the things that I heard and saw. But I did try to "shine a light back towards the marriage, even as I never wavered from my Main Boundary ("I will not live in an open marriage") and my sub-boundaries mentioned above. I would do occasional loving Acts of Service for my wife, such as pulling her car in the garage late at nite, or covering her with a blanket when she fell asleep on the couch, kissing her on the forehead, etc.
I believe that this "hybrid" approach -- aggressive confrontation & exposure, firm boundaries, cut off all financial enabling, strong legal stance; coupled with DBing principles such as GAL, "be the better option," 180s, etc. -- is what works best when there is active infidelity involved.
Reasonable people may disagree, but this is what worked for me, and this is also what I have seen work in my time on these boards, as well as my study of literally thousands of affairs.