Need ideas.

[Harrier]

Jack..I'm more inclined to take your approach given my situation. If mine was different I might act different.

I agree that I need to honest with my W as well.

As an initial, the reason I haven't set firm boundaries is that form my wife they would be easily evaded. I don't have access to her work phone records or work email. She could be interacting that way and I fear if I pushed the boundaries thing AND she was still interested in the OM. She'd go that route.

I could easily put a key logger on her computer to get access to her gmail account. But I won't do it.

Honestly, I have to trust my wife. Some might say I'm a fool. But I can live with that.

I will say that for a month I did have access to the cell phone records and didn't find anything of concern. I didn't like when I would check and I didn't check that much.

This issue however has become a flash point in our marriage. I did check up on her twice in the last 2 weeks and had to ask her about what I found. Let me give you some background. In december, my W agree to cut off contact with the OM.
In mid Jan, my W told me that she might have more contact with the OM because of a work project. She told me before there was contact.
I found that she did call his office one day for a conference call. All heck broke loose that day because my W felt I was checking up on her and wasn't trusting her. She said repeatedly that she is doing the things she needs to do for our marriage.

The second issue was last night. My w was going to a dinner for a colleague. it happened that the OM might show up. I found out (I checked her voice mail on her phone and heard another person say that he was might go) Of course, I confronted her before the dinner. She got mad. I really didn't give her a chance to tell me if he was there or not. I then lied about how I found out.
Once she found the truth she got really angry saying I have to trust her and she is keeping herself in line. She said she can't be in a marriage where she isn't trusted and is being spied upon.

I would like to have a policy where she tells me if she is going to be contact with the OM. And my part of the bargain is not to flip out and not check up on her.

I haven't checked her email, haven't followed her or checked to see if she is at work. For 8 weeks, I do everything she ask, but the 2 of the maybe 6 times I check she finds out.

I really, really want to trust her, but she doesn't quite understand that the trust was broken between us...on both ends. It's like she expects me to have instant trust in her, but her trust in me will take time.

Honestly, I think she is kinda clueless on what the usual approach is in an EA. She wants to bring it up to the MC. I"m all for it because I think she will see that what I'm asking isn't that much.

The other problem is that my wife has now laid down a boundary on me. She says if I check her phone/email/ etc without her knowing and she finds out ... she will file for D. (I don't know if she actually means this because she has said it before, but didn't follow through)

My W isn't an irrational person. She knows she screwed up with this EA and it didn't get that deep. No ILY were exchanged, no secret plans to run off together, no secret dates, no physical acts. The OM is married and doesn't want to end his M. The most they said was that they have a strong affection for each other. I'm not stupid, there was a connection with this guy, but my W said she was crazy at the time and this was an escape for her. Things were not settled between us at home.

She said to me the best way I can make sure something like this never happens is to be the guy she's in love with. It makes sense.

Maybe I'm being too trusting here. But if that's my biggest fault. That might be okay.