but this is all part of his MLC craziness, and it is better to ignore it along with the rest of the symptoms and just "ride out the storm".
if you are waiting for a hurricane to pass by, you don't start doing repairs while the hurricane is in full force. you wait till it has passed by, then you start working on repairs. in the meantime you do what you need to do to protect yourself and your family and get through the storm.
Using your analogy, I would say that until you fix the "hole in the roof" (which is the current affair, if there is one), your home (marriage) is just going to continue to take on more water.
Penny Tupy has a great article called "The Hole in the Roof" that specifically talks about infidelity in the marriage. I think MWD may have even written the Foreward to one of Penny's books? I will see if I can find the relevant passage, and post it here (with proper attribution, of course), if that's okay.
There is one dynamic here that needs to be discussed, and that is the "You know, and your husband KNOWS that you know." Once you get to THAT stage, I think the whole dynamic changes, as then what you do (or DON'T do) can be seen as weak, enabling and even like you're giving PERMISSION for yourself to continue to live in an open marriage.
If, however, he doesn't KNOW that you know, I think it's a COMPLETELY different situation, as you need only to "hide it in your heart" as the Good Book says, and figure out what youre plan is.
Does that make sense? Using TT's analogy, a child who has been CAUGHT doing something that is considered a violation of a major family boundary, and is then left unconfronted about it when they KNOW that their parents know about it, will see that as tacit approval for the illicit behavior.
Starsky, according to what she has written, he doesn't know that she knows.
and she doesn't "know" anything definite either, just a lot of suspicious things (e.g. that he is skyping a lot of people and is very secretive about it) that indicate that he is probably involved in at least an EA, maybe more than one.
but this isn't the only thing going on. she writes: "Am getting mixed messages from him. He is planning for our future but says anywhere from 2 to 6 years down the road he is divorcing me. How does this make any sense?"
and: "I guess this is an MLC. He is drinking an enormouse amount as well and keeps telling the kids and I what a waste the last 15 years have been and how much we have held him back. Has no problem telling kids this either. (Note: we have been married 18 year - 15 years is the amount of time we have been in the US since moving from UK.)"
therefore this is just one of many symptoms; he seems to be in MLC where he is "trying out" a lot of inappropriate things, the EA with strangers on the internet being just one of them. confronting him would not stop him, but instead his response would be to justify what he is doing - and once he puts these excuses into words, he is justifying it not only to her but also to himself, which could turn a temporary situation into a more permanent one.
just like with the drinking - you think he doesn't know it's wrong? but if she confronts him and tells him to stop, would he do that? instead he would make excuses (probably blaming her) and in doing so would convince himself that his behavior is justified.
therefore I think that at this stage it is more prudent for her to GAL and not confront, not to let him know what she knows, and see if the infidelity will wither away on its own, as many of them do.
on the other hand if it would ever become more serious, it would also become more obvious, and that would be the time to confront. however, he might never reach this stage, and if she is successful at the DB techniques, he might get over the MLC and realize that what he has at home is worth a lot more than anything outside.
