Not sure what your question is, as there's at least two or three main thoughts in my post. But I would say that in my experience, it's very very rare to both successfully reconcile a marriage, AND get there with your and your children's emotional health intact without asserting strong boundaries very early in the process. ESPECIALLY if there is infidelity involved.
But again, it all boils down to what one's non-negotiable, CORE BELIEFS are, what I like to call one's "Boundaries of Personal Integrity." If you assert those, and you lose your spouse over it, then you have only lost what you couldn't have abided anyway.
