Read the story of the Prodigal Son. That is where your husband is, in the pigpen of life. You are needing to be patient and hang on, because someone needs to love your husband enough that they care about his soul. That they care enough to pray for him and not give up.
If he ran to the OW, it is exactly because she is living in the same pigpen as he is and he doesn't have the guilt from her that he has from you.
He does not have to live up to higher standards while he is with her. He can roll around in the mudd all he wants, but eventually he is going to hit that rock bottom and the person he is going to turn to is you. He has done that several different times already.
It doesn't matter what stage of the MLC he is in or not in. What matters, is that someone cares enough about him to pray for him. To stand in the gap for him. That is what counts the most in all of this.
Yes, he could be in replay, depression, withdrawal all at the same time or one of them at a time, but it doesn't matter. What matters, is that satan has a hold of this man and is trying to destroy him and kill him.
You are right about it being more comfortable to have him out of the house because there was too much friction, but your husband is hurting and you are beginning to see the pain that he is going through. You started seeing it before he left. Yes, it was childish the way that he did it, but how do you face someone when all you are doing is hurting and you are so tired of hurting yourself and hurting the other person.
He would have had to look at you again and told you that he failed as a person once again. As much as it pained you to have him sneak out again, the pain to face you again would have been much greater. Now he has just made his path that much more difficult for his next return.
You will have to set boundaries though and make it very clear that you do not want him home unless he plans on staying home and putting real effort into working things out. He has to make some major changes in order for you to take him back into the home. That you don't want this disrruption again because it is to difficult on everyone when he does this.
That he has to face himself and that you are more then willing to be there for him and help him through this, but you are not going to have him walking in and out of your life like it is a revolving door.
The mess that you feel you have in your life right now, God can straighten out and he will, but you must give it to him. The feeling that you have in your gut, is the Lord speaking to you. Telling you to let him do his work and to not give up on the Lord.
He may have been putting too much pressure on himself trying to be the perfect husband that he knows in his heart that he is supposed to be, but he has been trying to do it on his own and that is why he failed. He needs the Lord in order to be the husband that he is supposed to be to you and the father that he is to be to his son.
He is trying to attempt both of these positions on his own and has failed each time. He has fallen back into the same old person because the Lord has not renewed him like he has renewed you. That is why you have handled this situation so differently then before.
So you stand firm in the Lord and what he has taught you so far. You are doing great and you are coming out victorious and don't you forget that. You and your son are going to be taken care of, but at this time, the Lord is working on bringing your husband to his knees. I would really hate to be in your husband's shoes right now. There is know way in the world that I would ever want to go through what I went through when I broke again.
