Here are some thoughts that came to me this morning about your sitch.
1. By not letting her know you "know" she had a PA, you are robbing her of the opportunity to really come clean, be honest/open and really address her behavior patterns. Letting her gaslight you is a dis-service to her growth and the health of your marriage. It's like she needs major surgery by you are using a band-aid to treat the problem.
2. You have been doing your own work, and that's great. But, for the marriage to succeed and not depend on you future, flawless execution of you GAL and 180's your wife will need to do her part. Marriage is a 2 person proposition. DB-in is largely a solo performance, which you have passed with flying colors. Piecing, however, is a partnership.
3. Paving too-smooth a road sends a certain message to your wife: you can cheat, lie to me, gaslight me, throw me emotional crumbs and as a result, you will get a new and improved husband. It reinforces her sense of entitlement that all cheaters seem to have.
4. I think you need to address this with your marriage counselor in a private session.
5. What's preventing you from asking for honesty and transparency from your wife in the piecing process? Is it fear that she will back away? Fear that all your hard work will be for naught? Do you want your reconciliation to be driven by fear? It's nice to be wanted again and to have some relief. However, building a strong foundation may mean you need to dig deeper into the soil to establish a more long-lasting solution.
6. I am only speaking from my own experience and failure to demand remorse and transparency when I was piecing. In the end, my "changes" didn't stick and I never really trusted my wife who felt that having an affair was morally acceptable. That means we both ended up quitting on the marriage after piecing. It could be that if I completely let go of my need for her to experience remorse and actually ask for my forgiveness, then our marriage might have lasted. Also I would have to have kept my needs and demands small. I wasn't capable of being super-Theoden who gives all, forgives all, trusts always in spite of the evidence.
7. Perhaps making demands during piecing reveals who the cheater really is. Give them the opportunity to come clean and repent. Or give them the opportunity to clearly remain entitled.
