Answer to: "why didn't you hear it from ME?"

[Flight]

Thank you Sandi. I am really working on, and getting advice about, detaching and consequences. To some degree, there are not many consequencies to breaking a boundary. The LBH has some areas that he has very little power. "One of the conditions of remaining here is no seeing OM". First, you would have to be snooping to find proof of the A, second, what could you do? Can't kick her out in my state. And you don't want to cut off your nose to spite your face, like leaving the house which would not be legally smart. So I need help with consequence ideas.

Lately, I have detached more. I am not available. I have also started going out often and leaving her to babysit. I don't ask her where she is going and I don't tell her what I am up to. If she says she has a problem that I am not required to help with, I tell her I hope she figures out a way to solve it.

One true last resort would be to go through the process, even now before the holidays of finishing the S agreement, having her explain to D what is happening, and putting the house up for sale. There can be no greater consequence than that.

When she loses her temper, that is when she tests me with "well, if we can't do it my way we will just have to sell the house (or whatever). But later, she doesn't really want to do that. She hopes I will believe the threat and allow her to cross a relationship boundary. When I don't, we go back into holding pattern mode.

You are right in that when I told her family, there were consequenes. She was upset with me of course, but she couldn't control the story because they had too many facts. Looking bad in their eyes is still resonating with her. But she rebels against that too, "I don't have to care what anyone thinks, they don't know my situation" and "If I tried to reconcile, then you would look like the suffering martyr who took his whore wife back!"