WW in PA: Threaten to tell kids? Confront OM?

[hoosjim]

Day 1 post "no contact": W home early from work. Very mopey. Went to bed early... in guest room bed. This in and of itself is not HIGHLY unusual, as we have a pretty bad/old mattress in MBR and she/we will sometimes sleep in guest BR (one of the overlays we should have taken care of a long time ago and still have not) but... she has been in there now three of last four nights. Although, last night, the night when I insisted on her consent to NC, she did sleep in our bed. Definitely mopey this evening, though.

I am wanting to fine-tune how I play this in the short term in terms of interacting with her. Obviously, she is going to be mopey and possibly/probably resentful, especially with wayward BFF undoubtedly bending her ear about what a wretch I am. One of our biggest, in fact probably the biggest problem plaguing our marriage was my neglect of her... on just about every level. Now, she is "cutting contact" supposedly and moping with her wayward thoughts. How much should I be hanging around and available, and how much should I be making myself scarce. Normally, my MO would be working out at gym two out of every three evenings for approximately an hour, and meeting friends out at least once a week (and every 2-3 weekends going overnight to visit friends in nearby town.) Do I want to continue to be that "scarce" while she is in the early processing stages, or do I want to be a little more available without being clingy/creepy. I had read GA Bulldog's take on Sandi's 37 rules where he opined that where WWs are in this stage it might actually be a good idea to not just abandon them to their own devices all the time. My plan has been to continue to be "detached" but not cold-- somewhat responsive if/when she seeks me out, but also to continue with my own GAL efforts (though I was going to forego leaving town for a couple of weekends.) I had not been thinking of doing anything radically different during this stage-- sort of see how she does and observe.

There is a lot of distance between us right now. You can tell it is not just lack of warm/romantic feelings but probably actually some repulsed/negative/resentful feelings, even though she says not. And i probably deserve a bit of that (even as i most definitely do NOT deserve to have her cheat on me)... there was a lot of neglect on my part... a LOT. The environment we are in in our part of the country is not helping, either. Suburban, high achievement culture... a LOT of divorce. Pretty much every single couple we know with whom she is close friends with the wife is either separated or in the process of doing so or in definite, obvious, and acknowledged trouble and headed that way. She and BFF's philosophy on long-term marriage definitely very jaded right now. Hope God wants this to work out for us, because it's gonna take a biblical-sized miracle, IMHO.