Affair discovered

[SteveLW]

She is controlling you with that narrative. And you are letting her. You have already apologized to her so why do you need to do it in writing too?

I will say, I think you are inline for making a huge 180. Stop stonewalling her. You call it "withdrawing when emotionally flooded". A description with an excuse pre-built into it. However, in reality when things aren't going the way you like
(what you call emotionally flooded) you default to a passive-aggressive shutdown. The 180 you could employ is to remain fully engaged throughout the conversation no matter how uncomfortable it may become for you. T:12, M:7, you've probably done this for about 11 years.

Is it emotional abuse? I don't think so. WAW/WW are notorious for blowing things out of proportion to justify what they want to do. Mine told me on bomb day that I was mean. 49 years on planet earth I've never once been called mean. Were we having issues? Absolutely, but while I was grouchy about the state of things, "mean" implies something else completely.

Like you I took full responsibility at first. Then I realized her game. Make overblown complaints about him so he will back off and allow me to do what I want to do. It worked too, at least initially. Then I found DB and the rest, as they say is history. Things started to turn around pretty quickly after that. I 180'd on my nitpicking, complaining, and verbal attacks.

You can turn things around too, but you need to recognize the behaviors that will work and stop the ones that won't. Doing the work for the D, and writing apology letters accepting full responsibility will only land you where you don't want to be: DIVORCED!