Not Sure Where This Is Going

[Niall11]

Checking out of the marriage is not being present in the marriage even when together. That isn't detachment. Really detachment is getting to a place where her words and deeds no longer affect you emotionally. She could tell you she had a gangbang with 100 people the night before, and it would be like water off a duck's back to you.

I'm definitely not detached yet, but I knew that. Her phone going off all day still sets me off, though I try not to show it. Probably not doing as effective a job of that as I'd like. I am getting more resigned to the idea that I can't control what she's going to do or make her stop any of this.

I understand the premise that, as a LBS, you have to make yourself stronger and more self-reliant, and that doing that might draw WS back to you or it may not, but it's important for you to do regardless. Getting to a point that you don't care if your wife has a gangbang with 100 seems like a really unhealthy place to be in a marriage. You just said you wouldn't able to stand your wife hooking up with even one other woman, so it really shows how different detachment and DB is from how people would feel in a healthier marriage. It's like she can't check back in until I've just about checked out myself.

I would consider asking her to leave the MBR. We recommend LBHs with a cheating W kick their W out of the MBR. I am guessing based on her behavior, she has cheated with this OW.

I have seen that advice. I too suspect she has done something with this OW but I have no evidence for it beyond the circumstantial. Once, totally unprompted by me, she said that she hadn't had sexual contact with anyone else. That could well be false, but without any proof I hesitate to proceed on the basis that it has happened/is happening. Not sure how to reconcile making that accusation, or even trying to find proof, with the idea of not obsessing over her and what she's doing.

Our place is small, we don't have an extra bedroom, but that's surmountable.