Wow, you're off to an interesting start with these topics.
As for the OW, I too am guilty... H's friends all refer to her by a derogatory name and for a while, I joined in that.
I have had brief conversations with her and read the correspondence in which she kept encouraging my H not to try to work things out with me, telling him he'd fail at it and she'd like to say otherwise, but let's face it, she couldn't see it ever working and presented herself as the alternative. Yes, I call her behavior manipulative and yes, I do feel sorry for someone who'd see that as acceptable, who would put herself in the middle of someone's marriage in the way that she has.
I don't call her anything now, but I do see her as my C suggests, a very destructive influence in my H's life. In fact, H has said the same... yet she is still around. And that is my H's choice. The OP may be a "symptom" at the outset-- but I believe that at some point, that arrangement becomes a chosen way of life -- for whatever reasons they have. I come at this a bit differently I think because of the detailed discussions my H and I have had about his A with this person, the why and how of it and the confusion and destruction it has created in his life.
Boundaries. Well. Meredith said it all very well. I have learned a lot about setting boundaries during this process. I never felt the need to set them before the bomb... my H treated me with respect and honor in nearly all things. And I've never been that shy about saying when something was a problem for me.
But setting them when you have been hurt, are being hurt, is difficult. I've had to set a lot of them during my S. And I had to go through a period of setting them aggressively and angrily and as a defensive mechanism before I learned to be able to set them with love and a brief and reasonable explanation (rather than the long drawn out defense of them). The latter works much better! I have found that my H responds well when I say simply that "this is a boundary I need to set" (for X or Y reason).
My H has done the same with me, though I think he is still working on using avoidance of a situation rather than setting boundaries within it.
And about the lateness... for me, it is all about disorganization and how much I've put on my plate. There are times when I'm not and times when I am, and when I do a little digging, I find that when I start arriving late for things as a habit, that's a sign I need to slow down and attend to my own self care a bit more.
Usually, it means I'm putting too many other things ahead of taking care of myself and so things are beginning to slip.
