Once again, all the veterans here are giving you wonderful advice.
Like usual, LH19 has hit the nail squarely on the head.
DW17 - you are in a toxic, abusive relationship. She is mentally abusing you, but simultaneously painting things as if you are doing it to her.
You need to be really careful validating things in writing.
This brings me to my next point … I think validating is one tool to use in a specific circumstance, but this site seems to just pedal it as a be-all solution to marriage problems.
If someone has ignored their partner, made them feel small, allowed them to build resentment for a long time, and their partner has slowly lose love and feels alone - validating is very important.
For someone who has a wayward, cheating, lying spouse on their hands, validating them is about as useful as t*ts on a bull.
Stop wasting your time trying to validate this woman. It’s not appropriate in your circumstance. She’s a cheat, an emotional manipulator, a liar and expert gaslighter who is taking advantage of a husband who has lost his confidence and lives in fear of losing her.
Now she has a pretty good, documented trail that you abused her that she can use in future proceedings. I think you should consult a lawyer ASAP to draft a response to those messages. She WILL use them if things get messy.
She wants to continue her affair, and she wants to feel good about it being the right thing - hence she constructed this argument and you played perfectly into her hands. Now she can go and show her friends and her AP what you wrote, and they’ll all tell her she’s doing the right thing.
We all fall off the horse sometimes.
I think you really need to ask yourself why you want to be with this woman. Try and take the emotion and fear of being alone out of it … what exactly is your motivation? I’m sorry to be frank, but she comes across as a toxic, manipulative POS to me. You should accept that sometimes, people change, or were never really who you thought they were.
Visit your lawyer first - but I wouldn’t even ask her to move out. I’d just wait until she goes away and move her stuff into storage while she’s gone.
