One comment I have on ovrrnbw's msg -- I do not personally think that wanting to bust the divorce and starting the legal process are always incompatible with one another. When your boundaries ("I will not be with someone who is actively cheating on me") are crossed despite communication and incremental enforcements, then the progressive enforcement of initiating divorce can be appropriate. Otherwise, you violate your own boundary.
It does not mean that you stop divorce busting or that divorce is the foregone conclusion. The WAW spouse can choose to stop the affair at any time.
And, if a LBS had tolerated a PA sullenly for 2-3 years, and then suddenly and decisively, but optimistically, acts otherwise ("there's a great world out there for me that I deserve, I can do this, and I'm ok with this"), it can be the ultimate 180 of value.
But, it must be authentic -- because your boundary is being crossed. Not as a bluff or ploy.
Just to clarify, my W is not in an active affair to my knowledge. She confessed in September to a brief PA that happened 3 years ago (she claims two encounters) but has demonstrated WW behaviors for the last 2-3 years. Going out late, being disrespectful, etc. This is actually one of the challenges I'm having when it comes to the DB process: much of what sandi describes in her WW posts applies to my sitch except that there is no OM in the picture. I'm choosing to apply her general approach because OM or not, an affair is a boundary for me. Therefore I am detaching, GAL, doing 180s, etc. I'm not sure how much it matters whether there is an OM or not, because now that I know the PA happened and she is capable of/willing to lie about it I feel the damage has been done.
I know from conversation with W's family that she does not want D, and she has told me the same (when drunk). But she is a cake eater: she doesn't want D because she wants to continue on with our lifestyle and her own WW behavior in my view.
So there is no OM and wife does not want D. However I am choosing the sandi/DB approach because the MR itself is unhealthy and W is deeply wayward. Can anyone weigh in or point me to another user who may have been in a similar sitch?
And thanks for all the comments, I can't tell you how useful the forum has been in the short time since I've found it.
