Erin, I've reread your thread, and I had some more thoughts.

First, let me say that all of his actions until the trip are going to be based on the anticipation of how great that will be. (It might "cement" their R, as you suggest, or it might cause it to fizzle, who knows?) That means that there is basically no hope of change until after he gets back, unless you decide to do something drastic, as you will be tempted to do.

What you should know is this: most affairs do not ultimately result in a divorce. In those that do, the straying spouse rarely ends up marrying the other person in the affair. In those cases where they do marry, they have over a 75% of divorce. Therefore, if you can be patient, you have a very good chance of getting him back. There are many people on these threads for whom DBing works. See Tim's thread for a recent example.

His trip is not the end of the world and it is not the end of your marriage, even though it must seem like it.

On the other hand, it is easier for him to maintain his fantasy when he doesn't see OW but every few months for a short while. A long distance affair can last much longer than other kinds because there's no opportunity for the two of them to get tired of each other, which they might very well do if they were together all the time.

So, if you simply can't handle doing nothing until he gets back from Europe, you could try to pull a big 180 on him right now.

Personally, I would tell him that MC is useless right now because he won't work on the marriage, he instead wants to work on his affair; and his lying makes everything he says in MC worthless anyway since there's no way you can believe any word that comes out of his mouth. I would stop going, stop talking to him about your R or the OW, and basically quit talking to him (though still being friendly when you do speak).

You may also want to throw some light on the sitch and tell some more people. It isn't necessarily wrong for more people to know -- just ask yourself if that person could help or if they would only hurt your chances of reconciliation.

In any case, you need to reformulate a plan. Fear is not a plan and you can't live the way you are right now.

The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth." (Psalm 145:18)