It's so hard to have compassion for someone when they have hurt you so deeply...I know as the LBS. As I have said in previous posts, I am also the equivelent of your wife in the M dynmamics dept...I didn't run to someone else. But I did become the burden in our relationship. Why? Because I lost myself in trying to make things work in all the wrong ways and then finding I had nothing left to give. Ask yourself if your wife started out in your marriage knowing who she was. I did. I was strong, I loved myself, and I was sure that my husband and I could work it out. Our individual issues grew too "loud" to be ignored, but...rather than finding healing, we both 'hacked' away at what wasn't working, trying the same old things,...only harder and eventually creating such damage to one another. So...maybe your wife didn't always take from you, but you two developed an imbalance of power and she, too became a burden. I may be way off on this, but if not, try in your pain to have compassion on the woman who may have lost her 'inner Pamela'...believe me...that hurts like hell, too.
