I haven't posted before to you and I don't know your entire situation, just what is on this thread. Please forgive me if I rehash something that has been said before or go over ground that was covered ages ago.
I started at the part where you snooped and was a little disturbed, not just at your wife's reaction, but at the responses as well. Why shocked? Not because you snooped...you seemed insecure in the relationship at the time, and I believe rightfully so, but because everything was turned around on you. "You are an evil, evil man for invading my privacy and you know I'm entitled to talk harmlessly to anyone I want" is not a response that really seems all that conducive to patching things up. Her response to me and her diary cataloguing your numerous faults said to me that she wasn't even close to the point of wanting to reconcile. Not really anyway. She seemed to still be looking for reasons #1 through #20000 to get out of the marriage.
And your response is....I know I should do better...I'm such a jerk...I'm only thinking of myself.
What this all says to me is that it was too early for piecing. You didn't get any apology or understanding of your pain because she's still in that same place she was before....ready to leave (and of course painfully she has finally showed that was true). And piecing was too early for you as well because you were and are still at the point where you are insecure that she could leave.
I'm not trying to be harsh John. I feel for you and think I understand your situation pretty well. My wife left due to an EA with someone over the internet, a fantasy of a relationship that was perfect. There was a time we almost had the breakthrough where she would come back. I can picture the result of that as exactly what has happened to you; her feeling justified in her actions, dictating all the changes, keeping score on my faults, while I kissed her butt and jumped through every flaming hoop she asked me too. Looking back I'm happy that we didn't reconcile then. It took a divorce, my giving up and moving on, and her working through her own issues for us to reconcile. And she came back with remorse, apologies, and a commitment to making us work. I feel that you need a similar process. One in which you are firmly planted on your own two feet without "needing" her and she needs to work through her anger and built up resentments of you. You do need time to make the changes that work for you and that will last. Not the changes that are solely for her benefit.
I'm a little skeptical of her plan in terms of the on/off relationship. It doesn't take into account what you want. Or is that what you envision for a long-term solution? I'm sure you want more and that really allows her to have a friend without more, and leave you without an opportunity to get a life. But it's up to you. I just think you might benefit from a little less of her, especially when it isn't fulfilling what you need from life.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. Abraham Lincoln
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. Theodore Roosevelt
