Wife is Staying, Now What?

[toughlover]

Thanks very much to all of you for the advice and cautions. I appreciate it greatly. Let me fill in the blanks from my story in a way that will answer the questions AmyC asked:

I had gotten a new job in a town about 70 miles away from where we were living, and about 55 miles away from where the OM currently lives. Neither she nor I have been to that church since May. She doesn't believe anyone else there knows. None of them may actually know anything, but it's possible that they suspect something, and it's also possible at this point that the OM has talked to somebody, though we've heard nothing, and my wife is in occasional contact via email with some of our friends from back there.

She sent him an email at my request telling him that she had decided to work things out with me, and for him not to contact her because she would not respond. She also agreed to cut off all communication with him. I suppose she could've called him from a pay phone or something, but right now she's with the kids all day and we live less than 2 miles from my office. Any kind of contact between them right now, while possible, would be very difficult to do on the sly. Besides, her words to me were, "I'm not going to sneak around at this point. If I wanted to leave, I'd just leave." That was a couple weeks ago.

She's in a lot of pain right now, but it mainly seems to be over her feelings for OM. However, lately she's been marveling at my forgiveness, my 180, and the way I'm back to being like I was when she met me, only better. Yet, she's still grieving over the OM, and apparently they had big plans once she left me.

And you're right, grasshopper, whenever it comes up the one thing she asks me for is patience, which has always been a weakness of mine, but so far I've done pretty well, with God's help.

Grasshopper: we've been married 11 years. She was married once before me, was divorced when I met her. We have two sons, ages 13 (from first marriage, whom I adopted when he was 4) and 10. She's 31 and I'm 39. Yes, she was very young when we met and married (one year after we met), and she had married even younger. We're dealing with all that (and other) stuff in counseling.