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I do believe she's remorseful and feels really, truly guilty for what's happened

I’m sorry OP. It still seems you’re equating feeling guilty with remorse. It’s not. Feeling guilty is her being focussed on herself. Feeling guilty is not remorse, but instead regret. I urge you to do a deep dive on true remorse.

Here’s a start: true remorse would be her focusing on YOUR pain.

It’s your life, and ofc you’re in charge of your decisions, but understanding what true remorse looks like is absolutely essential to evaluate whether she actually is a good candidate for R. Downplay this at your peril.

[This message edited by gr8ful at 8:20 PM, Saturday, June 27th]

All decisions made by human beings are based on the deciding human being's feelings.

Logic is the servant of our feelings.

All decisions come down to, 'I want THIS.'

Just sayin'....

You are right, we all have a choice.

I have to remember that I have a choice here too. I know it's not my fault if I decide to break things off and separate. I woke up this morning and thought "if he's still in the picture, even in the smallest way and I find out, I'm done". A second chance is one thing, a third chance? I don't think I could give that.

For those here who have had multiple d-day discoveries with their partners and have reconciled, how did that make you feel? How did you handle it? I'm not saying that this is the case in my situation, I'm just curious.

"if he's still in the picture, even in the smallest way and I find out, I'm done". A second chance is one thing, a third chance? I don't think I could give that.

That’s an excellent boundary. But then you immediately hint your boundaries are squishy:

For those here who have had multiple d-day discoveries with their partners and have reconciled, how did that make you feel? How did you handle it?

If you set a boundary, and then surrender it when it’s violated, you will lose whatever respect she ever had for you. I pray you’ll come to see the importance of not only setting firm boundaries but KEEPING them should they be tested.

Thank you for that.

The boundary's been set. I essentially gave her an ultimatum, if he's around at all, ever I'm out.

Second chances are one thing, third chances? No way.

Have you reviewed the text messages and communications from the affair?

Yes, she showed me them. I read only as much as I could handle. I confirmed that they did in fact not sleep together. But the emotional connection is the hardest part.

Presently, I’m leaning toward leaving. My gut tells me it’d be best to just walk away.

Peterparts

I essentially gave her an ultimatum, if he's around at all, ever I'm out.

I seldom use ultimatums.

The reason is that the ultimatum needs to be very 100% clear, and you need to be willing to follow it through.

What happens if she runs into him at the Mall? No intention, no planning. He says "hi", she walks on away from him. Technically he’s "around". You out? What if his job requires him to go again to her work?

You said she sent an NC letter. I hope it was as short, clear and unemotional as the draft I gave you. That letter also let’s HER know how to behave in the above scenarios. She knows that any contact should be shared with you. But if she also has a fear that any contact will automatically lead to you leaving… Well…

I suggest you use a more open claim – slash – ultimatum. Basically, something like:

Your affair has made me question our marriage and my ability to remain married. If I am going to discover actions such as non-reported contact with OM, planned contact with OM, searching online for OM, omitting key elements of truth and so on then that will heavily erode any hope or wish I might have of remaining married. I need you to verify for me with actions and words that YOU want to save this marriage.

This gives you so much more leeway. Like as-is if she were to join a group on social media where OM is also (seeing as they were at the same school) then by your original ultimatum your marriage is over.

I seldom use ultimatums.

The reason is that the ultimatum needs to be very 100% clear, and you need to be willing to follow it through.

What happens if she runs into him at the Mall? No intention, no planning. He says "hi", she walks on away from him. Technically he’s "around". You out? What if his job requires him to go again to her work?

You said she sent an NC letter. I hope it was as short, clear and unemotional as the draft I gave you. That letter also let’s HER know how to behave in the above scenarios. She knows that any contact should be shared with you. But if she also has a fear that any contact will automatically lead to you leaving… Well…

I suggest you use a more open claim – slash – ultimatum. Basically, something like:

Your affair has made me question our marriage and my ability to remain married. If I am going to discover actions such as non-reported contact with OM, planned contact with OM, searching online for OM, omitting key elements of truth and so on then that will heavily erode any hope or wish I might have of remaining married. I need you to verify for me with actions and words that YOU want to save this marriage.

This gives you so much more leeway. Like as-is if she were to join a group on social media where OM is also (seeing as they were at the same school) then by your original ultimatum your marriage is over.

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She actually was the one who called it a ultimatum. But it boiled down to "I can't see you, talk to you or continue our relationship. I have jeopardized my marriage and relationship with my husband, and I need to prioritize our relationship now. Please do not come to the brewery when I'm working, do not try and contact me in any way."

Short and to the point.

I told her, "if you're 100% serious about making this work, it's on you to prove it. Because if there's another discovery in the future, imagine how much worse that would make me feel. Have you thought about how this might make me feel worthless, unwanted, insignificant? You developed a relationship, and feelings for someone else...that quite plainly shows me that you didn't value our relationship the same as I did and that breaks my heart unlike anything else."

I remember everything from our last conversations. My gut still doesn't feel right, and I'll get to the bottom of this soon I hope. She's got her second in-person therapy session today too, so I'm debating if I wait to talk to her more about this. I don't know how to make the next moves, but I'm going to make them this week.

Bigger makes a very good point. My wife's AP approached her twice after d day. Both times she told me about it. If I had told her something along the lines of "if you ever talk to him again I'm gone" she may not have told me out of fear that I would leave. Then if I would have found out about it later it would have been a much, much bigger problem. She needed to feel safe enough to be honest with me. A blunt, black and white ultimatum would have made her feel less safe.

So yes, he approached her, but she handled it perfectly. Loudly told him that she loves me and to hit the road while making sure there were witnesses. Reporting him to HR was the next step if he didn't get the hint, so having witnesses was a very nice touch.

He ended up getting fired and trespassed from any company property for some unrelated stupidity. Several months later he showed up at my wife's location. It's a retail store, so he could have just been there picking some stuff up, or he could have been looking for my wife. I don't know, but in either case she saw him. She ducked into a side office, then called some supervisors and pointed him out which led to him being escorted off the property with a warning that the police would be called next time. She let them know that he made her feel unsafe and they let her stay in the office until he was gone.

The point is, I didn't give her a black and white ultimatum. We had a plan in place if he were to ever approach her again and she executed it perfectly. Part of that plan was for her to tell me if he ever tried to intitiate contact with her. She had reservations about it when it actually happened because she knew it could trigger me, but not telling me would of course be so much worse. So I made sure to communicate and demonstrate that it's safe for her to be honest and transparent with me.

I've put a lot of effort and emphasis into communicationg that we can work through almost anything except for lies, secrets, or deception. Those are my dealbreakers. Not that it would be an automatic "I'm gone," but would definitely push me more in that direction than just being open, transparent, and honest about everything.

That's seriously helpful.

I'm glad I didn't put it entirely in a black and white category after all.

I just have to be straightforward again, maybe today after work if I've got the nerve still.

Though my gut has been telling me to ask "if you enter his number into your contacts list, is it gone? will you do this in front of me?" There's a part of me that doesn't believe her that he's out of the picture as she said he is. I understand that if he goes to her place of work, she can't explicitly ban him from coming in, but I would hope that she'd tell me he was there.

I need to remain firm, I need to find that strength I had a few weeks ago and stand tall on this. If she can't/won't honor that, am I wrong to end things there and move on?

She can't control what he does, but she can control how she responds to it. The 2 of you can work out a plan along the lines of "if he approaches me I will do X, and promise to tell you about it ASAP." "X" could be something along the lines of "Please leave me alone. What I did almost destroyed my marriage. I never want to see or talk to you again. I love [your name] and my relationship with him is my top priority. If you continue to harass/talk to/approach me I will consider pursuing legal action."

It doesn't have to be exactly that, of course. You 2 can work out whatever feels comfortable or right and go from there. A key would be letting her know that hiding it or not telling you about it will make things so much worse than her being transparent with you. I didn't promise that I wouldn't get upset, but I did tell my wife that I could handle most anything except for deception, secrets or lies, even by omission. Her demonstrating honesty and transparency will go a long way toward rebuilding trust. Even if it temporarily hurts in the moment, in the long run it would be a pretty big deposit into the trust account.

[This message edited by Pogre at 2:40 PM, Tuesday, June 30th]

Thank you.

And I guess that's how I should try and handle it provided I feel like I can tolerate the ups and downs of it all.

I'm a pretty resilient person, but this hurts so badly.

The fact that my wife's AP was a co worker who was subsequently fired and trespassed made the situation a lot easier to deal with for us for sure, but now, for you, the cat is out of the bag with your wife. So there's no need to hide anything from now on, right? There are things she can say and do to strongly discourage her AP if he's persistent and she really wants to. Just make sure you impress upon her that keeping you in the loop with whatever happens will always be the safest route.