SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

OP, there's nothing here that even resembles a situation that you should tolerate. IMHO you should ditch the MC and then set out some boundaries with your wife and enforce them. I'm sure there will be monumental push back. but so be it. Under the current situation you and your marriage are being totally disrespected

Setting boundaries for another adult doesn't work. Don't even think of trying to set boundaries for your W.

Hmmm ... consider your response to my telling you, 'Don't even ....' See what I mean?

You need to set boundaries for yourself. What will you tolerate? What are your deal killers? A boundary has a form of: 'If someone does ____, I will do ____.'

Assuming roughly equal power between the affected people, that gives the hearer a free choice between doing/not doing something and accepting the consequences.

The law says I can get a parking ticket if I do not pay for parking at a metered space. I have a free choice between paying for parking and risking a ticket.

In response to your initial question, yes I have been in your situation.

Only I knew who he was. He was a deacon in our church.

On the surface, a saint walking around with a Bible in his hand.

Fortunately, our marriage counselor was very competent and instructed my wife to have zero contact while working on her marriage.

And my wife said the same BS about me and how she needed him.

The back story is he only ministered to married white women (he was black) and bragged in an email to my wife how he comforted women sexually and they were grateful.

And yes I spied and proved it.

You have received excellent advice. It's tough but you need to follow it.

With respect to setting boundaries, settings boundaries for her and yourself are one and the same. With all due respect to those who disagree, boundaries are just a set of circumstances that lay out what is tolerable in a relationship. For instance, you could say to her don't do X. Or you could say if you do X I will do Y. The boundary is still X. Same boundary for both. Semantics really.

** Member to Member **

Semantics ... yes - the science of meaning in a language. Calling a difference of opinion 'semantics' goes to the heart of the matter - 2 different understanding of what a word means.

IMO, there's a difference between 'Don't do X' and 'If you do X, I'll do Y.'

The first assumes the speaker has a right or power to enforce a command. But the speaker generally doesn't have the right or power to enforce the command without violence, so saying 'don't' is a pretty weak way to act.

The 2nd assumes, correctly, the the hearer is autonomous, but so is the speaker. The hearer is free to act the way they want to act. The speaker takes responsibility for their own response. If you keep aware that one controls only themself, it eventually keeps one aware of what they can and can't change. Try it out.

Besides, as a BS, I didn't think it would be wise or effective to command my W into R. If she didn't have an overwhelming desire to rebuild our M, I didn't want her. So from d-minute on, she was aware she had choices to make - free choices. Some would lead to R, some to D. She had to choose.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:36 PM, Tuesday, December 10th]