OK...I've never said that you demand that she not see any friends.

You need to determine what the appropriate boundaries ARE.

Examples would be:

1. No more contact of any kind with either OM (men she had affairs/emotional affairs with). Ever.

2. Limit 'social' time spent with other men. Do not go out with them in 'one on one' situations, like for dinner, drinks, lunch, etc... Group functions are understandable, but during these you should remain with the group, and not 'take off' with anyone of the opposite sex for personal discussions or whatever.

3. Do not engage in deeply personal conversations with other men. Things like marital problems, intimate feelings, sexual jokes or banter, none of these should be topics of conversation. If they are brought up, tell the other man bluntly that you do not want to talk about something like that, and change the subject. If he continues to bring topics like this up...end the conversation and tell her husband.

4. Basically do not engage in ANY activity with someone that you know you would not do in front of your spouse. Do not carry on a conversation, engage in flirting, or otherwise do something that you wouldn't do if you were standing in front of your spouse at that time.

5. If you feel you HAVE to do something that seems to go against the spirit of this agreemant, talk with your spouse BEFORE it happens and POJA a solution. If your male boss insists on a one on one lunchtime meeting...talk with your H about it first, and find a way to make it acceptable...like inviting another co-worker, or having this lunch in the middle of a very public place.

6. Immediately inform your H if any old flame contacts you, any prior "OM" attempts contact, or if anything that violates the spirit (not just the letter) of this agreemant.

Get the picture? These are things that SHOULD have been happening already. It's because boundaries weren't in place that created the environment that allowed the A to happen...again, just as it did in my case.

My wife should let me know if she gets an email from her High School sweetie. I might be ok with them emailing a time or two to catch up...as long as it's done out in the open, and not secretly. But I wouldn't be comfortable with her telling him about our married/sex life. That's out of bounds.

Again, kinda make sense now?

yes those sound perfectly reasonable actually, i will appy that. Thank you for the explanation.

But what sort of boundaries should be on female friends, nevermind the realities of what can happen between women that can end up in an affair (i have seen this happen before too)

But what about female friends who are actively discussing all her issues and your marital issues with her and giving her advice that is designed to hurt the marital structure and break up the family. She has several friends who openly say if you are 100% happy all the time you need to leave, nevermind the kids or the relationship (this friend just got divorced to run off with another woman and leave her kid fatherless) . They try to tell her that cheating is ok because you can love 2 people at once, or lying is ok, or getting divorced is ok for your children they don't need 2 parents. Only you matter etc etc etc.

How do you deal with that sort of issue? It seems maybe some friends need to not be around or maybe limits set on discussions. But maybe thats unrealistic between female friends.

I would say that her friends are full of crap.

You can tell her you don't like her hanging out with them but chosing female friends she can hang out with is a little overboard IMHO.

I would point out how morally wrong what her friends are telling her.

I try to get my FWW to see the errors in others statements.

For example. Would you be ok with me having an A? Would the same statements apply if I were not 100% happy all of the time. Is that how you would like me to judge the health of our M?

Nobody, I mean nobody, Is 100% happy with any realationship all of the time.

If they believe they are the only ones that matter what does that make them. I can think of one word selfish.

I would put it back on her again. If only you matter doesn't that mean the kids don't?

Sometimes M is about sacrafice. I sacraficed a new car because OS needed braces. If I wanted to be 100% happy OS would have crooked teeth but I would have the new car. I would be a big pile of crap if I did that.

I would then ask her why would she associate herself with people like that. Usually people associate with people that have things in common with them. I hope you don't want to be like those women.

That would make people see you like they see them.

Nope.

Demand/Ultmatum: You try to "make" the partner do something you want. You threaten to punish the partner in some way if they do not comply.

Boundary: You ask for what you want, but if they do not comply, you do not punish them in any way. The only thing you do is remove YOURSELF from the situation or even the relationship, because the only thing you control is yourself.

Examples:

Demand/Ultimatum: "Don't meet other men for drinks because if you do I'll be mad, I'll berate you, I'll ignore you, I'll abuse you, I'll throw you out, I'll start meeting other women for drinks, etc. etc. etc." Pick your punishment.

Boundary: "It is very hurtful and humilating to me to have a wife who meets other men for drinks. You can keep doing that if you want, but I will not be part of a relationship where you do."

So:
Demand/Ultimatum: You actively try to make them do something or stop doing something.

Boundary: You don't try to make them do anything OR make them stop doing something. You tell them how it affects you, and if the behaviour continues you remove YOURSELF from the situation.

If the other person is still free to pursue the behavior and you are not trying to punish them into stopping, it's a boundary.

If you are actively trying to stop them, it's a demand/ultimatum.

Does that help?
Mulan

but hurtingless, isn't that just me making usingp unishment, i mean my main method of punishment for these things is I WILL LEAVE.

To me it still seems sort of carrot and stickish.

If i don't give them an idea of the what will happen if they do what i don't like then isn;t it just me being weak again and making requests but not following through with the consequences for what they do when they do something damaging to the relationship, marriage or family?

I still see me using a threat if a threaten to leave if they don't adhere to my requests. i understand its a bit different than demanding but not by much.

let me lay it out this way....

i say " i want a wife who deosn't want to have sex with other men"

she has sex with other men ? what do i do?
Say "that is upsetting me stop it or i will leave"

She does it again , then what do i do? Leave?
Isn't that me using punishment? Sorry to be dense about this but it seems that way to me.

If i don't give her some consequences for her actions if she goes against our agreement then am i not simply doing what i have been doing all along which is rant and rave that this is bad and talk endlessly about how horrible this is for our family etc, but when she doesn't listen and continues i don't just up and leave. i sit down like a chump [censored] an negotiate with her again. re-experessing all my stuff again for her to ignore again?

"If i don't give them an idea of the what will happen if they do what i don't like then isn;t it just me being weak again and making requests but not following through with the consequences for what they do when they do something damaging to the relationship, marriage or family?"

No it is not weak.

The difference is PROGRESSIVE ENFORCEMENT. A boundry can be crossed just slightly and if it is are you really going to D her? No you are probably not. So you don't do anything. Then she ventures over a little more. Still nothing. Then she completely crosses the boundry.

See IMHO most people will TEST your boundries to see how far they can go without consequence or enforcement.

The ulimatum makes it impossible for you really to enforce a minor boundry crossing.

With a Boundry progressive enforcement lets the other person know your feelings everystep of the way.

For example if she tries to dip her toe over the boundry. You don't D her you might say. You know we agreed you wouldn't do that. It has really hurt me that you would do that again can you please not do it. THAT IS enforcing your boundry. As minor as that may seem she knows you are aware of the boundry and will tell her when she crosses it. Maybe she decides to take one tiny step over the boundry. You then say Hey you did it again. Is that action so important to you that you are willing to cause damage to our M? Again she is aware of the fact you are watching that boundry and will protect it.

This MAY stop her from going full bore over the boundry.

With the ultimatum lets face it they will test how far they can get and there is only one choice you have a D.

A boundry gives you many ways to deal with the situation an ultimatum only one. If the first time she tests that ultimatum if you do not D her the ultimatum is now a joke.

With the boundry you can progressively show her you mean it and there are many options you can chose from.

I don't know your FWW or you so I don't know what is important to her.

I made the same mistake you did. I gave ultimatums and when she did what I asked her not to do she realized I wasn't going to D her she kept on doing it. Now that there are boundries I can enforce them without going to the extreme.

There is no renegotiation. You give her your boundries and let her know when she crosses them it hurts your M.

Just like it says in an employment letter. any infraction of the rules can include anything up to and including immediate termination. Not termination but anything up to and including. That is a boundry.

There are consequences to every action.
Personal boundaries just lay out in advance what som econsequqnces will be.

What your lack of boundaries says is :

"stay faithful to me and I will trust, love and respect you unquestioningly. Cheat on me and I will do exactly the same"

What you clearly do not understand is that most affairs are not intelligent decisions made by a sane person aware of the consequences and aware of the valid reasons why its the best option for them at that time.

Each tiny step into infidelity increases the illicit pleasure of the action which in turn ecourages more progress towards cheating. Then eventually, without ever knowing it, teh WS finds themselves naked and sweating with their OP.

This process of incremental pleasure causing incremental cheating temporarily overrides normal logical functions in WS minds. I am not making this up. Read here and Harley books to see its true.

You behave as though your WW was never anything but calculating in her behaviour. That is almost certainly not true. Your WW was almost certainly as mad as a fish while she betrayed you, and now she may well be undergoing withdrawal.
You advocate taking no action in the face of betrayal and justify that in the name of feminism, not wanting to 'punish' or 'control'. In truth your approach does not recognise the nature of infidelity.

All I see is fear manifested in enormous conflict avoidance.

You are at liberty to accept your WWs cheating and take no proven remedial actions , but PLEASE don't defend those decisions as workable in any place but your own mind. Thousands of couples counselled by the Harleys alone disprove that.

It is the instinct of many BS to begin with to accept crumbs and blame themselves. Thats CA.

I won't trouble you with my thoughts again. Good luck.

thank you both for those excellent replies.
Hurtingless that does make perfect sense to me.

i guess what i have been doing is even after i find stuff supsicious we fight then i want to give her more rope to test her and see if she continues. I see this pattern all along, i value that very much for some reason. i guess it is fear manifesting itself.

i was really just wanting to watch the wife be tested and pass the test, instead she failed every test.

Even now i want more than anything to see her get tempted again while i watch so i can see her honest reaction.
To test her love for me.

I think i understand why that is counter productive now, thank you all very much for helping me to understand this.

Ver,

No problem.

I can tell you I had absolute trust in my FWW as well. I thought she diseved it as well.

Now I look back an what I saw is there was never really a time that I measured her trustworthiness until after the A.

What I mean by that is there were times in retrospect a red flag should have gone up.

One of the biggest things for me was her flirting. After her plastic surgery she became a big flirt. Of course I trusted her. Duh. We had a couple little arguments over it and I let it go.

She was crossing my boundry. So now she gets a month away from me and she flirts with OM and he jumps all over her. What I found out is I could trust her flirting if I was there. LOL.

Now had I progressively enforced my boundry maybe she would have not flirted and he wouldn't have jumped all over her.

Before she left on her trip I had the feeling she was going to have an A. I even brought it to her attention I was feeling that way. I shouldn't have trusted her.

There were signs in my M I am sure there were signs in yours you just didn't see them.

Now you better see them because if you don't learn from the past you are bound to repeat it.

Allowing your spouse to go out without you and be with members of the opposite sex is a bad idea.

There are certain situations that no spouse should put themselves in unless they want to betray their spouse. I also as a married man would not want to go out and drink alcohol and then go to the Playboy mansion and then be surprised if something happens. When you have alcohol and members of the opposite sex you asking for trouble. Even though I was unhappy for years in my marriage I tried not putting myself in a position where I was drinking with only women. I did have some women when they got drunk start to hit on me. One was getting married in a couple of weeks and she got very forward. It is best not to be in that position.

Stop splitting hairs with a demand or a boundary. You can call it anything you want it does not matter. You are either going to put up with something or you are not. It is your choice so own it.

I don’t care what anyone says one of my boundaries or demands was that my wife cannot sleep with other men. End of discussion I will not accept it or allow it. I am not making a choice for her, she is making her own choices. I personally reject any talk that I don’t have a right to make this so called “Demand”. As a matter of fact if we want to not call it an ultimatum or demand I will call it a “Vow”. Does that sound better?

It’s funny but when I took my wedding vows there was something in there about “forsaking all others.” I don’t recall them being “Demands” but they were vows. My wife without any threat of harm from me made those “Vows” to me. I don’t think she should be surprised if I don’t want to be with her anymore since she did not honor her commitment.

I did not read all of your posts but I read the first one where your wife through herself at 2 guys but somehow they never had sex(I did not read all your posts so if this is changed I am sorry). Let me just say I really don’t believe this even though in theory it could be true. Lets be honest if a woman wants to have sex there are plenty of men who will be glad to do it with anyone. I also understand this is your 2nd wife that has done this to you and I admit that really sucks.

It is all your choice so just own it. You have every right to expect your wife not to cheat on you. If she does cheat that is certainly her choice. Then you get to decide if you are going to accept it or move on.

There is something wrong inside her that causes her to do this. God gave us free will. She chooses this so either there will be consequences or there will not be. Again, it is your choice.

i agree with you about the Vows, they are not demands.