Feeling,
Each and every case is different and not a single poster here on SI can claim to offer the one and only correct solution for you. What we can do is base our suggestions on experience and knowledge….
I’m going to put forth some generalizations. I don’t have any firm statistics behind these but others will confirm that again and again these generalizations have proven to be right. They might not all apply to you but IMHO ignoring them would be a major mistake.
Many of us compare infidelity to an addiction. It’s quite a close comparison and it allows us to use something many of us know about or have a better way of comprehending. Keep in mind that although the comparison is useful then it is limited.
Affairs will only be dealt with if they are truly over.
This is a two part problem. The first part is the actual physical part. The second is the mental part. If you are lucky then the first part is in place right now. Unfortunately that part can only hold true for a limited amount of time.
If I refer to the addiction comparison. After d-day your wife is like an alcoholic that’s been caught doing something extremely stupid and destructive. So in the hangover next day she decides that she won’t ever drink again and when she makes that decision she is totally 100% committed. However – without resolving what makes her drink – all she has is her own determination. So next Friday evening she decides to follow the girls to a bar and only have soda. Then as the evening progresses she orders a glass of white wine, simply to hold on to. When that’s finished then a beer won’t hurt… Then all of a sudden it’s dancing on tabletops with the lampshade on her head.
So if we assume the physical part is over (and I am not happy assuming that!) then right now she and OM are totally committed to being “professional”. But what happens at the next budget meeting when they work late? Other than the fact YOU shouldn’t be happy with that then chances are the conversation will cross that line. It will probably be simple and “innocent”: “are you and gf doing OK?”, “Is your husband still angry?”; sort of like simply holding a glass of white wine doesn’t make an alcoholic drunk but it definitely makes taking the first sip more tempting.
If I stick to the addiction: In full recovery the aim is that an alcoholic COULD work in a bar if he had to without wanting or needing a drink (remember Sam from Cheers?). However that’s not something that happens in the first years of recovery. That’s WAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY down the line. In the beginning alcoholics are told to remove all alcohol from the house, spouses to abstain for a couple of months, to switch channels when booze is advertised on TV, to stay away from bars and the wine racks at the grocery store…
The same applies to infidelity. We STRONGLY recommend enforceable no contact.
There are two main reasons for this: For YOUR peace of mind and to keep her away from her “drug of choice”.
Unfortunately NC isn’t possible while they work together…
So is her career important? Is her income important? No doubt. But people tend to change jobs more often than spouses. If her income or her career is more important than her marriage… well then it’s better to know right now.
Not that she necessarily needs to leave the job but you need assurance that they don’t work together, that her time there is accountable and that they are not sharing lunch, breaks, meetings…
So what assurance do you have that it’s over? How can she assure you she isn’t meeting OM?
What’s their work relationship? Is he/she his/her supervisor? Jobs in any way connected?
MY view is that if you only have her word that the affair is over the odds are at best 4/10 that it’s still ongoing.
MY view is that IF she does not establish total NC with OM then the odds are about 6/10 the affair will start again.
Those are pretty slim odds for your marriages success…
I wonder why she had the affair. After all – the marriage isn’t yet so old, the OM is not married and a divorce would be rather “easy” (no kids, short marriage…). She could easily have left and set off on a life with OM.
Well… actually I’m not so surprised in the sense that affairs are very seldom about OM (if ever). It’s not that OM is the dream-prince she was looking for when she settled for you. There is some underlying need she has that made her decide to allow a relationship with OM to develop past that moral line. Chances are it will be because OM made her feel hot and wanted, that he told her she was sooooo smart at the office. That he stroked the right ego-spots and that it simply developed from there. No – I am not saying it’s the OM fault. Your WW was receptive where she shouldn’t have been receptive.
So what has she done to assure you she won’t have another affair?
Odds on her having another affair: Well here I do have a researched statistic. It’s been shown that a person that has had an affair is three times more likely to cheat in new affairs than a “normal” person to have the first affair.
Really let that sink in: IF you don’t deal with this issue. IF you don’t get WW to seek IC. IF you and WW don’t seek MC. IF this is simply rug-swept… You are more or less doomed to numerous d-days in the future.
Has your WW told you why she is in the marriage? Has she told you why she wants to work on the marriage?