First, some backstory: I came here to these boards 9 years ago because I was desperate to talk to someone, anyone, about how my (at the time) WW's ONS & ongoing EA with her Ex was affecting me - none of my friends & family knew about it. To the outside world, we were a model couple.
This place helped me a lot, and as the EA continued over the better part of a year, it was good to be able to connect with others experiencing something similar in their own lives. This place helped me learn to set boundaries & expectations, and ultimately helped me work my way toward the conclusion that I needed to exit the proverbial building if she wasn't going to put in the work & end things with the OM.
The very day where (unbeknownst to her) I had reached out to a divorce lawyer for a consultation, my WW broke off contact with the OM & recommitted to us.
That was almost 8.5 years ago - I won't pretend that everything has been perfect since then, but fWW has stayed faithful & we have worked hard on our communication to be able to have open & honest discussions about any topic. The ONS/EA has faded into the background & I rarely ever think about it these days. Most importantly, I can say truthfully that I love her, and I've come to believe again that she loves me.
Flash forward to today, which I realize after I decided to come here again happens to be the 9 year anniversary of her admitting to the ONS. fWW had been updating me in the preceding days that OM's brother & his wife have had a baby. We were friendly & social with them prior to the ONS/EA; frankly, they're good people & I don't think they were aware of OM's actions. Nevertheless, we were forced to back out of attending their wedding the same year as the ONS/EA due to OM's presence there.
She tells me that they are moving back to the area where we live, and says that we'll likely be seeing them again. She can sense how I'm reacting given my curt replies so she comes over, gives me a hug, kisses me and apologizes for what she did. She says she knows she ruined the dynamic there between the four of us. I told her I wasn't sure if I wanted to be involved in their lives, given their proximity to OM - she reaffirmed her commitment to never seeing or communicating to OM again, told me she had told them that she doesn't want to know anything about his life, and would ensure with them that any visit only took place when it could be assured that he would not be around. We left it at that, she had to leave for work - but I'm unsure how comfortable I am with her even seeing just them. I don't want to deny her anything, but I can't ignore that I'm getting triggered by this for the first time in a long time.
There are a couple friends of hers who I ultimately decided were not friends of our marriage based on conversations they had with her & my suspicions of their actions around the time of the ONS...in the fragile aftermath of our initial reconciliation, I decided not to push having her remove them from her life entirely, though I privately decided I never really wanted to see either of them again, which has worked out. One she naturally stopped talking to & doesn't really have a relationship with, the other she still sees a couple times a year (and always in the company of other long-time group friends) and otherwise chats with sporadically - this friend is also friends with OM.
If I didn't put my foot down for those two, how can I suddenly tell her that she can't see these two, who were nothing but kind to us before everything went down? Their return to the area also widens the possibility that I will run into the aforementioned friend & even OM himself, whether I want to or not...how do I handle this without running away to another part of the world?
