Wife's EA, PA - Wants to stay friends with OM

I've been in an exclusive relationship with my woman for 13 years today - we had our first date 3/25/2000 and have been husband/wife in all but name for many years. She did not have much experience with men and I was raised by a single mom / taught to treat women right, so I'm all she knows. We own a house, share accounts, and all that jazz - no kids, but I wanted them soon. For many (~7) years there had been no intimacy, made worse by a '11 auto crash where I suffered severe injuries from which I am still recovering. I tried repeatedly to tell her something was missing and I wasn't happy, but she was too proud and too deeply withdrawn for me to get her back. However, I had trusted her completely and I've been completely faithful to her. I learned recently that her friendship with a co-worker had crossed the line and was getting more intense with every week. I caught on early but she reassured me, lied to me, and told me they were only friends. I know she's not that type of person when she's in her right mind... but... I kept feeling things were off despite her lies to the contrary and I kept pushing her, and as I did the story began to change over ~a week - they were only friends but she loved him but it was a different kind of love than we had, then I found out they had kissed, then made out, and screwed around together after a work event/night bowling with coworkers when she didn't come home due to snow, and so on. They were way more than friends, and on at least 3 occasions they had sexual contact, they had made out several more times, and they "loved" each other. She said she was confused and didn't know what she wanted, asked for an open relationship (a clear sign she already had another relationship lined up), but I pulled her out of the fog and made her choices clear - she cut off contact with the other man at my demand. She said they both cried when they broke it off, he said he loved her, and they sealed the breakup with a french kiss while we were on a break. She has been working hard to make things right with me, and on this end she has been doing very well... avoiding the negative thinking, telling me everything, and showing me she cares, whereas before she said she was paralyzed by fear I didn't love her, would leave her, and she could not make me happy. I told her she just had to try, show me she loved me, and she would have had nothing to fear. And I would do the same. We had to talk and not let things deteriorate so much that they're difficult to repair. She is going to go to counseling for this event and the thinking patt erns that allowed it to happen. So on that end everything has been fine. However, she can't accept ending her "friendship" with this other man, who is married, and as far as I know his wife doesn't know yet (but she will). She feels it's so hard for her to make friends, she really likes being "one of the guys," and this was her closest and really her only close male friend aside from me. She also says she knows she has the strength to keep her relationships healthy now and wants to prove it. To me, it seems she just can't let this guy go. It's also clear that her view of men, their motives, and the way she interacts with them to gain acceptance is unhealthy. I'm not okay with her seeing other men... period... and certainly not the guy with whom I already know she fooled around. She says she sees things so clearly now, but how clear can her mind be if she wants to keep up contact with this man that threatened a 13 year relationship and she continues to bring him up only a week after I found out the extent of the physical side of the affair. Hell, for all I know some details might still be out there that I don't know about, and I know enough to be disgusted, sick, and frankly a bit traumatized. I see images in my head of them doing things together, I see the pleasure on her face as she does things to him and she lets him do things to her. I can't even process these images yet, but she can't even accept the end of her friendship with this guy and realize that 1. I need the safety away from him to give us time to heal and 2. If she were truly thinking clearly, would she still be working so hard to preserve something that almost cost her the most important friendship she's ever had? She thinks the guy is awesome, he can do no wrong, and he most certainly doesn't want to bang her. No, he's not that type of guy. He was just confused and they both made mistakes. But he is... it's fact... it's proven... he's married and he screwed around with a woman who had a ring on her finger, who he knew was taken, hell she even invited the guy to our house TWICE - and this was after they had made out - and they pretended things were normal. She doesn't understand the level of disrespect and betrayal I feel, not just from her, but from him. He's a guy... guys want sex... this guy got a taste of the first strange he's had in a while, he's in a bad marriage and gets no affection from his wife (he told my woman all kinds of sob stories and things legitimizing him straying from his marriage), and he is a HUGE risk because at the slightest slip on her end, he'll be ready to scoop her up. In her mind, she told me she was trying to fix herself, and in doing so fix them for us, because she could see how much he was hurt by his wife's emotional and physical distance. She started texting him again - I found out yesterday. I told her I was not okay with them having contact, but she took different parts of what I said to justify in her head resuming contact. I read the texts. Nothing too bad, but he called her "lovely" and was joking/flirting in a few texts, and you only need a basic understanding of guy psychology to see he's still geared for more with her. She was open/honest about it, but we had a fight as I re-iterated my demands, the reasoning behind them, etc. She broke it off with him AGAIN today and has been asking me for a timeline when they can be friends again and that sort of thing. How many times do I have to tell her I'm just not okay with it? I just want her to see the lack of wisdom in her thinking for both of our sakes, as everything else is on track for a reconciliation and healthy relationship moving forward. It's too much to ask of me to accept such a friendship, and it's too much to ask of herself to knowingly put herself back on the "X" and not expect a piano to fall on her head. I'm tired of this uncertainty. For a month now I have not had faith in our relationship. I can't think clearly, I'm unmotivated, have had problems eating, etc... all the classic symptoms. I love this girl and she knows it now more than ever, but she keeps tossing me back onto shaky earth, and this is one time where I can't be the strong one who fixes things... it's all the strength I can muster to control my anger/emotions and accept that this might be the end, as I've drawn a line that I cannot allow to be crossed. Period. I've been very close to just calling it quits, but she has made things so wonderful, even if it's only been for 1 week, and that week immediately followed the most intense betrayal I've ever experienced. I feel like I got my woman back after she had been deadened to my affection for years (OCD, depression). I feel betrayed, but I could accept what happened if it meant I got the real "her" back and back for good. After today and her renewed fight to keep her friendship with him, I'm very close to calling it quits again. I think she knows I'm ready to do it, and I know she doesn't want to lose me, but what else could I possibly do to show her I'm serious besides demanding we split and sell the house? I wanted her to see and hear from other people who had these experiences, those who had seen the rotating door on this forum of people in VERY similar situations, people who can see the pitfalls and outcomes, because apparently no matter how I phrase it, she's still holding on to something with this married man. She doesn't understand that he wants more and that alone makes a healthy friendship impossible. She doesn't understand that it's stupid to put yourself out there as bait to prove you're strong enough (especially so soon), and she certainly doesn't seem to understand how it would make me feel to know she's friends with a guy who took from me everything that I ever wanted (her love, affection, passion). She's so naive about all these things and I wish she'd just listen to wisdom - even if it's not me. I can't be off base here, can I? If I'm honest, hell no, I'm not okay with them being friends. Not now. Maybe not ever. So that's it, right? How can a relationship work and be healthy if she expects me to suppress these feelings? It's infuriating and so blatantly stupid to me that I can't discuss it without being angry anymore - I feel I've made myself and the situation perfectly clear, but she's just spinning her wheels trying to find a way to make everything work out so she can keep it all the way things were before the betrayal was revealed. How can I trust her again when I can see so clearly that she still wants to have her cake and eat it too? How can I trust her not to contact a guy when she is already doing mental gymnastics to justify contacting him again? And they work for the same company, different sites, but they do interact -- and this latest incident of contact between them was sparked by a work meeting with a shared customer they had on Thursday. That's the day they began texting again. Any words of wisdom for her or for us moving forward? Anything to make her realize that she's not being confident, or strong... but rather that she's being naive and putting herself back in danger for no justifiable reason? Or should I just call it quits at this point if she can't let him go? Because I feel that's my only option if she can't accept that I may never be okay with her being friends with this guy again... Thanks everyone.

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