[snowmike]

Thank you both so much for your replies.
I have not felt able to discuss this with anybody for obvious reasons. My wife is not a bad person in any way, but she has done something extremely hurtfull and has displayed her selfish tendancies very clearly.
Forever - thanks for your brutal honesty and for saying it how you see it - you may well be right no matter how much it scares me. I take on board everything you say and have already stopped the smothering and declarations etc. Even though I don't feel like it, I need to stay cool and keep my feelings hidden inside.
Raymond - she definitely justified it on my lack of attention, plus she is going through the monopause which may be having an impact as well. I can't turn back time but I can try to save whatever is left and try to rebuild even if there is only a small chance this might work. The mechanism used to try and achieve this is what is all important now.
She has said she is with me and not with him and that is where we are at, when I have asked about her committment to rebuilding.
Yes, I think she is trying to give it a chance, no matter how feeble it seems to me.
It frustrates me that she always seems to be in the driving seat, but I think I just have to accept that for the time being. Maybe time will help her to get over him and come back to me? I know this may be grasping at straws, but that is what I have decided to do, so will make my best attempt to rebuild.
If she contacts him again, it will be over and I will not offer any more olive branches. She knows this in no uncertain terms. I still have a little dignity left (not much and I hate that fact).
Forever, I now realise I have gone about things in the wrong way over the last 5 weeks - thanks for making this clear.
Any more advice on how best to move forward in improving things will be much appreciated.