Well... the friends' email is supportive, but do you want your wife to stay with you because she loves and respects you or because she doesnt want to lose a practical comfy life and thinks she cant do better?
I got a great idea from someone to start doing Cliff Notes on my long posts. lol
So, the short version: She seems to play the victim and will play it again if you show her the door. She's disconnected emotionally. She needs to be honest and tell you everything she's unhappy with in her life and the marriage in order to get back to mental health and in order to be able to reconnect with you and rediscover her love for you again. Otherwise, no point in working on trust behaviors if there's no reconnecting emotionally. You'd both only be playing a charade of marriage. It is a good idea for her to stay offline from places she can "meet" people, but not just to earn your trust- for her to get herself together, mentally.
The full version:
Yes, this is a very good question. I really feel for you b/c your wife has a kind of victim syndrome. Victim of her disease, her family, etc... victim of you and the marriage situation. I made selfish choices, but consider myself to be of pretty sound mind and body and am able to really dig through psychologically why I did what I did. If she is not cognisant enough to really think deep about why she did it/wants to keep doing it, then she's completely disconnected from you (and the world) emotionally. She was able to do it in the first place b/c she was disconnected. That's why women cheat. For men, it can really be just about the physical needs, not so for most women. I discovered I was no different. My disappointment in my marriage and spouse created an emotional gap I was not even aware of until I met someone that I wanted an emotional connection with. I thought I was being like a dude and was just out to find out what good sex was suppose to be like.
She seems out of touch with reality and is lost in the internet world as if that's reality. There is no point in her going through a regiment of motions to prove her trustworthiness if she's still broken on the inside and hasn't come to terms with why she is/was needing it. Since she's already caught, she may as well come clean. Even if it hurts you and her excuses are unfair, get her to tell you all the reasons why she's unhappy. She has taken you for granted, but not the comforts of the home. Yes, she may have only stayed b/c she can't be independant and take care of herself. If she is going to stay then she has to reconnect with you (and then start the acts of trust). If she can't/won't reconnect with you though and you show her the door- making you look like the bad guy- she will merely play the "woe is me" game and be the perpetual victim of life again. Wow- that's a tough one. But, it may take that kind of rejection for her to wake up. I may still be in the midst of my cheating madness if I was not rejected from my lover and then in a sense by my spouse b/c he told me he would make it easy for me and sign the papers if I was THAT unhappy. It hurt me to see him hurt and I finally could see where there was still love- albeit dim and needing dusting off. And, he is making changes too. Is she remorseful at all that she hurt you? Have you and she made any attempts to be kinder, gentler, more affectionate to each other? What kind of efforts is she making? You need to find out if she's completely and irrevocably checked out emotionally.