WOW!
I've had the "monkey-mind" myself and was ashamed at how I'd let the monkey run loose and fantasize about pleasures with this new person in my idyllic, utopian world. Deep down I know infidelity, even light flirting, is not acceptable.
I'd quash the monkey and then go out of my way to avoid the object of these fantasies. This mindset would also prompt me to look at my wife and remember the things I love her for. Yes's she'd be older than my fantasy and heavier but instead of an older woman I'd see a woman who is aging gracefully. I'd also remember that this woman committed herself to me, banking on the fact that I'd be hers for life. After that much thinking the chattering goes away.
It helps me that my father blatantly cheated on my mother, humiliating her and his children. I watched my mother suffer psychologically. Because I was the oldest she'd talk to me, sometimes crying. I knew her heart was broken. I could not fathom why anyone would hurt another human being that way. I think my exposure to that as a child sets up a natural revulsion towards infidelity.
My wife meanwhile succombed to the monkey. She abruptly asked for a divorce earlier this year. She said I don't earn enough money (I make about $90k) to take care of her. She works at a downtown advertising firm and concluded I don't measure up. She works with the kind of men she wants in her life right now - $300k, expensive cars, jet set vacations, wives who don't work, country club. If I were more ambitious I'd have these things, she said.
She came out and told me she resents not having these things in her life. She has spent so much time looking at these men and what she doesn't have that she doesn't appreciate what we do have - a $750,000 home, in affluent suburb, friends, family, wonderful child, great careers. We do take vacations, own two cars although they aren't luxury, loyalty up till now.
Guess what? There's a guy in her office who's going to make her world right. She's 46 and delusional. I'll chuckle when he dumps her after consumating this thing and moves on. You're right. She's burned this bridge. Don't trust her and will never take her back. I will forgive her so that I am not toting around this resenetment. Your essay should be publsihed to a national audience.