You surely did “mess up” for adultery is a very serious sin against your spouse. It’s so serious that it is grounds for divorce. The Lord Jesus said, “I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, EXCEPT FOR SEXUAL IMMORALITY, and marries and another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery” (Matthew 19:9). You should be thankful that after you repented (by hopefully confessing your sin to her with deep humility and sorrow), she was willing to forgive you and desires to salvage your marriage. I should add that I hope you also repented before God too, for your sin is “first and foremost” against the Lord. We see this in David’s prayer of repentance after he committed adultery with Bathsheba: “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. AGAINST YOU, YOU ONLY, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight” (Psalm 51:2-4).

If your wife truly forgave you, she may not be “holding it against you”; she may be “unable to trust you” at this point. You don’t say what her “demands” are, but if they have anything to do with her inability to trust you, then you accept those demands. Try putting yourself in her shoes, if she had been guilty of having an affair with another man and repented, would you be able to instantly trust her and believe that it could never happen again? I don’t know what led up to your infidelity, but perhaps there were things in your life that caused you to fall into the temptation of having an affair (like watching pornography or being alone at times with other women at work or elsewhere). I believe she would be justified in issuing some demands in cases like these, where she would want you to prove to her that you would avoid anything that could cause you to succumb to the temptation of adultery.

Again, I don’t know all the facts that led up to your affair with another woman. I will only give you one more piece of advice. Scripture teaches us that the believer still has the “fallen, sinful nature” that we were born with (Psalm 51:5). The Apostle Paul writes of his own experience in Romans Chapter Seven where he was brought into the bondage of sin and he learned that he could not deliver himself from it. I would encourage you to read and meditate on verses 13-24 to see the struggle Paul had trying to gain the victory over sin but failing time and time again. Eventually he realized that the SIN NATURE was still in him and was causing him to commit sin. “But now, it is no longer I who do it, but SIN THAT DWELLS IN ME. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but SIN THAT DWELLS IN ME” (verses 17- 20). The lesson here is clear; WE CAN NOT TRUST THE FLESH, for we have no strength in ourselves to please God or anyone else (including our spouse). Paul wrote later that the believer is to “have no confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3:3).

But there is victory over sin! That victory comes not from our own will or determination not to sin, but by the “indwelling Holy Spirit.” Paul writes in Romans 8:2, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has MADE ME FREE FROM THE LAW OF SIN and death.” He learned that the Holy Spirit sets us free when we yield to Him! And thus we read in Ephesians 5:18, “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT.” As we are “filled with the Spirit” He will keep us from sin, and He will gain the victory over the lusts of our flesh. “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” I will pray for you and your wife, that both of you will live a victorious life by yielding to the Holy Spirit and allowing Him to conform you to the image of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18). Christ will then be the “CENTER of your marriage” and by His grace your marriage will be saved.  (DO)  (710.5)