When we talked about it, it was very amicable and understanding. It was just a challenge because establishing limits of propriety implies distrust regardless, and I think in the past I've approached boundaries, especially interpersonal ones, either too punitively or by not setting them or communicating them until after the fact. So I think she is wary of it becoming arbitrary ... I don't want to be hard and fast (that's just not how people work) ... but I don't want to be arbitrary either (because then who knows what the expectations are?) ... that's why it's so hard.

I mean, everyone agrees there's a boundary somewhere when it comes to what is and isn't appropriate for a person in a marriage to do spending time with a member of the opposite sex.

Inviting a man over to spend time together in private with her at our house seemed to hit the boundary I had, and I'm sure the need to rebuild trust has something to do with it being so restrictive.

At the same time, how many r/relationships submissions are the "I should have said something sooner" and they get cheated on because boundary, expectations and propriety talks never happened when they needed to.

So better safe than sorry is obnoxious, but makes me feel more comfortable. Setting boundaries that are comfortable for me, but still allow her to have enriching relationships with people other than me is a challenge.

I should add, it's not like she has a lack of friends, including men. She works with a close gal pal, and we see a lot of different people in a lot of different settings.

I mean ... we all kind of hash these sorts of boundaries out together with our SO ... and if you ask a room of married people, each couple would be different, and there'd probably even be big differences between members of any given couple.