Sorry this is so long:

I found out about a month ago thanks to an email snafu that my wife was having an affair while she was working / interning  overseas.  

The "overheard" comments about the affair was that she felt so much more "alive" from this fling, and that she felt I was a pushover and boring since all I did was work and take care of the kids.  Obviously I felt incredibly betrayed, not because of the sex or relationship with that person, since I honestly couldn't see that continuing past this trip, but because after years of sacrifice, she wasn't telling me any of this,  and that her emotional distance and the need she was filling with this stranger was completely due to the fact that I gave her a chance to pursue her dream career.. so now instead of the exciting, busy social hipster she married, she was living with a boring house-dad.

If not for the fact that I gave up my career and friends, moved cross-country, and started a new business so I could take care of our 2 kids, make the lions share of the income, and run the household while she went back to grad school,  none of what she has accomplished over the last few years could have happened.  While she says she appreciates it, she also doesn't act like she does.   She has been traveling, interning and working overseas 8 of the last 11 months, leaving me here, with kids, on the opposite coast from all family and support.  If I need a few hours to myself, it is billed at $8+ an hour for a babysitter, if I can actually get one to show up as promised, and every dollar of that is coming out of my self-employed income.

Before the more recent travel, I had tried several times in the 3 month span between her work experiences abroad to arrange things so that I can actually have a life outside of work and kids, but every time her schooling, "needed experience" of industry meetings, conferences, and other more social things trumped my needs, usually at the last minute with little notice.  If I tried to hold my ground, she would just pretend not to get my calls/messages, not "hear" what I told her, or call me/tell me at the last possible minute that I should come to whatever the thing was, all the time perfectly aware that there was no way I was going to be able to get a babysitter with 1 day or a few hours notice.

After confronting her with the affair, she at first assured me everything would be OK, and tried to push me off so she could finish the work.  As things progressed, she then communicated the idea that she was growing from her experiences and she could not be sure that things would work out, and she could make no promises.. not that I was assuming anything or asking for anything beyond her efforts to work on things.

When I started analyzing my emails and what I had said to her, I realized that by smoothing things over and trying to maintain the status quo, I was simply acting like a door mat again.  I started asking those painful tough questions about what she has been doing, was this the only affair, etc.,  and brought up the real possibility that if things did not work out,  she should not continue with her assumption that I would take custody of the kids and be a single dad so she could start her "new life".  I also brought up the also real possibility that if I did take the kids, I would move back to the other side of the country, closer to my and her parents.  She suddenly decided to come home 2 weeks early, after ignoring my earlier demand that she arrange to return ASAP.

Now it seems like her attitude has changed, no longer is she talking about the possibility of separate households, or her getting her own place, every message is full of love and about much she misses the kids, how much she loves me, etc.

So now the big question, having been emotionally burnt once, am I just being manipulated?  Should I expect or suspect that once she gets back and gets settled, she will leave anyway?  

Things have already changed in me, I don't feel like the same guy as before this..  I used to be the most patient guy, now I have no patience at all for anyones BS.    More importantly, I don't feel like doing what she wants, and I don't care particularly if it makes it tougher for her.

I do want to save this relationship, and I have broached the topic of counseling with her,  but she is very resistant.  I don't know what my next step should be when she steps off that plane next week.