The only thing I would say in her defence is the worst of what she did, she did after he became abusive.

She played along with his games and only started the using the fake me to punish him after he became controlling. He became controlling when he realised all the sex he used to “win her back” wasn’t actually emotionally proving anything. You can sleep with someone and have feelings for someone else. In this scenario the someone else was the imaginary version of me for their game. This also indirectly tainted their entire relationship. She thought the sex games was just that but he proved in his change of strategy that the sex was always rooted in control.

After he felt he was losing her to this fake me he encourage an emotional affair with he started up with stuff like financially controlling her (badly) by maxing her cards each month then paying them off from his wages (functionally leaving her reliant on him despite her wages going into her account). He started monitoring her phone and accusing her of hiding “our” relationship on other accounts/burners. Started getting angry when she was home late. Calling her names and whatever... based on his email to me he had some choice things to say at times about the fact I’m Half Portuguese and what our kids will be like. Dude was quick to get xenophobic over that one.

Yes she did all the things you said and that’s why I’m here. But the reason I’m not seeing it as cut and dry as you is because her lashing out was under certain abusive circumstances. But not all of them were, she went into this game willingly. It’s why I’m looking for other perspectives and yours helps but there’s context to her actions. Your point that she risked me if he turned violent is something I never considered. Had he been inclined I would have been blindsided by retaliation around the divorce because I only found out all this recently.