Mtaylor, I truly feel for you. Those first few months are the worst! And your disbelief that the wife you knew and loved, the one who was so sweet and good and generous and kind, could do something so blatantly cruel is understandable. I was never naive enough to think my WH--especially after his SA diagnosis--wouldn't be tempted by another woman, but to actually break vows and cheat? To hurt me/us like that? To commit such a sin? To not just plain divorce me? The only people I knew who had been exposed to infidelity were ones who led fast lives, hard lives, entitled lives. Not real people. Like us.
Anyway, the push/pull of "spying" on your WS is a struggle. Those of us who are navigating R (I hardly dare say that) have found--for us--a middle ground. Here are a couple pointers. First, whether you EVER check up on your WW or not, she MUST be willing to be transparent. Looking at her e-mails, reading her texts, tracking her in her car aren't as important as her agreeing to let you do it, her understanding that that is important and necessary. You don't have to open that gift; she just has to give it. Make sense? Second, now that that part is clear--and it must come first--you DO need to occasionally check up on her. The idea isn't even necessarily to check up on her as much as it is to REBUILD trust. If she tries, faithfully, for months and months to do no wrong, to be transparent, to call and text and maintain NC, to send photos when she's away from you, to spend time mainly with you individually or as a family, and you've never, ever verified her comings and goings and doings, how will you ever learn to trust her? You NEED to see that she isn't deleting texts or e-mails, you NEED to see that she went to the grocery store after work, bought stamps at the post office, dropped clothes off at the dry cleaners, then came home (and her verbal story matches the phone tracking), you NEED to see what she's spending money on, you NEED to know that she's avoided the other gym like the plague it is. This doesn't need to be done every day or even every week. But it needs to be done often enough to build your security in your partnership.
How do you make sure you aren't being taken advantage of? You trust your gut (you ignored it before, because you trusted her, but you won't anymore). As long as there are no red flags and nothing questionable about her behavior, don't worry about it. Worry, instead, about doing your part to heal the M. She has the bulk of the work, but if you want to repair your M, then you have to accept her humble offerings. She needs to know forgiveness is possible. If there's no hope, then, well, there's no goal, no direction, no cause, no purpose. And you'll both fail.
Fog is fog. It's horrible. For me, it may be the worst part of this whole mess. If you feel she's being foggy, call her on it. But don't dwell on it. For some (few?), the fog clears immediately; for others, it burns off slowly. Concentrate on your IC, on your kids, on your wife's positive steps (no matter how small), on yourself (TLC is necessary after trauma), on your family time. In time, if she's truly committed to you and to your M, her mind will clear. She'll become more and more aware of what she did and how horrible it was. Right now--especially if she's as sweet as you said she was--she might be shielding her own psyche from the viciousness of her actions. It's too painful otherwise. I watch my SLAWH (truly a broken person) completely caught up in the shame and guilt of what he's done. Healing will be a long, long time for us. Yours need not be that convoluted a journey because your issues aren't, possibly, as deep.
Good luck. I'll be pulling for you and your family!