I recommend you read ‘not just friends’ and ‘help my spouse heal from my affair’.
Read the posts on affair recovery website that describe the chemical reaction you are having. Read surviving infidelity to understand the PTSD reaction you may be about to cause in your husband. Your dream that everyone will be okay is a cheaters way of dealing with the cognitive dissonance you have created. It’s nonsense. You have elected to fix a hole in the roof by throwing in a grenade. Why?
You need to understand why you have allowed yourself to break you vows, integrity, self worth for this man? You have chosen to open the door to him and his words. People find others attractive but healthy individuals have a boundary. They don’t cross it for them.
Vegetarians choose not to eat meat. They opt to be vegetarian and if you offer them a trip to the best steak restaurant they say no. You try and tempt them with a bacon sarnie - they say no I’m vegetarian. You offer them haribos - again they decline. They make a choice, they are vegetarian for them. They stick with the choice even when alone and behind closed doors in secret they remain vegetarian. They do it for them and their own self worth. It’s their decision and they are proud of their choice even when the choice is hard. They live by that choice even when tempted.
im faithful for me. I said my vows and made promises. I don’t cheat for me. The only person I will spend my entire life with is me and I want to look in the mirror each day at a person who’s word means something. I make a choice to be faithful and my integrity is important to me. My husband is annoying at times but my decision to be faithful is for me. He is my collateral damage.
To be unfaithful affects your integrity and self worth. Your chemicals are stopping you feeling this at the minute. But assuming you are not psychopathic when this is dragged into the cold light of day the affair will feel very different. Any man prepared to sneak around and be hidden has poor self worth. I wouldn’t be hidden for anyone, I wouldn’t sneak in the shadows. Kissing someone’s boyfriend behind the bike shed was never a good look.
You need to explore why you were prepared to choose to break your own vows. You made thousands of choices to get here - it didn’t just happen. You are not a victim. There is no woe is me. Why did you start this journey? Cheaters cheat for many reasons, low self worth, poor self esteem, external validation (smoke up your arse), they have poor coping mechanisms, sometimes issues with other addictions, able to lie, okay with deceit, poor impulse control, selfishness, live in fantasy lands. Something in your background allowed you to do this. You may not see it but fixing your reason is the key to being happy, figure it out and fix it. Truly fix it not just surface level exploration.
You have a but in your fidelity - why? I’m faithful but not if hot man blows smoke up my arse. I’m faithful but not if husband doesn’t find out I’m faithful but it’s okay as I deserve another man. What are your buts?
The fact your husband trusts you is why you are getting away with this. Tell him what you are doing and let him join the party - if you think no I don’t want to hurt him. You already have, when you first overstepped the line. Love isn’t guilty fumbles behind the bike shed. It’s a daily choice. It’s actions.
I wish you well op. But your situation isn’t unique or special is just a chemical cocktail in your brain which the secrecy feeds. Read the books. Then read Gottmans work - that’s how to keep fuelling a marriage - amazing books to show how to bring happiness to your life. Real out in the open happiness to be proud of.