I was in the same situation as you last year - everything came to a head last March when I confessed my emotional affair to DH, which had been going on for about a year.
It did seem very real at the time, but it messed me up enormously. It was just SO addictive. The worse I felt, the more I wanted OM. I couldn't do anything to relieve the symptoms of the break up without just sitting it out and hoping I'd feel better soon.
When I was having the affair, it was like I had come to a cross road in my life that I didn't want to be at. Before OM told me his true feelings for me, I was contented - a little vulnerable and gullible I suppose because I had a 1yr old and was just getting back to 'normal' - but happy-ish all the same. I had an okay relationship with DH but wel also had our issues so life wasn't perfect.
But OM put a whole new slant on life for me. He was exciting and dangerous and his life represented everything that my life wasn't. I also loved the way he seemed to understand me on a level my DH didn't. It was too easy to get carried away until I just didn't know what was right anymore.
There was nothing else for it. Although OM wasn't asking me to run away with him, I felt something had to give. Something told me that DH was still the right choice, even though I wasn't passionately in love with him. It came down to the fact that I couldn't leave him because of the kids - I just couldn't break their hearts. I told myself to get a grip and that even though the OM and I get on better as people, my DH had never let me down. I chose him because he was strong and handsome and confident. I just had to trust the fact that I'd made the right decision ten years ago when we got together.
I therefore knew I had to sabotage my relationship with OM so that I couldn't possibly speak to him again. I told my DH - he sanctioned our 'friendship', the OM now hates me because he is long-term friends with my DH and think what I did undermined him and sabotaged their friendship (I think he did that quite well himself!)
Now, six months later I'm feeling so much better about it. It's been really hard - going from pining to anger to despair at times, but above all I've got my family life back again and I'm interested once more in my life the way it was before all of the high-drama feelings and secrecy of the affair took hold.
I'd never go back there. My view is that marriages are hard work and third parties should keep themselves well away of couples trying to make a go of things - sometimes against the odds. I was foolish to have fallen but I really couldn't have done much about it at the time. If I let myself I could easily love OM again - but I'm determined to do what is right and find other ways of colouring my life so that I don't loose my sanity at the same time. It's not all OMs fault - I played a bit part in taking things beyond what is acceptable, but I didn't start it and I didn't go looking for it. If ever I see an outsider making a move on someone married, I'd intervene and tell them to back right off. It's easy to have your head turned when you're 'trapped' (which I how I feel in my marriage sometimes, as do a lot of people). It's just best not go there in the first place.
OP; Just think about a years time. Tell OM to stop contacting you so you can work things out for yourself. It may be that you are meant for each other, but give yourself a chance to find it out without him pressuring you.
To make things easier, tell yourself that after a few months you'll go and see him and talk to him - even if you never do. It's the tactic I used and helped lift that feeling of doom. I never have seen him since - or even spoken to him - but I always tell myself that in two months time, when I know what's what, I'll see OM and we'll have a heart to heart about what happened. That meeting will never happen of course, but it just helps.
Good luck xx
