I will try to paraphrase much of this because there's so much to say I don't know where to start.
Background: DH and been together 20 years, married 13. Two DCS, age 3 and 18 months.
We met when we both worked in high powered creative jobs. We earned decent money, had a great lifestyle. I fancied the pants off him.
I couldn't believe my luck when I bagged the office 'hottie' and when he quickly confessed he was falling for me. It was all so easy. He was The One.
Gradually, as the honeymoon period wore off, I started to see he did have flaws (as do we all). He can be very moody. Extremely stubborn. Selfish. Critical. Patronising in the extreme. But I was so into other aspects of him (his gorgeous rock star looks, his rebellious personality, his intelligence, his morals, his love for me) I didn't really care back then.
Fast forward a few years. We'd set the date for our wedding but the alarm bells were ringing. (He can be very controlling - he dictated what kind of wedding it was going to be because he wasn't that bothered about marriage, so therefore we had to do it his way. No guests. No fuss. It was a huge effort to cajole him along.) Then I got diagnosed with cancer. He was my rock. He was amazing. Suddenly, all the stuff I'd worried about didn't seem to matter. I didn't care what kind of wedding we had. So we slid off and married without telling anyone and at the time I couldn't have been happier.
Fast forward again. Once I got the all clear a few years down the track I started thinking about kids. It didn't happen. He couldn't take having his masculinity questioned. It was easier to blame me. My confidence in myself, my femininity and my body was slipping further and further away. It killed our sex life, although to be honest apart from the early days it was never great. But I was obsessed with babies. I cajoled him into IVF. I kept miscarrying. We decided enough was enough and discussed divorce but decided without the pressure of trying for a baby perhaps we could save our relationship.
Six weeks later I found out I was pregnant. Emotionally reeling but I didn't miscarry and I went on to have a healthy baby. I struggled in the early weeks. One night, when the baby was crying, he blew up at me and hit me with the bombshell: he was sick of being the carer, the one in the support role, the focus always being on me and my health, always waiting for things to get better but they never did. Every day he fantasised about leaving me.
At that point I fell apart and was diagnosed with PND.
Fast forward again. I got better. We wobbled along but I never really recovered from what he said to me. I felt self conscious on the rare occasions he'd touch me - it was pretty much only if he wanted sex and often if when he was drunk.
We had our one and only night away since the baby was born and we both relaxed and laughed in each other's company like we hadn't done in years. We had what was probably the most fantastic sex we've ever had.
I discovered I was pregnant again.
We had two babies under 18 months old. We moved to be nearer my family for support. He was seething with resentment. The traits in him that I didn't like got much worse - always criticising, talking down to me, making me feel like something he'd stepped in simply for being in the same room. After months of walking on eggshells I snapped. I told him I was done with him talking to me like that. I said being single couldn't possibly be any worse than being made to feel the way I did each day.
It shocked him into changing. He finally agreed to Relate. He admitted his behaviour had been terrible. He stopped being so negative and critical. He confessed he doesn't feel the same about me since I lost my drive and walked away from a well paid career. The counsellor said there is so much resentment on both sides we have built up a massive brick wall between us. But, as she put it, we're fighters. We wobbled along for a bit more.
Now the bit I've posted about a couple of other times. In the midst of all this someone from my past made contact with me. Someone I'd always had a soft spot for but admittedly not really thought much about, until now. We quickly moved from friendly chat to flirty emails and phone calls. We met once, for a coffee. He was just as lovely as I remembered and we had so much more in common than either of us could have imagined. I could see I was falling for him and he told me he'd been searching for two years since his wife left and now here was someone he finally clicked with and he couldn't have because I was married. So I stopped contact. He initiated contact with me a couple more times but basically ended up, I think, getting bored, and eventually, once my head was well and truly turned, he simply stopped replying to my messages.
I'm ashamed to say this all happened in the first part of the year and yet even though he basically ended up shitting on me from a great height I STILL think about him all the time.
So much so I eventually confessed it all to my DH. He knew we'd met and says he'd suspected something was up, but he was amazingly understanding. He said he couldn't be the husband I need and no longer is in love with me, so could totally see why I would have fallen for someone else making a play for me. As long as nothing physical had happened (it hadn't) he was cool with it and he thought we should just move on and forget it, and hope things between us improve in the future.
Whilst it was good of him to be so understanding, my gut feeling is that he found it a bit TOO easy to forgive and forget. Basically, it seems to me that he doesn't care enough as long as I haven't actually walked out or shagged someone else.
So that's where I am. I'm sorry this is so long but I got a pasting when I gave the much abbreviated version and I realise I was being a complete arse in that I was making out I was the helpless victim here.
I'm not looking for sympathy. I know I did wrong and I know I am responsible for getting emotionally tangled up with someone else. I also know it's not about wanting him, not really, it's about what's missing from my marriage and also what's going on in my head.
I guess I just want some help moving on and working out how I can sort myself out and how to stop something like this happening again. I know on many levels it makes sense for us to stay together - for the kids, financially, possibly for the two of us if we can ride this out, but all I know is that emotionally I have been totally absent this year and I am still thinking about the other man to a ridiculously unhealthy degree. I am a much more sexual being than I cared to think and the urge to go out and shag this man was so strong it was frightening. It was as if this emotional affair awakened this side of me that has been dormant for years.
Finally, the one thing I am going to say that I may well (and probably rightly) be given a bollocking for: I am frequently complimented on how I look and I try to take care of myself as much as I can with two small children and not much time or money. I feel my DH barely notices yet everyone else seems to, and, more than that, he seems to think it's ok to have turned into a very overweight, bearded slob (someone jokingly said he resembles the man from the mountains) in saggy jogging bottoms all the time. I know how gorgeous he can look with a decent haircut and some fresh clothes. But it's like the more I say stuff like that, the more he rebels in a 'fuck you' kind of way.
Oh, help.
If anyone is still reading, your opinions would be very much appreciated.