can't decide whether to leave

[basejump]

I posted a few months ago about finding out my husband (married 6 years, no kids) had been paying for sex and using porn to a really unhealthy extent. He is now getting help in a proper treatment programme for sex addicts. He seems committed to 'getting better' and to our future together.

I don't know if I want to stay with him. Please, if you want to share your disgust for men who pay for sex then save your time - I'm not condoning it but there are reasons in his past for his dysfunction.

Reasons to stay : loyalty, love (of the companion kind, Eros has most definitely left the building), financial security and fear of being old and alone. I have no siblings or children, once my parents are gone which will happen in the next 10 years or so, I'm basically by myself. Lucky enough to have some good friends but it isn't the same. I'm scared.

Reasons to leave: I can't ever imagine wanting sex with him again. He is a pain to live with. I can't co-parent with him (we were planning to adopt but that's impossible now. I'm thinking of trying alone). I could re-start the career I left to try to have children with him (we did IVF unsuccessfully). We met in country A, where I still work part time and all my friends live, and moved together to country B where I know no-one and can't imagine being happy to live and work full time.

A twist in the tale : I have recently fallen into a really intense attraction to someone unexpected. It appears to be mutual. I understand this could be because my emotions are all over the place. He is single, kind, intelligent, supportive, ethical AFAIK, gorgeous - and unfortunately far too young for me (approx 15 years). To make matters worse we work together. This is never going to be a question of leaving my husband for him. In all likelihood nothing will ever happen. But it makes me wonder whether life really would be as bleak after a divorce as I fear.

I can't talk to anyone about this and if I want to parent by myself, which I think I do, I need to make a decision sooner rather than later.

Hope someone has wisdom to share. Thanks for reading.

Leave, the world isn't necessarily as scary as some like to make out. SOMETHING will happen and with some effort good things will come out of it. If you can work enough to afford to sleep and eat the world can be your oyster.

I can't see he's offering you anything at all, this is what you will pick up of the broken pieces of what is left and 'make do'

I don't doubt he's damaged but I do doubt you were put on this earth to save this man and stay by his side.

You know you want to be a mother to a child but staying means you will be a mother to him.

Sometimes taking chances are scary but from someone who has done it, I'm now only scared of what I could have ended up trapped in when I look backwards and that fear keeps me going forwards

You just sound really desperate... Never a good reason to be with anyone.

There are worse things than being alone. Being in a relationship such as you describe is one of them.

It sounds to me like you already know the answer hunnie. If fear of change is the only reason you want to stay in a marriage where you cant see a happy future and never truly know if you are ever going to be enough then youve basically answered your own question. Subconciously you are already looking toward another life, its already over hun xx