Considering leaving for (the idea of) the other man

[Straighttalkersneeded]

I am in need of advice and a serious talking to.

I am in a 12 year marriage to an awesome partner who I was very happy with and who was my best friend and playmate until he made a mistake I can't reveal for fear of outing and whose guilt about it has changed our life. He has been under the care of a mental health and crisis team for three years since the realisation of his mistake and the lifelong consequences to us both became clear.

He is in many ways the same man I married and I love him to pieces but he no longer feels able to have a sexual or romantic attachment because essentially he feels undeserving and that it is safer not to be close to anyone so that he cannot hurt them. That makes me feel so sad for him to feel this way about himself. He is struggling so much to forgive himself. He is working on this in therapy and has been since therapy started.

At his request we live in separate rooms but still spend lots of time together and function as a couple to the outside world, although he has retreated to a platonic safe space. He doesn't want it to be this way but it's all he can manage right now.

We were loved up and very broodily TTC the two years before the event happened. We are in our late 30s now. I would still love to have a family with my husband if he was better. It is almost like we are in a limbo space.

I don't even want to type this. I have been having an affair that started out as online chat a year ago and have fallen for the other man. We have spent a lot of time together recently and he is now offering me a relationship, children and remarriage one day (as in, asking me to leave to begin a proper relationship). He would be relocating for me eventually if we were able to develop a relationship. I do believe this has meaning to him. He is divorced.

I don't know what to do.

Two friends I have confided in think that I need to give my husband more time to recover because of how happy we were before and that I need to tell my husband nothing for now but just end the affair and tell my husband when he is better so he can decide our future. One other friend thinks I need to move on with my life and separate from my husband, accepting it might not work out with this man but seeing where it leads.

I have just started counselling to get a grip. My therapist is not giving an opinion on what I should do as that's not her role.

My heart is telling me that I cannot give up on my husband and our dreams. He was everything to me and I promised him I'd support him and I still love him. He might come back to me yet. But my head is telling me that I can't let this other man go when I love him and he is offering me a chance at a future I want instead of more years of limbo.

I would be grateful for your advice, even if just to offer a different take on it all.

Thank you all.

I told my husband I have been having an emotional affair. I ended it with the OM. As I said he lives away and it really was a fantasy. It became more real when he was over for work in the summer and then admitted his feelings for me. But my feelings for him were really all meant for my DH. I love my husband. I know that sounds crazy.

We are separating because my husband doesn't feel he wants our room mate existence to change and that he'll only hurt me again. I don't think he is able to even grasp an emotional affair is still betrayal and doesn't want me to go, but isn't able to offer me a marriage like before.

I don't think unless you have been in these circumstances you know how you'd cope. I thought I was better than this. I definitely let him down and will always have to live with it. I didn't uphold the promise of in sickness and in health. One day my husband loved me and we were trying for a baby. The next day he was in hospital and stayed in different types of hospitals for 2 and a half years in a catatonic state for most of it then he returned home briefly and tried to commit suicide several times. Two and a half years of coming home to an empty house, with no loving texts, emails etc like when partners are away, no one to share my life and struggles with. I honestly was just chatting online to people for company. But then I crossed a boundary and started telling this man about feeling lonely and abandoned and that was so wrong.

I won't give up on my dream to be Mum but for now I'll have to come to terms with the grief that it won't be with my DH as I wanted.

Well done for being honest.
I’m sorry to hear that your marriage is over but I hope you find happiness in the future. Please forgive yourself for the EA. No one is perfect and you were in a horrendous situation. I love my husband very much but I would not cope well if he checked out emotionally, as yours did.