Marriage is more than a bit pants, DH is not a particularly helpful person when it comes to maintaining the house/housework or parenting our DS. He's permanently playing on his phone and in a bad mood. He shouts at DS a lot, stomps around like a moody teenager in a huff, and has recently started having the same attitude with me. I'm not claiming to be a saint here - I've very little patience with him any more, and struggle to take interest in his hobbies.
I made a male friend, who is also married - we have a laugh and are in a group of mutual mates. Over the past summer, we teetered dangerously on the edge of what I think could have become an emotional affair - lots of texting, gravitating towards each other at events etc. We agreed it wasn't a good idea to be as close as we were and decided to pull away from each other. The friendship took a massive hit, and we're finally getting back to a comfortable place with more appropriate boundaries.
At least, I thought we were. I'm probably projecting because things at home haven't been happy for a long while (since way before I met this friend, no re-writing our history going on), but I keep finding my mind wandering off, thinking that this friend is everything my H isn't - I know in my heart that's not true, and he's many, many bad qualities, and I know a relationship would never work even if we were single, but the fantasy seems to be really embedded. And it's made worse by the fact that this friend is an amazing Dad - my H's lack of interest in our child is the biggest problem in our marriage.
I'm friends with his wife too, but I've started getting pangs of jealously when they're being "lovey" with each other - which is stupid, because I know I don't want that with him!! Our mutual friendship group doesn't really include partners, although they're not excluded specifically.
This is the first time I've had a close group of mates since DS was born, probably even longer, so I need to find a way to get past this - I'd be the one who'd have to step away from the group if we had to go NC.
We were friends before the "group" formed, perhaps I'm just jealous that I don't get the same amount of attention from him now? I don't know. All I know is I want to keep my friend, so I need to find a way out of this stupid fantasy version I've created of him.
Someone slap some sense into me? Or analyse it all and tell me to stop being stupid?