Myself and my ex have grown up together since the age of 2 (now both 32). We had a romantic relationship from the ages of 16-18 and broke up, he was my 1st love and I was his and he broke my heart but we lost contact for around 7 years, we both moved on with other people.
I got married and have three wonderful children (ages 12, 9 and 6) 2 of these children with my husband but things started to fall apart with my husband after a few years. He would pick faults with me all the time and pull me down and make me feel crap about myself. We didn't have a consistent sex life.
We have now been together for 11 years next month and married for 8 years next month and have, over the years, had a lot of ups and downs and even split up properly a few times.
The first time we split up was in 2012, not even a year into our marriage and during that time I bumped into my ex and we began a casual sort of relationship. Myself and my husband decided to work through things and I ended things with the ex. He moved on and stayed with this other woman for 5 years until she cheated on him. Myself and my husband split up again around 6 months before my ex becane single again and so myself and the ex found ourselves once again drawn back together into a casual thing, only this time I didn't have spare money to move out of the family home. My husband also had a casual relationship going on with one of his exes so we literally lived separate lives and only really lived in the same house (didn't sleep in the same room or bed at all and just remained civil for the children's sakes). My ex and I became more serious again and although there were elements of old times it was also fresh and new and we found ourselves falling for each other all over again and decided to make a proper go of things, he accepted and met my children and they all got along really well but out of the blue one day he changed his facebook status to "In A Relationship".
Now this may not seem strange but he wasn't a huge facebook user and we hadn't mentioned taking that step so I asked him about it and he exploded at me telling me I had led him on and that I had ignored him for weeks (we had been together only days before with my children at the park!) and that he couldn't be a side project for me. Two days later I hear he has completely moved out of the city and gone back to an ex he was with when we first broke up as teenagers, I was heartbroken and through it all my husband was an amazing friend and we became closer once again. He ended things with the woman he had been casually dating and we sat down and got everything out and dealt with things one by one and agreed to always communicate openly and honestly from then on and we were great for another year.
A year later my husband starts acting strange and I had people telling me they had seen him with another woman in his car, he would make excuses about working late and he didn't want to kiss me let alone even sleep with me and I got really down because he wouldn't talk to me so I told him I couldn't take it anymore and he seemed relieved. Once again we were back to being strangers who lived in the same house. And yep, you guessed it, the ex seemed to have a beacon and he made a reappearance. He had split with his other ex and moved back to the city. We met up as friends to catch up but the crazy chemistry we shared was there and we inevitably ended up back in a romantic and sexual relationship, this time we wanted to make a proper go of things and he explained he was scared of his depth of feelings for me a year before and he was afraid I'd reject him and go back to my husband so he did something stupid and regretted it but didn't think I would take him back if he had just explained. But we started spending more time together again and I would stay with him from Saturday afternoon until Sunday afternoon on alternate weekends and we would see each other a couple of times a week.
Things soon started to become a bit much for him again and he started inviting his friends round whenever I was staying over so we hardly got any time together whereas my husband had completely changed again. I decided I wanted to be single because I couldn't keep flitting between them both. 6 weeks later I found out I was pregnant with my 4th, it is my exes baby. I told my ex and I told my husband. My ex wants to be involved and wants us to be a proper family, my other children included and my husband wants to stand by me and be there for me and be a stepdad for my exes baby whilst not getting in the way of my ex being a father.
Now this is up to date and I have 9 and a half weeks left until baby is due. I still haven't decided if I want to be with either of them, although I see the ex regularly to shop for baby items and grab lunch afterwards, it is purely platonic at the moment and I live in the same house as my husband as being on maternity leave I can't afford to rent privately at the moment but again it is purely platonic.
Both are now arguing about who I should be with, who will be at the birth and which surname baby should have.
I love them both but in different ways and for different reasons but I know no matter what myself and my ex will just continue to be drawn back together and I do love him more than I love my husband.
So I'm stuck at the moment and don't know what to do other than just concentrate on my children and baby.
Does anybody have any advice, etc.at all please?