This is going to be long so forgive me.
I found out just before lockdown that DH was having an emotional affair with a woman half his age at work. I found out the day they went out to lunch together. He'd been distant and cruel to me for about 3 months. Making me feel like I was crazy, asking if something was wrong with us as I knew there was but he misted there wasn't. Making me feel like I was crazy.
Then we went from a family where I worked a few days a week and he worked FT so I never had him at home to him WFH all day, everyday. He's back in the office half the week now but I've got myself a job where I'm at least a bit more financially independent.
They'd supposed to have met up previously but one of our children was taken into hospital and was in ICU so it didn't happen. He was sitting at DCs bedside apologising for not being able to make it.
He'd told me he was lonely, depressed and suicidal so needed to reconnect with friends. You can guess what that was cover for. I was blindsided and absolutely shattered that he felt so bad when I thought our life was lovely. We don't struggle financially, the kids are happy and up until that point healthy
I think he was fucking deluded, a young woman showed him attention and he lapped it up. I asked him what he thought she'd want with a 50 year old man with ED and DCs and one that after the divorce wouldn't financially look like such a great prospect, as well as having had a vasectomy so there'd be no babies for her,
He's suffered with ED and PE all his life and we'd finally after 15 years together seen a therapist and got over it. For a couple of months I literally felt alive. Like I thought other women felt when in fulfilling relationships. I thought we had finally got over his issues and we were good.
At one really awful point when he had his back to me in bed and was grumpy I said was it because we hadn't had sex and although I felt awful with his cruelty I told him to just do it. There was no hint of his ED but I felt like a piece of meat. I could have been anyone. I really think that it was her he was thinking about, I felt disgusted and ashamed.
Anyway, after lots of turmoil we decided to give it another go. It was hard. I'm a bit of a people pleaser and have had a less than perfect upbringing. I spent a lot of time and energy, to my detriment, trying to make the perfect home and allow our children and him to have easy lives. Maybe this was one of the reasons he cheated. I was constantly shattered from trying to make everything perfect, trying to make him happy when in reality he was a miserable sod who thought his life was shit.
Anyway, he changed, he smiles more readily, gets joy from things now and is like a different man but destroying me in the process. I no longer care so much about making things perfect and I take time for myself and don't really focus on him at all.
The ED came back afterwards and I told him to see someone. Do something about it and found out a few weeks later he'd been speaking to a 'therapist' who you didn't just talk to. She touched you too, although you weren't allowed to touch her. When I found out he said I'd told him to seek help and before anything happened she'd want to speak to me and I could even be there to watch. She was again half his age and absolutely stunning. Lots of semi naked photos on her website. It was like him cheating all over again and just typing this I feel sick. She was basically a glorified sex worker.
If you met. Him you'd be surprised he wasn't the lovely, kind, doting husband he comes across as. Everyone thought I was so lucky. I'd never told anyone about the sexual problems as I was embarrassed and didn't want people to look at him differently.
Me, you'd think I was super strong and resilient, I've never had a choice not to be but the energy to keep that up is so huge.
He's had other therapy since and is now able to get and maintain an erection through some sort of injection. Although PE is still an issue but the sex for me is awful. I'm waiting for him to come knowing it'll be quick, I'm not even present. I think about everything but and I don't think we'll recapture that feeling when things were working and I felt like my life had finally become great. He can't read sexual cues and it all revolves around PIV and thrusting and kissing. I could be anyone or anything although he says he'd rather I enjoy it than him,
Anyway. I'm stuck. I have periods where I like him, I've told him I love him since but it'll never be how I did before. I feel duped by him, like he pretended to be a good man when this cruelty was always there, he'd just never shown it. I have times where I want to be normal, go back to ignoring the crap sex and just being friends and other times like now where I can't abide being in the same room as him.
I'm having therapy to try to get to the stage where I'm in the right place to make a decision as to whether we can salvage this but it involves digging into my childhood and I'm not sure I'm strong enough for it. My childhood was very difficult and I've been NC for years as to protect my DCs from the pain and to be able to hold it together myself. I'm not sure what digging into that will do to me.
Sorry, all a bit disjointed. I just can't speak to my friends about this without outing his problems, which I'm embarrassed about. My friends know about the affair and were incredibly supportive but I think they all think I'm over it now.
I don't know what I want from writing this. I expect lots of LTB but I can't picture myself in another life. Holding hands with someone else. Someone else's quirks and smell. I loved him so so much or maybe I didn't and he was just nicer to me than anyone else I'd met. I don't know.