Help! Online EA Sitch

[lovehopefaith]

I post a lot in newcomers but I think I need advice from anyone here who has a spouse with an online EA.

My WAH -- who still lives here and sleeps in another room -- is on his second online EA in the game Second Life. About 6 weeks ago I discovered first online EA and confronted him, and that's when he dropped the bomb: ILYBINILWY and "I think we should separate." I got all the excuses: hasn't been happy for years, you put our daughter first, our sex life stinks (even though we were having it up until this bomb!), we fight all the time (news to me!), yada yada yada. Then he essentially moved into our basement family room.

For two weeks, I begged, pleaded and cried, and then I bought DR. Being positive around him has helped our family life, but he refuses to spend any time with me alone. After our D goes to bed, or even on the weekends when she is around, he is in his "room" online, talking to his so-called "friends," and these EA women. I have snooped, I have read e-mail, I have numbers on his cell phone. And just before he dropped the bomb, he had surgery and spent a lot of time online during his recovery (I think he was depressed then about being laid up) and that's what mad me suspicious about the whole thing.

I am trying to working on me, mostly because I'm hoping he can come back to me because despite all of this, I love him dearly. I realize now there were issues that we had that he didn't share with me and I didn't pick up on as strongly; I am very willing to work on every one and all of them and make the changes to make our M survive and grow. I am in IC and she is constantly expressing my need to work on me to make me stronger and I am trying, but I am still holding out hope for my H. I try to look at the "positives": He's still living here, wearing his ring, we have positive interaction (although avoiding R talk) and I do believe he feels some guilt -- he's also having issues with drinking more and he's started smoking cigarettes again (a pre-M habit) which means he is stressed out about the whole thing.

But I think he is depressed and having an MLC, and these women tell him how wonderful and talented he is. My question is this -- I feel like I can't tell him how wonderful he is -- like they do -- if he doesn't spend any time with me. I cannot compete with these women in any way because he refuses to even watch TV or a movie with me at night -- he's just online, chatting and chatting and doing God knows what with these women. I read somewhere on here that you should research the OW to find out what H finds attractive about them, such as in their lives or personalities.

Here's the intitial kicker -- in Second Life you are like a cartoon person, and all these women look like Barbie dolls in skimpy outfits... I can't compete with that! But in real life both of his EA were way older than he is, and these do-gooder types that spout New Age spiritual mumbo-jumbo... At least this is what I'm finding through a Google search on their names...

The current EA even has more ammunition that I can't compete with: Her dad was a golf pro -- my H is a golf junkie. She runs charities for children in Africa. The only saving grace is that she's halfway across the country so hopefully they cannot meet.

But he's taken up his old photography habit at the encouragement of these women (of course, I would have encouraged him too!) and he's constantly sharing "his work" with them and they are pumping him up to "display" his art in a Second Life gallery, which I understand from snooping he is now "creating" himself and likely going to try to "sell" his pictures in this fake world.

I want to tell him to try and display them in REAL LIFE, where REAL PEOPLE can see them.

I hate this game. I hate what it has done to my husband. I want him back, but he is so wrapped up in this fake world I don't even know where to begin.

Does anyone have any advice? I'm so sick about this -- I just can't belive this is actually happening...