Thank you all for your great insights and wisdom. I cannot tell you how much this has helped me to see the full picture from an unbiased perspective You are all pushing my buttons and it doesnt feel good, but I understand that all these great questions are really making me dig down deep and do some thinking!
I said earlier that I thought we had a non-verbal agreement to live a SSM, but its true I was avoiding the truth because it was easier. My H had discussed with me a few years earlier asking "are you ever going to want to have sex with me again" and 'I feel like you dont love me anymore". I was dealing with the death of my mother and felt he was being ridiculous at the time. I later started reading books and knew this wasnt healthy, but from after a while the resentment built, the connection faded and I truly thought that my H was just turning into an angry jerk for no reason. At that point, I really felt I was no longer interested in sex and after two kids I thought my sex life was over and quite frankly I didn"t miss it- who wants to have sex with a grumpy, irritable H? I think I can see now that his irritability and frustration was most likely linked to his feelings of rejection. I think my H has always had trouble with rejection as he was adopted and raised by a family that was not very close or supportive.
I get that my H was looking for emotional and physical closeness during the A, but its still painful to know he would be willing to go to a stranger to get it. I know, I know, he had no other channel for sex, but I just never thought he was "the type" to have an affair (I guess no spouse would). As someone else said, my avoidance of what was happening in my marriage came back to "bite me in the butt". Its amazing how your sexual energy comes back when you realize someone else is taking over your husband. I think I may have never woken up to my sexuality again if the affair had not happened?
Ironically, I can now see what this kind of rejection feels like because now I feel like I am the one being cast aside. Every day I feel like my husband would rather be with someone else or that I am not good enough- I guess that's how I was making him feel too? I hate that something that was once so natural and fun is now so complicated and damaged.
