What is going on in their heads?

[Zimmy]

Jefe: Great to hear from you. Here is a little bit more detail of my story:

* In a relationship for 7 years and was engaged to a wonderful, loving man who I thought was my soul mate. We had a great relationship and everything in common. We were truly happy. Just bought a house together last August 2013 and were both excited about our future. He told me every day how much he loved me and how lucky we were, until...

* Apparently he met a girl on a plane last January. She lives in Frankfurt and he 'fell into' an affair with her. She knew he had a fiance but that didn't deter her - she went after him hard and eventually pushed him to commit to her and drop me. She is a woman who got fired from her job and then sued her employer. Lots of red flags...

* It got more serious before he knew it and now thinks he is in love with her and wants to explore that path in his life. Note that they have only really spent like 40ish days together, though they communicated regularly by phone and email for the past 9 months. He is actually considering bringing her to New York City and supporting her!

* I discovered the affair accidentally in July and immediately kicked him out of our house in anger. (Regret this now.) I was hurt, but I never thought he would actually want to really be with her. Shortly after, I told him that I wanted him to come home and work together on our relationship.

* Since then, he has vacillated back and forth - confused about who to choose but seems to be leaning towards her. Says if he comes home now, he will be miserable.

* Tells me that he and I didn't have a deep connection and never talked about our future. Says he doesn't 'feel it' for me right now, and he thinks he needs to feel it before he can really work at it and reinvest. If I take an unbiased perspective, this seems very off to me - we were very close, best friends, talked 30 times a day about everything - we worked together, ride horses together and spent every moment together that he wasn't travelling. Feels like classic revisionist history. Also I'm sure that compared to his foreign HausFrau, who he has been in a passionate long distance romantic affair with, our connection seems more muted and less full of discovery. Also, if he is giving her all of his emotional connection, of course this would result in less love for me - you can't really work on two relationships at the same time!

* He has turned into a monster and a person I don't know. Ready to walk away from our wonderful life, home, financial security, dog, etc. Doesn't seem to notice or care that he has devastated me. Doesn't seem to miss me. How is this possible???

* I tried at first to reconnect with him. Spent a lot of time with him, didn't bring up the R/OW, showed him that I was fun and attractive and wonderful. (Interestingly, he says that I am amazing and has a ton of respect for me as a person - he also said that I am younger, prettier and we have better sex than the HausFrau.) We still have a ton of chemistry, and he even cheated on the OW with me on multiple occasions recently. I thought I was really drawing him back home, but then he suddenly backpeddles very hard.

* I was the most loving, supportive, kind fiance he could have had. I was totally blindsided by this. I know that sounds naive, but I think he fell into this not becasue there was something awful or broken with us, but I and my therapist believe that he is:

1. trapped in an affair fog and not seeing reality
2. has detached from me and our life in order to justify stuff to himself + he is emotionally attached to her (can't really work on our relationship while he is tied up in that, though he thinks he can and would just 'feel it')
3. immature about what real committed love is vs. infatuated affair love
4. maybe needing to explore other options in his life (mid life crisis?); feels like very selfish behavior to me - not about love!!! I also think that he has low self esteem and was stressed about work, other factors that may have contributed to his affair at the outset
5. content right now because the affair is filling some emotional needs that I used to fill
6. but ultimately still torn on some level
7. can't really be madly in love with the HausFrau if he is already cheating on her with me, right?