Quote: I actually entertained thoughts of having an affair while he is gone. Yes, that's how bad it's gotten.
You have my sympathy with regard to your situation, but you don't have my support on entertained thoughts about an affair.
What was it that Nopkins used to say? "An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect." It's also the chicken's way out. If you want to have a sex life with someone, either do it with your S, or divorce him, and find another (in that order). Otherwise, you're not only disrespecting yourself and your spouse, you're disrespecting your lover, his wife and kids (if he has them), your kids (if you have them), your parents (who tried to teach you better) and your god or who/whatever you believe in.
Here's a quote from Rabbi Shmuley Boteach which you might want to share with your H:
Quote: From Schmuley Boteach’s “Kosher Adultery,”: “If marriage is about trust and comfort and caring and being friends, why not just stay with our parents or siblings? Of course it's about all those things, but the point is, it’s also about experiencing the miracles of passion and lust and lovemaking with abandon. As he points out, more marriages are killed by the slow rot of boredom and complacency than by affairs.
Boteach conveys an immense amount of originality in his discussion of what makes marriage work and, conversely, what wrecks it. And what Boteach calls upon as his primary source is the Decalogue, particularly the Tenth Commandment: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's."
This Commandment, Boteach maintains, implies a husband *is* to LUST after his *own* wife. Similarly, Boteach argues that sex is a most holy gift given by a Benign Creator to enlighten and elevate humanity, and refutes the Darwinian message that men and women are mere mechanical automata -- inevitably behaving like animals -- rather than created in the image of God. The business of being truly human, the Rabbi argues, is to transcend our natures: in this case, to be passionately monogamous for a lifetime.
I'm not condemning you for entertaining thoughts of an affair. Hell, I've been there, too. I'm just throwing out some words/thoughts and hope you can maybe use them to redirect your energies back into your marriage.
