Moving Along OR Just Spinning My Wheels?

[RBinBR]

I know that he can get sex anywhere.
I guess I just wanted to believe all the stuff he told me.
He didn't enjoy all the lying that was involved with cheating.

No, the lying is never fun, but that doesn't mean that he won't do it. (To make this personal, I didn't like lying to my W about my porn habit, but the lying didn't stop me from doing it for years.)

He wouldn't just sleep with any random women (I.E. a lot lizard.)

Umm ... but he did, didn't he? Wasn't the OW just a "random woman"? Let me ask you, would it really make you happier if he cared about the OW? I don't know if you can understand this or not, but to your H, it probably didn't feel as "bad" because he didn't care about her ... it was "just sex."

I now lead a group at my church for men breaking free of sexual addiction, and I have a guy in my group who just recently ended an affair with a girl at his work. He cared absolutely nothing about her and loves his wife very much, but the whole thing was just about sex, and he has had a long-term problem with sexual addiction.

I am not saying that your H is a sex addict (because I don't have nearly enough info for that), but his horrible family background makes it much more likely. If so, then it's likely that he uses sex as a substitute for love, to try to meet his emotional needs.

The point that I am trying to make here is that it really doesn't matter at this point whether he has an emotional attachment to the OW or not. He's not ready for a real marriage relationship with you, and you HAVE to give him the space to grow up and recognize that he wants one. I don't think that will happen until you leave him alone.

I don't want my marriage to be over.
God . . . what will I have left to believe in then?

Your M is unquestionably over, just like mine is. You can possibly build something new, but accepting that your marriage is over is essential to the detachment you need.

What the hell will I tell my beautiful girls when they grow up without a daddy . . . and want to know where theirs is.

Different topic, Emily, but please cut down on the drama. I know that you're working on yourself, but enjoying your victim status is still a really big problem for you.