"...and the relationship with his friend opened his eyes to how love should start - easy and fun with no baggage"

What a selfish, delusional jackass this guy sounds like!

Hahaha, is he for real? Eventually the honeymoon period is over in life. Not that you can't and shouldn't enjoy life, but reality has a way of sucking out the 24/7 romance fest!

I know you're hurting and I wish I had a magic pill, but if it's any comfort at all he sounds like someone that just doesn't have a normal take on real life.

In response to ChelseaLeigh, he and I are still together in the same house with our 16 year old daughter but it is so hard. We talk all the time; his issues, my issues, how we affected each other through the years. How long he hasn't felt connection to me, why he's been afraid to leave (practicality - house, cars, child, not wanting to be seen as the asshole). But he acted like he was on the same page as me. He held my hand and told me he loved me and we were in it til the end together. We did things together and laughed and had a good time. All while this emotional affair was going on daily with a woman with her own husband and kids and unhappy marriage 1000 miles away. The hardest thing is going through all this emotional distress all day everyday and feeling like my life is ending while he is going to work and having fun with his colleagues and connecting with our daughter and sleeping fine.

Yes. That's what's wrong with them. They sleep JUST FINE and leave the suffering to you.

time to go. It took me a few years to get used to life, but I wouldn't go back to that for anything. Make your own life. Earn your own future. Find yourself.

You need to let go of the years you have lost, and make the most of the years you have left.

Also: no more talky with him. He's getting to offload onto you. Why are you letting him offload onto you? Tell him to stick his rationalisations where the sun don't shine.

To Chelsealeigh: reading your post made me think of my similar situation. Married almost 20 years and for the past 4 years have been slowly losing my husband, not only to other women but to drugs and other addictions. I won the prize as he has literally every single vice imaginable. He recently took an apartment for himself on the other side of the island (we live in the Caribbean and is obviously chosen to want a separate life from our two daughters and myself. He has left me heart broken and abandoned and with a business, which I feel am running all by myself; one he started and worked hard to establish only to leave me with it unfinished; and I didn't want a part of in the first place because he meant moving from home. But as wives, we are supportive and at the time thought our marriage was forever and trusted I was doing the right thing. Little did I know he would bail out of his family and the business. He recently told me I was not sexually compatible with him because I would not allow him to be high while giving him oral sex so in order to take that burden away, he would get a place to pay prostitutes to allow him to do what he wants. I did not marry the man he is today or has become and I am having a hard time disconnecting and coming to the realization that this man is not good for me but rather toxic. I did love him once upon a time when he seemed to be a good person but has admitted to me he is not. It is one lie after another. I think within the last 4 years, I can count how many times he has been honest with me. I think he is my security blanket and being that he has been my one and only, I am in a foreign country, we have kids in school here, it leaves me stuck until my girls graduate high school. I hold on for a shred of hope if it at all exists but I am afraid he wants completely out as he actions have shown and will never feel remorse nor regret for what he is and has done to our family. My girls can't bear to look at him because they too feel betrayed ad abandoned and can't understand how a father can do this to his family. They believe he does not love them like a father should. We all feel betrayed, abandoned, used. I have given up everything for this man, only to be stomped and discarded like a piece of garbage. Unfortunately, until my girls graduate high school, we are stuck here for the next 4 years until the three of us can get the heck off of this island that I blame for ruining our family. Unfortunately, we are on such a small island, I can't even get a decent therapist to take to, which makes going through this even harder. I am hoping with time, I continue to disconnect and will not even entertain the thought of having him back no matter how much he begs.

@fs555, I have heard of 7cups, its an online therapy
for a Fairly good price. I heard about it from a Few
different sources. I think you can try some free Type
of Talking too. One person i know really likes it and is
Using it now.

I would recommend alanon/coda for you Plus therapy,
HUGS

@ChelseaLeigh - I feel for you having to find yourself again while he's off in the world doing whatever he thinks he needs. :( The only up side to this is that you might heal faster because you have your own space. I've wished I could be away from my partner but we are in a modest house but a relatively expensive town. Any second home we could afford would be a small apartment in a depressing area. It is so hard to limit contact in the same space when I just want him to tell me he values and loves me and say he wants to figure things out.