Hello there.  I was hoping for some advice.

i am a 39 year old man, in a 22 year relationship with my partner.  I was 17 when we met, she was 21.

i love her very very much.  Like any long term relationships we have had our ups and downs.  There being flaws on both side.  I have always tried to work on our relationship.  To let her know that she is adored and loved.  Most of the decisions in our life are about what she needs and what makes her happy.  As she is older, she kind of always had the upper hand that way.

We have 3 children.  18, 15 and 11. I work from home so am very active in their lives.

i have never cheated, I have never wanted to be with anyone else.  Their are things about my relationship that my partner knows I am unhappy with.  For years at a time she has closed her self off to me sexually.  I am the communicator, she being much more closed off.

my partner pursues her goals and hobbies to the exclusion of what you would say is healthy.  She has left me with my two sons pretty much every weekend for nearly a decade, to pursue her own interests.  Despite me very much telling her the mental toll this has taken.  You could probably count the amount of times she has taken them off my hands on one hand.

This has obviously been worse during the global lockdown.

i am not controlling or abusive in any way.  There have been a couple of instances where my drinking has gone to far and I have been mean.

i have been having somewhat of a mid life crisis lately.  Realising that the behaviours my partner shows now are still what she showed in our early life.  What she wants to do she does, what she doesn’t, she won’t.  This included many acts of infidelity on her part.  But I always loved her more than the hurt so we worked through it.  But it’s just been on my mind a lot lately that she does not see me as an equal.  That she does not have any empathy for me as a human being with needs.

i think I have developed an unhealthy relationship with alcohol over the last few years  as a coping mechanism.  It being the only thing in my life that is mine.

i had abstained for a couple of months as was under a lot of stress and knew that drinking wouldn’t help.  I threw myself into all my partners groups to help her.  Even during the lockdown she hasn’t really been at home.  I think there was a kind of resentment that she can’t hear my requests for help or change, but here I was again doing everything to change for her.

it did make her happy and our relationship was probably in the best place it has been for years.  Every night I could look forward to some time together, I would give her foot massages and back rubs and then we probably made love at least every other day.

And then I fucked it all up.

i decided I needed something for me and bought a bottle of whiskey.

I have lots of female friends.  My partner has never had anything to be jealous about. She has all acces to all my online activities and all my contacts.  I am not a secretive person and am on open book.  Being with her is like breathing.  There is no choice.  She cast a spell on me when I was 17 and I’ve never wanted to recover from it.

i have never been in an unsafe situation with a woman.  Everyone that know us knows we are together.  I probably gripe about a few things, as everyone does, to my closest friends.  But that conversation is always with love.  That I love my partner and that I want to work through any problems.  Not run from them.

A female friend had broken up with her partner over the last week or so.  I have known her for 15 or more years.  I had been giving her some support and advice surrounding her break up.  She had been telling me how much she needed some social contact and to vent and chat.

i made all the normal decisions a person would make.  I invited her to come on a dog walk that I do daily.  I said I would check with my partner if she was comfortable with this person coming over.

i then proceeded to drink my whiskey.  The plan changed at some point that I would pick this friend up and she could come over and chat.  I didn’t act in any guilty sneaky way as I had no guilty intent.  My plan was to just pick her up and be supportive.  I didn’t take anything to drink with me as my intention was to return straight away.

in my mind it may as well have been a male friend that I was going to chat to. My boundries were clear.  I had known this friend for 15 years,  she knows I’m in a committed relationship.  I have told her I love my partner.  I have also told her of some of my frustrations.

when I arrived to pick her up she had already set up drinks.  She is 35 and lives with her father.  We sat in the garden.  I had the intention of drinking what she had provided and then head home.  

I don’t really remember much after this. What I now remember is what I have put together since.  I remember that she poured the drinks.  I remember her blowing some kind of smoke in my face.   When it came round to talk about her breakup, she was quite clear that the reason for the breakup was she wanted more sexually and how she wanted to be treated.  I remember beginning to get uncomfortable.  I remember her asking me if I thought she and I would ever have sex.  Shortly afterwards I left.  She followed me and apologised.  

I have a snippet of memory of sitting at my kitchen table.  My next memory is my partner coming into the room.  The hurt in her face and her anger.  My looking around me and seeing that I was undressed.  I don’t remember a thing .  Didn’t know what was happening and didn’t know where I was.  I have learnt since that I was underessed, my the woman was still fully dressed and performing oral sex on me and it looked like I was enjoying it.

i know that this is so horrible.  I haven’t eaten or slept in 4 days.  I feel so guilty and actually want to die that I have hurt the person most important to me in the world this way.

its taken me time to process my feelings and thoughts. I reviewed every message I sent this long term friend.  I was very clear about my boundries.  That I loved my partner.  I thought I was having drinks with a friend.  De stressing and taking a bit of time for me in a safe plutonic long standing friendship.  I was in my family home and had no plans or intentions for anything to happen.

i have never cheated.  I have never given my wife cause for concern.  I tell her how beautiful she is and try to be kind and thoughtful.  To show her that I love her with so many small acts.

i know I am not blameless in this situation. I feel so guilty.  I am not going to hide from what I have done.  My 15 year old son already knows.  I will be telling my 18 year old daughter as she needs to understand why her mother is so hurt and disgusted by me.

But my mind keeps coming back to that night.  I was very clear with my boundries.  In hindsight, I can see the friend had very different intentions for the evening and planted all the innuendo and seduction.  Bringing the conversation to where she wanted it to be repeatedly. I even wonder if my drink was spiked.  I haven’t been blackout drunk for many years.  

a line was crossed when I was black out drunk. It was never what I wanted to happen or had intended.  I still do not remember most of the evening.  I could not have given my consent.  I could barely stand up.  I feel like I was taken advantage of and manipulated. That she waited and took her opportunity and breached all the clear lines  I feel as disgusted as If a Man had done this to me.  I feel like I had no control over the situation.  I did not know what was happening.

i have never done anything like this and never would hurt those that I love.  I take full responsibility for the pain that I have caused.  Telling my daughter will be very hard.

i don’t know if my soul mate will be able to forgive me.  I hoped that because of her past indiscretions she would be able to.  But that was before I fully knew what happened.  What I did was terrible.  But I could not have given consent.  Anyone looking at me would see I could not take part in any consensual act.

my partner is disgusted with me and I don’t blame her.  I can’t lose my family.  I am not a cheater.  I think I am genuinely contemplating harming myself as it’s a situation I know I can’t fix.  I feel like I have woken up in a nightmare.  I remember so little.  Can a woman take advantage of / sexually assault a man when he is blackout drunk.

please help