[lostnconfused93]

Husband and I have been together for 5 years and we have two kids together. Everything has been great up until a year ago. I started to have feelings of uncertainty and felt like I needed freedom. I was open with him about these feelings and he told me he would give me that freedom but said he couldn’t assure me that he would still be there when I decided I didn’t want that anymore. So I decided to ignore those feelings because I was afraid of losing him for good. Well recently I went back to my hometown to visit and I ended up cheating on him with an ex. I came home and told him what I did and he was devastated of course. He wanted to leave me at first until he confessed that he been web camming other women for months and had private sessions with them masturbating to each other. While I was disgusted with myself for physically cheating on him I was also disgusted that he had been doing that behind my back for months. But we decided that we would try to work things out instead of just ending things right there.
At first that’s what I wanted but now I’m uncertain. I still want that freedom and I’m afraid I can’t love him the way he loves me. But when I think about him being with someone else it makes me sick. I know… I’m a hypocrite. I’m just afraid of letting him go for good and being the one who regrets losing him to another woman. But I’m also afraid of ignoring my feelings just for it to eat me up inside. I’m being selfish and I know it but I can’t help it. I think about my kids too but I know I can’t just stay with him for them.
Advice please?

[April Masini, your AskApril]

You have five years invested into the relationship, with four of them good, — and two children. With an 80% “good year” rate and two children, the risk of leaving is a lot higher than in some other situations. Also, you talk about wanting freedom as your main problem — but when you got it by cheating, instead of enjoying that freedom, you ran right back to your husband and confessed. 😕 That doesn’t make me think you really want freedom as much as you want to shake things up in the marriage. Also, it sounds like your husband has also been having problems in the marriage — he’s looked outside the marriage for a sexual and intimacy connection. So you’re both in agreement that there’s a problem in the marriage.

I know you want to leave — and in theory, that’s the easy out and a seemingly quick fix to the problem — but the reality is not so easy and it’s not a guaranteed fix. You’ll have a custody agreement, and you’ll probably have to downsize. If you’re not working, you may need to. You may also find that you repeat the problems from this relationship in your next one if you aren’t really analytical and clear on what’s gone wrong and why. So, why not approach the marital problems first and see if you can’t fix them? You talk about “freedom” but you both went to sex outside the marriage — there’s a difference between freedom and sex, so be clear on what’s wrong in the marriage. And then decide to try and work on it. 😉

Of course, if you’ve already decided to leave the marriage, then let me know if you have specific questions about how to do that.

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