I appear together, but I am broken.

I'll preface this by stating I do not need any judgement, I am my own worst critic and have beat myself up hard. I'm going to be brutally honest and hope to get constructive feedback.

So I'm in my late 20's, been married for almost 3 years and in a relationship for 10. I met my wife in college, she was the most serious relationship I ever had, she's all I ever knew outside of petty HS dating. She is beautiful, unmistakably talented, and one of the most remarkable human beings I have ever met. She is wildly intelligent and is just a cut above the flock. I always just grew into 'loving her' and it was never comparable to the 'movie like' sensational rushes everyone talks about. My family LOVED her and I thought she would be a great fit and was what you were supposed to find. Both lost our virginity together, everything seemed as it was supposed to go. 7 years go by in our relationship (pre marriage) and she left me. I went crazy, I actually realized that I did love her, and fought tooth and nail to get her back. Against impossible odds I did get her back. A few years later, we married. 3 years later, we have moved accross the country to chase dreams, we settled down (with a 300k mortgage mind you) and now here I am.

Who am I? I am a good person, I have a huge heart and believe in doing the right things. There is one crippling vice I have, and it's women. That is the one thing I feel like I can not control. I came from a divorced family, because my dad was the same. He was unfaithful. My brother carries this weakness too, it has crippled his relationships, he divorced at 28. I have a wondering eye, however, I would never publicly show this. Dating websites like Ashley Madison and Tinder are like kryptonite to me and have made it easy and comfortable to fulfill these evil and destructive desires in the dark. I have crossed the line and for whatever reason, I feel no remorse. That bothers me greatly. I should feel awful at the conclusion of these temporarily relationships, but I don't, I just keep fishing. It's easy to chalk all that up to lust. Now, cue the Tinder app. Different evil ball game. I matched with a girl who literally made me feel something real. She was flat out gorgeous, and as I began to talk to her, I felt an unreal connection like I never felt like this for my wife. She is gorgeous, smart, simple, passionate, or so it appears at this point. I want to meet this girl so bad and if the feeling becomes mutual then what the hell? Could I really have found the match I can't live without? How could I feel so damn sure about something so ludicrous and undeveloped?

So here I am now, scared to death of divorce and unwilling to deal with the emotional weight of failure. I am married to an amazing person, she is truly amazing, she is beautiful and physically fit. She is sexually attractive, but I don't crave it. Why am I craving anything and everything else from a lust perspective and now feel an undeniable crazy attraction/connection to a new girl? Why can't I be a man, a stronger man, and just now allow myself to make this connection. I'm not an addict of drugs or anything, but I feel like this is what addiction must feel like, like a total inability to resist. If family, co-workers, friends knew of my transgressions, they would be in a total state of shock, as this weakness is so radically out of line with everything I am about.

Last thing I want to say so that all factors are on the table, we moved to a big city as a part of a plan for me to jade a dream in music. I have always worked full time to maintain a steady job while keeping all options open. I have taken jobs and subconsciously put my needs aside to be able to pay for her additional schooling that has made her incredibly accomplished, she is well paid as a result. She also wanted her dream house, this house we bought is great, but it takes both of us for it to work. I ultimately sacrificed what I came down here to chase so we could have all these things. We have minimal debt, and amazing credit with decent savings. If we were to divorce, neither could likely take the house and we'd lose money, divide the debt, and basically lose this indestructible ship we have built. I'm not happy right now, I don't feel excited to see my wife when she comes home. I get excited when she leaves. I constantly feel crazy things for different girls.

So who can relate? What's the painful truth? Do I need to just pay the price and pull the plug? I think I just may have serious problem with emotions and rational, I feel like it's emotional incompetence.. I could elect to do the worst thing ever and divorce and end up regretting it miserably forever. I just DO NOT KNOW. I appear together, but am shattered in a million broken pieces. Any help is dearly appreciated.

Why did your wife leave you?

Why did you fight to get her back if you knew you had a wandering eye? That seems very selfish of you.

Why did your wife leave you?

Why did you fight to get her back if you knew you had a wandering eye? That seems very selfish of you.

She left me prior to us being married for another interest. Those 3 months went on and ahe came back. At that time, I thought I figured it out, but the demons have just come back in full force on me.

It looks like you have a few things going on:

You're emotionally immature. You are considering leaving your commitment for something that you think is going to fulfill you, based on limited information.

You are excusing your behavior as some sort of illness, partly because of your family history. Your dad is an enabling role model, and your brother an enabling peer.

I feel for your wife, because she's married to a potentially toxic person, but my advice is for your best interests, since you're the one here, asking.

Get a counselor. Work with him to find out what is missing in your identity or self-esteem that leads you to seek value in affairs, instead of honoring yourself and your word and your partner.

Come to terms with the truth that we all have urges- respectable adults control our urges when the alternative puts our well-being at risk. Learn this skill in counseling.

When we are sick, we seek treatment. If this connection with Tinder Woman was a one-time thing, maybe I'd believe that you had inconveniently found your soulmate. But the way you describe cheating sounds more pathological.

Your brain is trying to trick you into believing that this woman will fix whatever is missing in your life. You must know that is impossible- only you can fix yourself. Learn how in counseling.

It might turn out that you're too ill to be married, and then you'll have to leave your marriage. But get some counseling to find out for sure- don't leave based on this unhealthy thought process.

Good luck.

Thank you dearly for this. I want to get better.

You said, "She is gorgeous, smart, simple, passionate,..."

- I always laugh to myself when I read things like this.

Stop going on the computer. In time, reality will return, and you can start making plans with you wife.

You are using women to escape reality.

It is irresponsible, same as if you drank, hung out playing video games, etc- only worse beca use you are violating your marital vows.

Feeling chemistry by computer is meaningless; I've been there. Feeling chemistry without compatibility is destructive and misleading - you can't build a life. And she IS incompatible with you.

The reason you don't feel that connection with your wife is because you are not available to her.

If you can't stop philandering, see a therapist. This is intimacy avoidance and you need to fix it if you intend to have a relationship with anyone- including being able to have respect for yourself.

Wait, am I the only person here who has noticed that nowhere in this long post the OP has said that he loves his wife? I see many posts on here talking about marital problems and often the person says: "I love my wife, but..." I've noticed that OP has not said this at all. He is just listing her good qualities, her attractiveness, his family loving his wife, their "happy marriage". He's just telling us that his wife ticks a lot of boxes.

Yes, people can wander from their partner because of lust, because of curiosity, boredom, high sex drive, grass is always greener, greediness, you name it. But I think you may have a deeper issue here, and could that possibly be that you're not happy with your wife because you simply don't love her? You mention she is beautiful, fit, lovely, and yet you are not even sexually attracted to her. I could be totally off the mark here, but one thing I noticed about myself is that when I lose interest in my partner sexually and start thinking about being with other people, is usually when I just stop wanting to be with my partner.

I think to an extent lusting after other women is probably normal, I'm sure many people do that. I guess not everyone would take it so far as actually go on online dating sites and start meeting people on there. Posters on here have told you to get off dating sites and focus on saving your marriage. That is definitely good advice, but first I would probably examine if you actually WANT to save your marriage. Ask yourself the question, "Do I love my wife?" Give a very honest answer, it's very simple - "Yes" or "No". Then that answer will hopefully give you an idea of how you want to proceed from there.

Perhaps you're just not a monogamous person. There are plenty of people who define themselves as polyamorous.

I don't think your real issue is that you are not monogamous.

I think your real issue is that you make incredibly poor decisions which seem to be based on what you think people are "supposed" to do, and seem very concerned with outward appearances to others. And this is all done without thinking about who you're potentially harming in the process.

You also seem to have a flair for the dramatic—you've decided someone you briefly corresponded with online could be your soul mate, for example. That's very extreme.

So I agree with those who say to see a counselor.

I do believe you genuinely want help and to that end you need to seek it from someone who can help you. I won't say you're a sex addict, because I don't know that and it may not even be what the case is. It could be some other issue altogether. And maybe at the end of the day you simply aren't meant to be monogamous and/or you married someone for all the wrong reasons. My first marriage was one of those. He was and is a great guy, just not the guy for me and I'm glad every day when I see how happy he is with his current wife that I let him go to find her.

Also you're an adult and as adults we face the consequences of our actions, whether we want to or not. Avoiding it is like trying to remain a child and hide from the world--neither of those things work.

I'm sorry, I wish I could give you another answer, but I can't. Self-deception won't get you anywhere, staying in a loveless marriage won't either, and turning to other women for comfort is exactly the same as if you were picking up a bottle or shooting up in the bathroom. Something is making you want to hide and engage in unhealthy behaviors and to do so even when you know it's hurting you and those around you. It's time for you to face those demons and fight for a whole life, not one hidden in the shadows.

You sound genuinely in pain about this. But you also acknowledge you can't stop on your own. And no, I agree with Tinydance, I noticed there was no mention of loving your wife either. She can be the most perfect woman in the world, you may wish you loved her enough to be monogamous, but that will not change the fact that you are living a lie right now and it sounds like you have been for some time.

It's time to face the consequences of your actions and come clean with her. It's not fair that you get a choice to cheat and look outside your marriage while leading her to believe you are monogamous. One of the biggest problems with cheating is it's one person denying the other their right to choose. And she does have a right too choose in all of this too. She can either choose to stay with you, leave you, or fall somewhere in between. And you do not have the right to keep that choice from her.

So give her a chance and let her make her own choices too.

And then you need to go and see a therapist and find out what this is all about. You aren't able to be fully honest with her or yourself and that's a huge problem that yes, eats away at your soul. I know how hard that's going to be, but people do it every single day and live to tell the tale and find happiness. You can too.

You're welcome. I sincerely hope you can get better.

I don't, however, think you should confess to your wife yet. She'll have a lot of questions that you probably can't answer.

I think that once you're in counseling, you and your therapist can decide whether to bring your wife into a session for you to tell her the truth.

This is not an indestructible ship....this is the Titanic.

You have taken innumerable steps because of "expectations" and projected a facade. Your wife likely has no idea of the depths of your unhappiness and ability to justify your desires based on your brother and fathers actions.

I too would recommend using a therapist to determine the root cause.

I sincerely appreciate all the comments and depth of response. I do love my wife, I know this because of what happened when we parted prior to marriage, I got sick to death and could not bare the thought of not having her back, but once I got her back, this same mentality ensues. I would be sick to lose her, it's selfish. Greedy, sick and sad is how I would put it, but it's the truth. It is what it is and I don't know why. I want to see a therapist as suggested but Im not familiar with this type of consulting. Can I trust a therapist? Will I be able to throw it all out on the line? Can I make myself vulnerable? Thanks again everyone, your genuinely helping me through a really dark place in my life.

Therapists have a duty to keep your disclosures confidential, unless you seriously threaten to physically hurt yourself or someone else.

So when you ask if you can trust a therapist to keep your secrets, the short answer is yes.

If you're asking whether you can trust a therapist to help you make the right decisions, it's more complicated. Ideally, yes. But therapists are people too. So first you have to find one that you are compatible with.

Then you have to really open yourself up to gain anything. Even when a therapist can tell that you're clammed up or playing mind games, they can't force you to stop. So therapy is only as helpful as your willingness to try.

You may not be able to lay it all out right away- that's okay. It can take time to let your guard down, especially if you're male!

But if you choose wisely and go into it with honesty, it should help a lot. You may not get the answers you want, but you'll get what you need.

_________________________________________

You're not evil, and you're not the only one. You're remorseful and hard on yourself. Many men in your situation aren't. You simply got together too young... you're still very young and you have a high sex drive which is why you can't help wanting to explore what else is out there in the world as far as women are concerned. No matter how beautiful a woman is or how much you love her, being intimate with only THE one person all your life would make anyone ask themselves - 'what am I missing?? After all, I only live once'.

It's really up to you to decide what you want to do. The decent thing would be to divorce your wife, sample what the world's got to offer for a few years until you've truly 'been there, done that, worn the t-shirt', then settle down with someone for good knowing that you KNOW what's out there and don't need to constantly experience new women. Then again, the decent thing is never an easy thing to do. I can tell you that the only reason I am able to be faithful to my husband of 10+ years (and he to me) is because we got together at 33 and 36; we'd both done it all before ten thousand times over... so the hunger, the curiosity, the need to feel, experience, explore was no longer there. There is NO way in utter h*** that I could stay with, let alone stay sexually faithful to someone whom I'd met when still a teenager. It's a very rare thing for a couple who got together when they were kids to even stay together, let alone stay faithful to each other. You might have just outgrown her...grown into a completely different person compared to who you were when you two met.

It's a difficult situation for sure. I don't know what advise to give you. I just wanted to say that I understand.

You're using your dad and brother as an excuse.

If you really, REALLY believe you are genetically disposed or whatever to cheat, then divorce and never get married again. Ever.

Sure, maybe tinder girl is the perfect person and the grass is truly greener. You're gonna cheat on her too because you're gonna be looking for the next best thing.

I also recommend seeing a therapist. You clearly are missing something in your life. Something that can most likely be replaced with something actually constructive.

I can't give you any insight into the quick and lustful relationships you describe, but, from experience, I can warn you about the one you're considering that might be more serious.

I was married 24 years and never EVER considered anyone else. Then I met someone who is exactly as you describe the Tinder woman. Both my wife and this woman are wonderful and deserve better. I know I love both of them and as a result I am racked with guilt in every aspect of my life and have hurt both of them deeply.

If you have not yet started this relationship, please think hard before you do so.

All I can tell you is that if you have begin a serious, emotional involvement with this other woman it could hurt the three of you deeply. A great piece of advice I received, albeit too late, is that you should end a marriage because the marriage is bad, not because of another person. From your description you don't think you have a bad marriage.

I don't know what your intentions are with your wife, only you do. If you truly want to stay with her, an additional serious relationship will make that almost impossible. Getting involved with someone else emotionally could cause you (all of you) great torment.

Okay, my take on this? You married your wife for all the wrong reasons. You married her because she "fit" an ideal, because your family loved her, because she was good enough at the time. But that's not the same thing as being in love with someone and having that fit where you just like them and get them and vice versa and you can never run out of things to talk about or do together.

So I don't think that makes you an evil or a bad person. I'd say that puts you squarely in with a percentage of people who marry at one point in their lives, because it's the thing we're all "supposed to do" according to society's expectations. And often times people marry before they're even fully developed as people with enough life experience under their belt to really know what it that they want.

And yes, I'm speaking from experience here. I was 19, far too young, and I married him because he was everything everyone told me he should be. But I wasn't in love with and he wasn't in love with me and we spent years being miserable before we mutually called it quits. We divorced and married other people later in life, the people we should have been patient enough to wait for and marry and are happy with now. Watching my ex with his current wife my only regret was I didn't set him free to find her sooner.

That's one topic.

The other is the cheating. It's your idea of coping I suppose, but it's a very, very bad idea and it's going to a whole lot more hurtful than just sitting your wife down, telling her the relationship is broken, and then either getting up the cajones to get some marriage counseling or ask for a divorce. Having an affair and using infatuation for someone else as the reason to tank your marriage is a terrible idea, it's the path of least resistance, it's the coward's way out. Whether you choose sex or alcohol or drugs or gambling or something else, it's still an addiction that enables you escaping your life and the ability to face problems head. It's also going to put you and those you love squarely in the path of some serious damage and danger of one sort or another.

To that end normally I'd say marriage counseling, but I read your account and I don't know that you were ever in love with your wife. I just know she'll take it a whole lot better if you were therapy together, told her you felt nothing for her, and ended things cleanly than when she finds your cheating accounts or worse someone sees you with another woman or worst of all you have sex with someone who then runs off to tell your wife all about it including pictures and more.

To that end you probably need a therapist who will figuratively speaking put things to you bluntly, insist you get honest and straight, and you need to step back and put other women off to the side--all other women and any forms involving other women too--as dead end addictions that are going to screw up everything good in your life, sort out your marriage, gather your courage if divorce is what it comes to, get free and single, get some sanity into your life AND then you could look at getting with someone else. Or not, maybe you choose to bounce from woman to woman and that's okay too, as long as you're single and honest about it.

What's missing in your life more than anything is honesty, with yourself, your wife, yes even that girl you feel so attracted to who may or may not be a real person or who she says she is (cat fishing is a real thing and it's getting more prevalent all the time) who may not want something with a married man.

Oh, and one more thing as someone who's been there, (albeit not a sex addict, mine was an addiction to a very toxic person specifically) you need to look over whatever else in your life is bothering you that you aren't facing. Because addictions don't come about just, because one has an unhappy love life. There's usually something far deeper and darker or something right now like a toxic job, a dying parent, a past childhood issue etc. that is eating away at you.