Passion never existed between us

This is my first post on this site (or a forum for that matter) and I'm really looking for some non-biased advise.

I'm 32 years old and have been married for almost 3 years, together for almost 8 years. My husband and I met during our senior year of college. I had a serious boyfriend that I was so smitten with when we met. My boyfriend at the time was the most caring, sensitive, loving, passionate, sexual, funny guy I had ever been with. But for some reason when I met my husband, something inside of me told me I needed to break off my relationship and pursue my soon to be husband, so that's exactly what I did.

Initially, things didn't go much beyond drinking, laughing and having sex. The sex was always a little awkward, as we both had a crush on each other but had started to become good friends. Also, my husband has never been one to be too in touch with his emotions. Still I hung on to his every word and was at his beckon call. However, school became busy for me and he graduated early after winter quarter then moved across the state, so we stopped hanging out and I went running back to my ex bf for solace. He took me back, surprisingly and was just as loving and caring as he had always been. Fast forward to springtime and my husband and I reconnected via messenger, then texts, then phone calls and Skype. I thought, okay this is the second time he has come back into my life, it must mean that we are meant to be together now and he was also wanting to pursue a relationship with me, even telling me one night that he thought he was falling in love with me.

So I dumped my ex...again...and ended up moving across the state to live with my soon to be husband and his roommate. I slept in the same bed as him, we had sex about 3-4 times through-out the coarse of 3 months (which is not normal to me with new relationships you should be doing that regularly). BUT, never cuddled, never held hands. Only kissed a few times. He wouldn't kiss me before, after or during sex. He had invited me as his date to a wedding, but when we were at the wedding one of his friends asked him if I was his date and he replied "no she's just my plus one"....right in front of me and his other friends! That's just a small example of all the cruel things he would say to me/about me.

Anyway fast forward a year later and we have moved back across the state together and live in a two bedroom apartment. By this time he has finally asked me to be his gf and told me he loves me....but we sleep in separate beds and we barely are intimate, barely even kiss...he ends up telling me he thinks my face is beautiful but has a problem with my body. he's not sexually attracted to me. I ask "well then how can you even stomach having sex with me?" he says "I don't know". (I've never been a tiny girl, but I've also never been overweight, I'm just a little chubby) So after him telling me this, I still decide to stay with him. Fast forward a bit further and we are buying a house together, not married yet but had been dating for 2 years. We move into the house and finally start sleeping in the same bed together. Things seem to get a little better between us, but not much...we just argue less and I talk less about my thoughts and feelings and even about how my day was, because he usually would just roll his eyes when I would talk about any of those things. Our sex life was still almost non-existent, despite the fact that I had started dressing the way he wanted me to, acting the way he wanted me to, always agreeing to do everything he wanted, letting him do whatever he wanted and had lost a significant amount of weight by barely eating.

So we get married a few years later, the whole wedding process was horrible. I had to plan everything because "I got you a ring and proposed, that's all I need to do". The honeymoon was the worst vacation I've ever had in my life. He turned into a different person, was so mean and uncaring. I broke down crying and told him that, he apologized obviously, but still it hurt.

So almost three years later and the verbal abuse, ridicule, almost zero sex life, no intimate touch, no passion has not changed. Even his jokes, his smile, the way he looks at me, the small happy times can't over power the years of pain and hurt he has caused me like they used to. I hit a wall, I've been unhappy for so many years. I have social anxiety because I think people won't like me, are judging me, think I'm ugly, boring, un funny...the list goes on and on.

Through all this, in the back of my mind, I would keep comparing the relationship I had with my husband to the relationship I had with my ex that I left to be with my husband. And all I could think about it how much I wanted the type of relationship I used to have and how badly I had screwed up. So....I reached out to my ex via messenger (he lives on the other side of the country) just to catch up (yes there was nothing else, I had no idea if he'd even say anything back to me. for all I knew he hated me and all I wanted was to get his friendship back because I always felt like he was the only one that truly understood me). Well it turns out he was actually in the middle of a breakup with his long term girlfriend. So we reconnected and laughed, talked about our lives, our troubles in our current relationships, reminisced about the past and before we both knew it we are falling for each other again.

So I get the guts to tell my husband I'm not happy and things need to change. If they don't change we are done. I again for the fourth time in our relationship tell him all of the things that are making me unhappy. He gives me no things that are making him unhappy, nothing that I need to work on. All he knows is he doesn't want to loose me and can't imagine loosing me. A month goes by after this conversation. The only thing that changed is he is now very insecure and is always checking up on me and calling me sweet names that are insincere, because if he really wanted to say those things to me then why didn't he just do it in the first place. The sex, passion and intimacy still haven't changed. I got super upset after a month and have had it. He can tell that I've hit the wall. So he lets go of his huge secret, the issue behind alllll of our intimacy problems...he's been addicted to porn since he was a teenager...there was really never anything wrong me and he was always attracted to me he just told me those lies so I wouldn't suspect anything when he never initiated anything and was unable to 'perform' in the bedroom. Years and years of me feeling horrible about myself and it was all to protect his own ego, to keep his addiction a secret....I just found this out a few days ago and have done research and if I would have known what porn addiction looks like, then I would have been able to figure out that was the problem and not me.

I love my husband very much, but after all the years of hurt he has caused me I am no longer in love with him. Especially after dropping this bomb on me and now knowing the years of pain could have been avoided, but instead he just let me be unhappy to save himself...as of today he is working on his problem (no therapy, just being abstinent from porn) and I am just done with this marriage. There is no foundation for us to try to build off of and "remember the good times". The other factor is the emotional affair I'm having with my ex. I've been so happy the last month in a half because of him, I feel like a new person and he truly brings out the best in me. My husband wants to make it work between us and is so far actively trying (for the past five days) and I do still love him very much, I'm just not in love and don't think I will ever be again. My ex makes me happier than I have been in the past 8 years. No matter what I choose, someone will get hurt....help...

The ex is a cheater and you're he's next victim.

Cut all communication with this liar and concentrate on your marriage.

Not requiring and chemical ingestion, porn is one of the most insidious addictions of the mind.

The reason you don't know, or hear much about it, is that main steam mass media owns most of it, and is making big bucks off it.

Help him find a sexual addiction group near you and go to it.

Sorry to hear this it almost always was and still is an abusive relationship. As you know, abuse increases and escalates, getting married, living together etc usually make things worse. It also goes in cycles. Stay if you want, but an emotional affair is a bandaid, not a solution. It seems the affair guy is not available. Is he also married/in a relationship? If he wanted you and were available, you wouldn't be trying to decide what to do.

I love my husband very much, but after all the years of hurt he has caused me I am no longer in love with him. The other factor is the emotional affair I'm having with my ex. My ex makes me happier than I have been in the past 8 years.

Your husband isn't going to change. He doesn't want to go to any kind of therapy, so he's quitting porn "cold turkey", which has about as much success as quitting anything on your own, cold turkey....doesn't last, long term. And it's not just the porn habit. If it was that only, I could write it down to that he started viewing when he was younger, alone, not as comfortable with women yet, and women just weren't available.

Nope, he's also a mean jerk who takes this out on you. Telling you that your body isn't good enough (because it's not a porn body), that you don't wear the right clothes (because they're not porn star clothes), not having sex often (because you're not engaging in porn sex), etc. He's blaming all of this on you, making you twist into a pretzel, to please him. Find someone for whom you do not have to twist into a pretzel.

As for your old boyfriend, this is just a diversion. You left him for a reason. He's with someone else now.

You're only after him now because you knew he'd be safe. You knew he'd respond to you like a puppy dog. You don't want him, long term. You're using him to soothe your bruised ego. I get it. I've done it, so I'm not judging. It wasn't nice when I did it, and it's not nice for you to do it. These "newfound feelings" you have are just him making you feel good, in the moment, because he responded. They are not lifetime loving feelings. They just aren't.

My advice: Get a divorce, and cut off the old boyfriend, and learn to be on your own. I know it's scary, BTDT. You need to experience life on your own first, and figure out what drew you to this asshat of a husband, and learn from it.

Sorry but I'm not sure what other advice to give other than to leave this man for good...To be honest I'm seriously dumbfounded as to why you continued to date a man for eight years who has always treated you so poorly? I think the point at which he said he wasn't even sexually attracted to you was a very dead giveaway that he is not in love with you and overall probably not really that into you. You should have left him back then but it's not too late to do it now you know.

Sorry, I can't get over the fact that you left the same guy twice for your husband. I know woman do what they feel but you need to give your ex a break. Literally leave him alone. Have you not done enough messing with his time/effort/mind twice already because you liked your husband more. I mean give your ex a break.

You don't need another person to save you from this. You need to save yourself from this. Leave your husband, leave your ex alone and give him a break while you stay single and alone for a while. A long while because your behavior will continue in the future if you don't change and end up hurting more people. Perhaps the ones you hurt will end up in this forum. Please stop, work on yourself, improve, cherish what you have when you eventually find someone that treats you right (again) and stop messing around with your ex and give him a break.

I didn't put much about my personal history before I met my husband. But I grew up in a house that was not very loving and I was verbally abused by both of my parents. I was constantly trying to do everything right to please them in the hopes that if I did, then they would truly love me. This just ingrained in me that it's okay to suffer through the abuse if you get that golden nugget of love and appreciation every once and awhile.

I've always had low self esteem and been easily depressed. When someone shows me a shred of affection and attention, I swoon and can't see all the negative that is really going on around me.

Unfortunately, it has taken me 8 years to be able to step outside of myself and acknowledge how I'm just enabling this bad relationship to keep going and I need to grow up

my ex actually had just broken up with his gf before I contacted him. I had no idea about this, as we had not talked in years and we were not friends on social media. It just happened to be a coincidence. He is also moving back to my side of the country in two months to be closer to his family and friends.

If I divorce we plan on maintain an open line of communication and seeing each other when possible. However, we both agree that he will need a year minimum to get his life together after moving across the country and I will need a year minimum to be on my own and discover who I am. Which sounds to me like a great relationship of trust and understanding after what I have gone through.

But yes, I know the best thing to do is be truly on my own. It will be hard, but it's probably the best thing to do.

"When someone shows me a shred of affection and attention, I swoon..."

- And you're doing it again.

Sorry to hear all this. Getting out of an abusive marriage should be your sole priority right now. A therapist and a good attorney are your best friends right now. Make appointments privately and secretly with both and begin to discuss your options, the logistics, what to do and how to navigate. They will offer useful advice and emotional support.

While the affair guy is a feel good thing, he is not an attorney or a therapist. In fact he's burdening you with his breakup and issues, not helping you get out of the abuse. It's like TV, just a distraction, a fantasy about running away together at some future time.. But worse because he can not help you and you are spending time entrenched in his breakup, move, issues etc rather than attending to your own needs.

we both agree that he will need a year minimum to get his life together after moving across the country.