You're well on your way to knowing what your issues are? Sweetheart, I've seen little evidence of that. What issues have you identified? External validation? Bzzzzt, sorry, that is incorrect! That's merely a symptom of a deeper, underlying issue.
Ihtoiltm, you're not giving us much to work with. Open up here on SI and people will help you. Our DDays are almost identical, but I get the impression you haven't overturned that many stones yet. What have you been doing these past six months?
You asked what steps it took.
1) BH not kicking me to the curb
2) SI
3) Reading
4) IC, weekly
5) Detoxing from the AP
6) All of the above, for about five months.
For me, reading was pivotal. Read everything you can get your hands on, until something makes sense, and then follow that thread to the end. For me, getting started was *easy* because I knew I had CSA damage that I'd never dealt with.
If you don't have a Kindle or iPad, some kind of electronic reading device...buy one. Think you can't afford it? Well, divorce is way more expensive, so suck it up and get one. Carrying around a book called "After the Affair" in public might be embarrassing, but reading it on a Kindle...no problem, you can do that at your son's soccer practice.
Then start buying books from Amazon.com, and reading them.
What have you read so far? Not Just Friends by Glass is recommended here often.
A book that might help you identify FOO issues is How We Love by Yerkovich. I'm no Freud, but I suspect, based upon your story, that you chose a friend of your dad's for a reason. Dad didn't pay much attention to you growing up? So, you fucked one of his friends. Talked about marrying him and raising your sons with him, for God's sake. "Notice me now, Dad? See me now, uhtred?"
SI, of course, has been a very beneficial tool. I read a lot of the healing library, kept up with almost every thread in Wayward, and peek into JFO and General to remind myself how BWs view OW...as a reminder of what I was, and what I'll never be again. I even peek into D/S once in awhile, because hammering out custody agreements in court? No thanks, not if I can help it.
I'll close with another point that was pivotal for me. Letting go of the outcome. No matter what I do, BH could still decide my As were a dealbreaker. When I recognized that I have to fix myself, for myself...not for him or anyone else...that is when I was really able to move forward. One day at a time.