SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi everyone. So here’s my story, it’s not a pretty one and I take some accountability for where we’re at right now.

My husband and i have been together since we were 17. We have never dated anyone else and got married young and have been together for the past 24 years (married for 15). We have two kids and for a while our lives were great. Somewhere along the way we each started hurting each other and fighting all the time. It wasn’t pretty. We are very different people with different personalities and priorities in life. He was a workaholic/compulsive gym rat who never spent time with me or talked to me. I grew resentful, I felt abandoned, and I pulled away. He, however, kept pushing for sex in the relationship. That was HIS need that he said he needed fulfilled to be in this marriage. But my heart was so hurt and damaged by years of feeling alone that I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t force myself to sleep with a man that didn’t appear to care about my feelings or needs. So we had an empty, sexless marriage and both of us continued to become resentful and mean. After repeated attempts at convincing me to sleep with him one night I impulsively blurted out “if sex is SO important to you then go have it, go fuck whoever you want to, but it’s not going to be me” He asked me if that’s what i really wanted and even though I said yes, I clearly didn’t want him to. I was angry and hurt and felt like if I couldn’t give him what he so desperately needed than he should go elsewhere. Over the next couple of months the subject came up time and time again. He asked me if i was sure I wanted him to have sex outside the marriage and each time I coldly said yes, go do whatever you want, I don’t care anymore. I made two VERY strict rules, however, rules I needed him to abide by explicitly if I was going to let him cheat. First, it had to be meaningless, nothing emotional and nothing resembling a relationship. And second AND MOST IMPORTANTLY he would have to do it in a way that i would NEVER EVER FIND OUT. I didn’t want to know when and if he did it and that was something I made super clear to him. I made that rule because i knew If I’d I found out it would KILL me and destroy our marriage. But I also knew that he couldn’t stay in this marriage for the kids without sex and I knew I couldn’t give it to him. And I didn’t want to ruin our kids lives Because they are so young. So I dangled the golden ticket in front of him and he ran with it. The problem is he got caught...got caught so badly and did everything I asked him NOT to do along the way. He was on multiple dating sites and sex sites talking to multiple girls, forming emotional connections and essentially forming relationships. It culminated in him taking one of those woman out on a date to a restaurant close to our house and then sleeping with her at a hotel down the street as well. He didn’t even try to conceal where he was or create a backstory to protect me from being suspicious. He could have easily been seen by many of our friends that often go there. And when he wasn’t home at 11pm on a weekday (he said he was meeting a male coworker for dinner) my son tracked him via his phone to the hotel and I just KNEW immediately and without a fraction of a doubt what he was doing. He admitted it all when he came home but the damage was done. For him to take this woman on a DATE to a restaurant that we had gone to together in our small town, and then screw her afterwards was shocking to me. It was NOT what i has agreed on and it destroyed me and our marriage and my kids lives. I don’t know what to do with myself. I thought this would help but now everything is ruined and our marriage is over. I can’t be with him now. Not with the knowledge that he went on a DATE with someone else after weeks of talking to them and then fucked them without trying to hide it. I have a running movie reel in my head of that night and constantly think about every detail of what they did, imagining it and visualizing it and it haunts me and makes me feel like i can’t breath. I can’t hold food down and I can only sleep for an hour or two before i wake up gasping for air and feeling like I’m suffocating. This is a type of pain Ive never experienced before. My oldest son is destroyed by it and I don’t know if I could ever move past it and i also feel like this is all my fault. Thanks for listening, so sorry for how long this was.....

[This message edited by HeartbrokenRN at 6:34 AM, July 29th (Wednesday)]

This is a big mess unfortunately. I am so sorry for your pain and understand why you are hurting.

I think your best support can come in terms of a professional counselor just for you. Someone who can support you at this time so that you can air your feelings without facing the backlash of “you told him to do this”.

I think you have to trust the counselor to help you heal and hopefully your marriage can be repaired and you both can recover from this.

Welcome to the best club none of us ever wanted to be part of.

Now I want to offer up the same info I offer up to every newbie here, because it is a painful traumatic journey to find yourself here, and to recover from it.

1. While you gave him this option there were many things already quite broken in this relationship, and he was attempting to manipulate you into his wants and needs and not being a good spouse by being 100% focused on his wants and needs. Not assisting, not supporting, not loving, not respecting YOU. That made it impossible to trust, and be vulnerable w/ him.

That said your relationship was quite dysfunctional, but at the end of the day he chose to cheat and was quite blatant about it. Really just giving you the big F You. That's not love and it certainly isn't respect.

2. See an attorney and find out what your rights are, what his obligations are. Understand what divorce and separation look like. You cannot choose to stay or leave the M w/o informed/knowledgeable consent.

3. See your Dr. If for some reason you have had sex w/ him at all during this time since you gave permission you need to have full STD testing. In addition to STD testing, you also need to get a referral for a therapist that specializes in Trauma/abuse. NOT infidelity. If you are struggling w/ sleeping and eating also discuss this w/ your dr. For most of us here this is the biggest trauma we have gone through, and as such we benefit from medications. You may benefit from that, if you are not sleeping or unable to eat.

4. Staying for the kids is a myth. You are an example of demanding respect and love, and you are an example of accepting what you are given in a relationship, and if you are unhappy, and not in a healthy relationship that normalizes to them that M's are supposed to be like that, and they aren't. You and your kids may be better off in life demanding the love and respect you deserve from a man that respects, and cherishes you, or if not that it is ok to not have a partner.

Check out the healing library upper left side of your screen. Let go of your guilt, and start making yourself the priority. When you do you will start to see things a bit more clearly.

((((And Strength))))

I agree with the seeking of counseling for YOU. This isn't the run of the mill "he cheated" story - you are right in that it is very complicated. I think IC for you is key to figure out if you even want to be in this marriage any longer. Honestly, from your description of it prior to him going outside the marriage, it did not sound like you were very happy (and your kids likely pick up on a lot of that).

I won't give any more advice because I am not an advocate of "staying together for the kids" as my own childhood that was practiced for awhile before my parents finally divorced - and divorce was better for us (and for my parents) - like no comparison better. The best gift my parents gave us, and ultimately themselves, was to separate and stop the fighting and general unhappiness that was part and parcel of just about every day in our house. There was no physical violence and no verbal abuse - just run of the mill unhappiness and it permeated my childhood home.

So, you have a lot to unpack here. And I see it as three separate issues.

1) The mess that has taken place since you gave your WH "permission" to go outside the marriage, and he f-ed that all up by going beyond the bounds you set for him. That is for him to address (why he went beyond the bounds you set) and the reason why you are on this site.

2) The underlying issues that got you to where you told him to go outside the marriage to begin with. This is the work for you to do in IC. Why did things get so angry between you? Why did you tell him to go outside the marriage but not tell him what you were thinking - that you really didn't want him to? What makes YOU happy - what do YOU want from your marriage?

3) Potential reconciliation. Only if he addresses item 1 and you address item 2, and you both think you want to work towards R, do you even need to talk about moving forward with item 3, where both of you would have to work on items 1 and 2 together.

Ultimately I'm sorry you are here. I truly am.

I'm sorry you are in this situation but I'm glad you've found us.

In my first marriage (not the one that brought me here) my husband pressured me into swapping with another couple and he became very attached to the wife of my best childhood friend. I regretted the whole thing but couldn't undo the damage. I left him. I started a new life. We got divorced.

He had his own problems that contributed to the demise of our relationship, the high sex drive and desire to use women being big ones. It really was as if his dick and getting off sexually was more important than just about anything else in his life, including me. He was willing to risk hurting me to get what he wanted.

I put up with it. I caved. I didn't stand up for myself. I thought making him happy would help our relationship. I thought I was strong enough and could handle feeling jealous. But I couldn't. When I found out he continued the sex online after we moved across the country, I just couldn't deal with it. I never wanted another woman in his life, in our life I lost my trust and affection for him immediately. And so I left.

Unfortunately, I didn't learn much about myself in the process and I just put it in a box, closed the lid and "moved on". The problem was I took myself with me and the dysfunctional ways I related to men continued in later relationships. And that is what brought me here as I ended up with another selfish man who treated me horribly.

The advice to get yourself into counseling is sound. That's the first thing you should do at this point is to get some help for YOURSELF, don't try and sign up for marriage counseling, you don't know that this marriage is one you want to be in, so focus on yourself and your needs and your values. More than a lawyer, more than anything else, you need a therapist to help you with this trauma and to help you unravel who you really are from this mess. Because of you being conflicted with what you wanted and giving him "permission" to do what he did, now you are suffering the consequences of that bad decision. You didn't know this is how you would feel. You have both grief and regret to deal with and you really need support to help you start healing your broken heart and figuring out what to do now.

I recommend you take the approach of "in home separation" for a while. You maintain your household together but you do not act as his wife, more like his roommate. You are cordial and do the things needed to be a reasonably tolerable roommate, but you don't fawn over him or try and win him back. You let him go and turn your concerns away from him as you focus on yourself, your values, your future, your healing, your heart, your life. This is called the 180, and there is more information in the healing library here (upper left corner of the page). This can help you break the dysfunction in your relationship with him, your resentfulness and enabling, the anger at both him and yourself has to come down so you can find emotional stability.

In addition to the healing library, there are a number of posts here with target icons that are good advice, I'll bump some back to the front page of this forum. Look for one called "Mind movies and how to stop them" which can help you stop ruminating about what he did and get some control of your thoughts.

The 180 is a way to focus on yourself so that you stop obsessing over what he is doing and you develop emotional detachment as you think about what YOU want in life.

Please keep posting here on this thread, let us know how you are doing, ask questions, write out your thoughts, and answer questions so we can give you the best advice. We are here for you and will help you get through this.

Thank you ALL so very much for your words! I’m on a place where I feel so utterly ALONE and knowing that you all have been where I am now is immensely helpful and reassuring. To clarify a few things, we HAVE been in therapy for over a year, but our therapist really never helped us get to a better place in our relationship. And we just were so resistant to her suggestions because we both felt very strong in our positions that the other person was wrong. I can take accountability for contributing to the destruction of our marriage but his affair was final nail in the coffin.

I am getting a new therapist, getting my kids one (they are NOT handling this well at all) and trying to stop the obsessive and intrusive throughts that are literally killing me. I can’t sleep and wake up most nights since this happened feeling like I’m choking, like I can’t breath. My future feels very unknown and my children’s lives are changed forever. It’s so cathartic to write here and get these feelings out. I fear if i keep slapping on my happy face and never letting myself mourn this loss I will collapse. And part of me will always blame myself because in that one moment of feeling hurt and constantly feeling “not enough” I gave him an out. He took that out, yes, but i planted that seed in him out of hurt, thinking that if i offer it now, in MY OWN way, that it would protect me from the inevitable affair he was probably going to have anyways at some point down the road. Thank you for all your wonderful responses. This website is my only grounding force right now.

[This message edited by HeartbrokenRN at 6:15 AM, July 29th (Wednesday)]

BS only

[This message edited by SI Staff at 5:05 PM, August 6th (Thursday)]

((((HBRN))))

First things first.... stop blaming yourself. He could have just as easily chosen to own the fact that he was being selfish and work w/ you to reconnect. Or to say he wasn't happy and ask for a D. He didn't.

Your M was already very broken when you gave him the option. Stop blaming yourself. Stop getting caught up in shame and guilt. It does nothing to allow you to heal or to mourn the loss of your M.

Regardless of what path you choose, you need to mourn the death of your M. You also need to mourn the trauma and process of him being blatantly disrespectful to you.

People who seek out others when they are in an M or relationship do so because they are broken. Your H is no different. Again if he wanted the M to be healthy and work he would have done the work. Instead he liked the ego strokes, and the then had the balls to be open about it, in your community. Completely disregarding the impact not just on you but the kids too.

If you work reach out to your employer through the EAP program to get an attorney and to get a therapist to start w/. Stop with the MC.. That person sounds incredibly useless.

Read up on the 180 so his influence can no longer cause you pain. Stop listening to his words especially if they are hurtful.

Again since you are not sleeping please reach out to your Dr. You need some support. W/o good sleep and nutrition you will find it much more difficult to keep your emotions under control, the second thing is you will also be more prone to making poor decisions. If you can make sure you are eating, and if eating isn't an option get some muscle milk protein shakes and at least get those down a few times a day.

You are more than enough. Stop the negative self talk. You need love yourself, allow your family/friends to help and support you through this time.

I can take accountability for contributing to the destruction of our marriage but his affair was final nail in the coffin.

Putting the infidelity aside for a sec (no, I am not excusing his behavior at ALL), perhaps the M is too broken to R. Even before he cheated, there seems to have been so much anger/volatility in the relationship - from both sides...so while it's fine you take accountability for the issues in the M, he should as well.

Now let's add the infidelity back in - a very broken M just got shattered because of your WH's very poor choice to cheat - shattered possibly beyond repair. Given the anger that you already had toward him, do you think you could get past this? If the answer is no, I think you should seriously consider other options...for yours and your kids' sakes. It's better to come from a broken home than to live in one. You and your kids deserve to be happy and not have so much angst in your lives.

Perhaps IC (individual counseling) would be beneficial to you as you work through this. And of course we are here for you. Keep posting!

Sending hugs & strength,

Lala

[This message edited by Lalagirl at 1:00 PM, July 28th (Tuesday)]

You're blaming yourself quite a bit, but you need to remember that all you really wanted was for your husband to TALK to you. That's not too much to ask from a guy who wants to get you naked, right? And it's not like he's incapable of it, because....

He was on multiple dating sites talking to multiple girls, forming emotional connections and starting relationships. It culminated in him taking one of those woman out on a date to a restaurant down the street from our house and then sleeping with her at a hotel down the street as well.

And THAT is why I would probably divorce him. I wouldn't lose sleep over it, I wouldn't lose my appetite, my breath, my will to smile, because that right there says EVERYTHING you need to know about this guy. He IS capable of talking, capable of romance, capable of making a fucking EFFORT. He just decided to be a stubborn asshole about it when it came to YOU.

Sex requires a certain amount of emotional vulnerability for some of us. I'm not talking about the wild, uninhibited, sex is like a jungle gym crowd. But for some of us, we really have to put ourselves out there in emotional terms. That sense of connection, the ability to talk and trust, has to be there. Your WH probably spent countless hours lining up women for assignations. He could just as easily have put that time into YOU and he'd have repaired all that was wrong. He could have used that time saving his marriage and saving his family dynamic. But, he chose ENTITLEMENT. He's "entitled" to sex and damned if he wasn't going to get some.

Don't stay in a marriage that's sucking your soul dry for the sake of the children. They won't thank you for it. You're still young enough to create a wonderful life. But if you do decide to stay, your WH is going to have to FIX what's so broken in his character that it allowed him to destroy his marriage and his family dynamic. He's selfish and he's got entitlement issues. He no longer shares your core values.

And from this day forward, promise yourself that you'll never let him goad you into saying things you don't mean again. He's known you since you were just a kid. He knows where your buttons are. He's probably installed most of them.

Do see an attorney. It's good to know where you stand so you can make the best decision.

((hugs))

A sexless marriage is like a car without wheels. The end was only a matter of time

A sexless marriage is like a car without wheels. The end was only a matter of time

Which makes me even MORE suspicious of the WH's motives. He poisons his relationship with his wife and then he whines about his "sexless marriage". Honestly, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find that it's all just a big manipulation on his part in order to give himself permission to get some strange. If he had wanted an emotionally and sexually intimate relationship with his wife? He could have fixed this. He had the time, and he's proved himself capable of making the effort.

I don't blame any woman for not being attracted to that. The "entitlement" wafts of these guys like a foul odor. You can't treat a woman like a hole and then expect she's going to swoon with delight. That's not rocket science. And what it tells us is that this WS deliberately nuked his marriage.

[This message edited by ChamomileTea at 2:19 PM, July 28th (Tuesday)]

THIS^^^

I'm sorry you are here, and that you are hurting. From what you wrote, I would say the marriage was pretty much toast prior to the affair. This is not to say the affair was okay, albeit you GAVE him permission. I just think that your marriage was pretty much done with or without the affair.

You were so resentful and hurt, He was so resentful and just not interested in you anymore. It sounds like you all stayed b/c it was easier and you felt it might be best for the kids.

I just don't think your marriage was worth saving at that moment. How do you feel now, that you gave him permission and have now caught him? You were extremely resentful prior to all of this. How are you ever going to let this man back into your life. You didn't want him touching you then, how in the heck are you going to want him touching you now? Again, I say this all not b/c I'm giving him a pass for the affair, I just don't see how this is a good marriage that is worth saving even prior to the affair. He wasn't moving from his spot, and you weren't either. I think you best course of action would be to D.

I mean, so what if he had a couple of strange and you didn't find out? Does that make staying in your marriage any better? What if he was only on 1 dating site and they didn't go to dinner, but just decided to fuck? Is that okay with you? Is that really OKAY with you? Your marriage is so broken. It would be best for your kids to have two happy healthy parents that are separated, rather than two that are constantly fighting and didn't like each other. That is better for your kids.

HRN, to me, this sounds like an exit affair. You clearly outlined what you were expecting if the marriage was to open and he trampled all over it. And to add insult to injury, he gave these OW something he wouldn't give you. I can't think of a more blatant passive aggressive way for him to have gone about this and knowingly handed you a divorce worthy situation if I tried. I really do believe he will tell everyone far and wide about how you gave him permission to have an A and then dumped him for it as soon as you say you want a D.

I don't believe he has it in him to step back and admit how blatant this was as a way to get back at you and possibly get a D he wasn't brave enough to ask for before this happened because it looks like you have been very clear about what your needs are and he has given you push back at every turn so that he can get away with getting what he wants without giving you an inch of compromise. R is entirely about him humbling himself and doing anything and everything to help you. Will he do it? If not, see a lawyer and figure out D because there will be no coming back from this.

Before you tell him anything, reach out to friends and family and tell them what has happened. Lean on them for support. Don't let him have a platform to try and sell his sad sausage story and take that support away from you.

And we just were so resistant to her suggestions because we both felt very strong in our positions that the other person was wrong.

No criticism, these situations develop and there is sometimes no apparently workable solution.

I think it would be a mistake to get a MC right now. IC would be better, for yourself, so you can understand more of your part in the relationship. IC for him would be better as well. Just my opinion, but driven largely because you have both been together for so long.

I'm also going to differ with some of the other posters, I'm clearly missing something here. I'm not seeing the "cheating" here. If my wife refused to have sex with me and told me to go outside the marriage, and that she didn't care anymore, I'd be at a loss.

I'm not a cheater, I live in a not so small metropolitan area, but there is no way that I would be able to meet your requirements because my patterns of behavior are so well known by my wife. She would know I was fucking someone else because I would have to change my pattern of behavior to do it. Under the restrictions you imposed, it would be obvious when I was with someone else.

I can’t be with him now. Not with the knowledge that he went on a DATE with someone else after weeks of talking to them and then fucked them without trying to hide it.

It seems that he DID try to hide it. He told you he was meeting a male coworker for dinner, he went to a hotel (he could have brought her to the house while you were gone and many of our WS's did exactly that), it was technology that made it possible to track him, because he didn't turn off his cell phone. How was he supposed to know that he was going to be tracked?

You know him quite well, and you knew quite well that he wasn't meeting a male coworker because that was not his usual pattern, and you had told him to go outside the marriage, which gives you more insight than those of us who didn't want our spouses going outside the marriage.

Over the next couple of months the subject came up time and time again. He asked me if i was sure I wanted him to have sex outside the marriage and each time I coldly said yes, go do whatever you want, I don’t care anymore. I made two VERY strict rules, however, rules I needed him to abide by explicitly if I was going to let him cheat. First, it had to be meaningless, nothing emotional and nothing resembling a relationship. And second AND MOST IMPORTANTLY he would have to do it in a way that i would NEVER EVER FIND OUT. I didn’t want to know when and if he did it and that was something I made super clear to him.

I'm not trying to defend him, but it sounds like from what you wrote that he didn't really want it to go this way, that he wanted YOU to be his partner, and this is not "cheating" but opening up the marriage for sex outside of the marriage. If he wanted to cheat, he could have simply done that long before. Unfortunately, the rules this was set up under can't work in a small town (he may have had other options but many women are looking for relationships, even if superficial ones, and that creates yet another conundrum).

He admitted it all when he came home but the damage was done.

This I don't understand, was he confronted when he came home? It sounds like your spouse didn't lie to you. I confronted my FWS at one point, and believe me I had not encouraged her in any way to go outside our marriage, and she lied her ass off to me and to MC to the point that both myself and the MC were completely gaslit. This guy does not sound like a cheater.

However, from what you write it sounds as if you actually still cared about the marriage a great deal, and he cared a great deal, and yet neither of you could cross the divide emotionally. Perhaps IC could help.

Good luck.

HeartbrokenRN, I'm so sorry you are here. What a complicated mess you're dealing with.

You feel betrayed and hurt, and that's very understandable. You did give your H permission to have sex outside the marriage, but clearly, you didn't really want him to. I know how much it hurts.

It sounds like there has been a massive breakdown in connection and communication between the two of you, for quite some time, but whatever his shortcomings are (and clearly, he has many) I don't think this is a simple case of cheating. It may be that he's selfish, cold, cruel, and a terrible partner for you. However, if permission is given multiple times for something to happen, it's reasonable to assume that it will be taken at face value. It's incredibly sad that the two of you could not bridge the widening chasm between you, and he either really thought you wouldn't care, or no longer cared himself.

There is so much pain and resentment between you - especially it seems, on your side of things - and it sounds like the counsellor you were seeing was unable to help you through it. I can easily see in a situation like this, that the two of you would fall into existing patterns - you feel wronged and betrayed, whereas he feels he was doing what he was allowed to do. If you fail to see one another's side of things, nothing will ever change.

What do you want to happen now? Only you can answer that, with the help of your own counsellor. What would a happy life look like for you? You've stayed in an unhappy marriage for a long time, and you've been together since you were very young. It's natural there would be a lot of fear about being alone.

I know you're very hurt right now, but I think it's important to be very careful about labeling him as "the bad guy", especially as it involves the children. This is not a simple or straightforward situation. I can see how he would think he was playing by the rules, as hurtful as those rules might have been. I'm so sorry.

My advice for you, would be as others have said, each of you go to your own counsellors. I would also be very direct and clear with him: "I know I gave you permission to have sex with someone else, but it isn't what I wanted. I'm very hurt that you did, and I feel betrayed and sick about it. Please stop seeing other people until we decide what we are going to do about our marriage".

It sounds like you might need some meds to help you get through this, there is absolutely no shame in it, it helped me immensely, and I wish I would have done it sooner - it would have made life so much better and easier.

Sending you strength xx

It seems a lot of the hurt was the fact that he did this so close to home, that he was not discreet and was in fact so careless he was caught at the hotel by your son.

If he had kept to the terms of your agreement would you still feel the same way?

Does your husband feel he did anything wrong, that he went against the terms you agreed?

Carissima, yes, a significant amount of my pain and anger comes from the fact that he took a woman he was DATING and talking to for a loooooong time to a restaurant we go to all the time. He EASILY could have been seen by so many people we know. THAT is why I made the rules the way I did. Because i KNEW that if I found out the pain would be immeasurable. And I also made clear both in therapy AND during our many conversations was that it HAD to be meaningless, just sex, because sex is what he said he couldn’t not live without. There could not be any sort of relationship or anything more. Had he gone into Boston with some friends and ended up screwing some random girl in a restaurant bathroom I would have NEVER found out and that was ok with me. He was way to careless and it almost could have destroyed his 13 year old son. So while YES I did give him permission, there were very very clear rules that he just threw to wind and didn’t give a fuck about. It’s like he WANTED to get caught, he was just that careless. And he Was forming relationships with these women and that was NOT ok. We were still married and living together and eating meals together and trying to be friendly. HOW he did it and how it all went down was NOT what I signed up for......

[This message edited by HeartbrokenRN at 7:59 PM, July 30th (Thursday)]

I also made clear both in therapy AND during our many conversations was that it HAD to be meaningless, just sex, because sex is what he said he couldn’t not live without.

I must have misread earlier. I was under the impression that you'd said these things in anger and really hadn't meant them. But if you had it all planned out to the extent you shared it in therapy, I don't think you can be surprised by this outcome. What's shocking is that your therapist went along with it because the plan is just irrational.

Even if your WH can find women outside your area and somehow talk them into NSA sex, without paying them I'm assuming, it's not unusual for bedmates to catch feelings, so eventually, you really do have a full blown affair going on under your nose. Hormones, neurostransmitters, and adrenals end up cooking up a fairly potent biochemical cocktail which then produces pair bonding. So, eventually, your WH falls in love and leaves. I'm surprised your therapist would sign off on this.

Certainly, there's some humiliation which comes part and parcel with people finding out and yes.. I'd agree that it's a crummy relationship model for your youngster, but these aren't things which would produce the emotional reaction of "can't sleep, can't eat, can't breath". Are you simply shocked that he went through with it? If so, I totally understand that. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I realized that I still loved my WH after I'd found out he cheated. So, I "get" how far out of sync it's possible to get with your true feelings. He'd been so mean to me for so long before DDay that I really believed I hated him.

Of course, now you're in a situation where you'll need to figure out what to do next. Reconciling your marriage correctly would require that you both resolve the problems you're having regarding sex. The "pair bonding" I mentioned earlier works to strengthen R too. For your part, you'll want to find out what's causing your aversion. And for his, he needs to work on his sense of "entitlement". It made me really angry on your behalf that he was willing to put all that effort into getting some strange, but has been emotionally withholding with you.

I do think that R is feasible for you if you BOTH want it and are willing to work for it. If not, there's no shame in D when you're with someone who is ultimately incompatible. This plan where he just goes out and gets it elsewhere without your knowledge isn't workable though, not even if he's limited to prostitutes. Cuddle hormones will eventually put paid to it, even if the object of his desire is a hooker.