Hi Regret12. I'm another BS, but your story is really heartbreaking. It made me sad reading it, and you've been living it.
If at ANY time my writing reads as if I'm being critical, I am not, at all. Sometimes writing can be challenging, as there is no inflection to help illustrate feelings. So please know that I am NOT judging you, and I am 100% in support of you.
My answers to the questions - yes, yes and no.
Wanting to stay may not be in your best interest, but it isn't uncommon. You have been with your H for 2 decades. You love him. You stayed through some fairly horrendous treatment. You had lost control of yourself and given it to him, hence the bulimia. The pills were used to dull the world around you, and then you used bulimia to feel in control of something.
Your H had been making you feel 'less than' for years - cheating, which you termed 'getting physical with them, just not having sex'. He punished you for acts that occurred before you met him, and he lied and told you he wasn't a virgin. If he didn't verbalize his lie, then he did something to lead you down that path.
So now you're a 'slut' according to him, even though he knew about your experience. Years later, he wants to hear details as some kind of twisted foreplay. In short, he was emotionally abusing you. Insulting you, cheating, porn, all because you 'deserved it' because you'd had sex with someone else before you were with him. That is not normal behavior, at all. You did nothing wrong, and yet for years this man has treated you as if you were a very bad person. He did this to manipulate and control you. He most likely enjoyed watching you try to please him, or be sorry for having slept with someone else.
Now that you've come clean, he's talking to not one, but two other women. Yes, it most definitely sounds like he is going to cheat, and it sounds like more than once. He is probably going to use your cheating as an excuse to have a one-sided open marriage. This isn't going to 'even the score' or improve your marriage in any way.
I'm going to let some of the WSs here discuss the actual A, blaming your H, etc. I believe they can much more effectively discuss those issues with you. I'm not judging you for the A and therefore avoiding it. The WSs here have done a wonderful just working on themselves and the reasons they allowed themselves to have an A. I think they can provide much more insight about that part of your story than I can. Also, the WSs her at SI, like the BSs and anything in between, are great people.
I sincerely hope you find a great therapist. Your story is heartbreaking, and my guess is it's about to get worse and that he's going to have at least one A of his own. I pray I'm wrong about that. I really do.
I believe you've been a victim throughout your marriage, and that your H is in need of counseling. I would consider making that a condition of you staying with him. His attitude is extremely cruel and conditional.
I know you are hurting, a lot. Your pain is evident in your writing.
((((regret12))))