Woman to woman
Ally,
I am going to talk to you woman to woman. I am a therapist, but lets set that aside for now. I've been married three times. The first two times my marriage fell apart I was convinced HE had the problem and I was trying so hard to make it right. AND from the outside, and anyone who would have listened to me at the time would have agreed. I did not find out until I took 6 years to be by myself that I had the problem, too. Intimacy has to be worked at by both partners and if there is a problem like "cheating" (I hate that word) it's because of the lack of intimacy in the relationship. I used to cry "But I WANT intimacy, HES the one that won't get close". But the truth is that I had my own issues with intimacy that led me to repeat the same mistakes in my second marriage I had made in my first. The truth is that what both marriages had in common was ME.
I know this new guy makes you feel great. I can relate with that. After and emotional dry spell to have someone swoop you up in their arms and make you feel beautiful and loved again it's hard to to imagine leaving them. But the truth is that you are in love with the "in love" feeling. You don't really know this man. Your don't even know the one your married too, and most unfortunately, you don't know yourself either.
Your husband is not the "bad guy" you seem to see him as being. He is just, like most of us, inept at intimacy. But sweetie, so are YOU. You both have failed to make the marriage work. It takes two to marry and two to fail at marriage. Starting over with someone else is the easy way out. But you have two children who need BOTH of their parents. Whether you stay together or not, you owe it to yourselves and your kids to take the time to figure out what went wrong and see if you can re-connect once you have distanced from the romantic fantasy of your South African lover.
But I also know how much pain there must have been for you to have gone to such an extent to heal the hurt in your heart. Sometimes there is just too much hurt to go back, and I for one, fully understand that. Yet I do wish that I had know then what I know now about myself and my own intimacy problems before I divorced my first husband.
My advice as a woman, a (now) happily married wife, and therapist is: Break it off with your lover and give counseling a chance. I have seen marriages come back from even this far. Neither of you are cheaters. You are both in a lot of pain that you could heal together it you work at it.
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