How to get over affair with a guy I don't even like but feel like I "loved" or at least obsessed over?

Wow, that update was hard to read. I just want to say that I'd ignore any voices, real or perceived that tell you that you should be harder on yourself in this situation. It sounds like you've had a really hard road and you're working hard to get better. You should take whatever opportunities that you have to separate yourself from this toxic situation without any hesitation. Good luck and I really respect your strength in trying to get better.

I want you to know that I understand why you went back to him. You said yourself you're the child of an alcoholic and that you endured sexual and physical abuse. There are incredibly complex power dynamics at work in the relationships between narcissists, which many alcoholics are, and their children. Abuse survivors are also left with a Gordion knot of power and control issues; I understand, believe me. This guy sounds like a master at the power and control dynamics typified by alcoholic and abuser/abused relationships. I can't pull apart all of this for you here and now, because it is some very complicated stuff that you are hashing out with your therapist, but I can tell you that he is preying on the power and control disparity that you experienced in your upbringing in a spectacularly twisted, sick way. He's an abuser, and he's using the guilt and confusion you carry from your childhood against you, as skilled abusers do. He's feeding off of humiliating his wife, you, women like you, and making himself feel more powerful in the process. I'd go so far as to say that's basically the mindset of a power rapist and I do believe that he took advantage of you sexually. But I am not going to label you a victim because you do not view yourself that way and obviously do not wish to. That's your choice and I respect that choice. But I want to say something to you. Power, sex and control are things that can become really tangled up when you grow up in an abusive household. I want you to know that part of breaking out of the abused/abuser mindset is finally realizing that you are not responsible for other people's abusive behavior toward you. You are not to blame for that. You are not responsible for a sadist attacking you in a bathroom in at a party. You are not a home-wrecker because he cheats on his wife and humiliates his entire family unit by behaving like some kind of brutish, id-driven animal that must have dominion over others. He is responsible for humiliating his wife and family. He is responsible for manipulating a person who was brainwashed early on by abusive, boundary-smashing behavior into believing that submitting and meeting abuse with love will save the tiny little kernel of person inside themselves from being entirely obliterated. He is responsible for using your desire to turn harm into love to save your very Self against you. That is what abusers do, that is what he has done to you, and he is responsible for doing that. You have a right to accept responsibility for your behavior toward your husband, your marriage, and yourself. You have a right to own the wrongs you've done. But you are not responsible for everything in this situation, you don't have to take on more than is yours, and you are not a terrible person for doing what you did. You made a mistake, you've owned up to it, you've told your husband, you're working on it. This guy has not done any of those things. He's chosen, instead, to treat you like a subhuman, continue to lie to his wife, and abuse his position at work. If you want to tell yourself something over and over again to push him out of your head finally and once and for all, tell yourself that he's weak. Tell yourself that he's a disgusting coward. Tell yourself he can't face the consequences that you have not only faced but continue to face every day. Tell yourself that, really? You are the powerful one in this situation. Tell yourself you have power. Make your first powerful act to smash him over and over again in your imagination for as long as it takes to turn him to dust in your mind. I'm going to encourage you to find another job, even though I do not believe that you should be the one to pay for this mutual mistake with your job. But he is poison, a liar, a coward and an asshole, and he's not going to be the one to do the right thing in any situation. He plays mind games, and you are vulnerable to those games. You nor your marriage need this kind of toxic, twisted person in your sphere any longer. Best of luck. You're doing everything you can to make amends and fix this situation.

I think what would help you enormously is to reframe this as not being an affair. I don't want you to reframe it as you being a victim, but I don't want you to be placing the burden of responsibility for this onto yourself - it should not be there, regardless of whether you feel you sought him out after the first time. I would also suggest that you take another look at leaving this workplace. This space contains one man who treated you extremely badly (and that is putting it kindly) and is the environment in which it occurred. Whilst it is understandable that you do not wish to leave, and I would carefully analyze the why behind that, I feel that it would help you enormously psychologically to do so and it would serve as another means for you to start building some boundaries that will help you to protect yourself.

Wow, so glad that the issue of you "enjoying it" seems to have been clarified... Nthing suggestions to get yourself into support groups for childhood sexual abuse and ACOA, as well as a therapist well versed in both topics who can coach you in self-guided CBT. Did you know that the experience of surviving child sexual abuse is comparable to surviving a concentration camp? Let alone surviving in an alcoholic family to boot. Be gentle with yourself and get thee to therapy. You'll learn about dissociation as well as learned helplessness that comes with being a sexual abuse survivor. Many, many people who have lived through what you have experienced can describe exactly the dynamic you describe -- of not even really knowing these issues were there until [profoundly negative experience] happened. I did not object, so I understand it was consensual... No, the argument that "she didn't say no = yes" does not apply here. Be gentle with yourself, OP.

I missed this line: I work with the OM and he is no longer on speaking terms with me after I ended the affair. IMO, if you have to work with him and he's "not on speaking terms with you" in the context of work because you ended the affair with him, that is very clearly sexual harrassment/hostile work environment. I really think you should let his investigators know about this.

I did not object, so I understand it was consensual That isn't necessarily so. did you want to have sex with him that first time? If you didn't, it wasn't consensual. Whether you had time to object or not. Just because you didn't SAY no doesn't mean that it was consensual, necessarily.

I posted before I saw the update. Jesus, OP. I'm so sorry. The second time sex happened I did initiate it and I felt that at this point I would try to right the "wrong" of how our first sexual experience happened and trying the things he wanted to do. This is not actually uncommon for rape victims, especially victims of date rape or so-called "gray rape". There was a case of a doctor (I think he was a doctor), a guy who seemed super perfect and upstanding and had raped something on the order of 100+ women by drugging them and raping them in a hotel room. Many of these women actually came back to see him again, and some of them were attacked a second time. The women who went back said they were trying to figure out what had happened, or take control of their sexual agency, or prove to themselves that they were in control. So OP, you are not alone in this behavior and please please please do not mistake it for a desire to carry out an affair. Honestly with that update I would hesitate to even call this an affair. A cycle of abuse is more like it.

I did not object, so I understand it was consensual Oh, this breaks my heart. I see how deeply you are enmeshed in your damaged self-image. Please, please read Facing Codependence as soon as you can get your hands on it. For future reference, "consensual sex" is sex where both parties actively consent. You deserve that. You don't deserve anything less.

The hard part is, I just don't know what to do with these feelings. I still feel obsessive about him. You keep going to counselling. I feel incredible guilt that I participated in having an affair with him that could have destroyed his marriage and kids' life and my marriage. No, really, his own behavior, prior to you and after you would do that. You would have a very minor role but not the leading one. I'm thinking of trying a new counselor because I have been seeing mine for a few months and although he has helped me some (he recommended David Burns' work, which has helped me a lot), I don't feel like I am getting to a place I need to be. Then you really need to do that. You can let this consume you for the rest of your life and replay this over and over again and feel hurt and ashamed and guilty but all that will happen is that that's all you'll experience in your life. Your husband is willing to work with you and I really suggest that you focus on that and on your counselling. The issues you need to be focusing on stem from before this. Use this situation as a catalyst to deal with them now, once and for all, in a manner that has a positive outcome for you and your marriage.