Using the Life Scissors

It really sounds like you aren't doing any one any good right now. Your wife has been 'paranoid' about you having an affair for a while... And you friggin were! You tell the world that the woman you're cheating with isn't someone you actually respect- you even go so far as to tell us how man sexual partners she's had (wtf do you want us to get from that? Are we supposed to think less of her or...) and you're pretty open about how you just want to bone her, but I am getting zero feelings of empathy from you toward anyone. What a terrible thing to do to these women- to engage with them and use them when you don't really like or respect them. Do your wife a favor and stop gas lighting her. I can't imagine you are telling her the truth, and clearly she knows something is up. If there is any indication from your other questions, you are actively making her more and more crazy by living this bullshit and telling her she's just paranoid and insecure.

Actually I would like to pointedly disagree with the people who say you should confess your attraction/inappropriate attachment to this other woman in any way. While on the one hand, she COULD be horrified to find you're married, or horrified to find you're attracted, and make your job easy by cutting herself out...I don't actually think that's how it will play. I think you will tell her, and then you will use her (probably fairly intrigued) reaction as an excuse to sleep with her. Because that's what you want to do. So instead you're not going to say jack shit about being attracted to her. You are going to say that you need to focus on some work and parenting responsibilities, and so you're going strictly professional with all your work friendships for a while. Then you are going to block her number, and find a marriage counselor, and tell the TRUTH to that marriage counselor, because your wife has been in the dark about a whole fucking lot, based on your question history, and she deserves better than that. She deserves honesty from the man she married.

"My wife is not attractive". That's cold. Holy crap, that's cold. If I found out that my partner flatly referred to me as "not attractive", I'd....well, it would be the start of the end of it all. Honestly, if I were you, I'd finish driving my life off a cliff, in the hopes that I could patch it back together once I'd hit bottom. Split from your wife - a woman you are preventing from finding someone who actually loves her*- and have sex with this woman. Pay your child support. Perhaps once you've gotten out of this godawful situation you'll be able to be more of a stand-up guy. Also, think about what you're teaching your kid about marriages - that they're something grudging, where the man thinks the woman is ugly and boring and he checks out emotionally. That's what you'll teach your kid to expect and recreate. *I have a friend who's fat. Who has been varying degrees of sorta-fat and quite fat. She's never had trouble attracting men, and although she has a striking face it's not like she's the plus-size version of Scarlett Johanssen either.

Right before you met this woman you asked a question about your marriage that portrayed it as very unappealing to you (wife was overweight, not paying you enough attention, was boring and didn't want to go on adventures, you were burdened by responsibility etc) in which you buried the lede there that your wife had recently given birth. You were give a lot of advice in that thread. Right after that thread you knowingly began an emotional affair/flirtation, apparently not taking any of the advice of the hive mind. Now you are back, once again recognising the adult responsible thing you should do but trying to justify why you are the exemption. I feel very sorry for your wife that you have been deliberately chipping away at her security all this time (dollars to donuts she knows you are cheating and is heartsick) and blaming her for being insecure. Frankly, you need a mentor or other adult in your life (a therapist) who will bluntly tell you to either act like an adult or definitely leave so your wife can find a healthy relationship. Right now you can't have a healthy relationship with either your wife or your mistress. My advice would be to contact your mistress once more and simply say "please don't contact me again" and block her. She knew what she was doing, that you are married, and does not deserve any more than that. Clearly you would not be able to maintain any type of healthy boundaries with her. You work in different companies and have no need to be in contact any further. The energy you have been pouring into the other woman can now be focused on your family. With a lot of support I think you can grow up and stop hurting the people you love.

It's important to note that, with the exception of the three times we have gone out together, we never have contact on weekends or evenings. Our relationship started as a 9-5 work relationship, and it has mostly stayed that way. Why is it 'important to note' this? Because it makes you look like not such a bad guy, since you've kept her separate from your home life? Bullshit. Talking about sexual positions and sending each other selfies is cheating on your wife, whether you do it on the clock or not. If I send her photos, I have to delete them from my phone because I'm paranoid my wife will go through my phone and ask why I took them. See? Cheating. Otherwise you wouldn't need to do this. I couldn't even imagine introducing her to my friends; she is not the kind of person I have ever really associated with, much less been friends with, in my life. What, despite her being a 'light in your life', with 'an amazing sense of humour', who is 'a ball to drink and dance with' and is physically beautiful? Strange. I mean - brutal honesty here - I think, deep down, I just want to have sex with her. No kidding. (And by the way, 'burying the lede' halfway down is coy and irritating. Why not just admit in the first paragraph that you're married and having an emotional affair with a colleague?) My wife is not physically attractive No, you are not physically attracted to your wife. There is no such thing as an objectively physically unattractive person. our sex life has never been good So your sex life was bad for over a decade, yet you still married her and had a child. You made your choice. You are not some victim of fate, here. I feel like I'm just scratching the surface... Here's the thing: I know it feels like this to you, and I'm honestly not trying to be bitchy, but you are over-dramatizing this situation. Everyone's own drama seems unique to them, but cheating on your long-term partner with someone new and exciting is an age-old story, in which only the details change. You're being selfish, and you know it. You're putting yourself before either of these women, but worst of all, before your own child. For his sake, you need to make a clean break with the colleague (kindly and truthfully), 'fess up to your wife, and go to therapy.

Just adding one small thought that I haven't seen anyone else suggest yet. In addition to stopping the constant texting/messaging with this other woman (other posters have already given great suggestions for that), you will probably then have a void...because you now view the constant messages/IMS/texts as rewards. So what will you do with that down time? I would start texting your wife, a few times a day. Try different things.A joke.Plans. Whatever. Request that she send a picture of your son during the day. Reach out to other friends/buddies, too. But fill up your time/world/brain with those other people. I'm not a counseling/therapy type person, but this is one of the times that I'm on ask metas side on this.I would get counseling for both you and your wife. If you haven't checked out Gottman, see if you can find some of his books. HE bases his ideas of relationships on research.

You sound narcissistic, selfish and in love with suffering because it absolves you of having to make really difficult choices, live with the consequences of those choices, and move on without making excuses for yourself. If I had to slap a diagnosis on you as an armchair psychologist internet stranger I'd say your were pretty immature and maybe even a case of arrested development. And I'm not buying the false humility in your narrative; I think you're faking that, just like you're faking most things. You come across as pretty empty to me, bewildered as to why, and blind to the obvious reason that you've got nothing real invested in your life. And, without anything at stake, you need drama to make you feel anything at all. And that's particularly sad because you have a child. To that - the first year and change that you have a kid is a litmus test of the strength of your marriage and your ability to accept responsibility. Many, many marriages fail during this period because babies are awesome - in the truest sense of the word - but utterly brutal, unforgiving task masters and the sleep deprivation alone will make you wish you'd focused instead on being a really great uncle or aunt. Staying together for the sake of your son is a terrible idea in your case because, in my opinion, you don't come across as having the self-awareness - real self-awareness, which isn't just a well-written or acted fake out but honest to goodness depth and complexity - to truly put your son first. And that is the deal with kids. They come first. All these shenanigans with this obvious head-case girl are time spent not putting him first. All this hostility towards your wife, this projection of your own self-loathing onto her, is not putting him first. His mother is the single most important person in his life. She deserves not to be hated and put-down by his father. No person deserves that. So, how? Well, you do as advised many, many, many times here and get your head to a head shrinker. You find the courage in yourself - somewhere, it's probably underneath all that self-loathing - to say to your therapist that you settled in your marriage, you don't love your wife, and you literally cannot leave. You say you need help to actually make the break you have to make; like, you might need to do it in a therapist's office so that your wife's obvious pain won't overwhelm you and make you chicken out and promise things will be different (again) and then go through this whole crisis again in a few months. You leave. You pursue this woman. You have sex. You both get bored and disgusted with each other in a few months. Then - THEN - you put yourself in real therapy. The kind of therapy where you don't ask questions like, "How do I leave my wife?" but "What is responsibility? What is character? What is sacrifice? What gives my life meaning? Who the fuck AM I?" I really do hope you can gut up and get yourself onto a professional's couch Monday morning. My fear, though, is you'll probably just cheat on your wife with this woman some more until it ends badly. I fear that will just foment a bunch more ill will between yourself and your wife because she's probably not as dumb as you think she is; she just feels trapped, like you, in a bad marriage with a kid. And I also fear your kid will grow up thinking that's normal. If you really accept your responsibility as the parent to this little boy, you will try to change yourself as much for his future as for your own. Good luck.

I recognized your user name from your previous questions about your wife. You need to get into therapy and figure out what you're doing with your life and your marriage before you cheat on your wife in an unforgivable way- frankly, you may have passed that point already if your wife has no idea how important this woman is to you.

Lord almighty. You're determined to drive your life straight off a cliff, aren't you? Your past posts, the hivemind's responses, and your reaction to them are telling. You've asked us what to do about your marriage repeatedly. You've been told, repeatedly, and you clearly have chosen to do pretty much the opposite. So as a serious question back at you: why are you still asking what you should do when (judging by the past) you have no intention of doing that thing? The answer is (just like it has been for the past two years) personal and couples therapy, and to start the process of growing up and taking responsibility for the choices you've made. First, you cut this woman off because it's the right thing to do. Then you get in therapy because it's what you really need. Then you can start sorting out the rest of your life.