As everyone else who has responded, you, Jabber, have made another good point. As much as I try to convey all that has gone on in my life, I still feel as if it comes across as menial, everyday occurrences within a marriage. Believe me when I say it wasn't like that at all. Yes, I know how it has affected me and it's not a normal transition into a comfortable life with your husband.

However, it not only affected me, but my children also. It was almost as if our presence was interfering with his life. One occasion when I asked him to help my son with his homework, all he did was yell at him to get it done and walk out the room. Naturally, it left him in tears, so I had to go in to calm him down. I'm deviating again.

Let me try and and explain a bit more. As I said, once he changed, I made a choice to concentrate on the children's well being. That meant, carrying on as normal, doing what I needed to do to keep the peace and "protect" my children whenever his controlling ways came to the surface. We were playing "happy families", even though I knew the truth. Unfortunately, by this time, I resigned myself to the fact that this was my life and I just got on with it.

However, and I am being honest here, I would have continued to live that life, had it not been for two things. One is that I reconnected with an old friend and a guy at church was friendly to me. My old friend assured me that I was worthy of love and happiness and that no one should treat me that way. The guy at church isn't anything, but mere words like, "it's nice to see you" and "I thought about you the other day" has made me start to feel better about myself. That last comment came about when a couple was visiting from the States and knowing I was American, he thought I'd like to have a chat with them. That incident happened during my separation and it was rather embarrassing as I was almost in tears during mass, just because he was being nice to me.

So, my indecision also stems from feeling guilty that I might want more out of my life.

Now this is the strange part. During one conversation I had with my husband, I was honest with him about the fact that because of the state of our marriage, I am now starting to "look elsewhere" for lack of a better description. For someone who claims to still be in love with me, his answer was rather puzzling. With no sign of emotion or devastation,(I'm convinced he is emotionally stunted ) he merely said, words to this effect "if you end up having an affair and going with someone else, the state of your relationship would most likely end up the same". ,So, in other words, he thinks I will never be happy with anyone else!

I will need to stop here, as I will no longer have the privacy I require to finish this. I hope you all understand what I am trying to say.