Oh, not just education, but the cheeeeese in Wisconsin .

So, that post gives quite a bit of info. An overload, almost.

Let us start with this:

- you are in a good state
- you have a good wife
- you and your wife seem to be having incredibly good sex together
- your wife is extremely possessive (that she would go after THAT WOMAN and not deal with YOU means that she is extremely possessive - you are not a person but a possession of hers in her mind, and one does not talk with possessions; THAT OTHER WOMAN is a person and therefore your wife would go after HER)
- you are no longer suicidal
- you seem to have enough financial resources for basis survival
- you can think picturesquely and express your feelings well (how you described that wanting to breathe in the perfume or scent of hair was evocative)
- you know a whole bunch of stats and rankings
- you reason well and your thoughts are well organized

So... for a boy who wanted to commit suicide, who was homeschooled restrictively and raised with strict dogma in oppressive isolation from social life and peer interaction... you have come a long, long way! You are a positive outcome. Do you realize that had you committed suicide as a boy, nothing would be left of you now except for worm-laced decaying flesh or some ashes? Nobody would have posted this thread and nobody would have given your wife those multiple orgasms. Nobody would be between a rock (your wife's being quite possessive ) and a hard place (no, absolutely no pun intended ). Nobody would be tormented the way you are now. Nobody would be celebrating the victory of charting your own course in life (that you severed the connection with religion that was indeed very oppressive in your case) rather than trying to mold to the expectations with which you were raised. Nobody would feel the draw of feminine perfume. Nobody would be able to compare the weather in WI and AZ. Nobody, nobody, nobody.
A dead body is just a dead body - no feelings, no thoughts, no temptations, no victories, no olfactory or visual sense, no nothing.

Somehow you have come such a long way, but completely fail to appreciate it and to give yourself (and your wife, I am positive about it) credit for your being alive and well and just a little tormented. Because look - what got fixed from how it was broken during the days of your youth?

Everything, except that you feel shortchanged that you did not closely know more women.

So what do you do? Do you choose to say: "Wow, pretty much everything is SO wonderful right now... I cannot believe that I wanted to take my own life back then... I better count my blessings"?

No, you choose to dwell on that one thing that makes you feel shortchanged. I am not discounting your feeling, nor saying that you are in any way wrong in feeling what you are feeling. It could be because you feel shortchanged, or it could be that you are not set up for monogamy right now, or it could be that you are just not set up for monogamy altogether, or it could be that you in reality might be able to enjoy monogamy perfectly fine were it not for the extreme possessiveness of your wife, because her extreme possessiveness intensifies the forbidden fruit aspect of your predicament...

let me digress here... hypothetically, imagine that your wife said: "Oh sweetie, but of course, I understand how you feel - I do not want to limit you. Sure thing I have no issues." Would you:

- jump three times in place, clap your hands, give your wife a bear hug and run straight to that waterfall where women with gorgeous hair and exquisite perfume have already been patiently waiting for your arrival,

OR,

- think... think... think and kind of decide that all that variety is really not worth it, because there might be a lot of drama, and, what if you accumulate so many women that you would start forgetting their names, and they would start leaving you en masse, offended that you said "Ashley" to "Jessica" or vice versa, and if this is so complicated and they would leave you eventually anyway, then WHY EVEN START?

So one realizes that hypotheticals are just that, but still, if you imagine that your wife were OK with your dating other women and decide which option you'd be more likely to take, you then MIGHT determine the weight of the forbidden fruit factor in your dilemma.

So back to counting or discounting your blessings. You are discounting your blessings and focusing on that one problem alone. Why don't you take a break from trying to make any choices, do not talk to your wife about it for now, but instead talk to her about how grateful you are for her being such a positive presence in your life. And then patiently count just how many things are going well right now.

And then after you feel that you have achieved the state of gratitude that is commensurate with how much better your life is now vs. just 10 years ago, revisit the dilemma that has brought you here.

Plus, it is the month of giving thanks anyway!

PS I think that the reason that several posters suspected that you are obsessed is not because of the content of your thoughts on that matter, but because you somehow only dwell on the negative and lose sight of the big picture. If not obsession, this is most definitely tunnel vision - not in a negative sense (seeing nothing but your own POV) but in a purely descriptive sense - you do not have peripheral vision.

Take a long look at this image and see what associations or thoughts or emotions come up:

https://www.google.com/search?q=tunn...2F%3B700%3B560