Hello, All. This is my first ever post. It may be my last, because my problems might be too difficult to unravel in this format, but I hope someone could offer something to give me insight or a new avenue of thought to pursue.

To distill this into its simplest form, I woke up from my self hate and realized I married someone based on my belief that nobody else would ever love me.

My story is this:

I'm a married thirty-five year old man. I've struggled with self loathing and depression most of my life. In my adolescence I found it impossible to be normal or connect with people other than a few close friends. I was severely insecure and inadequate with girls. Girls with whom I was infatuated invariably wanted nothing to do with me, and I learned to avoid them so I wouldn't be creepy or ashamed of myself. This made my feelings of inadequacy even worse. It affected my ability to see myself as a viable man and made it impossible for me to believe a woman could be attracted to me. Women may have been attracted to me, but I couldn't recognize it. I couldn't allow myself to believe it.

Here's my real dilemma at this point. I married a woman who wanted me; perhaps the only woman who has ever wanted me, but certainly the only woman I was sure wanted me. This was possibly a huge mistake. I've done an awful lot of work improving myself both psychologically and physically. I'm healthier than I've ever been. Seeing things more clearly has allowed me to stop the cycle of horrible negative reinforcement. I now realize I'm not ugly or disgusting. I'm not inadequate or unlovable. I'm at least average in appearance, and I'm smart, creative, passionate, thoughtful, and kind. I still don't know if average is good enough for the kind of love I desire, but my newfound self worth has made me much less worried about rejection or mutual attraction. I'm starting to really consider what I want instead of just trying to make other people happy or to make them love me. My self hate has been replaced by anxiety. I'm stuck in an unfulfilling marriage, but it's really not bad enough to justify leaving. We have a young child and many years of history and memories. I feel like I've finally found my authentic self, but I'm unable to pursue a fulfilling relationship.

I guess my main question is, does passionate love really exist? I suppose that's a silly question. Of course it exists. But could it exist for me? I've never been mutually infatuated. I've known a few women in my life who completely captured me. It's tough to say how objectively attractive they were, but obviously my feelings for them made them very beautiful to me. I don't think anyone has ever felt this way about me. Perhaps you need to be a very special person to inspire that kind of admiration? If that's the case, and every attraction is a path to disappointment for me, then is it really worth it to upend my life and hurt my family? I suppose I can be unfulfilled in my current situation more conveniently and less guiltily than unfulfilled after destroying the life I've built with my wife and daughter. I'm just worried about regret. I never had a chance to date women I liked or discover the kinds of people with whom I'm most compatible. I have dated exactly one woman in my entire life. Maybe it never gets better than what I have, which is a boring, mostly unfulfilling, but amicable marriage.

Has anyone gone through something similar? What did you do? Did you find love? Did you regret leaving your spouse? Did you stay and then regret staying?

I'm lost.

I'm trapped in anxious ambivalence.