I have been with my husband since we were both 16 and we each other’s first “proper” boyfriend/girlfriend. We married in 2022.
Generally, I am a very quiet person with little need for social interaction and a perfect weekend would be at home with a book or videos games. I was a very shy person and growing up as a teen and even in my twenties and in university I never really went out and socialised/drank etc. I have a couple of close friends.
However, recently (i.e wedding planning and onwards) I have been feeling very dissatisfied with life. There were a couple of personal tragedies in the same timescale. I started looking after myself better (losing weight etc for the wedding) and wanting to go out more socially. I’ve been on the pill since I was 13 and only came off it in 2020. During that time I had a very low, almost non-existent sex drive and low moods. When I came off it and I lost weight I found that my sex drive was incredibly high. I felt a lot more confident (confidence is not something I ever possessed) but by this point my close friends had moved away and I don’t have anyone locally. I now spend my weekends unable to enjoy my hobbies and just have this general air of sadness. I am really struggling with depression. When I first came off the pill I didn’t suffer with depression for about a year and half until the below.
During all of this, I met someone at work (who doesn’t work with me) and I knew quickly that it was a toxic friendship mostly because he was a married man and didn’t want his wife knowing he had a female friend. I went into this entirely wanting a friendship and I have been very open with my husband about this man and that I meet him for coffee/tea etc before I come home from work. It quickly became apparent that my days were spent looking forward to the half hour/hour where we could sit and have a cup of tea together and just chill out and it was perfectly innocent with very mild flirting. As time went on the flirting didn’t remain so mild or innocent. My thoughts are now CONSUMED with him (mostly the thought of just sex to be honest) and I don’t know what to do. Unfortunately, due to this being one of the very few things I look forward to in life I don’t know how to end it without depression fully taking hold.
I love my husband, I really do, but I’m sitting here wondering if having been with him since 16 and suddenly feeling so confident and ready for a social life that I never had in my teens/twenties whether it’s FOMO. I know it’s wrong but I don’t know how to unconsume my thoughts. I have no idea how to get rid of these thoughts and it’s been going on for years now. I thought time would help and it hasn’t.
My husband is ready to have children and the thought petrifies me; not only the thought of being pregnant and actually having children, but I feel like I’m only just discovering myself and until I do that I can’t imagine how I can do it again as a mother because I haven’t yet done it as a woman.
I am completely torn between wanting to be his wife and have his kids, but also just to go it alone and figure out who I am. I feel sick every day and emotionally don’t know how to deal with this. I love him so much and don’t want to hurt him but I don’t know how to get through this. I know I need to stop seeing the man at work but I feel like one of the only things that gets me to work these days is that short break with him for a cup of tea.
I have told him all of this and he is very understanding and supportive but ultimately I don’t think he can help through this – I need to find a way of unconsuming my thoughts without doing the unthinkable.
I know it’s too late after marrying him to suddenly have a crisis of identity but I do think it was spurred on by the wedding even though I’ve been committed to him since 2009.
I don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m lost in darkness and dragging him down with me.