I grew up exceedingly poor and had a rough childhood. I'm talking government-funded, income-based slum apartments. I'm talking a pack of hot dogs and a 5 lb bag of potatoes to feed four people for a week kind of poor. I grew up without a present father in a drug infested neighborhood with a high school graduation rate of 31%. Was SA'd as a kid. Over the years we moved 10 times because we kept getting evicted. I could never put up posters in my room because as soon as I did I had to take them down. I never had space that was *mine.*

All I ever dreamed about as a kid was growing up and getting married and buying a house in the suburbs. The white picket fence, two car garage, tulips. You get the picture. Stability.

I married an amazing man when I was 26 who I've been friends with since I was 17. He's gentle, he's kind, he's patient, and he loves me. Somehow. I still don't know why.

Somehow, I grew up without becoming a statistic. No teen pregnancy, no drug abuse, graduated high school with honors. First person in my family to go to college and get my bachelor's degree. Became a nurse, I have an amazing career that provides me stability and $100K per year which is pretty damn good for the cost of living area I'm in. Travel a few times a year.

Three years ago we did it. We bought a plot of land, we had a house built from scratch, just for us. Two car garage, I put in tulip beds, he built me vegetable garden beds, I planted lavander and lilac bushes.

A few weeks ago I stood in my front yard and just took it all in. And I cried.

I cried because I don't want any of it anymore. I feel like the cornfields by our house are closing in on me. It's deafeningly silent. I want to get a divorce, sell everything, move to the city and get a shitty apartment by myself.

I still love my husband, I do, but like a best friend. We've been together 10 years now and I miss the spark and passion of young love. And I'll never feel that again. I'll never be 23 again, young, naive and full of hope for the future. I feel like I'm mourning a phase of my life that is over and that I'll never see again. I feel like I'm having a mid life crisis which I probably am.

I feel like a dog chasing a car that finally got the car and now I have no idea what to do with it. I feel like I've peaked; this is it. No more milestones. Nothing left to look forward to. I graduated, got a job, got married, ticked all the major life boxes. We're not having kids so that's that. It's all downhill from here and I'm terrified.

If you've made it this far please make it to the end and try not to judge me for the next part too harshly

To compound all of this, I've fallen for somebody at work. I feel the butterflies again, the anxious nausea before seeing them. And I made the mistake of telling the dude how I feel about him. And he told me he feels the same.

For clarity, I then told my husband *everything* in this post. How I feel our marriage has become kind of boring, how I contemplated divorce. How I feel that the spark is gone but that's probably normal after 10 years, I feel like we're supposed to settle in like this. I've never been in a long-term relationship like this before but I feel like that's just what happens after a while. Familiarity. Comfort. I told him about the dude at work, I told him everything. We're working on it. I'm already in therapy and my husband and I are trying to rekindle any spark that we had. And we're getting there. I'm making a conscious effort to see the work dude less. I told my husband I don't love him any less, I just love him differently. I told him that I think I fell for the dude at work because I found something that I couldn't find in our marriage: excitement. He was hurt, understandably, but we're both being incredibly honest with each other and making every effort to get through this.

If you made it this far, congrats and here's a gold star ⭐

Brains are weird and I really hate mine right now. I just wish I could be normal.

Edit:

Y'all are real ones and I didn't expect this to blow up. I'm reading every single comment but having trouble responding because my screen is suddenly super blurry 🥹 I appreciate all of you 🙏

Final edit:

Just wanted to post here that I'm seeing a lot of comments that are saying I'm trying to excuse emotional cheating because of my "trauma." If you consider telling somebody you have feelings for them emotionally cheating, fine. But neither I nor my husband consider this emotionally cheating.

We are humans and just because we are married does not mean we will not occasionally have feelings for other people. I've had crushes before, he's had crushes before. It is what it is. What is important is not acting on those feelings.

I did not tell the guy that I wanted to be with him. I have never seen him outside of work. I merely told the guy that he's a really good human being who I admire and respect and told him that he deserves love and that I hope he finds it someday. Yes, I did tell him I had feelings for him and in the next breath told him that I love my husband and intend on focusing on my marriage.

My husband has seen the texts that were exchanged and neither of us believes any emotional affair happened. So for everyone saying I emotionally cheated; respectfully, you are not in our marriage therefore your opinion on this does not matter.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5862981&forum_id=2/en-en/#49860195)

What else is there to say other than that

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5862981&forum_id=2/en-en/#49860256)

We're not having kids so that's that

We're not having kids so that's that

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5862981&forum_id=2/en-en/#49860859)