Help! Dating someone from abroad, while marriage is all but gone

[confusedcat]

Hi all, I'm new to this forum. I'm a 32 year-old guy from Western Europe. Like most of you probably, I found this place through Google and decided to give it a go, since I can definitely can use some advice on my issue. Sorry for the looooong post, but that kind of happens with complicated love matters like these and I feel it's important to give background info. OK, so here goes.

I've been with the same woman for almost 10 years and she's a couple years younger than me. From the start we got along great, and within a year we started living together, during our college years. Everything was great and a couple years after that, we moved and bought an apartment together. Things were going great for a long time, but one thing that wasn't the greatest after the first few years was our sex life. It wasn't bad, but it was 'okay'. One of the problems was that my appetite for sex was less than hers (not all that common). It never became a big problem, because the rest of our relationship was going so great, although at times we did get into big arguments about it, usually her blaming me that I didn't do enough to better that situation. And she was right I guess. Because over the years I realized that it wasn't that I didn't like sex, but that I just wasn't that much into her physically anymore. So that was something that lingered on for the past five years and ultimately also played a part in the rest of our relationship getting corrupted. The rest was fine though and two years ago we got married. But the past eighteen months or so things have been going downhill without going back up again. We've experienced some loss within our immediate family over a year ago, which probably didn't help the situation, but if anything that brought us closer for a little while.

It's not like we only fight or anything, but we're stuck in this very unproductive vibe for the longest time. When we started out we found each other so inspiring and her presence made me want to just LIVE and do things. It's normal that that feeling doesn't last forever, but right now it's the opposite. We rarely do stuff anymore, we mostly watch series together and it's just really very, very boring. To make matters worse, we bitch at each other all the time for the smallest little things. And we try to make an effort and really focus on getting out of this phase (which honestly is going on too long to be called a phase) we're going through. But at a certain point it has to stop being an effort and should become natural and effortless again, if not you would just be acting the whole time. We talked about this a little bit, but both of us have been mostly positive during these talks, while in reality we are both just too scared to ask the big and crucial question out loud: should we even be staying together?? Because the answer might scare us. And the sex thing has become worse, we do it even less now.

So this has been the situation for the last year and a half. Then two months ago we went on a holiday to an Asian country for about four weeks. The trip was amazing and we had a great time, but truthfully probably more so because of everything we did and the surroundings then each other. On our best days, it feels like we're friends instead of husband and wife, you know? So anyway, during one of our last days there, my wife was away doing things the whole day while I explored the surrounding area by myself. It was there that a 25 year-old European girl (from a neighboring country) who had just arrived there with her friend started talking to me. She was pretty flirtatious, so pretty soon I said I was there with my wife. But we kept talking and ended up having some drinks for a few hours on our way back to where we both had to go. She was definitely into me, I could tell.. the very long trip and alcohol made her more flirtatious than she probably wanted to be, but I can't say I didn't like it.

Now, up until this point, I never even really flirted with women while in a relationship.. I always was pretty oblivious to women flirting with me (which does happen often, I'm not a bad looking guy). But this time because of some unknown reason I let my guard down and she really got to me. Nothing happened though and after we got back to the town, we said goodbye and that was that. We knew each other's names, but we didn't exchange email or anything. I didn't see her again in Asia, but the last days of the holiday with my wife I could only think about the girl I met!! It was pretty bad, I couldn't even eat that much because of butterflies in my stomach. It was a pretty horrible situation to be in. There was just so much to like about her, I could really see us becoming an item. But still, how would that even work? So when I got back home, normality started to sink in and while I still thought about her, it wasn't as bad as the first days. Meanwhile, the situation with my wife continued to be as it had been before.

So a few weeks later I got the opportunity to go to a city European city for work, it was only for a day, but I decided to extended my stay to a long weekend. I like doing the occasional city trip by myself, I've done it often. Then I remembered that this girl lived in that exact city. In a spontaneous mood a couple weeks ago I looked her up on Facebook and sent her a message, asking if she would be up for a drink and maybe wanted to show me around while I was there. After being a little apprehensive about what my wife would think, I put her at ease, saying my wife wouldn't mind me just hanging out with her. Which is true, my wife still has some international guy friends that she's met up with abroad. We're not that jealous. I did truthfully let the girl know that I hadn't told my wife, because we weren't in the best of places.

In the city we managed to meet up on Friday night, because she had other plans the rest of the weekend. I'm gonna be honest here and say that I'm not sure what my true intentions were. Obviously I was looking for an interesting local to hang out with, and if she'd been a guy I also would've made contact. But in the back of my mind there was still that crush-type feeling I had felt after meeting her. Mind you, I was definitely not planning on having a one-night stand or anything.

We started out by having a nice dinner with some wines and then went to a really nice bar afterwards. At that point we had already talked about my marital problems for a little bit and how I wasn't sure if I should go on. Which was pretty unique, because I had never told anyone else about my marital problems before. There was definitely chemistry between us though. At the bar she started kissing me and I just couldn't stop it.. we kissed gently for about a minute maybe, then stopped. We had some more wine and made more interesting conversation. After that we realized the public transport was finished already.. so we decided to get a cab. I was staying somewhere in the same direction, but still far from her place. Long story short, I ended going to her place. We didn't do anymore kissing and we didn't have sex, but we did sleep in the same bed, with her falling asleep entangled in my arms and legs because it was pretty cold. Which in some ways is even more intimate than sex, if you ask me. In the morning we woke up, a little hungover. She was feeling a little guilty, but I told her that was all on me, not her. We took a long walk, talked a lot (just about light-hearted subject matter) and had some brunch. The vibe was a little awkward, because of what happened and the hangover didn't help. After that we went our separate ways. Right away I felt that my crush had definitely returned and grew a thousand times stronger. I've never experienced it that strong before. And yes, she is very pretty, but I was so into her as a person it made me feel light-headed. It developed into something more than a crush. I actually felt pretty lonely the rest of my remaining days in the city and the thought of never seeing her again made me feel truly terrible. We texted a little bit during those two days, but my loneliness and fear of never seeing her again made me text her in an anxious moment the suggestion that we could meet up again some time soon in her city or somewhere else. But she didn't wanna do that because she would risk getting feelings for me and especially because it would confuse things for me so much more. She had a point. I wrote a long apology for even suggesting it and we ended up texting that we would get a friendly coffee whenever one of us was in each other's city again and that was that.

But I've been back for four days now and I'm just completely heartbroken. Every time when I think of her and the time we spent and think about never seeing her again, I start to cry.. hard (luckily I avoided doing it at work, but I came close a couple times). Which is weird, because I very rarely cry.. I can't even remember the last time I cried before this thing started. This girl really got to me and it makes it especially hard because I know she was into me as well. She was the one who initiated the kissing and she confirmed that she definitely felt the chemistry as well. If I was living in her area, things would've been different from the start.

At the same time, I've forced myself the past days to finally face some hard truths about my marriage. Just to end the confusion in my mind about that once and for all. For too long, I’ve been postponing dealing with our ongoing struggles. I've decided that it would be best for both me and my wife to end our relationship, however sad it may be. I still have to have that conversation with her, but I want to pick the right moment for that, although it should be sooner rather than later.

That leaves me in an even more sad position as far as the girl situation goes. Because I just know that the nr. 1 reason for her not agreeing to meet up again in a romantic/date kind of way was because a) she doesn’t want to break up a marriage (I never got into the full scope of my marital issues with her) and b) because she wouldn’t want to put herself in a position where she might end up getting hurt if she developed feelings for me without there being the possibility of a future. Sure, it’s also not ideal that we live in different countries, but from door to door only takes about three hours plus we both make enough money to be able to afford making regular trips to each other.

So, I’m seriously thinking about writing her a long message, in which I lay my cards on the table, putting it all out there. How she’s put my heart on fire, that my confusion is over and I’ve chosen to end my marriage anyway (and that cause of that has nothing to do with her), and basically that I feel like this is something really special that should be given a fair change and proposing to meet up again soon for just a coffee (I'm gonna be back there for one day soon). It may be a bold move, but I really can’t think of anything better than just being completely honest with her. I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t at least try to make this happen. You know, if we meet up again and one of us (or both) decide we don’t have a future, it would obviously suck, but than at least I can get comfort out of the fact that we tried. I’ll probably send her this message this coming weekend.

Please, I’m open to any advice or other perspectives here. Am I thinking crazy? Or should I just go for it? I really like it's a combination of the two. I just hope the girl from abroad will not be offended (don't think so though). Would she have a reason to be?

[confusedcat]

Doesn't anyone have any advice? I know I sound like a 16-year old teenager, but I could really use an outsiders perspective.