Never-Ending Dilemma - LDR

[Yasemina]

Hello everyone,

 

I am 31 years old and have been married for 4 years now. Before I met my husband in 2001, I developed an online friendship with a person in 2000. By the end of 2000, he proposed to me in a very beautiful way, with a very kind gesture and we were planning to move ahead in future together, when we were fully in love. He was undergoing a divorce at that time and although he loved and did many things to show that he did, he was instable, which I knew deep inside. In February 2001, he met a woman in his country ( we live continents apart) and formed a relationship with her, which turned me upside down and left me in hatred. He sent frequent e-mails to me telling me he did not forget me, that we could have a chance someday but all his remarks were open-ended and unrealizable as far as time and physical reality were concerned. I then met my husband and got married in 2003, by the time his twins from his extra-marital afffair were 1 year old. I thought everything was now happily over, since I needed peace of mind in my marriage. But, unfortunately, time has proven that we have never forgotten each other, only suppressed what was to be experienced by being in relationships with people other than ourselves. We communicate almost regularly though not frequently , he tells me often and most sincerely, that he wants me to settle in his country (which really is a safe coutnry compared to my politically volatile and insecure country) and marry him. He says he would do anything for me, that my husband is the luckiest man alive to have me and that he is a fool. My love for him has never ceased. I know that I ought to take a sound decision and since he cannot afford the journey (I have always been financially better off than him), he wants me to come to his country. My intention is not getting to know him and deciding if I should leave my life here and marry him, this would be torture to my husband and lifetime scruple to me. But I feel like I cant go on any longer if I dont see him, I am going over these mental crisis each and every year since I got married. I feel like I have to see him and form a real opinion of him. My husband, who is a very good and understanding person, is devastated over the issue, thinking I will go and not return. But the point is my husban never proposed to me and kept me in misery during all the time we dated and got engaged, I was the one who wanted this marriage but he is the one who has been loyal to me as a husband. I wonder what harm there is in seeing him with or wihtout my husband – my husband refuses to visit someone he doesnt know just for my sake and be dependent on his letter of invitation for the visa. If I dont see him, it seems that I will be in chronic lifetime misery. If I see him, my husband will turn aside from me but not ask for a divorce. And he refuses to do the best thing, travelling together, since he is a proud person. Will you please tell me what to do? I ve been having crying spells so often and I dont know how I will save myself out of this dilemma...