My husband and I have been married for 17 years, since both age 20, and have 2 kids age 10 and 6. He has always encouraged very adventurous and edgy things sexually- threesomes, strip clubs, dirty talk, watching porn together, more extreme images etc. He recently encouraged me to go start something w/ a guy who I could tell there might be a mutual attraction there. Turns out there was, and we started having sex and hanging out a bit. The only caveat is that my husband wants me to come home and tell him all about it, it turns him on, plus then he doesn't feel cheated on but instead feels like I'm hot and out getting some and flaunting it to him. I've always thought it was a bit strange for a guy to be turned on by seeing/thinking about his wife out with another guy, but ok... Well recently my husband asked me to stop seeing him, primarily because the past few times I have not come home and gushed out all the details (I was too tired, he was already asleep, etc.) and so it makes him feel like I'm no longer sticking to the rules of the deal but instead am having an affair with him. I do not want to stop, and especially "just like that" just because it's no longer working for HIM. There's a lot I have asked him to look at in the past, and while he has made some changes and consessions, his response has often been "That's just who I am, you're going to have to make your peace with it, and I can't help you with that". For my husband (and probably for most guys?), this other guy was always just about sex and bringing home a hot sex story for him. For me, it is also a friendship, the attention and validation of my hotness

, providing me something emotionally that seems to be missing from my marriage and life in general, especially for the past year or more, etc. I'm a little mad that my husband is the one who suggested this in the first place, and now just wants to end it because HE doesn't like it anymore. Plus I simply don't want to give it up because I like it and it means something to me. The added piece to this is that my husband and I get into a big rut every few years where we feel we are coming up against our incompatibility that may have always been there from the start, and we get into big fights (usually about me wanting something that he can't/won't give, like majorly adjusting his work or sleep schedule so he is around for us more, etc.) and throw the idea of divorce out there, but never do it, mostly for the sake of staying together for the kids and because of all the history and good things that ARE there, and for me divorce just seems like a big, costly headache of a mess. But these big issues keep cropping up. I certainly can't say that this other guy is my dream guy and I would leave my husband for him and it would be everything I've always wanted etc. But it has been a catalyst for making me think about and see some of the things I really want and need in my life and in a relationship that my husband seems unable to give or simply says he will never be able to give me (i.e. he thinks he shouldn't have to "romance" me or warm me up to sex, that I should just feel like enthusiastically giving it to him all the time, and that's what married people should expect from eachother... and if I need that then I should be with someone else who is like that). I don't know what to think. Is this kind of situation normal? Am I unrealistic in my reactions?