I'll try to make a long story short, though I'm usually very long-winded.
I became involved in an emotional affair after SOOO many years in a broken, abusive, and neglectful marriage. I desperately want out of the marriage, but there are so many things that make if very difficult, mostly major debt (his doing) and the fact that I don't want to hurt the kids. In retrospect, maybe I was looking for someone to save me, but I didn't mean for it to turn so complicated. It started online only, then went to phone calls. We've been talking for 3 years, and have been very close and shared so much. After H started spying on virtually everything, our time dwindled and I could only talk to him from work (which I work alone, but it's still risky). He decided (and I agreed) that he didn't want to be the "fish on the hook" any longer, and doesn't want to love me anymore. He is single, so it wasn't fair that I had no time for him. We talked about meeting (he lives in California, I live in Ohio), but we knew it would get even more complicated and be a full-blown physical affair at that point.
We said goodbye in the wee hours of Dec. 31st, which was my last night of work before the New Year holiday. I keep torturing myself by checking my email, each time thinking "why am I doing this to myself?".
I have been trying to stay busy, but I really feel the loss all the time. Everything reminds me of him, and there's a wave of sadness. I hate that we had to say goodbye, everything was so perfect.
Have you tried any kind of program or therapy to make the marriage work?
I'll tell you having an affair like you did doesn't solve anything, like you found out if just makes things far far worse, because you now have two failing relationships instead of one.
So you got kids and a husband. What stopping you - besides the residue affair fog - from fixing the marriage and making it work?
Get some IC for you and then when you've really realized how wrong the affair was and how hurtful to you and your family it was, you can try to reengage you husband - a man whom you once loved enough to marry and start a family with.
You had a fantasy relationship and b/c you never met this person, I personally do not think that you need to tell your H about it. If you ever do online dating, you will come to realize that an online relationship exists only in your head, b/c you really have no clue what the other person is like, other than what they TELL you, and everything you know is something they TELL you. 99% of it can be made up and very often is.
But it does sound like counseling is in order--first for you to decide if you even WANT MC and then MC if you decide to give it a try. Good luck.
Well, you certainly have placed yourself into a hard situation. And because of that, you have given up time with your children - of which you cannot get back. There are 5 stages of gries: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. You seem to be in the denial/bargaining phase, or thereabouts. Let me put it straight to you:
1. You have wasted 3 years of your life. Shaggy and Sisters were spot on. Reread their replies.
2. If your marriage is poor, try working on it more strongly. You tried? Well then, get yourself some counseling. Yes, that's right. The counseling will give you the tools to handle the situation with awarewness, a logical thinking pattern, and a firm stance. It give you the courage as well, to be abler to make decisions when needed.
3. You speak on not wanting to hurt the kids. Do you not think - unless they are very young - that they cannot detect there are problems between mom & dad? Think again, or clearly, and see that they can pick this up. Children are very intuitive, simply because they are not cluttered with the concerns and worries that adults are plagued with.
4. You must pull yourself up by your bootstraps, because it is needed, and your children need you. Get with it my friend.
5. You used the word "abusive marriage." Are you being physically abused? If so, you need to be out of there with your children. Emotional abuse? Just as bad, if not worse. I would say that you are most probably a strong woman, but you have allowed certain things in your life to weaken you. Don't women understand that they are very strong in the mind? Women are so very powerful! Don't forget that! Find your voice, make your mark and live! And for Pete's sake, do not enter into another emotional affair again. It will only take its toll and leave you empty again!
I feel so empty inside... 
