Impossible relationship

hello all,
in my introduction i told how I'm in a vacant marriage, and how my first love, I'll call him AJ, found me last year and we have been chatting. We never got over each other, and never really properly parted ways, we live in different countries and 27 years ago there was no internet, the cost of overseas calls was prohibitive, we were both students without the means to afford travel or long distance communication, so we basically just faded out of each other's lives.
I have been indifferent to my husband for several years, and spent the last 20 years raising my daughters, helping my family through illness, death, helping the younger ones find jobs after college, having them live with us till they got on their feet, being heavily involved in my daughter's girl scout troop, and working full time in a demanding career in aerospace.
Here I am at 46 completely lovesick and feeling like I am having a total breakdown. i cannot stop thinking about AJ, day and night, he is constantly on my mind in evreything I do. I haven't felt this way since we were first separated, and thought it would fade as time went on, but it hasn't and the mood swings are overwhelming, from euphoria to total despair. My entire adult life I have been stable, dependable, the ones everyone comes to for help and advice, and i feel my world spinning out of control. Has this happened to anyone else? what is wrong with me? it's been a year and it hasn't gotten any better. I did speak to a therapist before Covid started, and she just said I needed to end it unconditionally, and see a marriage counselor with my husband even if it was just to work through an amicable end to our marriage. with the way things are right now we cannot navigate a separation, but my marriage is likely headed that way. Of course, AJ is also married, and there is no question he would leave his wife and 4 children. Can anyone relate? is there a name for what I am experiencing? will it ever stop? thanks for listening....

Did you and the former flame ever meet in person?

no, he lives halfway across the world. I think I'd totally lose it if we did. we had a very passionate relationship, and meeting would probably be a total disaster.

Get a divorce. You owe it to your husband to leave him if you do not love him and when you love someone else.

that's easier said than done. I describe my marriage in my intro, my husband has been unfaithful to me since our wedding wedding day, he is definitely a narcissist, and emotionally abusive. I have kept my relative sanity despite a history predating him of PTSD by working and immersing myself in my children's lives. He has managed to hold us hostage financially through a series of failed business investments, and although I control the finances now with a kid in college and one in daycare there's no extra cash. I have a little set aside for myself but it's not enough, and with the situation with Covid now is not the time to separate. I don't even know if love exists to tell you the truth, I can't stop thinking about this man, and yes it was everything I had ever wanted and still want in a relationship, but circumstances out of our control ended it and here we are. for the past 15 years I have felt numb, passionless, didn't even feel the strong love for my children and family that I used to feel. Then along he comes , after years of my husband making me feel inadequate as a woman, tells me he has saved every picture, every memento, even the stuffed animal I gave him he showed me is still above his bed, and his wife never understood why he wouldn't let their kids touch it. he remembers everything about me, intimately, and I know better than my husband does. We never did have closure, so there's definitely that, but I think I'm just reacting to having someone say he cares, when I haven't had that in so long.
it feels like i'm losing my mind, and feelings and desires I haven't had in as long as I can remember are just out of control. it's so overwhelming I don't know what to do, and I really didn't click with the therapist I saw in February, and now with Covid don't know how to go about finding a different one.

Well, that is a most difficult situation you are in. I would encourage you to keep looking for a therapist. My therapist is doing phone appointments with me during COVID. I would also keep putting money away and start making plans to leave your husband, even if you cannot leave him just now. You can start getting the ball rolling and start planning your exit. This will help you to feel better. I do not encourage you to have an emotional affair with this other man, but I know how hard that may be given that you reconnected and your husband is abusive. It's a tough situation all around. Hugs to you.

I’d second what Have Hope says - start taking small steps towards leaving, take back your power. One foot in front of the other!

Your heart longs for what has been denied to you throughout your abusive marriage.
You've devoted yourself to the lives of your children and possibly neglected your own emotional needs. Always being there for other's is a distraction from your unhappiness.
Maybe this former flame feels like a safe place to release these emotions as you will never meet. Nurturing this fantasy is form of escapism for you but your heart has been caged for too long and the tantalising thought of feeling loved is torturously out of reach.
Abusers train us to always put their needs first whilst making us feel invisible and invalidated. I think you have a lot of love to give but when did you last give any of that love to yourself?

When I am unhappy in my marriage I think of my past loves and probably idealize them. I think you should treat them as separate issues.

All the best in your marriage, i do think you should try marriage counselling, and be open and honest about your feelings in that. Marriages are always worth fighting for, because two people that get married have something special, that on occasion goes bad down the line. Fight for what you want, and all the best in that.

Anca, Thanks for sharing some intimate thoughts on what you have experienced. I do too often fantasize about my first love. I will call her "M". I was completely head over heels for this woman, whom I met when I was only 16. We actually had a physical relationship that lasted many years, until she found a new love. But what she meant to me was very raw and real, she loved me and loved me for what I was. I have never felt the same passion for any person other than her. I would move continents to speak to her, but she refuses to speak to me. There is a peculiar aspect to this though, she does maintain some contact with my sister. To this day, almost 30 years later, she wants nothing to do with me. She is also married and with a couple children.

You are not alone in this infatuation. I like to think of it as our innocence and love being manifested into reality.

--sarc