I posted this as a response to a post on another Blog. But I think it has a place here too.

I was with my wife for 14 years and I know now that we both slept with other people in that time. (I am female by the way or this is going to get a bit confusing!) I don't know why - it just fulfilled something in me that I didn't really understand.  With a bit of distance I know that I used the fooling around as a sort of validation, to prove to myself that I was attractive and could get what I wanted. It wasn't enough that my partner loved me and found me attractive. In fact the longer we were together the less their opinion of me had any value. It was like my mum calling me beautiful. You are thankful that they consider you that way, but they're family they kind of have to. My relationship was very firmly ensconsed in the family bracket. I could never see myself being without her though. Every decision I made, she was a part of the thought process behind it. I was her wife first, even though I had friends and hobbies she came first. I suspect my indescretions were little rebellions where I just wanted to be the most important person in my own head for a few minutes. My indescretions were always with men.

Anyway, eventually my partner left me for another woman. She simply fell in love with someone else. What you said about feeling lost when you can't share something with John, like you're not whole, was very familiar when I was with her. It became much more familiar once I was on my own. I lost the ability to relate to the world in any meaningful way for a while. Now I only occasionally get that lost feeling. Right after the split I flirted with and slept with a few guys - to prove  to myself that I could I suppose. To clarify my sexual preferences or rather my lack of preference. I still couldn't see a life without her though. I couldn't see a future of any sort, I couldn't plan, I didn't know how to be anything without her. She has been my best friend, my soul mate all these things...but still somehow it was all not enough for me or her. How was I going to go on, build a life without her in it? How the hell was I going to survive financially? She had paid for most of our life...

The only answer is that you do it by putting one foot in front of the other. At first you can't go day by day or even hour by hour. You just keep moving footstep by footstep. being alone can be horrible. But it can also be liberating. I didn't even realise that my favourite food is Chicken Caesar salad stuffed into a big warm pitta bread. I'd spent so long eating what she liked that I thought I liked it. This last year and a half has been a journey into me. Discovering the things I enjoy doing for me and disentangling myself from the web of compromises I made for so long that I didn't even realise I wasn't enjoying myself.

I met her when I was 19. My whole adult life had been spent as part of a couple. I had no experience in how to live as an adult alone, emotionally or practically. You learn. One step at a time.

So I'm not going to advise you. You need to work out why you want to sleep with other people. Are you just curious? Is it to prove your sexual value? Is it for attention? It doesn't matter what the reason is. Once you know it you can decide if it's a good enough reason to cheat. Is it important enough to risk what you have on the other side with John? It might be worth it - just don't fight your own moral compass. If sex doesn't have spiritual value for you, if it's seperate from love (it has definately always been this way for me)  then you will behave differently than someone for whom sex is an expression of love. You have to weigh up the value of what you have with your own internal scales and not using other peoples weights. My marriage had immense value to me, I never actually cheated after the vows -she did more than once- but we has been together 12 years before the law changed and we could marry and I had cheated then. Although I loved her and the life we shared, with hindsight I can see it wasn't particularly healthy for a long time.

Whatever you decide, don't  let your fear of life without John make the decision for you. Yes it would be almost unbearably hard for a while. But not forever.

So there we are.

Blessed Be