ComingUndone's story

I am a married 47 year old. Mom of 2 teenagers. I have been married 20 years. Some of them...pretty hard years. I grew up in a fairly dysfunctional home (who hasn't). My mom married an abusive man. I watched her cycle in and out with him. He is still married to her. Some pretty painful childhood stuff. I worked on that to the best of my ability.
I went through a series of big traumas. Tragic losses. I endured brain surgery.
I fell from grace. Period. Had an affair...short-lived. He was a N. I didn't ever really put that together. I worked hard on marriage and me. I joined an online support group where they tarred and feathered the "cheaters" (me). I stuffed and suppressed, I think now. I went to therapy. I drug my husband to therapy. We even got into a car accident en route to therapy. I tried so hard.
Fast forward....Oct 2011. I am on FB and a man friends me. It appears that I "may" know him, but it also appears he lives in Florida. His posts show up on my account regularly and he seems happy and single and living the life in Florida.
He was 55 at that time. Unbeknownst to me....he is actually from where I live and also had a home in Florida. He would spend lots of time in Florida while his grown children were up here. He was married at the time, but going to get a divorce. He was fairly affluent and had set things in "motion" to divorce. He had divided his real estate, etc.
He and I started talking on FB. We laughed and had a fun connection. ( What I didn't realize is that he had seen me around town and knew who I was. He had found out where I worked and drove to a nearby restaurant for days afterwards to see if he would run into me. ) He had friended me on FB. He told me that a year or so earlier, we had both been at a gas station in town and I was friendly at the gas pump and said "Hi, I like your car". I didn't really remember this.
He flies home and we become involved. I had filed for divorce prior to all this, but had put it on hold. I saw him in secret because he didn't want to "lose" more money than he had to in his divorce to his wife of 35 years. It was a very quick divorce. I flew with him to his Florida house in January of last year. That was sort of the beginning of some red flags. He became very jealous at a restaurant/dance place because an older gentleman was talking to us both. He didn't want to waste time doing that. We were there a week. On the last night...I wanted to relax (we had been on a run the whole week)....he demanded he wanted to go out and dance. He left in anger and went to a club. Left me in his house alone and without a vehicle.
I broke up with him. (One of many times). I felt such guilt doing what I was doing and I saw he was very needy and starting to see his jealousy. Oh...if only I had stopped there.
He suffers a "breakdown" because of me. Suicidal. I am panic stricken. I feel guilty. He texts me often and I try to support him. I feel very responsible.
We resume. Until May. He is very needy. Very jealous of me. I feel very unsure of everything at this point. I end it for several months. During this time he texts me continuously and I run into him everywhere. We live in a small area. He also goes on a mad dating spree. Dates 27 year olds, etc. Tells me about it.

I will finish more later. This is hard. I have a lot of guilt and remorse.