Need support (kick in the head) b/f making a big mistake

I didn't see him in the supermarket, I was on the phone with him. We had a LDR for a year. You can read my story in my profile. The N also had a brief affair prior to pursuing me, and I later realized he had most likely been cheating on his wife throughout their entire 25-year marriage, not just at the end because it was so bad and they were planning to divorce. While in our relationship, he separated from his wife, and it turns out they were separated 3 other times throughout the course of their marriage, each time with him getting involved in another relationship. He strung me along towards the end until he had his new victim on the hook before dumping me via Facebook. In the phone conversation at the grocery store, he was telling me all about his date with her the night before and the party he took her to, and how he wanted to pursue a relationship with her. Then he posted pictures on FB of the two of them at this party kissing and holding each other, to rub it in for good measure. I didn't question his morals. I questioned how he could supposedly love me one day and then suddenly feel that way about someone else. How he could purposely lead me to believe I was the love of his life and wanted a future with me and it was all an act. It wasn't until the end when I realized all of it had been one big lie from the very beginning. Like you, until then, I had never cheated on anyone in my entire life and never thought in a million years that I would or could be capable of such a thing. I always believed I would NEVER be unfaithful, and was extremely judgmental of people who were. I never thought I would seriously considering divorcing my husband either. It wasn't even part of my vocabulary.

Let me just say as someone who also has a husband, it does NOT make recovery from the narc any easier. You cannot substitute another person, relationship, or love for what you had with the Narc and just move on. THEY can, but we can't. The reality is, if you're married and find yourself in an extramarital affair with a psychopath, it's because there are problems in your marriage. The psychopath sniffs this out and plays you accordingly. Mine became everything I ever wanted and was missing in my life. I was vulnerable and he knew it. He knew more about what I needed and was subconsciously looking for than even I did because I was living in denial. So along comes Prince Charming, who seduces me, presenting me with the dream of everything I've always wanted and was lacking. I didn't even believe in Soul Mates. I'm educated and a 6-year Psyche Major for goodness sake, and was perfectly aware of how society and fairytales create unrealistic expectations in girls and women for a man to rescue them and fulfill them. I KNEW that part of the reason so many marriages fail is because people have unrealistic expectations of what it's supposed to be. So I had a handle on being realistic about marriage for many years, or so I thought. And things were good for many years, but somewhere along the way we drifted apart and became estranged. Fast forward 20 + years and lack of intimacy in every way, and loneliness sets in. Let me tell you. There is nothing so lonely as being in a committed relationship with someone and being completely disconnected with no intimacy, no affection..... like roommates. We used to at least be best friends, but we're not even that anymore. Anyway, now that things are over with the psychopath, my marriage still needs all the work and attention it needed before HE came into my life and distracted me with fantasies of a better, more fulfilling life with him. And it's awful. Not only am I trying to heal from the mind fuck he did to me, I'm trying to deal with everyday life with a husband who also has many issues, as do I. As if our marriage didn't have enough problems, it now has this huge toxic contamination that has been added to it by my affair with the psychopath. My husband doesn't know about him, but that doesn't mean he isn't suffering the fallout from my attention, energy and love being elsewhere. It is also his fault he drove me away over the past few years, which I won't go into here. So here I am, 6 months out from being brutally D&D'd by my psychopath (you can read my story on my profile) and NC since March 14th, and it's a day-to-day struggle to move forward. Some days and weeks I really feel I'm making progress, and then I have a bad week like this last one and feel like I'm going nowhere. Just when I think I'm done crying over all the pain he caused me, I find myself bawling my eyes out. That's why I don't post too much these days. I read all the time, but get overwhelmed and can't write. And that's another thing. Sometimes I wonder if being married delays the healing process because I have to hide my feelings in front of my husband. I have to hide being on this forum too. I can't always come on or write when I want to. Part of the advice given in the steps is that if you feel the need to cry, you should. You need to go with it and let it out. But as a married person, I can't do that. There have been so many times when I just want to cry my eyes out, but I can't. I have to suck it up and pretend there is nothing wrong. So I sometimes wonder if my healing is delayed and taking longer than it should because I have to shelve my feelings and emotions and I can't get them out like it's recommended. I can't always sit with the feelings and own them. I have to push them aside and pretend I'm fine. On the first day of my brutal D&D (the complete horror of it all continued over the next few days), I was on the phone with my psychopath while shopping at the grocery store on a Sunday and he blind-sided me about the new OW. As I was standing in the check-out line, I realized I had lost him to someone else and he was moving on to a new relationship (I didn't know he was a psychopath at this point). I had to go home and make dinner for my husband! I was having a complete melt-down inside and had to act normal. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. And then there's the whole recommendation to avoid dating for at least a year to 18 months until you figure out what your own issues are that lead you to this dynamic in the first place and work on those so you don't repeat the same patterns in the next relationship. Until you do that, you're bound to repeat the past. A new and different relationship that distracts you from the work you need to do to heal yourself from the psychopath is not healthy. Well, when you're married, you can't exactly do this. You are already in another relationship, and a dysfunctional one at that. You're trying to work on healing yourself and your past so you can move forward, but at the same time, you're trying to heal your marriage and you are really not in the right mind-set to do that. So you're ultimately short-changing yourself and your husband while you try and get your shit together! Let me just say, it sucks! The single women envy the married women, but having a husband does not help or cure anything in this process. Your own healing is just delayed as far as I'm concerned, and he has the misfortune of being an additional victim of the psychopath and suffers collateral damage. For that I am truly sorry and wish I could change it with a change of attitude. In spite of what my husband has done to contribute to the demise of our relationship, he doesn't deserve to suffer the affects of my relationship with the psychopath.