Lisa,

I personally see flirting as a kind of playful interaction between two people, and I don’t equate it with “hitting on” someone, which has an actual goal of seducing a person into action of any kind. What you are describing may or may not fall under either of those categories, but what is problematic about it is that he doesn’t seem to have a clue, or does not care, that it’s actually quite disrespectful and hurtful to other people involved. Including that other woman. Perhaps he is needy for attention, but that is something he has to address and not make it a problem for other people. There is a difference between being flirty as a person and disrespecting your partner, and I personally don’t think you need to meekly accept what he is doing. That’s part of holding onto those boundaries and respecting yourself. I don’t know what that would look like in practice, other than informing him clearly, without any extra drama, that what he is doing is disrespectful and that you would appreciate it that he would stop doing that.

By the way, if you have your own business, than that’s a great opportunity to gain more confidence and that’s where you also need it. I keep referring people to Nathaniel Branden’s The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. His thoughts on the subject are insightful and pretty much go hand in hand with mindfulness. It also talks about what people with low self-esteem tend to look like in relationships, which might be interesting to you.

I don’t personally know much about support groups, other than I’ve gotten a lot of help from one myself 🙂 But mine was Al-Anon, which is for friends and family members of alcoholics. It was very rewarding to have a safe place where you can be vulnerable without any fear of judgment. Even though it wasn’t regular type of human interaction, it was a great way to open up in the presence of other people, and was a great antidote for just sitting alone, pondering about things. Whilst Al-Anon is based on the 12 steps, it was clear that many people had adopted (or tried to adopt) the idea of living in the present, which isn’t exactly mindfulness but close enough 🙂 In any case, I can’t think of anything else than simply googling what kind of different support groups are in your area and if some of them would click. Perhaps search for “support groups” or “meditation groups” or something like that?

I’m glad you’re making such progress in your life. I wish that your husband can see that and get inspired to work on himself as well.