Dear Allison:

There are a few  ingredients to this situation:

1. Your motivation: we as human animals are born with the motivation to move away from pain and toward pleasure. It is both these inborn motivations that lead you to leaving your marriage:

“I wanted to have fun… I wanted to go out and do things…I started imagining myself… dating someone who was  fun… I wanted to go out after  dinner. Maybe go out to a club. Stay out late”- this  is your  motivation to move toward pleasure.

“I just got sick of his attitude and he became very negative, judgmental… have to listen to him judging me and cutting me down when I was sad…. resented him so much…he was very rarely sympathetic and always managed to make it my fault…and I learned a lot of bitterness from him”- this is your motivation to move away from pain.

It  is not one or the other, it is both.

2) Your husband: who is he? You wrote: “My husband is a good man and father” but he is clearly not a good husband when judging you, cutting you down, rarely being sympathetic, making it all your fault, and expressing bitterness a whole lot. And then, he is definitely not a good father when he “often turns to my daughter for someone to talk to…adds fuel to (her) hate… uses my daughter against me knowing he should not. He was told about this when we were both in counseling. I am pretty sure he has told my daughter that I was with another man.”- the way he uses his daughter, knowingly, makes him an abusive father. He is knowingly damaging his own daughter, and does so repeatedly.

He  is not a good father, far from it.

3) You wrote: “I feel like a bad mother leaving my perfect family to date and have fun with other men”- your guilt is misleading you to think incorrectly, that is, that you had the “perfect family”, and  the big item: that your husband is a good father.

It reads to  me that in  your marriage it is possible that indeed your husband pointed the finger of  blame on you repeatedly, and you believed that you are indeed  guilty. And so, in your thread here, you minimized his faults, called him a good husband and father, and pointed to yourself as the  guilty one, the one who had two extra marital affairs, the one who is… guilty.

You have your share of correct responsibility, the  biggest one, currently, is allowing your daughter to  be misused by him and in so, to be damaged by him.

But he has his share  of responsibility, the biggest one is the  one I just  mentioned. But also his ongoing bitterness and cutting you down and so  forth.

I am curious about the bitterness- did he share with you a lot, throughout much of your marriage,  about how other people hurt him, other people causing him misery that he doesn’t deserve and such?

anita