This is my first post here. 6 weeks ago I found out that my boyfriend has been having a physical affair with his x-wife for 8 of the 9 years we have been together.<p>OW is not only his x, but is my sister best friend. OW is the one responsible for getting us together in the first place. She was in the process of leaving him and thought that if he had someone in his life he would leave her alone. I kept saying no, but we ended up meeting anyway. It was just after my mother had passed away and we both needed someone to turn to. To make a long story short, we ended up loving each other, and decided to live together. Neither of us wanted to marry, as we had both had bad marriages.<p>Fast forward almost 9 years, we are still living together in what I thought was a committed relationship. I had thought we had a good relationship in all areas except for our almont non-existant sex life. I have tryed for years to find out why he almost never wanted to have sex, but he never wanted to talk about it. <p>Then one day his x/the ow had too much to drink and confessed to my sister that they have been sleeping together almost the entire time we have been together. Not regularly, or even often, but for YEARS! At first she told her that he had been forcing her, but eventually ended up confessing that she had been encouraging the affair because it was a boost to her ego to think that he still wanted her, thought she was more attractive than I was, etc. I knew that although she wanted us together at first, she has been somewhat resentfull that we are still together and she has no one in her life. <p>My sister confronted my bf and he didn't deny it. It took her almost a week to decide to tell me what was going on. I confronted him with it that evening. After a couple of hours of yelling and crying, and telling him I never wanted to see him again, he began to actually talk to me about things I had never know about him and his past. He told me about some sexual problems and issues that I had never had a clue about before. He had always kept them hidden from me before, but opened up now because he said he felt it was over between us and he had nothing to lose. <p>He says he doesn't know why it happened, that he had no feelings for her except anger and hate for her for having abandoning him. He said he was just happy that it was finally out in the open and that now it could be over. He claimed that he loved me and would give anything if I could forgive him and give him another chance. I just can't understand how this could be. How could he claim to love, but not want to have sex with me. How could he claim to hate her, but carry on a sexual relationship with her for YEARS! <p>Over the last 6 weeks we have continued to talk things out and are trying to find a way to get past this and go on. We have an appointment to see a counsler together and he wants to see a therapist on his own to help him understand why he can have sex with her, but not with me. <p>I found this website a few days and it has given me some real hope that maybe we actually CAN get beyond this. So much that I have read makes sense and I see many ways in which our relationship has grown apart that I never saw before. I can even see how my pressuring him for answers about our lack of a sex life have hurt rather than helped the situation.<p>I am feeling overwhelmed and don't know where to go from here. Do we try to deal with the issues of how and why the affair happened. Do we need to concentrate on fulfilling each others emotional needs - I see so many ways that we have gone wrong in this area. <p>I just keep going back to the thought that how could this have been going on for all this time. How can a man behave for 9 years like a loving partner (except sexually) and be having an affair the whole time?<p>I have so many feelings I don't know what to do with. I am trying so hard to deal with this instead of just going to bed and pulling the blankets over my head! I have fought depression my whole life and only recently have found some improvement with the help of meds. I am so afraid of this sending me back into the pits of depression.<p>Thank you so much for listening and for any words of advise anyone may have to share!