disappointment

yesterday I was distant from my husband. he's been home for only a week after having been gone for two months, and I become emotionally distant. what is up with that? he treats me like a queen, and I go and have fling after fling, cocky and arrogant, pursuing my fleeting desires, unapologetic and unremorseful. how is it that I can go on committing these indiscretions that most people consider to be heinous acts of vile treacherous behavior? even now, as I feel somewhat sad about my emotional distancing, I know that if given the opportunity, I would probably fuck around again. I really hate that I'm doing it behind his back, and I SOO wish that he could give me this one thing that I can not possibly ever ask of him.

I know it is mistaken for one spouse to expect his/her partner to change fundamental personality traits; it might even be wrong to hope that such things could change. but tell me, is it wrong to hope that you could change fundamental parts of who you are, in order to fit inside a successful marriage? is it even possible? because as I'm looking at who I am in this partnership, and where I'm standing, the only thing I see is a person who wants to be someone she is not, in order to maintain a steady marriage. I want to be self-sacrificing, but in reality I'm a selfish liar. I want to be solitarily devoted to only one man, but instead, my attractions and my interests are dividing steadily. I want to maintain a stable and comfortable relationship, but my actions are divisively acting against that.

is it just that I am so insecure in my core personality that I feed off of the shallow and brief attention that comes with sexual attraction? am I hooked? is this an illness? is this my obsession? or am I really just being true to myself, true to my desiring self, and therefore genuine in these deeds?

I am not regretful of any physical act or emotional connection that has been made. however, after all this time, I don't like the deception. I don't like hiding entire chunks of myself from him. I don't like being someone else inside my head, while being the me that he loves and adores outwardly. I feel fractured, and it's becoming more difficult to string the pieces together. my options from here are lacking in desirability. 1) I go back to being "faithful", and stop everything else cold-turkey. That means I break all connections that have been made with previous lovers and live in a conventionally-styled marriage that I secretly wish to dismantle philosophically and politically. 2) I continue on this adulterous path and keep living a double life, filled with passionate adventure and dark, cold loneliness. I continue to allow my husband sense that something is wrong, but pacify him with words. I keep letting him love only the shell of me. 3) I try to bring these issues to the open, knowing that change can break us. Knowing that I risk everything we've built for the mere possibility of getting what I truly want, an open marriage.

I don't have the strength to change us. I don't have the strength to stop. I am paralyzed by fear. I know why I am emotionally distant, and he is struggling to understand it, to understand me. Today I disappointed a friend, by falling through on plans that were made. Because of that, I realized something: I became disappointed in myself because I took to heart how that friend felt, and I judged myself harshly because of it. That's how I knew how important that friend was in my life. The thing about my husband is of all the people in my life, I don't want to disappoint him the most, ever -- that is why I take every single criticism to heart, and that is why I take every critical word as a slight against my person. I judge myself through what I deem are his eyes, without being aware of it, and despite his actual perceptions. In this desperate and fantastic pursuit for ultimate perfection, I have built castles around my weaknesses, around my every pit and pockmark to create a person who might deserve a bit of his undying and unconditional love. But the gaps are growing wider, and the holes are getting deeper. My imperfection is seeping through the cracks in the mortar and my "real", possibly - probably - unlovable self will eventually wear through.

where am I supposed to go from here?