Hi all. I have made an account just to post about this. Please be kind and bear with me.
I have had BPD for as long as I can remember. It has gotten “better” over the years in terms of not having horrendous breakdowns as often and am way more aware of myself and my triggers and my actions etc. I have been in and out of therapy for decades as well as on and off meds. I am on meds and in therapy currently. I also have GAD. 
I have been married 10 years and have 2 children. I met my husband on a dating website, whilst I was “with” someone else (who himself was a rebound from an engagement breakdown). I had never been single in my life and wanted to address this, so I didn’t want to jump from that guy to my now husband. We stayed friends for about 5 months (though I think I was still “with” that other guy most of this time). I was never attracted to my now husband, but he very quickly became my FP and I idolized him something fierce. He was my safe haven. When I decided to start dating him it was all systems go and literally 2 months later we got married. It was in such haste we even forgot to arrange a honeymoon. 
Needless to say, the cracks started showing and over the years I realized I may have been wearing rose-tinted glasses. I still care for, admire and respect this man, but I no longer want to be married. It has been years since I felt excited to see him or even be around him. We’ve given counseling a go, and have tried to spend more time together etc but never in the way he wishes. As in, he doesn’t think I have tried hard enough. I don’t disagree but it’s hard to when your heart isn’t in it. 
I have had FPs and infatuations as long as I can remember (I only just picked up the term FP here but it fits perfectly). It has been an issue throughout the marriage, causing much pain and sorrow. I have been unfaithful a handful of times. I will have to deal with my behaviour and transgressions for the rest of my life, and it causes me a lot of shame and guilt, though dissociation takes the edge off (humour too). My husband is aware of everything. I am normally honest from the beginning when it starts happening. I managed to draw the line at sexual intercourse, so I have never had sex with anyone else apart from my husband in 10 years. At times I am proud of this level of SOME sort of self-control, but I have been told by my husband as well as others, that I should in no way feel proud about that because I am only rationalizing what I have done. My husband claims to have read the books I got on BPD and also claims to know me better than I know myself. I don’t particularly care whether that is true or not. My goal in life now is to stand on my own two feet and finally be able to look after myself. This is an incredibly hard and scary decision, which my husband boils down to being the “easy out” because then I can see whoever I want and don’t have to make the effort to fix the marriage. In my view, sometimes things can get too broken to be redeemable. I have caused him a lot of suffering, and I have been suffering too. For the past few years I have been asleep more than I have been awake, and have felt suicidal almost every day. This also fills me with tremendous amount of guilt and shame, most profoundly because I have 2 children who need their mother’s attention. I just want to live. 
So we are now “separated” even though financially I can’t afford to move out. The reason why I am here writing this, is I have a quandary. Over the past 3-4 weeks I developed a new FP. He is someone who I have known for years but never directly socialized with. We recently connected and it has felt awesome because we have an adjacent circle of friends, overlapping interests and similar childhood experiences (moving abroad at young ages and being multicultural in different senses). He also struggles with MH issues, though I think it’s more depression/anxiety. He’s been in therapy for awhile. When we first started talking he made an effort to look up about BPD of his own volition, which meant a lot. I am fully aware that the rose-tinted spectacles are back on. I know things aren’t necessarily in perspective and I am aware this isn’t someone I may actually want to even date in future. But right now he is a friend who is there for me and who I feel a connection with, and it’s a dynamic I feel I can manage and not get in over my head. My husband is not happy at all. He doesn’t want me to text, talk or meet up with this person, let alone any male human. He wants me to show him respect by waiting until April to start seeing people, because in his words “I wasn’t able to show him that respect in the marriage.” He says if I can’t do that, it would be a final kick in the teeth and would show him how little value I place on our 10 years together. 
Now, I would LOVE to be able to do that for him. To not be insensitive and wait to have any sort of connection with anyone. But it feels like an impossible ask, and every time we talk about this I shut down, give him evils or become low-key aggressive. I COULD communicate LESS with my FP, and am capable of seeing him RARELY, but to cut off all contact feels like asking me to stop breathing. 
Managing my connections and perspective and the rose-tinted specs are all things I WANT to do and am actively trying to do. But even going a day or two without communicating with my FP (because k have been told not to) leaves me feeling super depressed and flat. 
I don’t even know what I’m actually asking here, if anything. I guess just hoping someone understands the situation I’m in and how utterly impossible it all feels.