Hey willow, I saw your name and had to see what was up with you. I remember being a part of one of your other threads. Sorry things aren't going well.
A couple things/topics/themes caught my eye. When is enough, enough? When does one pull the plug?
He knew, when he met you, what he was signing up for. He didn't get the poly bomb dropped on him. Do you think he's one of those people who didn't understand what that really meant,
or that he's spent the last 21 yrs trying to convince you that you really don't need to venture elsewhere,
or that he is thoroughly in denial? "Hope it doesn't happen, hope doesn't happen, and if does, I'll deal with it later" kind of thing?
To me, the dating on his end sounds like he's playing the clock: le excuse du jour. Knowing it's hard for men to find women, etc., etc., it's a stall or a roadblock.
Overview: so for 10-15 yrs he was waiting for the shoe to drop, and then boom! it does. You connected with an old BF at a class reunion or something. Deal breaker relationship, not the typical "marriage first" type thing. By your own admission, NRE gets the better of you, and your husband gets thrown into poly hell.
Somewhere in there, sex with him becomes competitive, and you cut him off. You were the only person on the forum (to my knowledge) to say the spillover effect felt wrong; the passion created by you and your BF belonged to you and your BF. You felt your husband was poaching, so to speak.
I pop in here very sporadically so I don't know how that ended, but it sounds like it ended.
You mentioned the pros and cons list. Did we do that when you wanted to start searching for "the Grail" again? What are the pros for him? He might stay married for another week or year? Let's see... you become happy and feel respected and understood, and lift the sex embargo? Wait, it might infringe on someone else's passion! Oops! Cut off again.
The mantra is: these are his emotions and fears to deal with. My response: they're far from un-grounded. In fact, I'd argue they are extremely grounded. Fear of losing his marriage was a deal breaker with last BF. And how many time has divorce been discussed?
Demotion, displacement, and intrusion... Oh wait, that happened already... (head down and brace-brace-brace!).
So right now you're in a sexless marriage/roommate arrangement where you'd consider having him as a secondary. (Which, by the way, I suggested to my wife and wrote a thread about.) What, in your mind, does that look like? I've got a feeling it's not the same as what's in my head, or what I suggested.
You said you like 60% of the relationship. Is this another case of settling and cobbling: round up people to fill in the holes, OR keep looking for the "right" person that checks all or most of the boxes, OR start dating and having "hobby sex"?
Would it be a relief if you lifted the embargo, and then he said he no longer was attracted to you, and he had no desire to have sex with you ever again, because it just feels icky? At that point you're off the hook. Is this a good day or bad day?
I think you should set yourself free! As a consequence he will be freed too, but maybe not in the way you think. Lots of this is stuck to him forever.