I'm gonna give you my very honest opinion, and I am sorry I don't have more positive stuff to say to you, I know this whole thing really sucks.
I frankly don't think that either of you are ready for prime time, for the challenge of doing a lifelong marriage with kids. I think you should both get some pretty heavy-duty therapy and work on stuff.
Note: I don't know the ages involved with you and your husband. I will GUESS that you are in your 20's and he is somewhat older...but not that much older...not more than his 30's I expect. Correct me if I am wrong, k?
Issues I see with you, Jenn...
- You feel that you have not had enough experience. This part is only about a sense that there is fun stuff "out there" that others have done, and you have not. This can build resentment as you get into your 30's and beyond, that you never had this fun, carefree young adulthood that a person is reasonably entitled to have. One day you're gonna want to make up for lost time. (Hi! I have been there and done that!) And kids make this a lot worse. You will give up a ton of freedom when they are small and your whole world will revolve around their needs, you don't get to even THINK about yourself for a matter of years. It is hard.
You worry about the urge to adventure getting a hold of you later on, and tempting you to cheat. Maybe that is your heart telling you that you shouldn't be doing this serious marriage thing right now.
If you feel that you need this, I suggest that you put off "getting serious"...and DO IT. You won't be too old to find someone, settle down, and make babies, for some time.
- You feel INADEQUATE because of this lack of experience. OK, well this is you feeling COMPARED to other women. It's a sign of insecure attachment and in my observation of self and others, has a lot to do with having faith in your own ability to be loved, and sometimes goes back to childhood attachment issues with parents. I know I'm going all "armchair psych" on you here, but I've seen it too many times. For what it's worth, men are even MORE expected to be experienced than women, right? Well the best (male) lover that I've ever had, has had very, very little experience before me. He's great because he is attentive, and enthusiastic, and passionate. If you are good, giving, and game...more experience does not make you a better lover. Bringing your A game to the bedroom does. But this issue isn't rooted in reality, it's rooted in "bad code" or insecurity in your head. You're gonna need to work on that. Same same for your jealousy stuff...not only are you jealous at the thought of him actually wanting to go be with another woman for realsies, but more significantly you are jealous of the IDEA of the other women he's been with in the past. Has nothing really to do with them, and everything to do with your own insecurity about yourself.
- You have a tendency I also have, which is to do all this research and have all the best logical arguments, so that your way seems like the right way. You have all the answers. You make it sound so reasonable. How can he argue with that? Well maybe he did not have sound logical arguments that could stand against yours, and maybe he only had hurt emotions and nasty mean words that would sound like abuse, and he did not want to argue using those tools, so he just avoided the conflict altogether, while thinking "How can she think this is ok? What kind of sick people are ok with this?" You gave him every chance to say no...but I have the impression that from his standpoint, if he did, you'd ask why, and then you'd have nice reasonable reasons why his "no" wasn't a sensible position. You were just so darned sure that you were right that your eyes weren't open to how you were being wrong.
Issues I see with him:
- Sex negativity baggage. This could be some kind of attachment issue as well, or deeper "stuff"...but basically there are undercurrents of disgust in his reaction to your desire to have sex with others. He would rather have had you virgin and his alone, than shared you with others. He found the notion of you being sexual with anyone but him...dirty.
I wonder how he feels about the women he has been with in the past?
OK, so some people feel like that. I can not be in a relationship with someone who does. If anyone casts even the faintest shadow of shame or moral judgment, or looks upon my sexuality (no matter who I have shared it with) as dirty or tainted in any way merely because it is not theirs alone...that is a huge trigger for me, if a partner makes me feel like my sex makes me a bad person or even has the potential to, then I don't feel safe being vulnerable and intimate with them anymore, period.
And any man who used the word, "slut" in a (serious) derogatory way about or toward me, would not have a snowball's chance in hell of coming anywhere near my bed ever again. Nope. A person must be more sex positive than that, to be involved in my love life now. I know better.
- His thing of projecting words into your mouth or thoughts into your head. He thought you were already cheating, or you would do this anyways, or maybe that you would say this or that in response to his "no"... This is an unhealthy relationship habit. He does not get to think or speak for you, as though you're not even there.
- His conflict avoidant "I'm fine" and staying away working long hours...he did not make it a priority to communicate how he felt with you, until it boiled over VERY badly. As others have said, I would struggle in trusting him in the future, not to just go along with whatever until he hit a breaking point. You two have incompatible communication styles. You're like "research, research, talk talk talk, logic logic rationale, justification" and he's like "uh huh, silently judge, avoid avoid avoid, tick-tock-tick-tock, BOOM!"
- He will have a hard time trusting you to be faithfully monogamous now, because you've already expressed that you had an interest in others. Like once you had his golden D you were never supposed to want for anything ever again. His ego has been wounded. In addition to trust issues he'll have going forward, is there a part of him that will retain the sense of disgust at the thought that you did this, and will he feel a need to punish you for it?
And worse...will you let him, if he does? Come to be disgusted by your own self?
I think that the two of you both have issues, but that put together there is potential for a nasty toxic mess. I know that is the last thing you want to hear, because you want to save your marriage and maybe you think that rolling over and giving him every possible concession and "win" is going to accomplish that. But if you do, you will regret it, I promise you.
If there is one piece of advice I could give you, it would be: Do NOT have children in this relationship, especially not until some years have passed and not without both of you getting some kind of therapy.
