Dear LIB readers: My skin crawls when he touches me

From a LIB reader

I need honest and constructive advice from my fellow LIBers. I have been married for a little over a year now. In the earlier years of our relationship, it seemed as though we shared similar values (still does sometimes) but must importantly, even though I loved him desperately, I knew he loved me even more. Barely a couple of months into our marriage, I fell pregnant. Though it was a fairly easy pregnancy compared to most other horrible experiences I've come across, I was left with zero sex drive. I'd always be quite fit and beautiful but the pregnancy made me feel permanently ill and unattractive and this affected my desire for sex. Despite this, I kept at it knowing fully well that there was another person with needs and desires to be met. Sex stopped being as frequent as before - but it was there.

Between then and now, my husband has become a serial cheat. Keeping late nights everyday with all sorts of women calling even when he finally gets home by 2am.

He is being mentally and emotionally abusive (never physically because he is too manipulative for that) . The worst part of it is that as a woman you know when your husband is cheating. I see the proofs - phone conversations, captured nude screen shots of other women etc... And he keeps trying to make me feel like I'm crazy and paranoid. It has gotten to the stage where I feel so rubbed and cheated. I cringe when he touches me now and try to force a reaction when we are having sex. I simply can't shake the feeling of hurt and betrayal. And I now feel as though I'm being held prisoner because in my heart I know I deserve better.

I've got 2 degrees from some of the best universities in the world. I have a job that most people could only dream of. I earn at least 3 times more than what he earns. And in the few months after the birth of my baby, I have returned to a size 6. Yet I still try to be the wife our mothers teach us to be. I know better hence I feel deeply cheated. Try as I may, this feeling has taken over my mind to the point where even the thought of being intimate with him feels like a betrayal to myself and fills me with disgust! At this point, I'm at the end of my ropes and I don't know what to do... Kindly advice... Thank you.