Looking For Some Real Help!!!

This is my first post here. The only reason i'm trying this is because a lot of what i'm reading seems to be real, & that's what I need. I'm not religious so I would prefer to leave spirituality out of it. I'm not looking for candy coated crap, I really need some good advice, & some way to get my story out.

I'm a 30 year old guy who is beginning to have serious doubts about the direction my life is taking. Here's my problem, i'll start at the beginning:

I grew up in a very strict jehovah's witness family. In the jehovah's witness religion, you do not look outside the faith for any kind of relationship. Be it friend or companion. I never got along with my mom, & my dad's answer to everything was "talk to your mom." or "if it's alright with your mom." I fought with my mom constantly, & more the older I got.

When I was about 14 I met an 11 year old girl named shannah, that I became very close friends with, over the course of about 2 years. (i should add here she was not in "our" religion. So I kept our friendship from my parents.) about the time I turned 16 her family moved about 30 miles away. We would still occasionally bump into each other, so we never completely lost touch. About 3 years later, after I graduated from high school, I got a job, & a car. With the freedom of the car came the ability to rekindle the friendship we previously had. (i know this might sound strange in today's day & age, but there was never once a sexual experience between us.) at this point we got together with our mutual friends as much as we could, but eventually sort of lost touch.

About 2 months after my 19th birthday, I met the the girl that was to become my wife. Her name is wendy, & she grew up baptist. As you could probably guess I held off as long as I possibly could to introduce her to my parents. One night, after dating for a few months, we were at her parents house, & I mentioned how happy we were together. That "i was happy with what I had". (meaning wendy.) her mom immediately asked "is that a proposal?". In the moment, thinking back, I didn't really give it much thought, but replied "well yeah I guess it is." that was our engagement. About a year later we were married. She was 19, I was 20. We lived with her parents for about a year until we could afford to get out on our own.

After being married for about 3 years we had a beautiful baby girl.

4 years after our daughter was born, & about a week before our 7th wedding anniversary, our relationship came to a boiling point. I decided that I was done & I wanted out. She was in total shock. She said she never saw it coming. We tried counselling, talking to friends, talking to each other. Nothing made me feel better. One day a friend of mine invited my daughter & I to his kids birthday party. At the party I was introduced to a woman friend of his wife's. Her name was amy. We instantly hit it off, & spent the whole party talking. We were having similar problems. She was divorced, & I was still "legally" married. My friend noticed how much we were getting along & conveniently offered to watch both our kids, so we could go out for a while. We left for a few hours, & had a great time. When we returned for our kids, mine was gone. Apparently wendy had come by & picked her up. I called her, & we got in a big fight over the phone. The fight ended with her telling me "don't bother coming home". As you have probably figured out, I ended up at amy's that night, after going back out & getting very drunk. I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Time passed, I ended up telling wendy about amy. We were on the road to divorce.

This brings me back to shannah. No, we didn't have another affair. During the time wendy & I were having these problems, I ran into her at a bar. She was there with a group of her friends & I was there with a couple of mine. We started talking, catching up & such. During the course of the discussion she broke down & confessed to me that she had feelings for me before I met wendy. She said it had hurt her deeply when we got married, & she thought that she had given me hints as to how she felt then. I knew the instances she brought up. I had always had feelings for her also, I just did not want to ruin the friendship we had if things didn't work out, so I never acted on them. I never picked up on the things she was doing as flirting, because I had myself convinced she wasn't. She told me that I could call her, & we could get together sometime, so the next day I called, & she blew me off, so I left it at that. I've never told wendy about this, or my feelings for shannah.

Wendy & i, after about a year, finally decided to give it another go. We never got divorced. Things have been rough, but positive. We are now coming up on our 10th wedding anniversary. A few months ago she took a night job she couldn't pass up. I work days. We havn't gotten to see each other hardly at all, except for about a hour a day when our daughter & I go eat dinner with her. This has started to take it's toll on our relationship, & i'm starting to have my doubts again.

Over the last 10 years I have never been able to get shannah out of my mind. She has popped up in my thoughts almost every day. The past is gone now as she has met a guy & seems to be happily married. I know it is ridiculous to dwell on some fantasy of us together now but, I just can't stop thinking about her, & what we could have had together. Or what we could possibly have again sometime in the distant future. There was a connection there that I have never felt with wendy. I'm beginning to think that i've never loved wendy. That I just jumped from the frying pan (my parents) to the fire (wendy & our relationship), & that i'll never find happiness. I don't expect it to always be perfect, but it sure would be nice if the good times would start to out weigh the bad. I know the posibilities are slim with shannah, & the safe course would be to stay with wendy. But the possibility of having that kind of connection again with another person is tearing me apart, & sometimes I feel like i've lost control of a car headed over a cliff. I'd just like to say f**k it & run off & leave it all behind. The biggest thing keeping me from it is what it would do to our daughter. Wendy dosn't seem to realize how i'm feeling right now. So i've just been playing along the hour or so a day we are together, trying not to flip the boat over & drown.

Well, there it is, out there for the world to see. Think what you will. Make your own conclusions. I guess what i'm looking for here is just some impartial input or advice. So if anyone has any i'm all ears.