Oh WOW DaisyJen -- you asked if anyone else has experienced this, I had to check to make sure I didn't actually write your post and not remember doing it!!! A little over a year ago I also began communicating with a former high school classmate -- yes it all began very innocently. But there was something about his emails; he actually paid attention to me and was interested in me! Wow, did that feel good -- my AH never paid attention to me, he didn't send me jokes and make me laugh and smile. It was all very wonderful and awful at the same time, because I had been totally faithful and would NEVER be unfaithful to my husband.
I sincerely believe that he was sent into my life for a reason. I think my HP brought him back into my life to wake me up to how sick I had become -- to how I had lost myself and focused only on my AH. I had to look at myself and admit, that if I had strong feelings like that for another man that there was something seriously wrong in my marriage. I wasn't kidding myself that that feeling was love, or even that it was mutual; but whatever it was it was certainly real and I needed to try to figure it out. That started the slow process of realizing that the perfect life I was pretending to have was a sham; and that for myself I needed to get out of my marriage.
Did I leave my marriage for this "other man" -- absolutely not. He is still in my life; as one of my best friends and I don't know how I would have gotten through the past year without him. Was our relationship "wrong", I don't know that answer and maybe never will.