Seek HEA soulmate? Or work on rocky marriage? (31/F) Married 14yrs to (32/M) who cheated.

I (31F) Married 14 years to (32M) my spouse cheated last year. I paused our divorce to attempt working things out, but now my potential soulmate (31M) and I are at a crossroads and it feels like fate.
I should preface this by saying:
I don’t really believe in soul mates. At least in the sense that it’s a “meant to be” “single person” or even that it’s romantic in nature. I think people are compatible in many different ways and even that changes as people change overtime. In my mind partnership of any kind take conscious effort and team work; romantic relationships, friendships, even co-working partnerships. Putting work into any relationship is more a more meaningful foundation than just feeling a connection… Basically I’m a realist and prefer logic and effort over some magical idea of soulmates.

That being said… I’ve always felt drawn to this one person. We met briefly in 2007. We were teens. Had nothing in common on the surface. So I assumed it was a crush. Even as a teen that bothered me because I did not like the way I felt so drawn to him, or how I couldn’t get him off my mind. However I did like how I felt around him though. So I wasn’t able to resist gravitating to him. When I was in his presence all the overwhelming crush like turmoil I felt would dissappear. I just felt comfortable, safe… Whole. We never felt a need to be anything to each other than just us. I had pretty bad social anxiety that made me over talkative and quickly drained by social situations, yet I could sit in comfortable silence with him or share genuine conversation and never feel awkward. Despite seeming to be an unlikely pairing we discovered our core values and morals were the same, and we both liked so many similar things. We did develop a platonic friendship with an undercurrent of chemistry in the few months we attended the same school before he abruptly moved away. We had no contact until 2010. That’s when I first got on social media. Even though it had been 3 yrs no contact with someone sharedva brief friendship with in the scheme of things.. I never stopped thinking about him and so I searched for him over and over. We had no mutual friends, I didn’t know where he lived, we both went by nicknames in school and had long unusual full names, really I knew nothing about him that would help me find him online. But I still tried, to no avail..
Then, one day he found me finally. He had been searching for me too! It felt so validating to me. Like I wasn’t crazy for trying to find him because he felt the same way about our middle school friendship and never forgot me either. Our reconnection was just as brief as our initial meeting was. We were both young adults by that point and our lives were going in different directions. He had just joined the army and I was beginning my travel goals before college and had just met the man I would later marry. Both of our futures were uncertain, which is why we had both made such an effort to find each other. Him especially. He told me he had to find me before he was going to be deployed, he just wanted to know if I remembered him and where I was, how I was doing. And that’s it. We exchanged hellos, well wishes, and goodbyes over a few short messages. And then began our lives on separate paths that wouldn’t cross again for another decade. Neither one of us had kept a social media presence in our 20’s. By time we both became active on social media it was clear we had both led similar lives according to the shared values and goals we had confided to each other all those years ago as young teens. Coincidentally we both married our longterm partners in the same year and have kids the same ages (he had all girls and I had all boys) all in all we both lived dedicated family lives happily married over a decade to good spouses. We reconnected in 2021 over Facebook. Both unashamedly “fb stalking” each other. In a wholesome way! Just going through our past photos and milestones “liking” everything and commenting supportive words on one another’s posts. We never privately messaged. Just interacted on our fb posts. This type of supportive communication went on for a year. But by mid 2022 I left social media due to personal struggles in my life. My happy marriage had taken a hit, my husband cheated on me right before our 13 yr anniversary. I immediately filed for divorce and focused on restarting my life. I felt so lost and alone. I didn’t date or even want to. The thought of starting over with someone new was horrible. But I admit I hated myself for thinking of that one person… I’d always thought of him, even told my husband about him, all those years though my thoughts of him were genuine wholesome thoughts, NEVER romantic ponderings, even though I acknowledged in the very back of my mind the crush I felt at first and the possibility that had things ever been different we might’ve been meant to be together… though I still never felt anything but happiness for his marriage and for mine. Until mine fell apart.. now I had fully intrusive “what if” thoughts. Made worse because I knew he was married and I was so angry at myself for letting my mind imagine anything about him and I in a “what if” way when I wholeheartedly respected and rejoiced that he had a happy marriage. I do NOT believe in lusting after a married person, yet against my own will there I was waking from dreams that we were together, and having random thoughts to message him and tell him EVERYTHING. Like: “Hey I know you feel the same connection I’ve felt allllll these years and I think we’re soulmates or twinflames or something stupidly unexplainable like that! I totally respect your marriage but.. uhhh in the off chance yours ever falls apart like mine has- hit me up.”
I felt like a freaking crazy person! So I pushed down those feelings as best I could. I told myself it was just part of the self reflection journey I was experiencing since I hit a midlife crises.
Fast forward to the beginning of this year 2023. Against my own feelings I decided to give my husband a 2nd chance. We built so much together, had children together, and he’d spent months begging for me back and promising to change. At first he did do everything he promised but now it’s clear he won’t stick to it. And if I stay in this marriage I will have to accept I’ll never truly be happy again, but to me it’s a fair trade to give my children the life and stability of a 2 parent home I always wanted for them, even above my own needs. I’m putting logic above feeling. And I know in the end I’ll regret it, but my children will be better for it and thats what really matters to me.

But here comes a twist… when I allowed myself back on Facebook I couldn’t stop myself from checking *his* profile. I knew it wasn’t healthy to do considering the directions my thoughts about him had went… I was surprised to find he also went inactive when I did. And then I looked on his wife’s profile and her relationship status was gone. His was too. Not set to single but not “married” like it had been.. other than that nothing noticeable as to if they had split or not. Mine and my husband’s was the same. We never made anything public but we both privately changed our marital status so it wasn’t visible.

Since I was freshly deciding to work things out in my own marriage, I stopped myself from messaging him or checking his fb again. I even unfollowed his profile as an extra precaution to avoid seeing any future posts if he became active again. And ever since then (for 5 months) I
I’ve succeeded in fighting the urge to connect with him again. Until a few days ago… I started having those intrusive thoughts about him again. There’s nothing wrong in my marriage right now, nothing necessarily “right” either. So I couldn’t really chalk this sudden onslaught of him being on my mind to anything particular in my life. It became unbearable yesterday. I had just woken up, had a busy day ahead of me, my head was in a morning blurr and the next thing I knew I did something I haven’t done in 13 years.. I private messaged him…
I sent my number to him even! No real context other than an old friend reaching out randomly. Our last massages were still there from 2010! When we expressed wanting to find each other before going on different paths.

So yesterday my text to him was:
“hey here’s my number (******** ) feel free to save it and reach out, it never changes so if you ever need anything even 10yrs down the line, I’m just a click away. Truly best wishes to you and your family always.”

He responded immediately:
“You know what’s funny? I was
gonna message you but didn’t
want it to be weird. Things always
find a way to get misinterpreted.
Thank you for reaching out.
Seriously.
What I was going to say to you
was thank you for being my best
friend in middle school. The
memories from less than one year have
lasted me well over half my life.
You were great to me.
Same goes to you btw. If you ever
need anything just hit me up.
I got you. (His number)
Your friend always,
(his name)”

This message felt expected? I was honestly a little shocked. Like I just randomly messaged him my number and he responded that he had been wanting to msg me too? When we hadn’t interacted at all in the past year?!!
So I went to his fb page since I had unfollowed it previously, to my surprise he had posted a video announcement the night before! Explaining that he wasn’t sure if anyone noticed he’d deactivated his fb recently and that he was going through a lot in life emotionally and his mental health wasn’t great so he took a break from fb to focus on important stuff and now decided to permanently delete his fb but wanted everyone to know if they had his number they could always reach out.

So clearly he must’ve thought that’s why I randomly gave him my number in a message. Tbh I was kinda relieved because at least that seemed more appropriate. But in reality I just couldn’t get him off my mind! And after seeing he too had been thinking about me…wanting to thank me for the brief friendship all those years ago and not wanting to lose contact.

If I was conflicted before about the way my feelings of connection intensified for him when my marriage hit the rocks, now I’m beyond confused! It seems he might be at a crossroads too?! Now I feel really irrational soulmate thoughts.. I hate it! Like what if this is the ONE. What if fate always intended to give us this chance..? If I choose to stay in my divorce pending marriage am I missing my one chance at happiness with a soulmate?

Logically this is all just chance. No matter how connected I felt to this man all these years we are still essentially strangers! No more connected than any Facebook friend from middle school.. To me that’s just flat out unreasonable to throw away all my real work and effort into my rocky marriage over a Risk of connection thats not even guaranteed! Plus I would NEVER EVER forgive myself if I prevented this man from working out his marriage if he could! I value that for myself and him. Plus How would I even pursue my feelings without risking it all or potentially stepping into his marriage? Something I’m morally against! It’s so scary and I wish I never allowed my mind to believe in an unrealistic fairytale term like soulmate.. even for a second!

I’m so conflicted. What should I do?
Work out my marriage with (32M) like I want to?
Or pursue potential soulmate (31M) like I feel the need to?

Any feedback is welcomed: Opinions advice, criticism, or similar experiences.