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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that any man who takes 35 years to stop cheating on his wife is no "prize"?

203 replies

Cerseirys · 20/02/2016 08:55

Depressing article in today's Guardian. The husband in question sounds like a complete creep yet his wife stuck with him through it all and now, after 35 years, he's finally stopped cheating on her and she thinks that's her reward for standing by her man.

AIBU to find it sad that some women put up with this? And before anyone says that maybe she was happy with the situation, it's quite clear in the article that she wasn't.

OP posts:
TheHiphopopotamus · 20/02/2016 09:42

He's 50. There's no saying he won't suddenly dump her and find a younger woman.

Personally, I think she's a delusional doormat, who has enabled his behaviour from the start, whilst at the same time, I find her story very sad. But she's made her choices...

iwuddarryl · 20/02/2016 09:43

He's only stopped temporarily.
As soon as the next opportunity presents itself he will more than likely go back to cheating. (And will hide it better)
If he's been doing it for 35 years it's part of who he is.

toomuchtooold · 20/02/2016 09:46

My god, why would you?

She didn't want the kids to come from a broken home? But they did - if any home was ever broken, that one was, regardless they all lived in it together.

andadietcoke · 20/02/2016 09:46

Wow. My grandad met another woman during WWII, when he was already married to my nanna. He kept up that relationship, with my nanna knowing, or suspecting a lot of the time, until my mum kicked him out when I was 16 (1998). My nanna had kept diaries for years of where he said he was, and where she'd seen his car around the town where they lived. She said then that she wished he'd just gone so that she could have been happy without him. He moved in with the OW and married her when my nanna died. The OW got the worst of him - he developed dementia and at times thought I was my nanna and begged me to take him away from 'that woman'. That must have been awful for her to hear, but maybe she felt, like 'Kate', that she'd won.

ijustwannadance · 20/02/2016 09:47

She sounds disturbed and equally manipulative. The fact she rationalized it as a game to win speaks volumes. She seems to have had herself purposely sectioned 'hospitalised' to stop an affair.

He won't have stopped, merely slowed down due to getting older.

Petal02 · 20/02/2016 09:50

What I couldn't quite work out from the article: was he aware she knew about the cheating?

iwuddarryl · 20/02/2016 09:51

Also, 50 isn't old and he can always get himself Viagra.
He has years of cheating left in him yet.
His delusional wife can't see it.

She reminds me of a picture I once saw of a frog being eaten by a snake.
The frog didn't seem distressed and didn't seem to realise it was being devoured
This womanis like that. Completely unaware of the fact that that's,not how a marriage is supposed to be.
Everybody else can 'see' it except her.

everdene · 20/02/2016 09:51

Ha Balloon I came to post asking whether she was Helen Campbell-Black!

Rationalising it as a game is so odd.

Dollymixtureyumyum · 20/02/2016 09:56

Some of the comments on the Archie are unbelievable
"Some men are not made for marrage"
"She should have saved herself a lot of heartache and agreed to an open marrage"
WTF

Dollymixtureyumyum · 20/02/2016 09:57

Sorry that's the article not the Archie!!! Grin

deregistered · 20/02/2016 09:58

He's only 50! That might seem old to some but I'm nearly 50 and I still feel like I'm 21 (shame I don't look it). The point being he has loads more years to cheat. However I am actually going to read it now...

LoisWilkersonsLastNerve · 20/02/2016 09:59

She comes across as the type who would look down her nose at single mothers and would rather be with a dickhead than get divorced. Deep as a puddle.

TheFormidableMrsC · 20/02/2016 10:01

Good God, what a mug. I wish wish wish I had found out about my now ex-h's cheating before I invested 14 years of my life and had a baby with him. The risk of STI's, the realisation that even your family and friends were fair game. He would have been out on his ear years ago. Sod that. I can't imagine putting up with that shit for 35 years and then somehow believing you are "triumphant" because he's "stopped" he hasn't. Some men just can't help themselves because they have a problem, nothing you ever did would make them stop. Who needs that in their life?

JessicaJones · 20/02/2016 10:02

I'm not sure you can fake a breakdown that gets you hospitalised for 6 weeks. I guess the idea that she did it on purpose has been retrofitted along with the idea that it was a strategy in the game she was playing.

Poor woman. Poor kids.

Thisisnotausername · 20/02/2016 10:04

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

deregistered · 20/02/2016 10:05

Ok read it - I find it really very hard to believe these anonymous first person features. She actually saw him shagging her best friend at her son's Christening did she?...'on the rug'...cliched, fabricated nonsense!

Of course long term infidelity is all too real.

She's as awful as him (if any of it is true), playing the long game to snare him, making him wait for sex till marriage (yeah great plan till the morning after the wedding! Then what?!), doing everything except actually seeing who he was and having the foresight to know how that would affect her and more importantly any future children.

deregistered · 20/02/2016 10:07

And I'm not victim blaming. She also based their relationship on games and lies. And he told her - and everyone else - who he was long before they got married. She wanted the 'prize' of a handsome man who women lusted after. She got him. Slow hand clap.

ijustwannadance · 20/02/2016 10:09

He is older than 50. They met at uni not when she was 15, and didn't get together right away. She said she thinks he stopped at 50 around the time of 1st grandchild and now expecring 2nd. At least 55.

blueemerald · 20/02/2016 10:11

Reads like a bizarre modern version of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII.

JessicaJones · 20/02/2016 10:14

He's 55, she says she 'thinks' he stopped cheating 5 years ago when they were both 50.

LegoRuinedMyFinances · 20/02/2016 10:19

She is just as bad as he is. She hates other women and clearly has some nasty ideas about separated families that she hints at.

Sad thing is she will use her long marriage as a reason to feel superior against divorced women - when most people would pity her for staying.

I would hate to end up in a marriage like that - with someone who lacked such respect for me.

And there is no guarantee that he won't still be cheating or even leave her just because their in their 50's. In fact it may be that the next woman he cheats with will be the one he leaves her for as they no longer have children to raise - then where will she be.

CooPie10 · 20/02/2016 10:21

I don't feel sorry for her, I think she is an utter fool to have thrown 35 years of her life away. Every time she knew he cheated she chose to stay. Even now she chooses him. What a shame though, she's wasted a good chunk of her life miserable.

bigTillyMint · 20/02/2016 10:21

God, they sound like a perfect match - she was too keen on her "perfect" lifestyle to LTB.

I get the impression that there were many marriages amongst the high wage-earners/upper classes in the 50's - 80's, but perhaps less now. Women who were prepared to put up with total arseholes for a posh life-styleConfused

theredjellybean · 20/02/2016 10:24

i do not think this is that uncommon...
many women ( and i suppose men as well, especially as more women become the main earners) would rather keep their lifestyle and accept the trade that is their partner has flings.

I do not for one minute think the husband in the article gave up his philandering ways aged 50 ! what a foolish woman she is to think that.

I also do not buy the 'happy lifestyle' , she had a happy life to anyone looking in, or at least she thinks she did, but infact i should think everyone knew about him and probably pitied her and then despised her .

But nice lifestyle at a price ?? her choice...but i do not think she is or will be ever happy.

she didn't win a prize...people are not prizes...she won financial stability and a home to bring up her 4 children . hope the cost was worth it.

JessicaJones · 20/02/2016 10:24

I don't understand why she thinks he's stopped? She says they do almost everything together, but the very next words are 'He still works long hours'...