Unhappily married and in love with another woman?

[samnam]

I have developed strong feelings for my sisters friend. I knew the minute I met her that she was going to cause me grief. I am married, I'm 40 now and met my wife when I was 18 and she was 22, I was working away from home and she seemed like a safe refuge for me at the time, then after only a few months of dating she fell pregnant and I married her. I knew in my heart then that it wasn't what I wanted but I felt I had to do the right thing by her. She was a great mother and my responsibilities made me focus on my career and I worked hard to provide a good home for my wife and children. I am fond of my wife, she is a decent woman but I don't love her. She is very conventional and doesn't read, she isn't interested in politics, the arts, music etc she likes the x factor, the soaps, going to benidorm, reading trashy magazines and the daily mail.

When we got together and I got her pregnant I didn't know who I was myself I was just a kid. I feel I did my best to try and love her, to make it work and I've always been faithful to her but when I think of my life just always being with her, never really knowing what love is like it depresses the hell out of me.

In the past I was always able to push my feelings aside because I would tell myself that there wasn't anyone else anyway but that as changed too.

This friend of my sisters is amazing she is 35 and gorgeous but she has her own style she's very arty, has a masters degree and is very well read and can talk about anything. She is so switched on and I want that, I want someone who is mentally alive and curious, I want that so much.

I think maybe she likes me too, or at least she picks up on my loneliness and is responsive to that.

If I could wave a magic wand I would be free to ask her out but stupidly I had stayed in my marriage even though I knew it was a shadow of what marriage should be.

I don't know what to do, the time has come to tell my wife how I feel, I am sure she must know on some level how I feel. Perhaps she won't even care?

What should I do?

Talk to your wife, she deserved nothing less.

Hard but she is young enough to pick herself up.

I wish my dad had done that. My poor mother is looking at a very lonely old age even though she is still married to him!

I wish you luck.

Please sort out the relationship with your wife before you contact this woman, it will be easier for all concerned.

I think you've got to leave your marriage. Even if this sexy 35 year old isn't the one then there are lots of women like that out there. There's no shame in marrying too young and regretting it, and wanting out. Not at all the same as people who got married at 30-something and then divorce.

Good luck in your future life. You've got a lot of time ahead of you!

Tell her you want a divorce, file for divorce, agree on visitation for the children etc., move out and start a new life.

Don't try to rewrite history to make leaving seem better than it is. It makes you look like a coward who can't take ownership of his choices. You are going to hurt her and your children very much, and it is your fault, because you made the mistakes that you did - getting her pregnant, marrying her even though you knew you shouldn't, having more children, etc. Accept it, own it, don't try to weasel out of it. You did this and you're the reason for the pain that's coming.

I often hear men in your position going on about how "she must know how I feel". This is usually a prelude to an affair, since they imagine that they have permission to do so. Please understand that your wife almost definitely DOESN'T know how you feel. You like to imagine she does so that you can feel less guilty.

Your wife deserves honesty, respect and kindness. Don't be a coward, end the marriage with grace and courage rather than dragging the whole family through what will almost definitely just be a sordid midlife crisis.

So you're 40 and your wife 44.
The average life expectancy is around 80-84 I believe.
Do you want to live the next 40 years as you're living now?
No, I thought not.

You have a choice; you can either try to make things better in your current relationship and strive to achieve a comfortable compromise or you can be honest and open and talk to you wife about the life you want to lead going forward.

An affair is not really the answer though it may be the catalyst. I do not judge here - I left my exH because I wanted something different and better for the children as well as myself.

your child/children must be grown up by now. time for you to take responsibility for your own life and to be honest with your wife.

I wish you well

You have the chance to do this right, unlike many men who start an affair before ending their marriage first. If you're serious, please tell your wife first and if separation is the only option then do it as painlessly as possible.

If your wife still loves you then of course she'll be devastated, but not nearly as much as if you start an affair and she then finds out.

Talk to her. Don't do ANYTHING with this other woman while you're still together. Work on deciding what it is you want, then do it. Focus on your children, put them first in whatever choices you make.

Only once you have separated, the dust has settled and you are sure your children are ok, only then embark on a new relationship.

Be honest with your wife. End your relationship with her before you pursue this other woman.

I think you are being rather hopeful in imagining your wife won't even care, but you owe her honesty and integrity even if you can't love her.

Do her a favour and tell her you're leaving.

She deserves someone that loves her, not sneers at her.

And please have the decency to do itbefore you go chasing someone else.

Do the decent thing and tell your wife, leave her and start a new life.
Then, if it works out with this other woman then fine, but as has already been said, there are others.
Be true to yourself and be good to your family. Please don't use your past mistakes to justify an affair.
Good luck.

all of the above.

oiko "You are going to hurt her and your children very much, and it is your fault,"

IMHO you're being harsh here. Why is it OP's fault? Why isn't is just as much his wife's fault? We don't know whether she truly loved OP at the time or just wanted respectability and a father for the baby.

Why is it wrong to grow, to change, to understand past behaviour and to understand that you want something different in the future? Why do we have to stay stuck in relationships that are destructive and bring unhappiness and dissatisfaction?

We need a huge sea-change in the way we all perceive relationships should work. Is a relationship that lasts 10 years a "failure" a "waste"? How about "we fell in love, we had a lovely time but we've grown apart and now we want different things."

I just don't see how we can decide our entire future lives at 18 or 22.

Leave your wife, if that's what you want.

But don't do it thinking that it will free you up to suddenly start seeing this 35 year old.

You don't know her, not really. And even if you did you have a family to think about who will have to live with the consequences of your actions.

Perhaps your feelings for this woman are the catalyst you needed to end an unhappy relationship, but she's just a person. She will have faults too.

And you most certainly owe it to your wife to talk it through. Just please don't patronise her the way you have done in this post. She's done nothing wrong.

This other woman is a catalyst, you know that right?

She's not the one, she may not even think you're her type.

If you think you're in the wrong relationship, end it, spend some time on your own, work out who you are, and then see what's what.

Don't cheat on your family. There's never a good enough reason for that.

If you have spent more than a minute here on mumsnet, you will know that every fucking time a woman breaks her heart on here, wondering why her H of xx years has said he doesn't love her, we all say cherchez la femme.

we none of us want it to be true, because the added humiliation of the fact that her H has lied and lied to her cuts her to ribbons.

Don't be that man, be the exception. Do this right.

Does your wife think everythings rosie?

Its hard to say how my wife feels we don't have sex very often, maybe once or twice a year. We rub a long well enough she takes care of stuff round the house and our children, we have 3 in total the youngest is 16 now.

I am sorry it sounded like I was sneering at her I only wanted to show that we are not compatible and that I want something she can never give me.

I'd don't know how this other woman how I do have feelings for feels about me that way, we are friends. I know it might not work out with her but I just feel in my gut that she is the one for me.

I'm more than prepared to make the break for her, whatever happens. I would like to do it right.

I would like to do it right

I suspect you won't listen, but if you really want to 'do it right' you won't pursue a relationship with this other woman.

You will split amicably (hopefully), you will show your wife the respect she deserves, and not ruin her dignity by shacking up elsewhere. You will show your dc no matter how old they are, that you care enough about them and their mother to put them first at a very difficult time.

You will give it time. You will stay single and concentrate on adjusting to your new status and helping your loved ones do the same.

The you will look into a new relationship.

That's how you 'do it right'. But leaving your marriage because you fancy someone knew is most certainly not doing it right.

sam you are missing the point. ..if you want to leave your marriage then do it for yourself- not for some 'imagined' future with this woman that may or may not happen. If you no longer love your wife, do the decent thing and set her free to find someone with whom she can have a full and happy life. You deserve it but so does she.

I'm prepared to make the break for her.

What if she doesn't want someone who'll walk out his family for a practical stranger?

You end this relationship for yourself, not for someone else.

You're thinking with your dick.

Pack it in. The woman isn't 'The One', she is showing you that you haven't found the one. Stop chasing rainbows.

You have to find yourself first.

Have you tried counselling with your wife?

Can counselling help me to love a women I never loved? I am not rewriting the past on this I made a big mistake when I was young and while I don't regret my kids for a minute and she is a 1st class mum to them our marriage was a mistake.

I hoped I would come to love her, she wanted kids and I liked being a father and I stupidly felt it would bring us closer but it didn't.

You want to "do this right" ?

Ok then. Here is what you do (in a nutshell and in this order ..)

1. Tell your wife you no longer wish to be married to her because you want to pursue relationships with other women. Do not give your wife any hope at all that you could work it out if she just tried a bit harder, shagged you more or "fought" for her marriage

2. move out and sort somewhere for your kids to visit you

3. sort finances fairly and pay for your dependent kids

4. in a few months when the dust has settled a bit then you discreetly approach whomever you wish

do not overlap #4 with any of the other stuff

That is how you do it right.

So depressing, your wife must be 44 - 45 now eh and a bit ruined from having kids and supporting you whilst you developed your career and grew as a person she did all the dirty work. Now you feel like you are above her and that you deserve someone more intellegent, educated, sexy and so its goodbye wifey number one and hello wife number 2.

I don't know why you even bothered posting here because you are only going to shit all over your family anyway, however you do it.

What I dont get is why you spent 20 years+ with someone you "rub along ok with" and are "fond" of, but have no intellectual or emotional connection with. Why have more children?

I think you came here to get validation of your crush on this other woman. Well you wont get it from me, because thats all it is, a crush.

You are looking for things in your marriage that will justify you chasing a dream, the X Factor, Benidorm stuff could never have bothered you that much before because you would have left if it did. You also sense that she feels the same way or may do, I dont think so, I rather suspect that you are reading what you want to see, not what is actually there.

What she sees, if she is as intelligent as you say, is a much married man with kids who is going through a mid life crisis.

If you genuinely are that unhappy then leave, but I rather suspect that if this woman had never come into your life then it would have been someone else. You are bored, getting older, getting panicky that your best years are being you. So you are willing to dump the woman who supported you, who "takes care of stuff around the house and our children", while you swan off into the sunset with Ms Perfect.

How attractive do you think you will be with a maintenance bill to pay every month, at least every other weekend given over to access (and more if you are anything like a decent father) and an ex wife with a broken heart? Especially to a woman who it sounds like could have her pick of men?

Stop looking out and look in. Why do you only have once or twice a year? ~You will say because of her, but is it because she doesnt want to or because she knows you dont want her?

Stop taking her for granted as a piece of the furniture and a "great mum" (aka someone who does all the hard work so I dont have to) and you might realise that you have a really great life partner.

Sorry not

Why do you only have once or twice a year?

But Why do you only have sex once or twice a year?

No, no, no

Please people, no one try to convince this man to stay, to make him see what he has that is good

Let him find out the hard way, in his undies in a bedsit eating from a tin of cold beans

And let his wife find someone who properly appreciates her

I see what you are saying AF, but I will not say anything that could justify this man leaving.

I can just hear him now...."I am leaving because you deserve better, you deserve someone who will appreciate you and love you as you deserve to be loved"

No. I will not be his online excuse generator.

OP, you want to leave then leave. But be honest. Tell your wife that you are leaving because you dont love her and want to find someone else. NEVER EVER try to make out that you are doing her some big favour. Oh, and also, when it goes tits up for you dont get shitty that she wont have you back.

You see, what will happen is....you leave for Ms Perfect. Lets assume best case scenario and MsP skips off with you. Then MsP gets pissed off at the amount of time and money you have to spend on your kids. You get pissed off that you can only afford a one bed pokey flat. Your ex wont let you treat your ex home as a contact centre and insists you take the kids out, which costs more money. Your ex expects you to step up to your share of parental responsibility in a real and tangible way, so going to parents evenings (which she always did on her own before) and splitting childcare and sick days 50/50 (as her job is just as important as yours now she has to pay the rent and bills on her own).

You could step up and MsP realises she could bag herself a nice baggage free man and dumps you, or you could say "fuck that" and leave your ex to it at which point MsP realises that you could treat her like that and dumps you. Either way you are dumped and you realise that actually, life with the wife and kids wasnt so bad after all.

Except....she has realised what a selfish shit you are and wont have you back, so you are stuck with less money, a shitty home and kids who will never respect you again.

Good luck with that.