When is an affair 'ok'

[Patchworkpatty]

Have just returned from a lovely village 'do' . My near neighbour was there, he is a lovely kind guy , middle aged, own home, semi retired . The 'problem' is that he was there with a lady who he is obviously romantically linked to, but he is married and the lady was not his wife. His DW had to move into a care home last year as she has Huntingdons Chorea (sp ?) and despite his Herculean efforts over the last decade he could no longer provide the care she needed. He is devoted to her still but she was diagnosed in her early 30's and has progressed to not being able to walk, talk easily or look after her personal needs hence the care home. He visits daily although she doesn't seem to know him sometimes. (I don't actually know the exact extent of the situation but I do know he hung on to avoiding care until it was impossible) so my question is , 'when does death us do part' become null and void. ? For me, I was thrilled for him to have a 'normal' loving relationship, but there were others there 'tutting' in the background and even one person being quite vocal in their disgust ! So maybe I have got this wrong. Are situations like this the exception to the rule ? He has been her carer for about 22 yrs. no DC's .

It's just not black and white. And as much as people might judge the situation he is in at the moment, I can't imagine there being much support if he decided that he could no longer cope with his wife and instead left her to pursue his own happiness. In fact I imagine he would be subject to a lot more vitriol than he is getting now for being involved with someone else while still caring for his wife who will never be in a position to conduct a relationship with him again.

It seems that in the eyes of some, only isolation to the point at which the wife dies will be acceptable, and even then, people would see fit to judge how long it would be appropriate before he dared to get into a new relationship.

While I think that we all think we would stay faithful to the end of someone's illness, I don't think anyone can imagine the loneliness and isolation of someone who cares for someone with a degenerative illness for years and years and is then judged by society for daring to have feelings and emotions, and yes, even needs.

It's no-one's business.

I don't. I'm talking about the responses on here, all of which almost unanimously sympathise with the husband and say how awful it is he has a sick wife, how cruel life is in giving him a sick wife and how any pleasure he can get from life is good.

No one has said 'poor wife, how sad for her.'

It is indeed terrible for the wife, Ginger, but it isn't the subject of the discussion. It's about whether the husband is being an evil philanderer who LOVES SEX MORE THAN HIS WIFE. OP rightly cared for his wife as much as possible, and then rightly took her to a care home which could care for her properly when he no longer could. He still visits her every day and I am sure that, if he does this, he is still as physically affectionate as her illness allows. The question being asked is not 'is this terrible for his wife?'. Of course it is, the poor lady. Nobody would wish such a thing on anyone. The question is, given that this is his situation, should the gossipy curtain twitchers be judging him for the fact that he's not choosing to go through this unsupported and pretending he's also sick or dead when he's not? And I say no, and I'm glad others agree.

We all agree this is terrible for his wife, and I am sure that if any of use could wave a magic wand and cure her, we would. We can't. I don't understand the point you're making. We sympathise with the wife, absolutely, but it doesn't change the husband's 'quandary', for want of a better word.

Carers need support too.

DH and I have talked about this sort of situation as his dad died of dementia last year. There's no way is want him to be unhappy. Sex is the least of it, I'd like him to find a partner to share his life with.

An affair is only an affair if it crosses boundaries, for us this wouldn't cross boundaries. For others it might.

It's actually no-ones business but theirs. Why does anyone 'need to know'?

I am sure it goes without saying that people feel sorry for his wife Ginger. I am sure he feels sorry for her too.

But that wasn't the point of the OP- it was if people should judge him for having a friend who is a woman.

I can't judge him.

Life is short and I would want my husband to find happiness if I was in the wife's position.

Ginger.. i'm not sure why you are trying to make this into something it isn't. The subject of the thread is about the man's actions.

Thank you for all your responses, it is a true 'moral maze'. As I said in the original post, I am not a close confidante just a neighbour he has coffee with a couple of times a month and he is too 'stiff upper lip' to wear his heart on his sleeve, so my information about what has/hasn't been discussed in formative years is non-existent. I do know that she lost the ability to walk in her early thirties having struggled for many years, and I last saw her layout 18 months ago where she could not speak or eat without assistance, she also did not appear to recognise anyone. So yes, to the poster who ask why we aren't being sympathetic towards her, I do really really feel for her to have had such a horrific time, but the point of the post was to ask how mnetters considered the conundrum of a new relationship whilst wife still alive. - interestingly his very elderly in-laws car were in church this morning with son-in-law and 'house guest'. They live over an hour away and in their 80's. To my mind, that is a sign for the pearl clutches to put their jewels back in the box. Nothing said, just very classy and dignified.

It's not what I would do because I would feel it was wrong. However, I have every sympathy with your neighbour and what he wants to do is none of my business.

How do you know nothing was said? maybe there has been a family discussion around this and it's all in the open.
I'm sure if I was in a state that resembled the living dead, I'd want DH to have all the fun and love he could get given how short and unpredictable our lives are.
This has been covered before by the way- features with couples in magazines (part of Sunday broadsheets.) It's much more common and acceptable to couples than people may think.

As a thought experiment, let's imagine the situation if the husband did indeed stay chaste as long as his wife is alive (and assuming this isn't really what he wants).

His wife is just as ill. His love and care for her are presumably unchanged. But he struggles to cope. As well as dealing with the loss of his wife on a certain level (not death, but still a devastating loss), he has to cope with lonesomeness, frustration and a lack of support. Yes, friends are supportive and important, absolutely, but a romantic/sexual partner can offer support on an intimate, personal level that a platonic friendship, important and invaluable as it is, cannot. (Which is not to say for one second that there is anything wrong with being single or that people should stay in bad relationships. We are talking about someone who has the opportunity/ desire/ both for this kind of relationship, and is denying it because he would feel it was 'wrong', or more likely because a load of gossipy busybodies with no experience of his situation tell him it is).

He would become ill himself. On top of everything else he is coping with, it would take a physical and mental toll on him and that would come out one way or another. Meanwhile, his wife is just as ill as she was before. His love and care for her might even suffer if he can't even have the possibility of being loved and cared for in a similar way himself. He would be miserable, to no end.

I see no good coming from it, except that a load of pearl clutching, judgmental curtain twitchers with no business in the matter would be satisfied, while his life slips away from him and his wife, if anything, would suffer from his own declining wellbeing.

Fuck the gossips. How dare they.

How would this relationship be feasible from the other woman's view?
Would she be with him for sex, or a proper relationship. What about her feelings and needs?

viridus, do you mean the man's new partner? Presumably she knows his business at least as well as the rest of the village. It's between them whether the relationship is purely sexual or not. Since he's happy to take her out to public events, though, including church with the family, it doesn't sound like it's just about sex.

Well, if his wife doesn't recognise him then maybe his new girlfriend goes with him to visit her and helps to support him through that.

If my daughter became so ill and she had a lovely husband who'd cared for her all through it until she didn't even know him any more, and then he had the chance of happiness with someone else while still caring for my daughter, I'd wish him all the best and be happy my daughter had had someone so lovely in her life. I certainly wouldn't be slagging him off saying sex was clearly more important to him.

I wish him all the luckin the world, and hope the pearl clutchers grow up.

I am wondering if anyone could be happy being the other woman. I am not judging, I cannot see how it would work out for the other woman, regardless if it was for sex, or for a proper relationship.

Well, viridus, she's an adult so it's for her to decide if she's happy. Many people, especially in later life and in situations such as these, are not looking to marry again or cohabit...they just want companionship and support. And maybe sex too, because that's also very nice when done right.

It would be good if women who are in this place to say if they are happy. To come on this site for example. Of course she is an adult and can make up her own mind, of that there is no dispute. I am not convinced that the other woman can be happy in these situations.

This has gone from the OP asking if it's ok for the man to be doing what he does, to someone now saying they can't understand how the woman he's with is happy. MN at its best.

No one has put a gun to her head viridus. It seems to be your judgy pants that are stopping you understand why she may be happy- and in fact how everyone may be happy with whatever is going on.

Actually, my dads partners weren't happy with him, but stayed anyway. (He refused to marry them.)

And I agree with varidus - but love is blind I guess!

oh yes, I can just imagine the reception a woman would get if she came on here to talk about her relationship with a man whose wife was in fact still in a care home with a degenerative illness. truth is that no-one can talk about these things honestly because of the judgements from the outside.

viridus, are you seriously suggesting that the partner of the man in the OP's story should somehow guess that we are discussing her situation, and come onto MN to justify herself to us?

In fact I imagine that even if the wife were somehow able to articulate her thoughts on to a screen and to say that as she was in the state she was she wanted her husband to find happiness and therefore did not judge his relationship with another woman there would be people who would criticise even her for putting up with it, even though she herself may know that she had limited time to live and that her own condition meant she was incapable of any kind of relationship but that she valued the fact her h cared and loved her deeply but wanted him to be happy.

Well, as I've said, I did know a situation like this and I don't think anybody did judge, although there was a bit of 'wages! Good for you!' attitude towards the man.

What concerns me here is not the relationship as such but rather as I've said the way the immediate position is to sympathise with and dare I say fawn over the man a bit.

I recognise I am guilty of taking the thread off course a bit. But I've noticed this so many times! My mum died when I was a teenager - yes, it was terrible for my dad but I don't remember one person saying 'poor Gingers mum, dying so young.' I barely remember anyone sympathising with me! It was all my poor dad, how would he cope, how awful to lose his wife. And of course when he got together with another woman one month later it was good for him, can't expect men to be all alone can you.

Now here, out of the two, I'd say the man gets the better deal. He keeps control over his life, legs and bowels, stay married AND have a mistress AND still lap up the sympathy.

Would a woman with a 'friend' be treated with such sympathy?

I know women who have dedicated years to caring for husbands with early dementia, with paralysis and other unpleasant conditions, some of which I don't even know the name of, often at home and sometimes for elderly parents too, without a murmur of complaint, yet without the outpouring of sympathy I've seen on here and without having affairs either, they manage to go to village fetes alone, fancy that

Despite that slightly sardonic strike through I DON'T judge, but I do think we need to move away from a single man of a certain age being an automatic subject of pity.