DP had an EA with woman almost half my age

[downandoutlorelai]

Have NC as a regular poster and I am not going to leave my partner (I think) so need to maintain some privacy.

Will keep this short, sweet and factual.

• I am 50. DP 35. OW is 26.
• He had an EA (no sex, but kissed one drunken night)
• EA lasted 4 months
• EA ended when OW asked him to leave me.
• DP declined to leave me as it wasn't the right time.

This all happened 2 years ago. We are still together. However I only discovered the last point yesterday.

Anyone have any experience of this? Could really do with some advice. My head is fuzzy and I cannot think.

Anchor, I am confused. You think he wanted an affair? Then why did he decline sex? Is an affair not usually mainly about the sex?

People rationalise affairs differently. It's a rare person who thinks affairs are okay, generally. So they create circumstances that mean it's okay for them, they can rationalise their behaviour.

For him, it seems that he wanted a potential relationship. He wanted someone who treated him like a god and that he could say he thought he loved. He didn't just want sex. And he certainly didn't want anything complicated, he didn't want to feel like he owed her anything. When she backtracked and suggested a relationship instead, it was too flawed.

Human behaviour is much, much easier when you're not involved. Most people follow the same patterns, with their own nuances applied. He's done that here. At the end of the day, everyone has their price, and it seems that his is quite low.

As you'd like to get over this, have you talked about this with him? Maybe you could try moving forward, if you really want to, and he can be honest about why it happened and how he will stop it happening again?

I honestly don't want to hurt you, but I think you need to have your eyes open or you risk forgiving him and getting hurt again, and that'd be so unfair.

I love him, I do want to move forward. We have spoken about it when it happened, but he made her seem like nothing. He said what he did was a reflection of the state of our relationship, and not about how he felt about her.

My concern is that I think it was more about her than us. I genuinely think he was happy with me, us, until he met her. She opened his eyes to something different.

He is a gentle soul. A good man. He has never strayed and he is not sexually driven. I just have this fear that if this OW turned up again, he would leave.

Be very careful about making assumptions about who he is. i speak from experience. I had a child at 42 with a dp of 26. I really thought we were a family and were OK but in Feb, he decided he didn't think he loved me any more. i spent six weeks sorting out a lawyer, forced to share a house with someone and make the best of it for our four year old.

In those six weeks he was cold, callous - not like someone I'd spent seven years with. He changed his mind at the end - wanted me back I didn't trust him and I had to throw him out because it went badly wrong.

Be very careful about thinking you know what anyone else thinks and about trusting anyone who has not loved you or put you first while in a relationship with you.