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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

He cheated on me

103 replies

keepingitalltogether · 06/03/2017 23:10

My dh ( of over 20 years) and I have had a few problems recently
today everything came to a head and we had a blazing row..

During which it came out he has had an affair. He is in his midfifties.

I eventually ( after threatening to ask every single person that he knows) got him To confess who with and it's a woman in her nineties.... I knew they were spending time together and I was touched by the time he was giving her. I thought it was very sweet. I've helped he out myself made her cups of tea, done her shopping etc. And now I.find this out. I've been throwing up. I'm shaking, I can't get my head around it at all. I could almost cope,better if it was a younger girl. It would make more.sensse. This just seems so wrong. I've are him leave, but he wants me to.forgive him. I can't can I???

OP posts:
pudding21 · 09/03/2017 12:43

scottishdiem: I know, of course old age and dementia isn't synonymous (I'm a nurse ;) But OP has made a statement saying the lady is forgetful, and clearly needs help with running errands so perhaps her physical condition isn't great either. She also stated that she doesn't have dementia or anything),but how can OP judge if she isn't indeed vulnerable? The whole thing is weird if you ask me. Regardless, your husband is clearly not committed to the marriage, likes much much older women and cheated. He is a gerontophile and has crossed a very big line.

scottishdiem · 09/03/2017 13:02

Pudding21:

"He is a gerontophile and has crossed a very big line."

On that we can totally agree.

Original poster
keepingitalltogether · 09/03/2017 20:10

She hasn't been assessed as far as I know, and she still lives totally independently and everything. I just mean she can see a little old and vague during conversation. This is eating me alive. Everyone I close my eyes I can see her face. And I keep remembering little things that in retrospect were clues. Butnit didn't ever cross my mind they could be having a relationship. I thought they had a lovely friendship that filled their needs for a mother/son relationship ( his relationship with mother has been poor and her son lives far away)

My first though was that sex with someone.that old can't have been much of a deal. Then I made the terrible mistake of looking up woman's sexuality in later life. Sounds like a woman of that age can in fact have just as much fun..... Which has made it worse. He's still here currently. But I'm finding it very hard to.keep going.

OP posts:
Yeahfine · 09/03/2017 20:17

Oh god best not to know really isn't it.

Teatowelfairy · 09/03/2017 21:02

Tbh OP I don't think it would have crossed anybody's mind in your position, most would have probably viewed it as a mother/son relationship and nothing more.

pudding21 · 09/03/2017 22:38

keepingitalltogether: don't focus on her as an individual, focus on the fact you OH gets his rocks off with a much much older woman. Get angry and understand you deserve much much better than this. Its a fetish type thing, you can't provide that for him because you'll never be older than him. Sorry to sound harsh, are you going to end it? Whatever her age, he's a shit. But with the age thing added in he is just odd. Sorry you are going through this Flowers

Peanutbutterrules · 09/03/2017 23:08

Agree with pudding. Stop concentrating your energy on the OW and deal with your husbands cheating. The age thing is added grossness but hey...the deal breaker is the affair.

MadMags · 09/03/2017 23:12
Hmm
JockTamsonsBairns · 10/03/2017 00:02

Crunched your 'care worker friend' should be sacked. Has she never considered client confidentiality? It's despicable that she's discussing the details of an elderly client's private life with her friends.

crunched · 11/03/2017 00:40

Actually jock , she was Blush. Not for confidentiality issues though as I understand.
The client she referred to, I would imagine, is not around any more since we are maybe 20 years down the line. It would be difficult to identify her since it occurred on a different continent to the one in which we both reside.
Hope you are managing op

Toobloodytired · 11/03/2017 00:59

I'd throw up then pack his bags & throw him out.

I don't think I could approach her though, it sounds really ageist but to me she's a little old lady! I know that sounds so so bad but I imagine my exes nan, she's lovely!

Sorry I know that doesn't help!

Even if you could forgive him, could you sleep with him again knowing where he's been?? Shock

MyUsernameIsInvalid · 11/03/2017 02:28

What if this woman in her 90's is the woman he was seeing in his 20's?

Just a thought...

FellOutOfBed2wice · 11/03/2017 06:59

My I wondered this.

SandyY2K · 11/03/2017 07:05

Actually the age does matter IMO. That he cheated is obviously the main issue, but for me I'd also have another level of anger/disgust if my DH cheated with a very young person i.e. 17 - 25 (half his age) or a very old one, as in this case.

That he'd be turned on enough to get an erection with an old granny would quite simply repulse me and there would be no point in continuing in the marriage, because I'd no longer be able to have a sexual relationship with him or indeed want to look at him anymore as I find it warped.

I also think if you asked her, she'd pretend to forget or conveniently not have a clue what you're taking about. I wouldn't waste my time with her.

Age can mean she's vulnerable, but some women have had lose morals all their lives and been the OW several times.... perhaps she's one of them.

Do you want to carry on with the marriage?

TheElephantofSurprise · 11/03/2017 07:13

I'll be sixty next. The number of men in their late twenties and early thirties who have come on to me in the last couple of years has been quite startling. I thought it might be a 'thing'. Are men encouraging each other to shag old ladies at the moment?

Original poster
keepingitalltogether · 11/03/2017 09:38

ive told him i cant imagine ill ever sleep with him again, what makes me sick is that i have, unknowingly already done so several times. it was three years ago it started as far as i can work out.
no its a different woman, i knew the original one, who lives in a different part of the country. the other hard thing is this woman lives no more then five mins walk away, i bump into her in the street regularly ,i have to walk past her house when i collect my grandchildren from school.
i qqould find it easier if she was within our age bracket, there an extra level of disgust here for sure. i cant get to sleep for picturing them together...

OP posts:
MyUsernameIsInvalid · 11/03/2017 11:35

So how do you want to move forward with things may I ask?

FruminariaBandersnatchiosum · 11/03/2017 13:03

It absolutely is possible all you naysayers. I worked for a bloke years ago and he was shagging umm...an older lady. He was late thirties, she was 78. It went on a long time after i left his employ. She left him everything she owned and it was a substantial piece of the home counties.

Beelzebop · 11/03/2017 13:15

It is gross, I don't blame you at all op for feeling how you do xx x.

AmysTiara · 11/03/2017 13:23

Nah I don't buy it. He's just saying that to divert attention from the true other woman.

Or this is a piss take thread?

VladmirsPoutine · 11/03/2017 15:52

He's shielding the true OW.

Okfine · 11/03/2017 15:58

What is his take on it all? Is he defensive/embarrassed/ashamed? I can't see why he would say it was this 90 year old if it was really someone younger as like you say there is an 'unnatural' element to it.

Original poster
keepingitalltogether · 11/03/2017 16:51

hes always been very jealous, needing regular reassurance that i havent been cheating. wanting to know where ive been all the time etc. I have never even come close to any kind of affair.
his excuse is that he thought i had done it so why shouldn't he?
hes not responded really to my reactions to it. ive told him i find it particularly abhorrent that shes older then his mother...
yes, he clearly feels guilty, part of me wants to question him about it in detail, part of me doesn't want to hear it at all.

i dont think he s covering for someone else..but i dont know what to believe anymore. I cant hold myself together enough to make any kind of decision.

has anyone here managed to make a relationship work after a revelation like this? just dont know if its possible.

OP posts:
merville · 11/03/2017 19:24

He thought you had done it (with no basis) so why shouldn't he?
He should be dumped on that alone.

ElsaMars · 11/03/2017 20:23

No offence to this old lady but bleurgh. I'm struggling with the notion of this Envy sick not envy!