Why is Life so Crap

[Midlife72]

I know what you're all going to tell me to do but here goes... I'm 45 have 3 children only 1 left at home, have been married for 24 years to a man who I think dotes on me. He's had a few affairs over the yesrs and on holiday last year I caught him texting a woman who he got chatting to via an online game (she did live in Australia but it still hurt. My dad then got cancer and died in November. I started a new job in march last year and got flirty with a colleague purely over the phone. We started texting and sent photos and then I lied to my family and spent the weekend with him a few weeks ago. He's an alcoholic on anti depressants who lives in a room in a flat with his ex wife and daughter. I know how stupid this all is. I have a fabulous life, lovely house, new cars, money, husband I think adores me but I feel like I could walk away from it all tomorrow and not look back. Is it a mid life thing that will get better, grief that will heal? It's getting me down and I know how ridiculous the situation is but I'm infatuated with OM and don't want to give him up even though I know it can't go anywhere. Go for it, let me have it

Bit of escapism?
Kick it to the kerb right now.
Get a hobby, buy a dog!! Keep focused on something in real life and move forward. Don't admit to anything, don't carry guilt. Just move on. Quickly.

Escapism definitely sounds right. I want the old me and my old satisfying life back but it just feels like I can't go back, it's seems like I want what I can't have, if DH found out I'd be devastated but on the other hand if I had to stop contact with OM I'd be lost. I feel like what have I got in my life without OM even though it's ridiculous. I think a hobby might help though, keep my mind busy. Thanks

OP - I can’t make sense from your posts.
Starting with a matter-off-fact mentioning of your H’s “few afffairs over the years” - and not mentioning how it made you feel or why you stayed.
Then you say your H adores and dotes on you. Is that in between, or during affairs too?
Then there is all the material things you list that seems important to you.

Nowhere do you mention how your relationship with H is. Are you / were you happy before meeting this other man?

What is it that the other man gives you that makes him so exciting?

Maybe your marriage ran its course. Maybe it is a temporary infatuation.
Or maybe you have fallen for someone.
Hard to tell.

I would say we are more like brother and sister, don't have sex very often at all. People always say he treats me like a queen but then why would he do that over the years? I have very little self confidence which is maybe why I forgave him every time. Maybe we are both bored but scared to say it? The material things aren't important and one of the things I like about the zither man is that he has nothing like that and is happy.

He's an alcoholic! On antidepressants! (Would he be so 'happy' off them?) Cocklodging at his exwife's! Good thing he's not materialist cos he's fucked if he is.

Don't know about life being crap,but your taste in men certainly is!

This is your life. Stop being a passenger. Unfaithful husband. Waste of space lover. Is this what you really want from your life?

Midlife - I don’t think you are alone in feeling the way you do.
Kids grow up, relationships change. People wonder if this is all that it is - in life.

All I would say is that whatever you are missing or searching for - you need to find answer inside of your first. Happiness doesn’t come from another person - so changing man A for man B - might not make any difference on how you feel about yourself and about life.

If you want to end your marriage - you need to want to do it irrespective of the other man you met.

Where do you want to be in ten years' time?

Make a plan and work towards it.

I"m picking up that you are basing your happiness on men, relationships.

You need to sort yourself out, your happiness, your likes/hobbies, work and not base your life on men.

Your DH has had various affairs - it doesn't matter if he dotes on you. That's irrelevant. He could wait on you hand and foot but it would not make up for cheating several times.

To me, it sounds like you'd be better off alone, finding yourself.

Do you work/volunteer?

Thank you for your replies. I think that is so right, I almost feel like I'm now just waiting to get older and die and is this all that is left for me, I do work full time and changed jobs about 10 months ago which is how I met the other man.

Stop pinning your happiness on men.

It’s time for you to be the sort of women you want to be. Work out what your likes are and do them. Improve your own life and yourself instead of looking to the men in your life.

If you think your marriage is what you want you sit down with your dh and tell him you want it to be better. You both work out how it could be better and agree to make changes to make it better.

If your marriage can’t be improved or you don’t want to be with your dh until the day you die to the exclusion of all others then you separate.

Stop being so passive in life, work out what you want and put on your big girl pants and work out the steps you need to take to get there.

There’s a lot of contradictions in your posts. How does dotes on me and treats me like a queen, tally with him being a serial cheat? As for the material not keeping you in an unfulfilling relationship, than what is exactly?

This is pure escapism, a bit on the side that won’t amount to anything because you’ve decided to hide in an unfulfilling relationship. I can’t even feel sorry for your H because infidelity appears to be tolerated in your marriage and even if he was devastated discovering about your sordid leg over, he’d be a bloody hypocrite.

This is what you’re left with when both parties check out of a marriage but don’t want to walk away, they seek out distractions and lose their integrity.

Start by working out why you think a man who cheats on you, adores you.
That is all shades of fucked up.

You're exactly right about the sordid leg over so why don't I want to give it up? Maybe DH has done this to me over the years but now it's me that has to deal with these crap feelings. Maybe I am just lost with kids growing up, dad dying but I honestly don't know what to do with myself to get some fulfilment out of life.

You're exactly right about the sordid leg over so why don't I want to give it up? Maybe DH has done this to me over the years but now it's me that has to deal with these crap feelings. Maybe I am just lost with kids growing up, dad dying but I honestly don't know what to do with myself to get some fulfilment out of life.

Look back to a time when you were happy. What made you happy?

Start there to try to remember who you are and what makes you tick

Hi OP, your situation sounds so similar to mine. I've been married 20 years, children have their own lives now though still need me, they are pretty much independent. My DH has, I'm sure, had affairs though haven't been able to prove anything, yet I know he loves me and would do pretty much anything for me.

I k ow people will see this as contradictory. I know tolerances are different but for me, my love towards my husband has changed from full on passion to comfortable habit, almost brother and sister. Love is love and I frequently find myself thinking " well if he's not waving his affairs in my face then I don't care ". Again most on here would respond to that with LTB but I don't want to, I love him but just in a comfortable, excepting way.

I had an emotional affair a while back, I needed to feel something different from " comfortable."
It was fun but as it became more intense it made me look at where I was in life. Did I want to start a relationship all over again? What would happen once the honeymoon period wore off?
I just didn't want to go there. My lot wasn't actually that bad. In fact with some tlc towards my marriage, I k ew I could be happy with my marriage again. And that what I did, I ploughed time and energy into my own well being and my part in my marriage.

Months later I can hand on heart say, it was worth it.

Yes, shock horror, men and women have affairs. It's escaping but it's short lived and highly over rated. It doesn't sound as though he wants to go, doesn't sound like you want to go. Just apply time into you and your husband. This feeling will pass once you change your focus.

Hope this makes sense.

Why don’t you want to give the OM up? Because it’s easier than dealing with the source of your unfulfilment.

What can you do? By first, accepting that your marriage is not and hasn’t been providing you with what you want for a long time. The kids are no longer a distraction and grief has triggered you into wanting more than the mundanity of your stale and unfulfilling marriage. Just because you get used to dysfunction doesn’t stop it from being dysfunctional.

It’s time to stop hiding and the OM is just another distraction that will do more harm than good.