I have obviously name changed for this. I'm struggling to understand why this has happened after 8 years.
For the past 8 years I have been involved with a man who is, at 71, nearly 10 years older than me. It is not a primary relationship for either of us but has enhanced our lives in a way I would not have thought possible, and has enabled me to stay in my main relationship which is sexless, as is his. Early on we agreed we would maintain a low level of email and telephone contact and meet up every 3 months
for lunch, an exhibition and an afternoon of sexual activity. We live over 50 mile apart.
We have always been close and loving, and concerned about each other and described it as love with a small "l". He got a bit distant with me over the summer and so I suggested our early autumn meeting be just for lunch as I was concerned he had cooled off a bit. He was quite agitated on this day and told me he had been involved in a relationship he was regretting. He had developed a friendship in a local wine bar with a woman 20 years younger than him who seemed lonely, when his wife was away for the night this woman invited him back to her house and they started a sexual relationship which continued for, on my estimation, a couple of months. He would visit her when she was "working from home" for lunch and sex, and they continued to enjoy evenings out each Friday in the wine bar. She is a single parent of 2 daughters (late teens) and works in education.
She became very demanding and wanted him to text and email her when he was away on a family holiday, was jealous if he talked to other women in the wine bar and kept on wanting to meet up with him even when he said sex could not be on offer. This relationship was being conducted almost on his door step, as they live in a small town/village in a rural area,it eventually dawned on him that his wife (who is on every local committee going) was highly likely to find out, so he stopped the meetings but is still plagued by texts and phone calls.
When he told me I thought only of what a difficult situation he had got himself into and how upset he was.
After a day or two I started to feel that he had given this woman everything that he would not give me, even if it was for a short time. I was upset that she was 10 years younger than me and "very attractive" I remembered that about a year ago he mentioned her to me in the context of a possible 3 some, which astonished and upset me.
We met again this week and he seemed very upset that I would not just forget about it, not overly apologetic. During this meeting he was trying to minimise the relationship he had been quite open about at the previous meeting.
He has been a total shit to her, I think she seriously thought that she was a contender for a proper relationship and that he might leave his wife, now he is upsetting her by reducing contact week by week. He says the "silliness" will be ended by January as he will have cut her off entirely by then.
I've come to care about him a lot, he makes my life more bearable, is funny, charismatic and although he has a number of health problems that mean the sex is not amazing I still enjoy it. He is quite good looking and a minor entertainment celebrity - on the site "nearly famous" as an actor.
My thoughts were that this would all come to an end in the next few years, that we would both be too old for that sort of relationship but now I just feel so upset that after all this time he would do this to me.
I sort of feel I would be cutting my nose off to spite my face if i ended it, I feel I should be trying to re-boot my attractiveness to establish an unassailable no 1 position. I keep thinking of him cycling to her house for a sandwich and a shag and feeling quite sick.
I'm not expecting any sympathy on here but i can't get a counselling appointment I can attend before the new year and I'm just eaten up with it today. That's all.