Hi,
Name changed for this but please don’t beat me with a stick. I know that I have been an idiot and handled things completely wrong and am left with a life in tatters.
I had, what some would perceive as, the perfect life. A good job, a nice husband, two lovely/intelligent kids, nice holidays, a nice house owned outright, plenty of money etc. However, underneath, I was unhappy. To be perfectly frank, I was unhappy in my marriage. It was just like a friendship and I knew, and had probably known since day one, that I wasn’t attracted to my husband. He was my first. He was also quite a bit older than me (>10 years). I had been very shy as a teen girl/young woman and had spent my evenings/weekends studying so that I could get a good job and get a better life than I’d had as a child. My parents split up when I was 8 years old and I was moved away (one day after being told my mother was ‘leaving’ my dad) from the family home to a 2 bedroomed council house. My elder siblings were quite a bit older than me and had already left home.
My mother didn’t work (severe asthmatic) and also didn’t meet anyone else. She was 48 when we left - always seemed older to me. We didn’t have much and I never went anywhere outside my home town (pretty boring place and I left as soon as I grew up). We went on a couple of day bus trips each year - to the seaside - and that was it. I never saw my father again and found out he’d passed away at the age of 64 (when I was 24). So, I hadn’t had a male figure around growing up. My older brothers married and had families of their own and didn’t really bother with me. Big age gap between us.
Anyway, like I said, I was determined to do better for myself than my mother did. As a consequence, I didn’t socialise as much as I should’ve done when younger. I did well. BSc then MSc and straight into my profession and rose to senior management level. Obviously, money was never an issue for me.
I had taken a year out from university to gain some work experience in the area I wanted to be in and I met my husband during this year. I’d always had the feeling I was going to be left on the shelf (even though I was attractive and only 21/22). We got on ok and he took me places in his car - places I had never seen - and took me abroad for the first time (Europe, USA and Canada). I loved it. He was 33 and living at home with his parents and hadn’t had girlfriends (no red flag raised). He was in a dead end job and had failed his degree at university years earlier - never made any attempt to resit his exams or try something else. Anyway, he asked me to marry him (in an awkward situation that sort of pushed me into saying yes) and that was that. His mother and father (both now RIP) were delighted and I was snowballed into marriage. We married when I was 25 in a register office as I didn’t want a church wedding (looking back, I’m now 50, I realise how young and inexperienced I was) and he was 36. I think the not wanting a church wedding was because, deep down, it didn’t feel right. I was an idiot but felt under pressure to marry as all of my friends had.
We travelled a bit more and bought our first house. His mother passed away after suffering years with heart problems. Our sex life was crap. I knew I was passionate but had never had the chance to express it. One, because I knew, deep down, I wasn’t sexually attracted to him and, two, he was very cold emotionally/sexually. He was never the virile/horny type - in some ways this was good as I knew he was unlikely to cheat or anything but it was also bad as it meant we were never sexually compatible. He never touched me (foreplay) and wouldn’t kiss as he ‘couldn’t breathe‘! I often thought he wasn’t a sexual man. When I hit 30 the biological clock started ticking. We had two children but both conceived by IUI as we just weren’t able to conceive naturally even though all tests came back clear. I now think sexual incompatibility may have played a part. Years went by and I physically couldn’t go near him as he was poor at it, not attractive and I just couldn’t! Our marriage became sexless. For years and years.
I started to realise that there were other things making me unhappy. I carried him. A lot. Both with running the house, looking after the kids and providing the money. I work in a stressful role and rose through the ranks whereas he stayed at the same level and on the same salary. I felt like a doormat in some ways. He was emotionally cold. Never complimented me (other men do) and etc.
I had accepted that this was my life and got in with it. I spent a lot of time with my mum (RIP 2015) inbetween working and raising the kids. I did work part time for ten years
but returned full time just after my mum’s passing. My mother had been a difficult woman. I coped though but always felt a bit like there was no happiness in my life. She was diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer a year before she died.
Two years after my mother’s death - at the age of 45 - my periods stopped suddenly and never returned. A few months later I started to feel odd. Very frustrated, short fused but extremely horny!! I had no idea at the time it was menopause and had put my lack of periods down to my working life. I had, at this time, lived in a sexless marriage and had slept alone in another room for years and years (sexless for over a decade). I have no idea what the hell I did next but, I ended up chatting online to another man. I know you will not like what I did next but, looking back, I realised that I was living in a dead/cold marriage of ‘convenience’ and had a gap the size of the Grand Canyon in my life. I was a people pleaser and had lived my life looking after and pleasing others rather than myself.
Well, this other man was also married and also living in a sexless marriage. No kids. Similar situation - he was married to an older woman etc. We got on well, very well. And of course both of us ended up sexual in the end but he always insisted he never wanted to meet. Like a fool, I fell for him in time and we did meet - again and again (he lives over 200 miles away so it hasn’t been that often) and well, yes, we did and, yes, it was amazing always. Always amazing to be with him even in a cafe. We just got on so well. He always felt guilty and tried to stop it but it kept happening. I was an idiot. I started to look at my marriage and why I felt the way I did and it became obvious. I was neglected as a woman and a wife. I had lived with a man who had never even complimented me, put his arm around me, hugged me or told me he’d loved me. The OM was the opposite!! When he took hold of my hand I almost melted into the ground. I had never felt like this before. He said he often got carried away with me and, after 5 years of ‘friendship’ he put a stop to it so we never meet again after a steamy night in a hotel room. I had already ended my marriage at the end of 2020 btw as I knew I had crossed the line and I had started to realise why. He was giving me what I so very much desired and I had/have strong feelings for him. However, he won’t leave his wife. He has made that clear and I feel stupid and used after so many phone calls (hours long) and Skype chats. He provided support my husband never did in all areas of my life. He has a tendency to come back but I know this has to stop. We have tried to be just friends but it is impossible due to the high sexual chemistry between us. I know I need to move on.
However, my life now lies in tatters. I quit my job and moved into another area thinking it would solve everything. I have lost my career/profession. I am on more
money but have awful staff (needy/bullying) to deal with and a very stressful role. It isn’t my background so I am extremely unhappy. The youngest child lives with me so I am unable to return to my profession as it would mean moving away from her father. He moved out and lives across town. I am also still battling through divorce proceedings as he is offering a 70/30 split in his favour. My eldest child has really taken it badly. He lives with his father although he is away with me at present. He says I have picked a horrible time for him (A-levels) to divorce and he is blaming me for everything. I wanted to end the marriage years ago but didn’t as there was never a right time.
I am so unhappy right now. Alone in the evenings (youngest in her room) and nobody there for me. I feel under immense pressure to pay bills now and keep this job going. I have someone at work who is after my job so is trying to belittle me so that I leave. I have to sell the family home and give him his share meaning I need a mortgage till 67 leaving me with little disposable income and a worse lifestyle than I have ever had. I feel bitter at the relationship I could’ve had but never did and bitter at what I am losing even though I was the one who worked hard (doing courses) to get a better salary.
I know a lot a people on here will beat me with a stick but I truly can’t believe how I got here! Menopause changed me and made me go through all sorts of shit (at times I was suicidal)! I didn’t go on HRT and seem to be through the worst of it now but I feel very, very different to what I did 5 years ago.
How did this happen and what the heck can I do??