The outcome of my affair

[Namechange2399]

Hi, I am not sure why I am posting, perhaps I just need to get my head straight.

I am now a divorced early 50’s with two adult DC. 2 years ago I had an affair and left my husband of 25 years. I thought I was bored with my life after the DC’s had left and was swept off my feet with someone new. The key context here is that on reflection I was suffering with undiagnosed effects of the menopause prior to this - it literally changed me as a person.

Post treatment (HRT amongst other things) I am mostly back to what I was before. The new relationship ended as on reflection it was never what I really wanted or needed. Without excusing my behaviour the acts, the impulses and behaviour was not the real me. However I do take full responsibility.

My DC’s though traumatised at the time have adjusted and have their own adult lives. My xDH although devastated behaved impeccably, probably to protect the DC, and we split without rancour. XDH lived locally until last month when he moved to the coast - this is something we spoke about as retirement.

The problem I have is that I still love my xDH and miss him terribly. We have continued to meet as a family and over the last 9 months or so I have realised he is the good man he always was, funny, respectful, kind etc. He even helped me financially when I split with my affair partner. I am not seeking sympathy, however I realise the menopause has screwed my life and that I have thrown away the future that I should have had. I also realise I have caused the man I love a huge amount of pain that he did not deserve.

Unfortunately I think the OP is long gone. It took us an hour and a half to dismantle any hope she had of sharing her experience to anyone’s benefit, or of perhaps finding support and empathy. The original post was at just before 3pm and by 4.25pm she posted that she was out. Some kind of record I think.

Its a grass is greener thing.
I had a yo-yo back when I was young.
He's lucky because she can't use the 'for the kids' line of emotional blackmail.
She picked the lonely for the rest of my life route, and cut him loose.
Dating for women in their 50's is brutal.
A guy with resources can date younger.
What's a 50+ women gonna do?
She divorced him. The only thing she has to offer is familiarity. But if he were interested in relationships, she's competing with women 15 years younger than her.

There are different types of menopause and whilst many need to be very judgy in their comments, for some women it is very life wrecking.

I have come through a decade long menopause and I have friends that are still dealing with it.
It can be really awful.

Once loving relationships have become very strained and one dear friend of mine doesn't know how she is going to navigate the coming years as her husband of 40 years very breathing drives her mad.

HRT nor the support of an excellent physiologist has fully got to grips with her irrational hormonal irritation.

OP, you have my sincere sympathy.

There wasnt any benefit to be gained anyways. Everyone knows the consequences of divorce, and by all accounts it was very amicable. Pretending like you're going to be the rare exception to a divorce that get back together again is a new level if delusion for MN I think.

And this is what you take from the OP saying they had one conversation where they were honest with each other, and he told her there was no way back ?

I don’t think the OP’s posts were in any way ‘delusional’. Are you sure you’re on the right thread ?

MN is simply not the place to post about an affair, it’s full of women who are (rightly) full of hurt due to their own circumstances and are simply not able to step out of their own experiences to understand the bigger picture.

I agree. AIBU definitely isn’t the place to post about emotional subjects.
I followed a thread on grief a few weeks ago and was gobsmacked at the number of posters who had actually experienced the loss of a life partner, who were chased off the thread for posting from their own experience and trying to invoke some understanding and empathy for the grieving process. They were basically told they didn’t know what they were talking about, and were ‘lecturing’ others. Most of of the posters, by their own admission hadn’t experienced a loss or were comparing the loss of a parent with the loss of a partner.

No empathy for something that will one day come to us all, to me, signals that a lot of MN contributors are, as you put it, ‘simply not able to step outside of their own experiences to understand the bigger picture.’

I must have missed where you posted the citation for this 'huge upswing in suicides'. Could you share it again please? Thanks.

Here you are since your Google is obviously broken.

www.itv.com/news/2021-11-16/suicide-rates-in-women-of-menopausal-age-rise

Unless you have suffered the same in menopause, then I'm not sure you'd understand just how it can affect your personality, your life..

Your 'huge upswing' is a increase of six percent in 20 years?

Lol.

Suicide rates for women aged 45 to 54 – the most common age for perimenopause and menopause – have risen 6% in 20 years, according to the Office of National Statistic (ONS).

Over the same period, rates for over-55 women have fallen by 28%, research by Menopause Experts Group found.

I understand you are invested in absolving this op of responsibility for her own decisions, but i don't think that promoting this myth is very kind or helpful or responsible towards other women, is it?

There are different types of menopause and whilst many need to be very judgy in their comments, for some women it is very life wrecking

an affair is also 'life wrecking'.

I have also found the menopause to be complex and hard-going. I can see how it may cause people to act out of character and may bring about life-changing decisions that are later regretted.

But in supporting the OP, which so many are doing, it ignores the very real damage that was done to her husband with her affair. I have deep empathy with that. Like others, I struggle to be empathetic towards someone who has ignored the damage she has done to someone she claims to have loved and indeed, continues to harass because they've quietly got on with the life that was chosen for them and somehow, that is now more palatable than it was when someone new was paying her attention. All the OP is doing is shouting about how she regrets what she's done - I see no attempt to understand the damage she has caused, just excuse it with 'it was the menopause'. It's all me, me, me.

“It’s all me me me”

well, yes, it’s her thread. She doesn’t have to give us chapter and verse on her mea culpa just to make posters feel better. Her exH is not on this thread and she doesn’t need to demonstrate performative remorse to have a discussion about the way forward for her.

Please speak to your GP.

I'm torn on this re personal responsibility v menopause. Hormones are so important that when they go hideously wrong everything can be affected.
Even doctors don't really join the dots when women present with random symptoms - how many of us have been offered antidepressants?

If we can accept that in rare cases women can suffer post natal psychosis due to hormones being up the creek, surely it's not a stretch to also see that in rare cases a woman might have personality changes?

That's not to say that all affairs in middle age can be attributed to menopause or that menopause can be used as a 'get out of jail free' card. Most women, even those with terrible symptoms, won't have complete personality changes that result in behaviour so drastic.
But I do know that I became very anxious and my tolerance levels declined. I can believe that the OP had other, more severe changes.

Miracle? I think the first husband needs to get some self respect, frankly.

I expect he valued happiness over some ransom’s perception of self respect.

That’s actually a really simplistic view of it.

ONS states that suicide among men of the same age is also higher than 20 years ago. That’s not menopause related.

The graph in the article linked suggests that since the early 80s suicides in women in this age group have come down massively.

If you look at the graph 2001 was an exceptionally low year for female suicides(in that age range) so looking from 2021 to 2001 shows an increases of 6%. But it’s comparing an exceptionally low year, with a year that was hugely difficult for lots of people mentally.

If you look at (approx) 2015 to 2021 it’s a little lower. Or compared to around 2005 it’s quite a bit lower.

Levels of 2021 are not the highest they have been in the last 20 years. Certainly not in the last 40 years.

You are also, supposing, that all these women who felt this was their only option, were actually in menopause. Some would have been some would not have.

The data in the article has been interpreted by someone with a vested interest in presenting it a certain way.

That’s not saying menopause does drive some women to be suicidal. However, the data doesn’t quite give the story you presented.

It wasn’t me who said it. I just provided a link for someone who was too lazy to Google for themselves. 🤷‍♀️

Nope. Not lazy. Asking someone who had (in multiple posts) made an extreme, inflammatory, irresponsible and scaremongering claim, without any references, to provide the source for this claim.

You didn't need to Google on their behalf. They made this claim; i asked them to back it up with evidence.

Unsurprisingly, that evidence is extremely shaky and unconvincing.

It is well known that suicidal ideation can be contagious, and for this reason media outlets are meant to follow strict guidelines, which would include not deliberately telling an audience that they are at risk of suicide, without justification.

You would hope that posters on here would follow similar guidelines, but of course they don't.

Good that it's been so thoroughly debunked, thanks @Donnashair

As a woman approaching my mid-40s, it's a relief to know I'm not going to suddenly start fucking the postman or try to kill my husband, or myself.

Perhaps the poster who made that claim can provide you with better evidence. Who knows what you’ll do when you reach the menopause? Certainly not you unless you have an unusually reliable crystal ball.

Ah apologies.

But I think calling someone lazy for not googling a stat that someone else provided and used as ‘a gotcha’ to people who disagree with them is quite rude. You invoked yourself and provided the link to back up the claim so I think it’s fine I addressed you.

your comment ‘who knows how you feel when you reach menopause’ it’s actually pointless. Because if someone who has gone through menopause disagrees, you will just claims theirs wasn’t as bad as Ops. It’s pointless.

You ignored all the points about why it's a bad thing to scaremonger about suicide.

You, and others, may like to check out the Samaritans' guidelines here:

www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/media-guidelines/media-guidelines-reporting-suicide/

You are being extremely reckless and irresponsible, as was the poster who originally made those claims.

Of course I don't know what will happen in the future. That's the reason that scientific research is done, and why statistics are important. As is not misrepresenting statistical data in the interests of a current media fad for blaming everything on the menopause (or whatever the flavour of the month is).

Thinking you wind back wrecking your husbands life, having and affair, and divorcing a guy, blaming it on hormones and saying she wants everything back the way it was before she had her affair and wricked his life... Yes, I'd say that is clearly delusional.

Divorce is a point of no return. Men do not go back to women who cheat and then divorce them and FO. Thinking you can wind that type of betrayal back is just some sort of Disney romantic fantasy world thinking.

OP needs to move on. There are plenty of geriatrics in the sea looking for the company of an younger woman in their old age. Likewise there are plenty of single women in their late 30's early 40's who'd happily date a solvent man in his 50's.

He didn't choose this life, but looks like he's happy now. She chose this life, and she's not. She needs to deal with reality and avoid any romantic notion of reconsiliation, ah-didums, water under the bridge and all that. Its never gonna happen. Not even Holywood are willing to write those storylines.

Divorce is a point of no return. Men do not go back to women who cheat and then divorce them and FO.

Some do. I know one. 🤷‍♀️