Husband midlife crisis ‘random sex’: should I give him a chance

[LadyLazarus72]

Hi,
I have been with my husband for 20 years. These have been happy, but we both have had lots of stress over the last few years: caring for elderly parents, traumatic loss, raising kids and working two stressful full time jobs. Recently, (last 6 months) after the death of his dad, husband has been in full midlife crisis mode, very distant, online all the time, etc., utterly snappy….
I found out last week that he was not only explicitly chatting to a number of women online but that he had arranged to sleep with a married woman on a website designed for such a purpose. They met up whilst he was on a night away; he had said he was going camping, and I had fully supported him in having some time away. I found the message from the STD clinic as the first indication he had slept with someone.
Being confronted, he admitted everything and has said he had put himself in a complete bubble, and the encounter was ‘meaningless’. He does not know the woman, has ended all contact already, just wanted to ‘scratch an itch’.
He has admitted to being addicted to his screen and has given me all passwords,etc. and answered all my questions. He has said he will go to counselling.
He says he feels his actions were a ‘cry for help’ even though utterly wrong; in one way I believe him, even though his actions have been eviscerating for me.
Should I give him a chance? I genuinely think he wants to chance AT THE MOMENT, but I also don’t want to waste the rest of my life working on something if this will happen again…it will be too painful.
Anyone had any experience of anything like this? Advice?

Agree with this.

There must also have been so many moments when what he was doing and the hurt this would cause would have wormed into his brain. But he chose getting his rocks off still.

He chose to do this.

Cry for help my arse. Own what you did and take the consequences , you piece of shit.

Really surprised that they didn't use a condom, or did it break?

If it were a cry for help, why didn’t he tell you about it? Why did he let you find out for yourself?

I would be inclined to forgive an unplanned one-night stand but this infidelity was calculated and it sounds like he wasn’t fussy who he slept with, it’s not like he met someone and it just happened.

Can you manage on your own, OP? Are you financially and mentally able to support yourself? If so, get rid of him.

Oh lord, he thinks he's traumatised? Wow

Ah so he was probably setting groundwork there whilst planning his little tryst, gauging your reaction and probably hoping you'd agree re: sex/emotions so he could feel less guilty or throw that at you "you agreed so I didn't think you'd be upset".

want to make the right decision for the long term.

But most importantly, the right decision for you . You're not the one who shat all over your marriage so please make yourself and your children your priority, your husband's wants come right at the bottom of the list - he made his choices.

"oh darling i didnt realise you wanted an open marriage. Why didnt you say"

If you both want to see if this marriage can move forward positively you need to get in to marriage and separate counselling asap.

It’s not impossible to get over this but you both need to want it and be open to talk about hard things.

This would be the end for me. I am not prepared to put up with a bloke navel gazing and justifying or analysing why he behaved in a completely unacceptable way.

The fact is he deliberately went to considerable lengths to cheat on his wife and because of his lies you waved him off with a cheery smile and an 'enjoy yourself' as he went off to have a prearranged shag with a complete (also married) stranger. He was no doubt sniggering at how clever he'd been.

He's a disgusting human being. He can have whatever counselling he likes, but at the end of the day it's utterly irrelevant why he behaved like that, or what he's learned about himself. I would not be interested in giving him a second change. If he hadn't been caught he'd be continuing in this. It doesn't even sound like he's genuinely sorry - he's simply making excuses as to why he couldn't help himself and none of it is his fault. He's scum and I'd be ending the marriage.

I'd be tempted to do this and have an affair of my own. What a knob. Parents die. Mine did. I didn't have an affair justifying it as a cry for help.

This isn't a got drunk, random shag thing.

This is a drawn out, internet search, planned away, lying to you with the express purposes of knobbing someone else, unprotected and getting an STD clinic involved.

He has realised that he will lose his house, house elf, carer in old age and is now playing you like a fiddle.

In all of his weeks, months of messages he didn't think about you once. If the knobbing had been good he would go for it again.

I couldn't stay with a husband who had such little respect for our marriage vows. He isn't the only man in the world with midlife pressures, most manage to get through without knobbing a hook up woman.

I would never be able to think of him the same ever again, it would always be there, the going gets tough then tough go knobbing? Nah not for me, phone passwords or not.

Only you can decide. Personally, when it comes to infidelity I am very much a "one strike and you're out" person. It's not just about whether you can be sure it will never happen again. It's about the deceit and dishonesty they were prepared to undertake for it to happen. It's also about whether you can not just forgive but also forget, because it's a massive breach of trust and one I know I could never fully put behind me. Every time you are apart for a night will you be able not to tie yourself in knots worrying what he might be up to? Are you going to end up questioning everything he does and getting suspicious every time he's on his phone? That's not a healthy way to live and not one I would accept for myself.

I also don't buy the excuses. Plenty of people manage to work through depression, stress, grief or trauma without cheating on their partner.

I think deep down you already know what your decision is that you feel is best for you. You want to stay, you just need to put up,a bit of a fight first to have a semblance of dignity in staying, but not too much he ends it. Hence why you’re pretending to beleive this nonsense, the cry for help etc, it plays to what you want to beleive . It helps you justify it to yourself.

i think that’s ok,but you should be honest with yourself. If you’re staying for the lifestyle or you don’t want to be alone, then stay, and get what you need from him so you can make your peace with it.

The disrespect! I would say save yourself a lot of grief, worry, guilt, crushed self esteem and general unhappiness and go straight to divorce. I tried very hard to ‘get over’ an affair and I ended up with PTSD, an eating disorder and essentially it just broke me. When he eventually left I could begin to heal and rediscover myself. As women we sacrifice and compromise so much for our relationship and it’s such a kick in the teeth to throw that away for a seedy one night stand with some random woman from a married cheaters website.

I don't think OP is pretending to believe anything. It's hard to break up a long marriage with children. I think you need a bit of time, OP, and some counselling to get over the betrayal.

I just don’t think I buy it.

The life stress that you describe is absolutely no excuse for what he did.

Did he think that his late father would be proud of him going on some shagging site? How would his late father have felt about being used as justification for that? Me and DH have had 3 elderly parents die in the last 4 years. Following the gruelling care/death process, we’ve had loads of paperwork and solicitor shit to do. Not visiting shagging sites.

See I don't get how chatting things through with a stranger and your cheating husband can uncover any reason that excuses knowingly committing such an enormous breach of trust and respect. Especially with the planning involved here ... what could ever justify it?

he has now said he was wrong and had no idea how traumatic the whole thing would be

He found it traumatic did he, his brave cry for help? What a soldier.

Pull the other one. You know what's traumatic, your wife of 20 years finding out you've been grubbing about on sex websites and meeting women for random fucks, landing you in the STD clinic, and realising she's about to take half the house with her when she leaves, and there will be nobody to leave a shepherds pie in the oven when you're back late from golf.

That's what he's traumatised about, not the roll around he sought.

Even though you're the person who has been betrayed he's making it all about himself and making out he is the victim in all of this - that it's a cry for help etc.

Honestly the only way I could even potentially forgive cheating is if I was told pretty much immediately after off their own back. The fact he only admitted it once he was caught really makes me think there's no reason he wouldn't do it again.

People say it's kinder not to tell someone and you're only confessing to ease your guilt. I disagree.

Consent needs to be informed. Choices need to be informed. I choose to be with my husband on the assumption he's not sticking his dick in random women without protection. If it turns out I'm incorrect, it's no longer a relationship I want to be in as he's not the person I thought he was and I don't have the relationship I thought I did. I deserve that choice. I deserve to know so I can choose. I don't deserve that choice to be taken away from me because it's the kind thing to do like I am a child who needs protecting. Especially when the person protecting me is the one I need protection from.

When someone is unfaithful and lies about it, they are taking that choice away from you. That's what I find the most reprehensible part of affairs. It's that we have such limited time on earth and you are letting someone you supposedly love live a life that isn't what they think it is. That, if they knew the truth, they wouldn't want any part of.

I also think there's something sort of psychopathic about being able to compartmentalise so well that you can kiss your partner goodnight and talk about a made up camping trip and chat about the weather and cuddle and kiss and whatever else, all while doing something behind their back that you know would hurt them so greatly. Even in the cases of a one off - that you can come home and just pretend so easily.

That's definitely not a situation I want to be in and so once someone cheats and lies then I'm done with them. If they tell the truth.. well it depends on the situation whether I can forgive it and on how I feel.

Lots of people have different views and we can only make our own boundaries and do what is right for us. We all draw our lines in different places.

I would point out though that he genuinely believed there would be no consequences so thought it would be fine which makes him seem a bit morally questionable. Basically as long as nothing bad happens to you it's fine to do whatever you want. Maybe he would argue the only reason any of us don't steal or murder or scream abuse at the elderly in the street is because if we did we would face consequences. I guess at that point we start getting a bit philosophical. I don't know. It's just not for me. I'm sorry this is happening to you. I hope you find peace with the choice you make.

So, your long term life partner when the going gets tough; connives, plans and turns to sex with strangers.
This is how he reacted to life stress. Going forward in life you two will experience many more life stressors.
So when shit hits the fan, when you’ll inevitably be struggling with ??, do YOU want and need the added burden of knowing he’s going to fuck around?
He’s not going the be there for you not for anything major for sure. He’s done it once and will do it again.

I wouldn't forgive this.

This wasn't a one-off mistake (which I still potentially wouldn't forgive, but would be better). This was continually making a decision to cheat every time he logged on to the site, start talking to the woman, lied to you about where he was going etc.

I honestly don't know if I could forgive that. I do believe in counselling (it worked for my husband though he didn't cheat, he was just an arse) but with your husband the premeditation and the Machiavellian planning of it all, as well as the seeming shrug of his shoulders over it being an itch to scratch would deeply concern me.

Nah, he could piss off and have his midlife crisis somewhere I wasn't going to get caught in the crossfire if it was me, his self indulgent bullshit would give me the ick and kill any desire I ever had for him anyway so no point sticking around. Some things are forgivable in a long (and otherwise happy) marriage but this level of planning, deceit and betrayal? No, he's destroyed everything you built for a 'meaningless' shag.

Take a really realistic look at what you have to come if you stay with him, months (at least) of anguish and hard, time consuming work to rebuild your marriage and some semblance of trust (which may not even work) followed by (at best) an uneasy level of trust and belief in his respect for you and commitment to your relationship, something you never quite get rid of ime, however hard you both try.

Compared to the alternative, you split and it's painful for a while, you grieve and then heal and move on and your new life is full of potential and possibilities and it's all in your power, you get to decide how it turns out. I know which I would choose, leaving him might be scary but staying would be a million times worse imo.

When you say he wanted to scratch an itch, that implies that you and he aren't having sex. Is that right?

I don't condone cheating, but I do waver a bit if one person has withdrawn intimacy from the marriage. Someone with a sex drive isn't going to stay celibate forever if they feel rejected.

Yes, you should end the relationship rather than cheat, but life isn't always so black and white.

Well he definitely has an itch to scratch now.

You are I hope getting checked out too.