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?

So he buried his penis in another woman and it was a cry for help.
Of all the pathetic excuses I've read on here that men come out with that takes the biscuit.

"then I think you need to find the 5% of men who for various reasons including accident, illness, stupidity, obesity still being in the honeymoon phase, do not attempt to cheat.

So only ill, injured, stupid, or obese men don't cheat? You truly believe that?

Why would they be "stupid" not to cheat? Because that's what you're basically saying. Why would "stupid" even have a place in that list?

Honestly, SMH.

You don't have to rush to make a decision and whatever decision you do make doesn't have to stand forever. I do think you need some time on your own though to gather your thoughts about all of this. He needs to move out to allow you this .

I wouldn't give him even the idea of a chance. I also wouldn't believe a word he says going forward. He's admitted what he needs to due to being found out but that won't be everything.
I'm not a forgiver, so I'd end it now.

This is a very sensible post.

Think very carefully. He has behaved poorly but how he behaves now is also important. He's remorseful, he has cut off contact, he's willing to work on your relationship.

He also needs to work on himself.

She cannot take everything 🙄 those days are over. It will be a fair split which may may 50/50, may not.

If this is how he deals with stress, let him scratch his woefully inadequate coping strategies elsewhere. My exH did this and i ended it there and then. I knew I'd never forgive. Best decision for all of us. And as far as I was concerned, he could stick his 'dabbling with coke' mid life crisis up his arse. Devastating though it was, it absolutely showed his true colours, and I was worthy of so much more.

This is an excellent post and really resonates with me!
OP, like many posters have said, it's the pre-mediation that is the unpardonable thing about what he's done! My STBX also commited adultery in that pre-meditated manner. I only know about 2 of the SM apps he went on to find someone to betray me with, but that's 2 too many and it was the pre-meditation of it that outraged and disgusted me the most. I felt my intelligence was being disrespected and that enraged me almost more that the actual act of him having sex with someone else! That disgusted and repulsed me but the pre-mediation infuriated me!! The sheer cold-blooded, calculated choice to betray and deceive the person he'd vowed to God to be faithful to for life! That made me see him as a totally different person and I am awaiting the result of a Marriage Tribunal now, i.e. an annulment on the grounds he was never truly commited to be faithful to me. TBH, I believe when they cheat in a calculated way that means they have a low or even disordered character and thus, were never fit for marriage in the first place as such people will always be motivated not by conscience, but by selfishness. They don't care if something's wrong, only if they can get away with it. They cannot be trusted and are not safe to have in one's life!
I know it's agony now, but nothing can undo the damage he's done. You have to put your own wellbeing and safety first now and now I'm a year on, I can honestly say that, apart from the odd wave of anger and disgust, I have detached emotionally now and don't miss him at all! I started to view the entire relationship, and him , in a different light over the last year and realised he was never quite right and I had "settled", settled for someone who was never on my level in terms of morals and character. Someone who was pretending to be better than he was and couldn't keep up the act anymore!
I am a Catholic and do believe in the importance of marriage, but when one spouse commits adultery in this sort of pre-meditated manner, I think it's a sign they were never of good-enough character to begin with, and have never been fit for marriage anyway. Now you've caught him he's all sorry but it's really just self-pity rather than for betraying and hurting you. Mine was absolutely rotten with self-pity when I threw him out and it blew my mind a bit- I didn't recognise the resentful, self-pitying creature before me. I lost all respect for him and knew I was doing the right thing. He's gone on to make a right mess of his life due to his lack of good charater. He too blamed a bereavement and other difficult life events, plus me of course! One thing he has never done is taken responsibility and accountability for his vile actions. It sounds as if your H is playing the "poor-me" as well and wanting you to be mummy and make it "all better" and feel bad for him, putting your own hurt and anger away! Well, they are over-grown kids in men's bodies OP but we're not their bloody mothers and we shouldn't baby them. We thought we'd married adults, but they've show they're not. We can't reparent them and make them into decent, mature, trustworthy men with integrity. It's not our job. Look after yourself and your actual children now, do it at YOUR pace, get all the advice and info you need to get the best outcome for you and your children. You own him nothing!
( Wow, that was longer than I thought it'd be, sorry!)
I'll be thinking of you and hoping and praying for the best for you OP!

Ah, there's always one, isn't there?
It's the old "unmet needs" fallacy! It's always the betrayed partner's fault, sure don't we all know that! 🙄

I have forgiven because I have to, it's part of my religion all it means is, seeking justice but not seeking revenge, being prepared to let the anger go eventually, not to deny our justifiable anger but to not let it turn into a grudge. It just means "letting go" and that can happen along with moving on from the person who harmed you. Forgiveness is not the same as pardon and absolution and certainly doesn't mean reconciliation. We can't pardon or absolve someone who isn't abject with remorse, totally transparent and totally resolved to never do the evil deed again and it wouldn't be wise to either. It'd be almost a form of unwitting self-harm to reconcile with someone like that, as he's proved he can be very cold-blooded and calculating when it comes to getting what he wants and would never admit it if he was not caught. This is the case with my STBX as well.
I think we could do with re-defining what forgiveness actually is and isn't. IMO this sort of betrayal is unpardonable. The perp must be made to face just consequences and the victim's welfare is the priority!

@LadyLazarus72 ‘not the solution that he’d hoped.’ And what if it HAD been the solution??? Good grief. Sorry, I’m with the majority here - this took too much time and effort for him to arrange.
If my dh did this? Yeah, game over.
But you should take time to consider your next move, hopefully to see a lawyer, and take it from there. The shock of a betrayal like this will take a long time to get your head around.

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….

Apologies if this has already been covered but @LadyLazarus72 was your husband close to his dad? Was he hit hard by his death? I ask because people can often use something like this as an excuse for behaviour they know is not okay, they see it as an opportunity to try 'out of character' behaviour because they think they're more likely to get away with it.

Sorry to be blunt OP but he is telling you what he thinks you want to hear. What he did was unforgivable. No way does he deserve a chance. He's only sorry now because he got caught

I think you meant to quote someone else.

All those posters wringing their hands about how he's remorseful, has cut contact , wants to try and fix things...

ONLY BECAUSE HE WAS CAUGHT!

Christ, some people have incredibly low expectations of the respect they get from someone who would claim to love them and have their back

I am divorced. And in many ways my life is better than before. But even so - I do not agree with MN’s approach of never trying to fix a relationship, and never forgive - completely ignoring context of behaviour and level of remorse.
As a society we give second chances at rehabilitation to most hardened criminals, even murderers. But if it involves a physical act of sex - no mercy… 🤷🏻‍♀️

My advice is to look at your marriage with a broader lens - 20 years is a long time to just throw away. And - the extenuating circumstances; aging; depression , etc - of course matter. People are not robots. They make mistakes. Sometimes life’s knocks and challenges accumulate and snowball into what feels unmanageable and people can become self-destructive.

As he did. It doesn't sound that his breakdown was about you, really. Hard as it must be to see it this way now that you are at the immediate aftermath of affair discovery.

You don’t need to decide anything now. You can pull the plug at any moment.
But I’d at least try to see if you two can make it through - as many people actually do. Despite what MN wants to believe.

I don't think anyone can tell you what to do, my exH decided he was now into BDSM and fetish and was always wandering round the house dressed as a gimp and opening the door like that.
I gave him an ultimatum and said if you want to do that stuff go to a club in London and do it out of my and the neighbours sight.
I thought he would get it out of his system and grow up. He was in his 50's at the time. A lot of it was wearing fake boobs and high heels as well.
I made my boundaries perfectly clear. But after a year it all just escalated to ridiculous levels and I felt if I put up with this he will take the piss for ever more and drag me down with him.
So we got divorced and now he has ditched the fetish and is whingeing about everything he has lost and of course its all my fault for being so unreasonable.
This was also a 20 year marriage. Make your boundaries very very clear and tell him if he crosses them there will be no more marriage.

Cry for help, hahaha.....yes, when I need emotional support and I'm in a bad place I always go out and shag some bloke.
It didn't turn out so well for Huw Edwards did it? He's now living with his mum.

Those married people sites are not hook up sites. They are for people seeking a proper affair relationship. Its not easy for men to meet a woman on there - they need to really work at getting a woman to engage in a conversation with them, let alone meeting them and let alone then agreeing to meet them for sex.

He's lying to you.

They all say ' it was just sex! It was meaningless' when they are discovered. All of them.

Prostitutes do try to drum up business on these sites., but yes there are real married women there. They join for free. Very high monthly fees for men though, in the hundreds.

Wanted to add - I used a married dating site when I was going through divorce, which was not related to infidelity.
He is not wrong about people’s motivations/intentions on it. Mostly - it’s regular people who do NOT want to have an actual affair. And do NOT want to change circumstances.
Most women on there are in sexless marriages.
In general, it seemed that many people on there were deeply unhappy, or are in a difficult place in life.

In my marriage - i think i could have dealt with infidelity. But i could not deal with years of not being treated as an equal simply because i stayed home to raise our kids. While he built his Big Career. And on top of that he decided to hide away family money - so that if we did get divorced - I’d not get much of ‘His’ money as he saw it….

This is why I said - that the totality of relationship is important in decoding what to do.
IF he is generally a good partner and you can see yourself growing old with him - hold on to that! It is so rare.
Not many friends around me who are still married - look at their H’s and dreaming of being old with them. Most are there because of inertia. Divorce is very disruptive and there are no guarantees on meeting someone better….

And sex with someone off such website can easily be meaningless. I’ll try to explain.

Sex with someone you are emotionally involved with - is both a physical experience and emotional connection.

But sex can be just about sex, with no emotions involved. Just a physical experience.
I think this is what people mean when they say ‘meaningless’.

I also think most men can have both types of encounters. Some women can too - most cant. Guessing its how we are built.

Dont know if any of this helps

This is so insightful. Thank you.

@jsku

Sex can be just sex, absolutely. I am a woman. I have had plenty of "meaningless" sex with men, but none of it was sought from within a marriage behind my husbands back as a cure for grief.

He might have been the gold standard of husbands up to this point, but it's important to accept that something in the relationship has now fundamentally changed as a result of his actions, which were considered, not a rash one off.

One way to deal with this would be to think, well I did see myself growing old with him, divorce is very disruptive and there are no guarantees of meeting someone better so I'm going to stick with inertia and do nothing. Divorce is very disruptive, one hundred percent, but you know what's more disruptive? Going on a little self discovery mission to see what it's like to fuck someone that's not your wife because you're feeling a bit sorry for yourself.

I agree with you in that this isn't black and white, nothing ever is. But he's opened up their relationship without her consent or knowledge, and unfortunately that has changed everything. Thing's won't and can't be the same from now on, and he'd have some major work to do to keep the show on the road, it's not up to the wronged partner to count their blessings and keep their head down.

I agree. I wasn't saying OP should just keep her head down.
Meant to say that marriages and their longevity don’t only depend of sexual fidelity.

I think that marriages that get through infidelity are those where the actual relationship is solid and there is respect and real connection. But life and mistakes still happen. Then, its possible to move on and rebuild.
Many marriages deal with infidelity and survive.

But if the relationship is already shaky and long term survival was in question as is - infidelity pushes it over the edge.

@LadyLazarus72

He hasn’t been able to do it with me since, but he has done a test now.

Have YOU had an STI test? 🌹