Multiple affairs, MS and what to do next….?

[64scared]

I am nearly 60. I’ve been with my husband for nearly 40 years. We have two kids in their thirties. Our marriage has, I thought, been pretty good, though I was diagnosed with MS at 27 and my health has not been amazing. We had an intimate sex life until twenty years ago. My illness then just made it the last thing on my mind. We never really discussed it and that side of things faded away…

DH has been the provider our whole married lives, or since I was diagnosed anyway. He owns his own business and works hard, and this involves regular travel. When at home he is fully present and I’ve never doubted his commitment to me. Until now.

We have never hidden phones from each other. We go in each others WhatsApp’s for various reasons. Then last weekend I was using his phone and discovered an app called telegram which he had open. He had a conversation open and I flicked through… increasingly in horror.

He was describing to a woman his cheating history. This spans ten years and has ranged from a few months to apparently five years. He set out how he has loved these women but will never leave me as I need him and he is committed to me. He has used work travel as a cover and managed to run these relationships without me ever suspecting a thing.

I feel strangely calm and haven’t said anything but what the fuck to do. If I were to raise it I don’t know what I’d be asking for. My home life is happy and this has been happening for ten years without any impact on me. He has set out to this new prospect that this will continue and I am torn between wanting to go ape shit and wanting to turn a blind eye.

what do you think? He is my carer. I can’t live independently. I have no income. And he’s made it clear he will never leave me. I feel betrayed but I also know that it probably wasn’t great to expect him to live without sex forever more.

I just want to go back to a world where I didn’t open his bloody app…

Oh my gosh OP, what a horrendous situation to find yourself in. You do seem to be aware of all, or at least most of the aspects involved, including the fact that you have not had an intimate relationship for a long time. Sadly I have no great wisdom to offer you, but I do think it is highly unlikely that your DH would stay with you for all that time if he wasn't deeply in love with you.

So at the moment, the best advice I can offer you - and I hope it is good advice, but I am definitely no expert - is if it is at all mentally possible for you, give yourself a couple of days to think this over thoroughly before talking to your DH about it. If you have someone else you are close to in real life, and if you trust them to have your best interests at heart, and to not have a knee jerk reaction to this shocking news, then please discuss it with them as well. Good Luck OP, I am sending you the best of wishes, and a big hug if you will accept it xxx

What a horrible shock OP, you now have to decide what's going to be best for you as he has been doing what's best for him. If that is to not mention it and carry on as you are then that is your choice (and at least it's an informed one now). He's been keeping this from you so there's no obligation to not keep your knowledge from him. You certainly wouldn't be the first to turn a blind eye.

If you choose to talk about it with him then you need to think very carefully about what you want to achieve. Keeping it quiet might just not be an option if you feel consumed by it. Would you just want him to know that you know? Would you want to split up? Would you want him to stop and work on getting back the intimacy between you? Do what's best for you.

I know it's wrong but it must be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a 40 year old man to go without sex for the rest of his life.

The alternative was to divorce you - his wife who hasn't done anything wrong but has MS - and that makes him look bad too. I have a friend with MS and her husband divorced her when he found out, not long after they married and obviously this has made him the villan ever since (she didn't tell him she had MS before they got married)

He's in an unenviable position and so are you. I don't know what the answer is but I do know that there are, and always have been, marriages where people turn a blind eye to infidelity as long as everything else is OK.

I'm sorry for your illness .

Yes I feel for both parties. I don’t blame him for struggling with the lack of intimacy and nor do I think Op is responsible. That doesn’t make the lies and deceit ok though.

Sounds like a lot to digest OP, I’m sorry.

Do you get what you need from the relationship? Has it been working for you? Are you happy never to be physically intimate with him ever again?

if so then it’s a lot to process but it might be a situation where pragmatically the best thing is to turn a blind eye.

This is an awful discovery for you OP.
I think you need to really let the information sink in and think before you do anything.
Do you have anyone in real life that you are close enough to talk to about this?
I'm afraid I would not be able to carry on and turn a blind eye in that I would need to talk to him about the information discovered. I couldn't pretend I didn't know, even if I ultimately didn't want to end the marriage.

I am fine without sex. The thought of it now is unbearable. I just couldn’t. Turning a blind eye feels the best thing in many ways but that’s not a choice, it’s a reaction. I don’t feel like I have choices. If we divorced I would presumably get half of assets but I can’t imagine he would be expected to provide me with an income and / or a carer. I feel completely stuck….

I feel sorry for you both, you went down a path of no intimacy and as you say didn't have a conversion about it, just assumed it was ok. He feels he can't leave, so has stayed but found an outlet that until now hasn't affected you, as you've not been intimate there's no risk of STDs to yourself, you said he's fully present.
A very valid choice for yourself is just ignoring it, it sounds like he doesn't flaunt it and you've been happy ignoring it. I'd be very careful about how you want to proceed, he may feel if you start the conversation he can leave you and as you say, even with half assets that would leave you on disability benefits and with no carer.

Id take some time to seriously think about if you want to open discussions with him.

It's not really about you being fine without sex though, it's about him being fine without it. Which obviously he isn't. I'm sorry, 😔 not every problem has a solution.

In your position, I'd keep quiet and carry on. You don't want sex, he does. So he goes out to get it, without disturbing your life. So, appreciate what you've got. Perhaps make plan B in case he finds a woman he has to be with full time.

Said kindly OP but you are among a number of posters "surprised" by infidelity whilst "benefiting" from a long term sexless marriage.

People will often talk about the need to be candid in such situations and that the spouse should have left the relationship or been honest/sought permission for extra marital sex. I'd also suggest that goes both ways in asking the person denied a sex life if they are happy to proceed in the marriage on that basis long term. I'm genuinely shocked at how many people think their spouse would be happy at forgoing sex "forever" at young age.

You have already said you wish you had not seen these messages.

The question really is how much you value what you get from the relationship.

It's clear through his actions that your spouse is not willing to live a sex free life but equally he is committed to being in a relationship with you. Rightly or wrongly he's chosen a way to navigate your lack of sex drive whilst maintaining the marriage (and his infidelity started after 10 years without marital sex - it's not like he didn't try).

You now need to navigate how you deal with this revelation.

Personally I'd be inclined to say nothing if I wanted the relationship to continue and only raise it if I wanted to divorce.

Telling him you know will change the dynamic (even if you agree he can continue) and you risk the fact that now it's in the open he he less careful about being discreet or even feels that the damage is done and he might as well leave.

This discovery was brutal for you, but he may well have been feeling the same. He had no choice about your MS and you say you never really discussed the lack of sex. I know that you had no choice there either and sure it's been no fun.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. And especially the last paragraph.

To add, one positive I think you can take from this is that he's been very clear to this new prospect that he has no intention of leaving you.

He's also had, from what you have posted, meaningful relationships over the last 10 years and not left you.

It's possible that some of these relationships ended because of that - in other words despite the lack of sex his relationship with you has remained his priority.

You need a plan incase he does decide to leave you, there’s a strong possibility he may.

I was recently speaking to a woman whose husband had recently died. She said he husband had had multiple affairs and it was common knowledge- she turned a blind eye for years then reached a point when she couldn’t take it any more. The lady spoke a solicitor and got prepared for a divorce, she then gave her husband an ultimatum- he decided to stay, it would have financially ruined him if he hadn’t.

I’m sorry you found out this way. I think in any marriage without sex one party will cave. It’s worrying that neither of you discussed it. He clearly cares for you as he has no intention of leaving. If you feel calm now, this may change. I would consider it but I would talk to him. He carries on living as your partner/carer but having needs fulfilled elsewhere or you separate? Maybe you need to look into what care you would get if you were single?

Take some time to consider what outcome you want. If you want to maintain the status quo which is totally understandable, then personally I wouldn't talk to him about it. If you do as PP have said the relationship would probably change, he'd have no need to be discreet anymore

Op, did you think that your dh was prepared to put up with a sexless marriage?
Tbh, I don’t understand why you are shocked by the fact that he has had multiple affairs.
You unilaterally decided that you did not want sex anymore which is understandable given your condition. Your dh made a decision to get intimacy elsewhere .

If you decided to leave, and the assets were split, you should get money from PIP. And I suppose ESA? So you would have something coming in.

It's such a difficult situation as you're ill but he wants the intimacy of sex so I feel for you both

It’s really tricky but sounds ultimately like your relationship is companionship with obviously a deep love for eachother with that, but he’s clearly been missing sexual intimacy which I do think is understandable.

I find deceit difficult to accept myself, but in this scenario I would almost understand his reasoning.

If you do tell him you know the others are right that the dynamic will change. That being said, you do know and so that may well change how you interact.

Ultimately it’s your choice whether you want to accept this as the relationship now, personally I would rather it be open and transparent but perhaps you don’t want that and if you do decide you want the relationship to continue then may well be best not to mention it.

I don't if this view will be popular...

But can't you talk to him about this discovery? I think you should take some time to think about what this means to you.

In some ways, I think both of you are wrong. You for not talking about the no interest in sex and him for taking it out of the marriage without talking about it and the lies and deceit.

I'm not saying you are to blame for him being a liar and a cheat. He is to blame for that. He is deceitful. Nobody can dispute that. However, I also feel you made a decision without talking to him that set the narrative for the next how many years. It's really hard to live without sex if you love someone. It can the glue that bonds you together. Without it, to me it's like flat mates but that is only my point of view.

When you have had a think talk to him.
Tell him what you've found. Tell him what you've thought about. Are you going to decide to stay with him but open up the marriage on his side? He's been doing that anyway.

Or will you divorce, take your share and maybe get a carer?

I'm not sure what the right thing to do is. Only you can decide that. But I can't see the status quo carrying on much longer. I couldn't keep trying to be normal or pretending everything is okay when it's not.

Bring it out into the open. How that conversation goes is obviously for you to decide. But I personally couldn't live with the lies and deceit, no matter how much I understood the circumstances.

And obviously, I am sorry you are ill. I'm sorry life has happened this way. But you deserve to be happy with the truth and in a way, even he does. Only got one life.

This must have been very shocking to find out. I can appreciate the shock of seeing it written down.

But have you never wondered in the last 20 years if he was really ok without any sexual contact?

In an ideal world he should have asked for an open marriage. But how would have taken that?

Would it have been better if he left you 10-15 years ago? Would you have accepted an open marriage? Or would you have felt like you didn’t have a choice then?

You say you feel like you have had no choices. But you did. You chose not to discuss this and assume he was ok. He chose to not accept it without speaking to you.

The marriage has only been sexless due to ill health, nothing to do with her love for her husband.

I've known two women live with sexless marriages for many years without having mutiple affairs, it's not as inevitable as many are suggesting.

OP I think you are in a very difficult postion, knowing what you do. Take some time, perhaps talk to a professional. Sadly you can't unsee what you saw.

Take note everyone: don't get ill and expect your spouse to stay faithful.