Affair after nearly 40 years of marriage

[citylady62]

Same old story but after nearly 40 years of marriage and three grown up successful children I was ready to settle into a comfortable long retirement with my husband. In our marriage he's been the earner and I've worked part time. Times have gone up and down financially but we are now very comfortable - house in a good city and abroad. We have quite different interests and I know that I've been the more extrovert- would describe my husband maybe as borderline highly functioning ASD at times but only slightly. I guess we'd slipped into taking each other for granted. I'd envisaged a really easy ride retirement with him working in his interesting business which he's been growing for the part 4 years and will hopefully give us a good return eventually and which I can dabble in if I choose - it keeps him happy but too happy it turns out. He brought a woman into the business initially as a volunteer, then gave her a paid project and now she's full time managing one project. Last year he told me he no longer loved me and was worried for our future. I took it badly, threatened suicide. We dribbled on through winter into spring. No sleeping together. I suspected an affair but couldn't bring myself to ask. I know he loves the company of this woman who is 8 years his junior. He told me this spring that he had had an affair and slept with her ( I asked him this directly otherwise suspect he'd have kept that to himself) but couldn't contemplate breaking our family apart after so long. He's really keen got the grown up offspring not to know. I took it badly, threatened suicide again and he has agreed to end the affair. He's effectively ghosted his employee as I've told him it's her or me. I'm glad I'm causing her hurt through encouraging him to now treat her harshly because even though he says he instigated it I blame her for reciprocating. He has a high sex drive when younger but it slowed down a lot. I know they were really close, my husband was clearly in love and she's very much like him in personality- quiet, serious and work focused. God knows how he'll negotiate working with her without contact- their problem. He says he can't sack her as her own marriage ended (apparently not her fault and not through infidelity and before this affair) and he was a support through this. I should say my husband confessed to almost getting too close to another woman through work 4 years ago but we talked and it brought us closer, or do so thought. I don't want to lose him. I'm insanely jealous he turned to another woman for companionship leading to a 8 month affair. We slept together recently at my instigation as I needed evidence he was 'back' in our marriage. We'll have counselling. Not sure I'll ever forgive him but I do think, as does he, that he was ridiculous to threaten our comfortable years of retirement ahead and family moments just for the concept I suspect of finding a soulmate in his 60s. I know it's me forcing him to cut her off - he's out of touch emotionally in many ways and thought he could keep seeing her through work but I've put a stop to that by issuing an ultimatum. I know I'm very controlling but he's always seemed to be happy with that and happy in his own sweet world providing for me. We're starting counselling and I'm confident he's not seeing the OW and has but her off harshly to make things clear and he's constantly holding my hand etc again and agreeing to lots of being together. Will he really fall back in love with me having confessed to falling out of love with me last Autumn or is this all surface manipulation of feelings and deep down he still wants her? I can't contemplate life without the structure and status of my marriage - we've been together since I was in my early 20s so he's pretty much all I've known in terms of relationships. I just wanted life to keep
pottering on and can still incredulous he'd threaten all we've built up for an 8 month romance.
I confronted her at work and told her how awful she was for sleeping with my husband. She explained later he instigated and it was mutually deep feelings that they had for each other but i can't believe my loving gentle husband would go this without encouragement from her.

Now I'm feeling strong because he's back and has rejected her but I wonder if we can really ever get back to the 'together forever' stable couple I thought we were? Anyone else experienced an affair after such a long marriage? Will we make it? Will he suddenly give in on his no contact with OW I've forced him into? At the moment he's doing all to convince me it's over including sleeping with me and is full of regret but is this true love for me or normal for a man trying to convince himself that a good-ish marriage he almost gave up on for an affair is the better choice for comfort and stability in his later years (he's 64) than starting again with someone he once thought of as a soulmate but now seems able to cut off.

'why should the OW lose her job on top? '

She could just move on to the next conquest of which no doubt there will be many. There always is with these other women and other men.

The op's dh chose to stay. He knows her better than we do I'm sure he knows talk of suicide was just a desperate knee jerk reaction. No one has him at 'gunpoint' as a pp dramatically suggested.

I think she should kick him out but that is up to her. Years of being with him has maybe knocked her confidence.

OP's husband said HE instigated the affair. Saying the OW merrily go on to another conquest as though she's had dozens of affairs is really reaching! Not to mention downright misogynistic.

@marshmallowfinder I think so.

I was horrified at the threats of suicide but I also suggested she split the assets, got some therapy and got on with her life.

Suicide is a death without end. If the attempt is unsuccessful you are always waiting, never sleeping. You live in fear. If your relative or friend passes away you think you could have saved them, done more. It is the cruelty of the threat which makes me angry with the OP.
She has money, a dick of a husband and is not subject to DV. I'd be house shopping.
And the previous poster is right you can claim for constructive dismissal if they end the OWs contract. In the words of Bridget Jones 'I shagged the boss' . It doesn't end well for anyone. I hope they genuinely have deep pockets.

OPs probably not coming back because she doesn't like home truths. She came here hoping we would be as indignant as her and agree she was hard done by and won the pick me dance and pat her on the back.

There always is with these other women and other men.

No there isn't. Some people are serial shaggers, yes, but it's patent nonsense that everyone who sleeps with a married person does it over and over again. And even if they do, that's still on the married person. If you make a commitment, it's on you. If a spouse can be trusted then it's completely immaterial what anyone else wants.

You're not helping your cause by diluting marital responsibility so people are only half accountable for what they do (or less!), by painting the boss who instigated the affair as the prey or by spreading total falsehoods. If OP truly fixes her marriage, the OW will be irrelevant. It's OP and her husband; nobody else can do it.

Your husband doesn't seem happy in the relationship, don't you want more out of life?

That's what's so grim about it all. OP doesn't give a toss about if he's happy. He can be in whatever state as long as he's paying for her social facade in front of friends and family. She's so desperate to appear like the woman who has it all.

In that long long OP where she comes across appallingly, she's got plenty to say. How dare someone treat her as inferior, impossible, she won't believe her husband chose someone else, he was dragged there by the evil OW. The faux "wins" and spite she's so proud of. The audacity DH might want someone who truly values him, when he's got marvellous OP to fund lunches for. Yes, she's got plenty to say. There and throughout the whole thread.

She makes sure to tell him she'll kill herself if he leaves her. Twice. And more threats of detailing it all to their children. Do as I say, or else.

You know the one thing she hasn't said though? That she loves her husband. And that says more than anything.

'OP's husband said HE instigated the affair. Saying the OW merrily go on to another conquest as though she's had dozens of affairs is really reaching! Not to mention downright misogynistic.'

Ive worked with loads of married men and always managed to keep a professional distance. The kind of men and women who encourage married people will of course have had plenty of conquests prior and plenty to come. It's what they do.

Yes yes I blame her dh too but again, he's made his choice and it's up to the op if she wants to put up with the lying shit.

Where does it say the OW encouraged him? If anything, he preyed on her. She was going through a divorce and he inveigled himself to support her and then instigated the affair. Even OP has clarified that was the situation.

I blame the DH entirely.

Yep.

This is the first thread I've ever seen on MN where people are sympathetic to the affair partners.

Did OP deserve to be cheated on? No.

Should her husband be subjected to anymore abusive behaviour by someone only out to use him to placate her ego and social status. Bigger no.

I can just imagine the vitriol that would be spouted if the OW was to come here and say “I have fallen in love with a married man of 40 years who got me at a weak point in my life when I was going through divorce. He’s gone back to his wife but that’s because she has threatened suicide…” I’m pretty sure no one here would be saying “you’ve met your soulmate” and “he is truly in love with you but staying with his wife cause she has held a proverbial gun to his head”!!

You only have to read the thread where a woman has said that she has intense chemistry with a work colleague who’s taken but nothing has actually happened, to see what I’m talking about.

But it wasn't because he did a similar thing before with a work woman. You are abusive. Threatening suicide. That's what abuse men do when women try to leave. I had it done to me.
You can't emotionally blackmail someone. He's not with you because he loves you. He's scared you will harm yourself. Tbh you should mean to him.

'Where does it say the OW encouraged him?'

Oh come off it. Stop being so naive. We've all seen how these things start, a bit of flirting long gazes etc. The other person, man or woman should not encourage the whole thing. Find someone unattached there's plenty out there.

I'm not being at all naive, I'm just countering your vitriol to a woman who even OP admits wasn't the one who instigated the affair.

She isn't abusive. She unwisely voiced suicidal thoughts no doubt in the heat of the moment.

Again, she'd be happier without him I reckon and hopefully will come to that conclusion herself. Get a good financial settlement and leave him and his bit of fluff to it. It's a tale as old as time, he will live to regret it when bit of fluff then starts cheating on him.

It's not just the (repeated) suicide threats.
It's the manipulation. The proud controlling. The entitlement that someone should live miserably to allow another person to get free lunches and put on a show. OP is Hyacinth Bucket, without the humour. The blackmail over telling the children. The spite and glee at the "wins" she thinks she's racking up. The expectation of sex to prove loyalty. And loyalty to what? Someone who doesn't love you but wants her peers to be jealous of her latest holiday. You think the DH doesn't know that.

Yes, he should have just binned her off first and not cheated, but the DH deserves to be free of this. Anyone should be. And sorry if you think people aren't supportive of this manipulative entrapment, because "married."

You are being manipulative. Your husband might stay for now but it doesn't change the fact he doesn't love you. He will leave you, one way or another. Have some bloody dignity & stop with the suicide threats. Maybe he could admit you to a psych ward if you are clearly that suicidal, then he would be rid of you. I'm aware that sounds unkind, but your baseless threats are abhorrent. You should be ashamed.

Nothing even the OP has written suggests the OW is a bit of fluff, whatever that is. In fact she sounds an engaged and smart woman of similar age with whom the husband has a genuine connection. There is nothing even in the OP's vitriolic post to suggest she's some kind of serial predator or 'floozy' or some other similarly misogynistic stereotype.

This guy is not a prize, he probably thinks he is but the reason that ow went with him is probably the lifestyle she would acquire. If these men were penniless or even average, they’d get not one iota of attention.

Why shouldn’t Op keep her lifestyle? It is built on her own work too. Why should someone else younger swoop in and get the benefits?

OP, let’s not pretend you care about him, you’d be insane. But make sure the only times he leaves, is when he is in a box….

This is the most accurate post on the whole thread.

I hope he walks into your office too.

His employee/lover obviously sparked something in him that you seem incapable of comprehending

This is so poignant and so sad. I wonder how long it's been like this, with OP not even caring to notice, as long as this weeks lunches are funded and he doesn't get in her way. With such entitlement too. As if that's her god given right, and how dare he make her lose that status. She'll show him what happens if he tries taking her image, hey.

I just keeping thinking if this was one of my boys. I'd be helping them pack.

It's like something out of a psychological thriller

"Let's hope the only time he leaves is in a box"....you are a truly terrible human being. I'm not easily shocked but wow.

To be fair she did admit to being controlling in her OP which is abusive as many on the end of it will know all too well.

I am shocked that everyone here thinks this is a true love story between op husband and ow. This dh is obviously a high net worth individual, do the maths….

Maybe I think differently, but op is 60, does not feel she can start over. Plus I wouldn’t want to reward that pair with letting them waltz off together.

If op wants to keep her home/family/lifestyle then she should go ahead, why is everyone wishing dh and ow live happily ever after?! The remorse talk is a bit sickening though,op needs to understand it’s broken and it will be a different type of relationship now.

OP, I'm sorry you are so hurt, but you can't blackmail, coerce or barnstorm someone into loving you. Think of yourself and your future.