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.

'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'

Engaged and smart 🤣🤣

She is or was shagging the boss. Nothing engaging or smart about that.

On what grounds would you dismiss her?

She was a volunteer to start with, It sounds like a casual arrangement in a one man business. i doubt there needs to be grounds for dismissal in these small businesses just 'not now required thanks'. Unless of course he gave her a written in stone permanent contract but I doubt it.

Zero hours contracts etc don't have any security. A bit like shagging married men.

I feel sad for you OP, this is not going to end well.

OMG, in my early 50s I can still be referred to as a "bit of fluff" 😂

Twirl.

The guilt will go and serious ICK will ensue.

I hope he tells the DCs soon.

First you made stuff up about people who have affairs and now you're making up employment law.

All people who have affairs do not fit your narrow stereotype (I'd bet most of them don't, actually) and employment law can't bend to accommodate your fantasies either.

I don't know where you're getting that vibe from

this couldn't be more blatant

Seriously, no idea

Never seen so many ow on one post, a whole swarm of them have decended.

But he loves HER, not you op 😅

He probably is a cake eating selfish bastard like many men are, it's only from op's opening post whereby she says about an easy ride retirement and 'threatening suicide' have more reasoned posters jumped on the suicide flag.

I wonder if op actually just felt suicidal, does that make a difference.

I honestly dont think this has been written by a wife of forty years, this has been written by someone else with a different agenda.

It's almost as she wants to be demonised for being the big bad horrible controlling, money grabbing wife.

Somethings off.

Why are you mocking another woman's pain.
Have you no empathy.

Never seen so many ow on one post, a whole swarm of them have decended.

I am never surprised when this one comes out, but it's by far the least intelligent "point" on the thread and the sign of a person whose thinking on the matter is so limited that they have nothing to contribute.

OP please go on Surviving infidelity website for help as they are much more informed on getting out of infidelity whether thats R or D.
-Your husband of 40 yrs emot,phys and financially abused you by having an A. I'm appalled that PPs think your distressed reaction of suicide threats is worse than his offenses. Affair trauma is horrible and causes PTSD so people don't react "normally" . Soldiers feel infidelity was worse harm then war trauma. Please do get help though as you should always love yourself over anyone else (except children)
-the accusations of controlling behavior are ridiculous as many women are in charge of home life, family finances, calender etc... and OP seeking sex as a way to reconnect or establish her place is normal after affairs ie HB. Affairs are rejections of BS so of course they're going to want partner to want sex w/them for reassurance

• both OP and H decided on him being breadwinner so I don't understand the vitriol towards her
• if your husband was unhappy then he should've pursued a solution like counseling, separation etc. But cheating is really about selfishness/lack of character/fantasy. He has a history of attention seeking so he may have more affairs you're not aware of...SI will help you get to the truth of your marriage
• it's OK to hate the OW as she knowingly took part in harming you. You're afraid to be angry with your husband bec it may push him away but ironically you being strong/confident will be what draws him to you

So I was right.

I'm shocked at so many of these responses. I was completely broken when my DH first told me he thought he didn't love me anymore. I thought we were inseparable and still feel in love with him. I just couldn't cope hence the thoughts of suicide. To me this was all out of the blue and just at the point I thought we'd be planning our retirement trips. Well we're still together. I guess he too must've believed that the future felt more right committing to me and our family rather than the OW. My main reason for posting was the seek solidarity with other women in their 60s whose marriages have been threatened by an affair and also to ask if anyone's husband, having chosen to commit to their wife after an affair at this sort of age changed their minds having initially committed to make the marriage work having come clean about an affair.

Of course not, but you know what they say about playing chess with pigeons. Keep to your fantasies where only terrible people can think you're wrong and humans are 2D pantomime characters.

@citylady62 can I suggest you move your question to Surviving Infidelity and their reconciliation forum.

You’ll get a fair, compassionate and experienced response on there. There are posters who will relate to what you’re saying and will offer you ongoing support and advice.

Good luck

Whatever other poster’s husbands have done is immaterial @citylady62 - the only people you need to be focused on is you and your DH. From a completely neutral standpoint and going by what you’ve said on this thread, your threats of suicide if he were to leave (note threats, not feelings) and the fact he still works with the OW sounds like your reconciliation is built on very shaky ground. That, and the fact you seem more concerned about the lifestyle he provides you with - no mention of how much you love him as a person.

If you were to leave him, do you think he would fight to rebuild your marriage or do you think he and the OW would carry on their relationship - which seems on the face of it to involve real feelings rather than just being a fling?

We must all know someone who has been cheated on. It's the same script, the errant wife or husband deicide to fuck about and they invariably get found out. Why do it? I'd always dumped people when i'd had enough. Never been cheated on but I've seem the damage that pathetic cheats and their pathetic desperate fuck buddies cause.

Of course I know people who have been cheated on, and while some stories are common (boss and his female subordinate at work is popular), that's how I know that the story simply isn't always the same. They don't always get found out and they're not always serial shaggers. That's not an opinion, it's an absolute statement of fact. Not everyone who has an affair fits the same single profile. I truly don't see why this is so hard to accept. It doesn't make cheating OK and it doesn't negate anyone's pain.

Of course cheating is wrong. Other things are wrong too. There's more than one way to destroy trust and blow up a marriage.

You will only know if he really wants to stay if you truthfully tell him he is free to leave and you will not contemplate suicide if he decides to go.

What are you actually saying though

It's wrong but it's not wrong.

Who cares, they all hurt when you're on the receiving end.

Op, I think the previous post suggesting Surviving Infedelity would be of help.

No one here can tell you if he is going to stay or remain faithful in the future but if he really wants to stay then this ow must go and leave his employment.

It may fizzle out, many of them do.

How do you make someone love you ?

Do you offer them free sex on the side whilst they are married.
Do you promise to keep all communications covert and promise to lie and cheat and make a third party look like a mug.

Do you promise to lower your morals and hurt an innocent person.

None of the behaviour that is required to continue an affair is decent.

And I very much doubt this husband stayed because of op's confession of feeling suicidal.

If he truly loved the ow he would have gone.

’free’ sex on the side? This is all misogynistic bullshit. The man is the married one and he gets to walk away business and marriage in fact. And the OW who was not attached loses everything and gets painted as an evil scheming harlot. You have no idea what this man said to her at all.

such black and white thinking. I would normally always be on the side of the betrayed party as would most of the other posters but OP has revealed herself to be controlling, manipulative and only in it for the money. The betrayed party isn’t always ‘innocent’.

I have compassion for your situation. BUT, you seem to pointedly ignore the fact that there wouldn't be many women here who would have forced the hand of their husbands to remain with them by repeatedly threatening suicide. As many have pointed out, this is a manipulative and abusive tactic that not many women are going to have resorted to, or relate to. that doesn't mean the posters here condone your husband's actions. Merely that his just isn't the way to make a relationship work. You are shocked because so many don't agree with how you have gone about making your husband pick you. Your post also doesn't convey any great love for your husband, merely that you want the status quo to continue, with him providing for you, while you control everything about him.

To really know if your husband is committed to remaining with you is if that decision is of his own free will, which in this case doesn't seem to be the case. You have told him what to do, threatened him with suicide, control all his actions with respect to the other woman and yet think that because he's having sex with you and willing to go on trips with you, he's now back and happy. In fact, I feel he will more than likely feel resentment in the long run. That's the answer many have given you, but you aren't happy with that as it is not what you want to hear.

Cheating, and the betrayal of trust is the worst. But I feel forcing a partner to stay through emotional blackmail is punishment, not just to them, but to us as well.