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.

@citylady62 Is the OW also the same friend that he admitted getting close to four years ago, before he set up the business? Or was that someone else? And if it was someone else, what happened to her?

The point most people are making is that, because she threatened suicide, she will never know whether he made the decision to stay our of love and rediscovered respect for her or whether it was out of a fear of being responsible for her taking drastic action against her own life.

It's irrelevant what other people's experiences are, this part is true.

they had years ago friendship before the affair that this aspect will make it hard for my husband to really let her go entirely.

And that's exactly why you need to let him know that he can go if he wants to. Then you'll know if he's truly choosing freely to stay.

Just can't work out why I wasn't enough

Well this is what counselling could unravel, so you don't have to rely on sensing and thinking rather than having him actually communicate it to you. Once you know what the problem actually is, you can address it or find it unsolvable.

But as before, your reasons for wanting him to stay don't seem to have anything to do with his happiness.

In my experience, there's a certain kind of person - controlling ones for sure - who just don't listen when the person involved tells them what the problem is. They dismiss and invalide what they say, and then say that they have no idea what the problem is. They probably truly haven't, but that doesn't mean the problem isn't there or that they weren't told.

I very much suspect ' threatened' was a wrong choice of words for OP to use and she has gone on to say as much in subsequent posts that she felt suicidal upon first hearing her DH was leaving and having an affair. Yes, it may have brought her husband to his senses as affairs happen in a bubble. Real life and those we love stop existing whilst wrapped up and consumed with limerence/ infatuation.

Of course OP's husband is staying because he wants to be with her. The bubble burst, all that excitement and secrecy which adds to an affair has gone, it came down to mere sex. No man is going to blow his world up for that. Men are creatures of habit and routine, particularly in a long marriage. He didn't even want his children to know as his heart was still in his marriage with OP and not in a new open relationship with OW.

As for OP disliking OW - so bloomin what? She owes the other woman nothing, absolutely zilch. Whilst we can forgive our nearest and dearest for hurting us, why the hell should strangers who have wronged us be forgiven? The OW made her selfish choices, ran the risk with low morals to play with fire, she deserves no empathy from OP at all.

@Susieb2023 thank you and @FairyMaclary for such sound and supportive advice for OP

@NonPlayerCharacter - what is your issue or are you the OW?

She didn’t say she ‘disliked’ OW she was solely blaming her. There’s a difference.

controlling and coercive behaviour is also morally ‘low’. The OP might be now sanitising her choice of words, but it’s telling. She’s also gone on to say she basically hasn’t given him free choice to leave.

betrayed wives will always go on and on about reconciliation because they need it to be true. It doesn’t mean it is. It’s very sad and I just could never live with that amount of denial. Love is not betrayal, lies, or disrespect. Everyone knows this deep down, but the lengths people will go to to deny that is mind boggling.

No, she didn’t feel suicidal - she threatened it. Twice.

I don’t for a moment think he’s staying because he desperately wants to be with her - he is very much keeping the OW in close proximity, presumably to continue their relationship, whilst reacting to to the OP’s threats of suicide and realisation of what a divorce after a long marriage means in practical terms by staying put. Whether he’ll continue to feel he wants to stay or whether his feelings for the OW will deepen and he’ll leave after the dust has all settled is anyone’s guess.

God, not another one. No, I'm not an OW and I have no "issue". I'm disturbed by the number of people who not only couldn't hold themselves 100% responsible for their fidelity unless they fucked a married man, but think nobody else could either. And also by the number of people who think explaining that you must let someone go if you want to be sure they're staying because they love you constitutes an "issue".

It's a fucked up compass or it's just plain lazy thinking but either way it's worthless bullshit and the issues it exposes are not mine.

'betrayed wives will always go on and on about reconciliation because they need it to be true. It doesn’t mean it is. It’s very sad and I just could never live with that amount of denial. Love is not betrayal, lies, or disrespect. Everyone knows this deep down, but the lengths people will go to to deny that is mind boggling.'

Betrayed people go on and on about reconciliation because in many if not most caes, the fling means fuck all. A bored man or woman has their head turned by some damaged individual desperately boosting their ego. They soon realise all the lying and sneaking about is not that exciting and are full of regret and remorse. It is shit, but life is often shit and full of challenges. People pick their battles and the op at this stage thinks it's worth the fight.

The op has been married 40yrs it is worth giving him a second chance if he is genuine. If in 6mths he has another on the go then no, he'd obviously be a serial cheat and should then be given the boot.

Betrayed people go on and on about reconciliation because in many if not most caes, the fling means fuck all. A bored man or woman has their head turned by some damaged individual desperately boosting their ego.

thank you for precisely demonstrating my point. You HAVE to blame the OW or OM to avoid the truth. If it means ‘fuck all’ that’s even worse. So this person who supposedly loves you decided to hurt you in one of the worst ways possible… because they were bored? Because some ‘damaged person’ was ‘desperately trying to boost their ego’?

so the cheater isn’t damaged? The spouse who stays with someone who has demonstrated they have no regard for them at all isn’t damaged? Yeah ok.

that screams true love to me.

Or maybe he's just getting his ducks in a row before he finally leaves. This advice is often given to unhappy women on here.

People are weak and fallible. I'm not excusing cheats but people do make mistakes and perspective is needed. If i were the op after 40yrs it may be worth giving him a second chance. Only one second chance obviously. Anymore blips he'd should be kicked out.

The ow will have moved on to someone else these people can't maintain relationships anyway.

It's very interesting how, for you, the OW/OM is the damaged one, the opportunist, the serial shagger, the desperate, pathetic one, the desperado, the predator who "sets sights" and "turns heads", the one incapable of maintaining relationships...even when that person isn't actually committed to anyone.

But the married person, who has actually broken a vow, lied to the person they claim to love and risked their family, and all for something that probably means "fuck all" is, to you, the one who passively "had their head turned", "made a mistake" and "needs perspective". Even in this case when both the husband and the OW say that he instigated it.

I know you aren't capable of seeing the clear displacement, projection and contradiction here and that you'll come up with something to deny it, but it's really very very obvious.

Hello OP
I really have to echo the previous posters that have urged you to go to Surviving infidelity (the website NOT the Reddit) regardless of whether you end up wanting to seek reconciliation or divorce

in my recovery from the trauma (I read I didn’t post) I found some posters very heavy handed, kind of My Way or The High way. It rubbed me the wrong way.
but most offer advice with the caveat of ‘take what you need and leave the rest’. The moderation team there are active and experienced in both divorce and reconciliation

ultimately your marriage is unique, as are you and your husband. What my experience or others in this thread have experienced cannot dictate what choices you make. We cannot tell you what to do here or on Surviving Infidelity or in counselling.

I really do think a more specialised form of support online and in person will really help you OP and I hope you get the support you need

What a simplistic black and white world you live in.

If OP's husband really wanted to end his marriage, he would have done and moved on with OW regardless of potential suicidal thoughts/threats/ adult children/ friends and family finding out. More likely, he had as many do a mid life crisis, felt an attraction, had an itch and scratched it - got caught up in the emotions - WITHOUT THINKING OF THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OR LONG TERM CONSEQUENCES. Until he woke up to the reality.

@Janiie hit the nail on the head:

People are weak and fallible. I'm not excusing cheats but people do make mistakes and perspective is needed. If i were the op after 40yrs it may be worth giving him a second chance. Only one second chance obviously. Anymore blips he'd should be kicked out.

Equally, if he really loved his wife, he wouldn’t cheat.

but no, he’s just a ‘wayward’ fool. Fallible. Made a mistake. A ‘blip’, if you will. It’s all OW’s fault.

My DD was delighted when I got divorced.
I would be delighted if my father divorced my mother, she bullies him totally and behaves like a tantrumming child.
My friends father is in the same boat and she is so sad about it.
Another friend of mine, a bit older, says of sex "oh, I cant be bothered, I presume he sorts himself out" and harps on about her bloody conservatory.

This is a completely grown up "family" (DCs) with their own lives. Not 3 toddlers/school aged DCs.They will always be "family".

I have a feeling the OW has been in a full on relationship for at least 4 years with the husband and it is clearly much more than sex.

OP is emotionally immature and hugely lacking in life or relationship experience outside DCs, years ago, and her bubble. A PP comments that the posters were younger and do not understand a 40 year marriage, is telling; I am in my 50s and have far, far more independant life experience. I imagine most would. Just a look at the things some women have to go through on other boards shows you that. Life is for working at; you do not threaten suicide.

People do have to take responsibilty for marriage breakdowns and they have to deal with really heartbreaking situations (involving sickness, DCs, tragedy) They have to ask themselves difficult questions, grow, adapt. Much has changed in attitudes in 40 years.

He should not have been unfaithful but he was and is, clearly unhappy.

Of course, I could be totally wrong... not 4 years, emotionally and work connected relationship and strong friendship and simply a menopausal piece of incompetant and desperate "fluff" entirely to blame, with her wiley middle aged ways.

OP refuses to answer the question of the relationship 4 years ago though.

I do wish you well OP, but while you are in denial, nothing will truly change.

No I think the cheat is an arsehole too.

You have a wonderful understated sense of humour. I laughed out loud twice, in a nice way, reading this. You're also very honest. I suspect these traits stood you in very good stead for weathering the storm.

@NonPlayerCharacter when it comes to actively engaging in a realationship with a man who you know is married and who's wife you know...I would agree with your assertion
"the OW/OM is the damaged one, the opportunist, the serial shagger, the desperate, pathetic one, the desperado, the predator who "sets sights" and "turns heads", the one incapable of maintaining relationships...even when that person isn't actually committed to anyone."

Why didn't the OW, (recently divorced) set her sights on a single man, not one already married that she has known (and his wife) for a long time? Why didn't she rebuff the advances of OP's husband (as she claimed it was all his doing) and tell him to get stuffed? I'll tell you why, because in addition to being possibly one of your suggestions above, she had no self esteem, no morals and didn't care one iota as long as she won her pound of flesh. DECENT WOMEN DO NOT DO THIS TO THEMSELVES OR OTHER WOMEN.

This does not negate from OP's husband's appalling behaviour to her one bit.

she had no self esteem, no morals and didn't care one iota as long as she won her pound of flesh

You could be describing the OP there too.

My post made it very clear that that was not my assertion. I was pulling some quotes from another poster and contrasting them with the language she used on the comparatively very little she said about actual cheaters, which was very much "had head turned", "blip", "made a mistake" and so on. (Like you, she adds a bit of lip service at the end after being pressed on it to try to cover it but it's really completely obvious what's going on.)

I cannot tell whether you deliberately misread my post to try to wind me up or you literally can't see what I said because your tunnel vision on the issue makes it impossible for you. Either way, it is pointless discussing this with you. Like other posters, you are so wedded (haha) to the things you want to be true that you quite literally cannot see what's plainly in front of you. Your mind isn't capable of it, even while you accuse others of having black and white mindsets.

That's not my problem. It's a lost cause.

No not the same one and nothing happened the first time apart from his head was turned and he told me about it as it frightened him that something was not working for us that this should've happened. The actual affair partner had been a longish term platonic friend for several years but turned into an affair partner last year but now he's cut her off. He's no longer guarding his phone so I can believe this. Even if she messaged him inappropriately I'm pretty sure he'd show me to
Prove his renewed commitment but she's not contacting him any more...or so he says.

I thought you said they still work together?

@Gonetoofarthistime I agree totally- this was the case I think with my H- he got his head turned at a point in life when a lot of things were going very wrong- his mum was dying, our business was in trouble etc. it was I think 'a distraction' he isn't a bad person, just behaved incredibly stupidly and in a disloyal way- I found out a long time after it happened - if I had found out at the time I would have ended it

Problem for me is that I've never felt 100% the same since- I found out I'm not the forgive and forget person I always thought I was having been married a very long time. I'm still undecided even 7 years on from finding out

I suspect the OP clearly wants the marriage desparately and hence probably will forgive and forget better than I could-