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.

No I am not agreeing with anything you said. Be nicer to people in future maybe then others would not mention your unkind nature 👍👍👍

No, that’s not how it works - you don’t get to lie and falsely accuse someone of saying something simply because you disagree with other things they’ve said. HTH.

You have the last word and have a lovely weekend too :)

I didn’t realise you were at the ‘you have the last word’ stage but yes I shall.

@Idontknowwhattodo78 could not agree more!!!!

In my mind the ‘unhappy marriage/not having needs met’ narrative helps people feel SAFE and SECURE. It leads to ‘as long as we have ‘true love’ (whatever that is), as long as we have lots of sex, as long as i make him happy and take care of him it won’t happen to us!’

Truth is affairs often happen in periods of personal crisis, grief, depression, changes in circumstances, periods of addiction etc etc the cheat then looks for something to make them feel better. So they use the affair as some kind of plaster for their own brokenness. It’s deeply selfish and entitled at its core. It uses affair partners. It destroys betrayed partners causing deep rooted trauma.

I really struggle to understand why posters instantly jump to ‘he loves the OW and is so unhappy with wife and she has forced him to stay’ when the ow has been used and arguably discarded. Whether you believe OP has the power to make him discard the alleged ‘love of his life’ or not, she has been discarded.

Even if they are secretly in contact OW is not getting a relationship any of us would consider loving and respectful! That is not soulmates, true love, kismet, it’s just grubby and broken.

Both women have been discarded. Both relationships are shit.

She didn't say you were agreeing with her.

She kept saying ok? At the end of her messages. Anyway not arguing about this with anyone. I said my piece and it is taking over the focus of what this post is about.

You have no way of knowing if he is still having the affair or not. She may be happy as the OW, knowing he loves her and he's probably told her you threatened suicide and he feels guilty..he'd feel awful if you did and your kids would blame him.

Some men confess in hope that the wife will end it, because they're too cowardly to do it. They get so careless with hiding it, as a hint and deliberately pull away from their wives.

I get that it's scary to be alone after so long in a marriage, but I'd want my husband to stay because he wanted to and not or of obligation or fear that I would take my life.

A lot of times OWs say MM (their married man) isn't leaving because his wife threatened suicide and I don't believe it, as I tend to think it's an excuse from the MM, but maybe I've been wrong about that.

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.

You've heard of a burner phone i assume? And he works with her. They don't need to be in contact outside of work hours.

People in affairs find many ways to hide it.

It's never easy for APs to continue working together, as there cannot be full NC (no contact) and that's what you need in these situations.

How do you think your husband would feel if you continued seeing a man you'd had an 8 month affair with on a regular basis? I'll bet he wouldn't like it or tolerate it.

I know someone in a similar, but worse situation than you. She's 60 and scared of being divorced after 35 years of marriage. Her H is not remorseful or apologetic for his affairs and she not leaving. I feel sorry for her.

I encourage you to get a life of your own and not be so dependent on him for socialising. When you have been staying at home for years, you can become uninteresting and the working partner sees you as a liability.

Get some interests of your own.

It’s not unusual for men to do this - it was exactly what the MM I was seeing said. He’d been having affairs for years, escalating each time (ONS, casual, the full emotional thing) hoping she’d end it. He got very ‘careless’ in the end…

when I asked him after it all came out he joked about it saying he’d ’have to try harder next time’. Too cowardly to end it. Although his wife did sound totally nuts (not from what he told me. From what I experienced first hand) so I kind of understood. He confessed everything when she found out about me… and even that wasn’t enough…

she told him she didn’t want him to die because ‘his life insurance wasn’t enough for her’ 🙃

Anyway… if there is anything cheaters have in common, it is weakness. Very sad all round.

@PinkLemonade555 fully agree. Both women believe they are in a relationship with a man who actually, is only interested in himself. No good for either of them. The OW though, DID know he was married. I have never been able to understand the attraction of a married man. If he is with you, whilst he is married, he is clearly a liar? That would snap my knees shut faster than a case of the clap. And no amount of smooth talking, bullshit promises or lies would get them open! And, as the wife, I’d have the same response, closed tighter than the Monte Carlo border….nothing good EVER comes from this shit 🤬

How come he's not leaving? Is she still cooking his meals and washing his pants?

Well yes OW know about the marriage. But everyone just wants to believe what they want to believe.

The wives want to believe their husbands love them. The OW want to believe the same. The reality is whatever ‘love’ there is, isn’t enough. The man is neither fully in, or out, with either of them.

The wives who stay after discovery, and the OW are not so different and that’s why it really riles people up.

It pisses me off because it dilutes responsibility for a married person and tries to make every other adult on the planet half responsible for what they do with their genitalia. That primes the world for cheating, usually cheating men. Why wouldn't they cheat when they're only held half responsible at most, and in reality usually less, because whatever people claim, they absolutely save most of their vitriol for the OW. You can see it clearly when there's one quick line holding the man to account and paragraphs and paragraphs calling the OW everything under the sun. Cheating MM are laughing. And point out the problem here and YOU MUST BE AN OW, NOBODY HOLDS THEMSELVES TOTALLY ACCOUNTABLE UNLESS THEY'RE AN OW.

Fuck's sake. It's beyond ridiculous. The tunnel vision and inability to think is probably a result of trauma but that doesn't make it any less bullshit.

You make a promise, you don't decide that everyone else in the world is responsible for it. It's not honourable to be complicit in something so destructive but at the end of the day, the only person bound by your promises is you. The problems in the marriage that lead to cheating aren't external.

@PinkLemonade555 wellllllll, I think they ARE different ( although I wouldn’t do or be either) Wife married him (assuming he was willing) and he promised faithfulness and fidelity, so she is not unreasonable to expect that. OW got with him KNOWING that, by their very situation, being faithful wasn’t….his strong point? You cannot get together with someone who you KNOW is a liar then be surprised when he is liar?
Honestly, I’ve watched so many affairs play out, throughout my childhood and adulthood and not a single one of them have come to any good. It’s always damaged people using damaged people with, far too often, the children as collateral damage in the middle. It is something I would simply never do. If you want to leave, more power to you, do that. Shagging someone on the side helps no one, ever.

That’s why I deliberately said the wife who stays post discovery. She also knows he’s a liar.

@NonPlayerCharacter ok. So would you shag a married man?

Yes exactly. I’m not sure why the OW should be expected to have respect for the marriage when they take their cue from the MM who makes it very clear it’s irrelevant.

I would never do it, not necessarily out of loyalty to a woman I don’t know as the main factor, but more out of respect for myself - it would only end badly. Getting involved with someone who is weak and inauthentic is just a total mind fuck.

@PinkLemonade555 totally agree. He’s been lying to both of them. But, in the aftermath of discovery (as very clearly demonstrated by ops thread) children, a shared life and decades of history come into play (sunk cost fallacy). OW takes him on KNOWING he is a liar. Often, due to the shared history, it takes the wife a while to catch up and acknowledge that fact, because she didn’t know he was like that and it takes a while for her to actually accept it. And I can’t fault her. I’m smart and feisty but I’ve been fooled more times that I would care to admit.

Oh yeah I totally get the justification for wanting to believe reconciliation is possible. I just find the denial that continues for years afterwards that this person somehow actually ‘loves’ them despite demonstrating the total opposite utterly bizarre and depressing.

the cheater doesn’t help because they still can’t be honest about their feelings. As I said, people will believe what they want to and hear what they want to hear regardless.

but the wives stay with them knowing they’re a liar. And I think to be honest, both women could do better.

This is a (crap) variation of the YOU MUST BE AN OW school of non thought and it's not the gotcha everyone thinks it is. No I would not, yes it is still 100% on him. The positions are not mutually exclusive.

@NonPlayerCharacter honestly, it’s not. I genuinely didn’t think you “must be” an ow. But the thought of being an “ow” is as abhorrent to me as staying with a man who shagged someone else.
I love my dh to death, but if he shagged someone else, he’d have to go, because I couldn’t live with it. Similarly. I could not live with MYSELF if if was shagging someone else’s dh? I obviously haven’t promised that person anything, but as a decent human being, it is just not what I could accept for myself? I’d never sleep again! We ALL have a responsibility to be decent to each other, I think.

You don't need to explain to me why you wouldn't be an OW. But the fact that you and I wouldn't still doesn't negate the absolute responsibility of a married person. That's one reason I stay true: because I do not believe I have anyone else to share blame with if I don't. Although since I'm attracted only to men, we can be sure I'd get most of the opprobrium whatever the setup was. Everyone denies doing it but it's plain to see.

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.

So twice now, that you know of, he has gotten close to two different women. One was apparently non sexual, the second very much was.

Sorry to be harsh but from all I have read you are desperate to hang on to the lifestyle you have and are turning the actual actions into your own narrative to suit your dreams. Please wake up OP.