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.

You can't make someone love you by threatening suicide. Get some counselling op.

@citylady62

My relationship with DP is definitely very different now. We have children, life revolves around them. I have no interest in anything romantic, but I can’t see the point in rocking any boats, because we are secure - and my priority is that the children are ok.

I have really good friends that I go out with, feel like I have a good social life. As a family we go on holiday together and that works.
If DP had an affair, I’m at the stage where I don’t think it would bother me??? We’ve had kids - if he wants to spend time with someone else, and still needs intimacy (which we don’t get from each other) - then fair enough??

OP - if you truly believed things were getting better or resolved you probably wouldn’t be posting here. You’re looking for reassurance and justification because perhaps deep down you know things are not ok, and probably know even though you’ve forced him to do/say all the “right” things, it feels empty because his heart is not in it.

As awful as affairs are, your husband did try to tell you he wasn’t happy even before you discovered the infidelity - it sounds like you minimized or didn’t take him seriously. Based on your account, you thought the dynamic in your marriage was great because you have a more domineering personality - and probably got to have things your way most of the time - but he likely had a very different experience.

His decision to end a 40 year marriage couldn’t have been taken lightly, I think he has probably been checked out for years. Nothing you’ve said makes me think he genuinely loves you - forcing things will likely lead to resentment and he’ll end up eventually hating you. Also no matter what he does (sex, hand holding, letting you see his phone) can mask the fact that emotionally he is probably thinking of her. So you haven’t really won because you’ve lost him already.

You also need to reflect on why you are so controlling, and how this has impacted your sense of identity, self-worth and relationships. Best of luck x

I’m actually slightly scared of you OP and hope I never come across your sort of behaviour. I’m not saying your husband was right in what he did but your emotional blackmail is not good.

This exactly. I think you should let him go. In your post you didn’t once say you love him, just that the structure of your life would be unbearable to lose. You’re being controlling and selfish imo to keep him ‘pottering along’. How boring and unfulfilling, just so you can have your comfortable retirement.

He only has one life! This woman sounds like she could make him very happy.

What strikes me is not that he is not in love with you, but you don't seem in love with him.

All your fears are around losing your social life and family.

Are you in love with him? Or your life? Honestly?

Affairs are very common sadly. I think people are being a bit harsh about you threatening suicide. This guy is all you have known. Yes that is controlling but it is your instinct for your world potentially falling apart. I think you just need to see how it goes. It sounds like he is unsure what he wants. As tough as it is this may not work and you need to get your head round that.

Why would you even want to be with a cheater? That’s what he is now. You’ve said it yourself, he’s threatened your lovely retirement for an 8 month affair. He’s done this because he’s unhappy I expect so let him go. He’ll probably do it again anyway so let it be someone else’s problem.

You can still have a lovely retirement, just without him.

You’re scared of losing the comfort/security of the marriage. You fear (probably quite rightly) that your social life will change drastically if you’re not in a couple.

I absolutely see your pov, but dear god, manipulating him by threatening suicide is so shit. Sorry, OP, I don’t see this lasting. He’s found his soulmate, by the looks of it. Possibly once he thinks you’re stable, he’ll want to try with the ow again.

Although I feel for you OP people just don't fall back in love. You DH is just trying to do the right thing. He is appeasing you rather than being back to how it was.

Also your hatred of OW is your way of trying to deny it was your DH's choice to have an affair. It's easier for you to blame her tempting him and now you've forced the pick me dance and think you have won.

Please be mindful that he might have resentment towards you and hiding it.

I hope you can get through this.

Sorry to be harsh but you come across as loving your lifestyle more than your actual husband.

This.
I think they both sound like people who deserve to have a loving life together.
I’m afraid -if this is real- you are reaping the rewards of controlling him and making life the way you want it. ‘Pottering’ into old age sounds awful! They both still have the energy and and enthusiasm to run a business together -much more rewarding.

This may come across really blunt, however I mean this in the nicest way possible. 💐❤

Why did you post this thread? @citylady62

When you pressed “submit” after you wrote your original post. In those first few minutes - what type of responses were you really hoping for, or expecting?

Threatening suicide is appalling. So is the way you talk of it so lightly. I'm a survivor of suicide in my family. Comments like that knock me sick.

My friend is the other woman in a really similar scenario to this. The person she is having an affair with will not leave his wife because he cannot bear to be the person who destroys her. So he stays in a sham marriage, spending every moment thinking of his secret partner and plotting ways to see her. It’s dreadful.

In your situation, I would get therapy alone and work towards accepting a life without him. You might also want to get financial advice before you let him know you’ve accepted the break. You need to be remunerated for the time you’ve spend as the lower earner.

"pottering along"

You sound 90, not very early 60s. Poor guy, resigned to a boring life based on a "family unit" of adult children and a controlling wife who expects to be financially provided for, without question and demands sex to prove he loves her?

@TheaBrandt summed it up perfectly.

Your marriage is over and you sound complacent and unpleasant in your attitude I am afraid. (I too, started from a place of sympathy)

He's only still with you because of the children.

I couldn't stay with someone who was in love with someone else.

He hasn't switched his feelings for her off, he's staying because you gave him no choice - he can't take on the responsibility of the mother of his children taking her own life.

I think you'd be better off letting him go and having therapy yourself to come to terms with it.

@citylady62 Look, you can keep up the pretence that he is happy. He will just hide the affair in future, and you can carry on as you were. He is more afraid of you telling the children who would be horrified with him. But they would get over it eventually. I would tell him you are going to divorce him. This, if nothing else will bring him to his senses. Let her be his carer.

I wish you luck

All of this.

Sorry OP but you are delusional to think he's "picked" you. You let him know quite clearly what you'd tell the DC and what you'd do to yourself and he's with you purely because you threaten and blackmail to ruin the children's lives and your own as well as his.

You sound really quite abusive. All your control plays, and enjoying being spiteful to OW, all the emotional abuse.

This is about you wanting a comfortable financial set up for yourself and your ego. You have a very high opinion of yourself and you can't bear for friends and family to see that you have been left, so to speak. That's what's driving your behaviour. You don't even care the guy doesn't love you, he just needs to shut up and do as he's told, paying bills and putting on the husband act for your social circle. You don't care about him at all, that he's miserable and being blackmailed.

I despise cheaters. And ow. For the first time ever on one of these threads, I feel huge sympathy for the husband. Completely against the grain to everything I believe. If you were a man treating a woman like this, people would be up in arms telling her to leave the abusive, manipulative and controlling man. To quote a PP, you "sound like a nightmare" and until you see that, and address why you are happy that someone should stay with you because of the life you threaten them with if they don't, he's just going to leave you anyway. For someone who doesn't do that. And frankly, he's very right to do so.

So much denial OP.

it’s the OW’s fault. Mid-life crisis. No recognition of the fact he doesn’t actually love you still.

I don’t condone cheating but you sound controlling and manipulative, (threatening suicide to get your own way. Jesus) and mainly interested in maintaining a comfortable life style.

sounds like a miserable existence for the two of your and all based on fear.

Fair play for your honesty...although it doesn't paint you in the best light.

I know it feels devastating to face the end of a marriage after so long but it happens to many (mostly) women and you would have got through it. That's something you need to reflect on and should get solo counselling to resolve. If he does decide to leave again, you would at least be in a better place mentally.

It's also wrong to blame the OW, she was the catalyst and if not her it might have been someone else. However her position at the company isn't going to work because their relationship is no longer professional. That's something that he will need to resolve.

If you have both agreed to work on the marriage then try joint counselling. Perhaps your H has had his "fling" and realises that he wants the family unit more than life with a new woman. That's likely to be a sensible decision because affairs often don't lead to long-term happiness.

Many men wake up to the reality of living with OW (but with a broken family life) much further down the line and have regrets.I give your H credit for realising that OW might not have been the answer.

However she does deserve empathy because he brought her into your marriage, had you confront her and then he has discarded her

The best way to make this work is to make him feel loved and appreciated and forgiven. That’s what the OW will have done. You’re going to have to manage your feelings of anger and resentment even though they’re justified, because they’re a turn off. I do think he might come back to you if you can manage this. I’m not sure I could.

Threatening to commit suicide is emotional blackmail, horrible. I think your dh will in time regret he didn't have more of a backbone to leave the marriage , it doesn't sound a good one. Sorry if that's not ejwt you want to hear but yes, your marriage will no doubt plod along more or less as before.