I'm the cheating husband

[BeCandidPanda]

I have been with my wife for 14+ years and we have children together. Our life is setup well now, except for one area, sex. It's always been an area of mismatch between us. Now I'm thinking of ending the marriage for another woman. I'm entering mumsnet knowing you are going to judge me and hate me, and perhaps this is what I deserve. Please at least try to be polite in your attacks. This isn't easy for me even though I'm the one causing all the pain.

The story of our downfall starts with me. When we had children together, I did not step up as a father and house worker for the first 2 years and sex and even emotional connection essentially froze for us. In addition, I was absent, neglectful, a work-a-holic, bad at setting boundaries with work. What she got was the broken left overs after a pretty tough work week. What I got was her totally spent from being with the kids all the time, day and night. She was cruel to me, I was absent and detached.

At that point in the marriage, we were exhausted and fighting the whole time, she was hating how little support I gave her, and I was focused purely on bringing home money for our large mortgage. I could see we were heading for a divorce after some particularly bad fights, sometimes in front of family, and doubled down to save the marriage and chose to hold my tongue after every lashing. I've since spoken to her about this time, and she swears divorce was never on her mind, and she would have continued that existence forever, even if I hadn't of improved.

I changed jobs, made time for her and the house, learned a lot of how hard it is to raise kids and run a house and the exhaustion was more fairly spread, although my career took a hit from the job move. After 2 years of me working on the family, she started to open up, talk to me like an equal again, and we occasionally had sex. Perhaps once a month.

For reasons I don't know why, we were so foolish, we had our first chat about libidos and sex drives at this point in our marriage, a house and multiple kids in. My wife revealed her ideal amount is once a month if things are going well. And for her it was real work to have to do it more than that. Mine is multiple times a week. We settled on once every 2 weeks as the compromise. By this point, I'm a more skilled house worker, the kids are a bit older, we're sleeping more, the mortgage isn't cripplingly high and life is better.

In the back of my head however, I completely panicked. I had no idea she could go a month without sex. I honestly thought missing sex was due to me being a terrible husband and father which partly I worked on to save the marriage, but partly I fuelled my sex drive into the marriage and improving myself. Now in hindsight, the flags were there before we got married that her sex drive was low compared to mine. Early on, it was once a week, I didn't raise it however. The sex quality was easily the best I had ever experienced with anyone, so once a week didn't seem as big a deal. Of course now it's become essentially a chore for her and the frequency has dropped. Of course, all the exciting elements have been stripped back to the least possible while still allowing for orgasm for both. If I raised my concerns, we fought, and sex went away. If I didn't fight, sex was infrequent and there was peace in the house. For years I chose peace.

I don't know when exactly this started, but eventually I started looking for sex hookups online, and discovered a few things. I'm not as attractive to potential sexual partners as I used to be, I'm old and a weirdo online looking for sex. Humbling and slightly humiliating but fair enough. I also discovered many of the women online who want sex, at least where I was looking, have really serious issues and as I got more desperate for sexual attention, I found myself lowering my own standards to try and have sex. I was successful in convincing a few online women to meetup, but when it came down to it, the guilt and the obvious mismatch in the kind of sex we wanted made it impossible for me to go through with it. For example, one woman desired a married man and that turned her on. I played along initially, but I didn't enjoy the idea of cheating on my wife and she started to sense it. Another woman was young and liked me to be as old as possible, yes she was attractive, but I found the whole thing creepy. Another woman was extremely aggressive and wanted me to completely abuse her, I half played along to my shame, but we both figured out that I'm actually completely harmless and am just not a sadist. I enjoy when my sexual partner enjoys sex, so it really made no sense. Even in my frustrated horny state, I had the intuition that if I practised harming women to relieve my sexual tension, I would over years become someone really bad. So I continued to seek online for women who wanted sex, but continued to not follow through when I realised there was something really wrong.

Eventually I stumble on a woman who I really click with. It's a slow burn at first, and we just chit-chat about life. Chit chat over time becomes more emotional and flirty. Flirty becomes sexting, and sexting became nudes. I was floored when I saw her, she's beautiful, and apparently she fancies me as well. A couple of embarrassing points, she's 11 years younger than me, and she even has some similar features to my wife. I didn't plan for that, and it's not the reason I'm with her, but it's worth mentioning, so you can judge me even more.

We have recently made our emotional affair physical, which I see now was possible because we were both vulnerable with each other before we had sex. We have a lot in common, sexual desires, but also outlook in life, some overlap in our anxiety and neediness. We're not quite in love yet, but it's clear we have strong feelings for each other.

She however doesn't have children, and if she wasn't with me, I think she could find someone just like me, but younger and without a family already. She however seems still keen to have me, and honestly from my side, I'm keen to have her. There's only so much I will push her away.

We're still figuring each other out on big things and it's slower going because of the affair context. There's only so much time in the day to figure each other out, and maybe in this time we will discover a boundary of the other which is unacceptable and this will fizzle out. The biggest decision I will need to make is whether I'm willing to go through the whole creating children phase again in order to have her. Almost certainly if she doesn't desire children, then I will be all in. And even if she does desire children, I suspect for her, I could be convinced. This time round, I know how to be a supportive husband and father. I know to prioritise the family. I think because we had the sex drive chat early, even if sex dried up for years because she was looking after children, I feel confident I could raise it with her as a need and we could negotiate it back eventually. She's open to discussing sex as a need. I see now, discussion about sex with my wife is a such a fragile topic that we both leave more hurt than when we started.

Other things worth mentioning, we do both have some childhood issues which will likely mean we both suffer from low confidence issues. I think we have both struggled to state our needs in relationships clearly as needs. That eventually has resulted in us being unhappy in our separate relationships and ultimately cheating. I think we have to each accept the responsibility that we created a situation with our partners partly because of our weakness to negotiate for a need that we felt was important, it's really not the fault of my wife for example that I don't have a lot of sex. I could have left her years ago when the cost to her and me was lower, but I didn't. I think I'm now old enough and mature enough where I can do that with a partner and state my needs, and I'm really of the opinion I need to service my partners needs. I've never treated my affair partner as a young woman or patronised her, but one worry I do have is that she's still figuring herself out. We're both people who by definition didn't get their needs met within a primary relationship and now wish to convert the affair into a real relationship. We're going to face so many more hurdles than is necessary to be a couple, and yet, when I talk to her, it feels right. I should be less hopeful, but I think she's worth it.

I don't really know what to expect from MN. I've read a few threads on this topic of mostly women laughing at these stupid older men chasing after younger women. I can't believe I'm the guy at the end of this joke, I'm most annoyed at myself for having gotten myself into this situation. So there you have it, yet another sad story of a middle aged man doing middle aged man things.

I know I won't get sympathy here, but it is true I feel terrible. I don't exactly have the biggest circle of friends anyway, but for a topic as dangerous as this, I literally have nobody I can confide in.

You say your wife humiliated you every day. Yeah, sure, dude. Her getting pissed off about you doing bugger all around the house or with the kids is justifiable criticism, not humiliation.

The difficult conversations with your wife should open with ‘get thee sen doon the clinic’.

@Pipsquiggle
The ages seem to matter to a lot of people here.

I was reluctant to give exact ages because I think that makes it easier to expose our identities, so I will give approximate ages.

My wife and I are 40ish. AP is 30ish. Children are in primary school.

So no, AP is not straight out of university, or completely unaware of the world.

These things happen. In my own small world (and I don't have a vast social circle) I'm aware of many men behaving like this, including relatives, friends, my parents' friends, colleagues, etc.

OP if you want advice it's this-

You need to decide if your marriage is over. Given your current mindset, and the history of your marriage, it looks like it is.

You have to decide if you want to confess to an affair or just crack on with divorce proceedings.

You also need to accept that this fling is that. It's not just the age difference, it's the life experience difference.

A ten year age gap is not that much. It's more about how you found her and how she's latched onto a married man that's questionable.

Where is her moral compass?

And the fact that you have found each other not as happy, single people, but she's latched onto a married man with kids, and you've grabbed at a passing lifeboat.

It's totally unreal. If you left FOR her, you'd be mad. And so would she, to have you.

If you want to end your marriage, do that. But not based on this pipedream of having found 'The One' in this new younger woman.

You need time to process WHY your marriage failed, so you don't take all of that baggage into any future relationship.

And you need to think how you can co-parent your children. They don't seem to feature much in your posts here, do they?

@AnotherUdderName
I think you have hit the nail on the head.

Good.

So today, you will call it off with the other woman, talk to your wife, and/or find a divorce lawyer and get some advice. Oh, and search the BACP website for a counsellor.

Okay?

😂 this snippet deserves a place on the banned phrases thread!

Imagine that you have left your wife and set up home with the AP. You go to pick up the kids and your wife tells you she has met someone. She seems happy, contented. She thanks you for making life so easy. How would you feel? Relieved and happy for her? Sick from the pit of your stomach that she is with someone else? Regretful that you didn't stay? I think that your reaction will tell you what your path should be.

Although I never thought you were AI (I said earlier you were exactly the kind of long winded, pompous, self-obsessed bore we see in the world every day), it seems very rich that you came on here to drone on about your appalling behaviour and still think you have a right to insult the audience ("screaming" - oh, rational you against all the hysterical women). Then again, misogyny like yours is hugely common too.

You know you deliberately chose Mumsnet because you wanted a masochistic kicking and because you liked the idea of being what you see as the man talking sense among a sea of hysterical harpies. Because we need to understand what sex means to you, like we never hear that in reality. You chose this audience for a reason, you got exactly what you wanted from it. Is there anything you won't whinge about?

@NonPlayerCharacter I apologise, that was a poor use of word.

It's really not as you a describe a game. I am writing this advice down, and am paying attention carefully to what is said. Some of the users here have given really excellent analysis of the situation and I do appreciate it a lot.

@NonPlayerCharacter As an example, the point from @AnotherUdderName that AP isn't just younger, but also has a different set of life experiences is really valid.

I had that feeling in my head somewhere, but I hadn't heard it out loud with words. And it resonates quite clearly. So even though we overlap in many ways, if I was truly single, I just wouldn't filter for a woman so young or more accurately who hasn't gone through some serious difficulty in life. Life isn't just about the great hobbies and good times which is all we have had so far.

I hope you see, I'm really not trying to deliberately wind up the crowd here. If you still think so, I think I cannot convince you otherwise.

You seem to think with your dick.

You also seem to put your kids very low down your list of priorities.

You hugely lack integrity.

You know your AP has had trauma in her life and unresolved issues around male figures in her life.

You realise that by entering an affair with her, you're making all of the issues from this worse yes? That it's compounding her trauma and deepening the wound it's left?

That it's opening up the possibility of her marriage falling apart, her being judged and isolated by people who find out etc?

She's an adult and completely responsible for her own behaviour but maybe reframing it like that to yourself would help you walk away if you really do care about her?

You don't see women as people, do you? One way or another, they are all just service devices for you. You're actually treating both your wife and your AP appallingly, and while only your wife has a right to be upset about it, it doesn't alter the fact that you're being a shit to both of them. You define relationships by sex and you know the AP's draw to you is based on some horrible background of her own, but it suits you so on you go. And then you intentionally seek out a female audience for your walls of self indulgent rambling and still somehow think you have the right to talk down to us. And that's still more consideration than your kids get.

I think you believe that being pompous and verbose somehow elevates your grubbiness, sexism and astonishing narcissism to something more intellectual. It's actually amazing.

You claim to have had some sort of epiphany but you're not actually going to do anything difficult about it, are you? It'll just be more myopic monologues.

Oh and if you met this woman on a hook up site, she may not have had the glaring issues the others had, but she was still on a hook up site. And she knew you were married from the start, right (?).

So she still has issues.

No 30 yr old woman who values herself and has integrity and is well adjusted would be hooking up with attached men online. She'd have better options. Unattached men, men without kids from a previous relationship to pay for for 18 plus years. There's something up with her.

You think she has a sex drive to match yours.... The only thing that seems to matter in your dick led mind ... But;

A. That's easy in the honeymoon period, which you're still in
B. That's easy when she has no kids yet
C. That's easy when the man is not "yours" and it's illicit and you want to win him

I wouldn't be surprised if that will tail off and you'll have fucked up your kids lives for sex you won't actually get.

Also, if she really maintains a high sex drive and is highly sexually motivated (being on hook up sites suggests she is) how do you think it's going to pan out with an 11 years younger woman? I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up jumping on other, younger dicks in future.

You're a fool, mate.

A selfish, dick-led fool.

@mupersum1
Yes, reframing it that way has already happened in my mind somewhat recently.

I actually shared with her these thoughts that she really needs to think this through, and I think this had the opposite intended effect. She actually took that to mean I'm really looking out for her well being and her attraction level to me grew substantially.

I'm going to read the post from @AnotherUdderName 100 times a day I think. I think the answer is staring at me in the face.

You know your AP has had trauma in her life and unresolved issues around male figures in her life.

Ah, I didn't read that but I guessed it.

No well adjusted 30 yr old woman is fucking married men with kids off hookup sites

Op's just too dick led and selfish to even exercise a bit of sense.

Well I suppose people find their level.

Just read she's married too (?)

Lol.

Well a woman who cuckolds her husband is always a sure bet for a steady, faithful, successful relationship. No ishoos there at all.

I'm going to read the post from 100 times a day I think. I think the answer is staring at me in the face.

You sound rather hard of thinking, is that why you let your dick do it all for you?

@CheekyHobson I am good at one very tiny specialist technical thing. Outside of that, I am an amateur in everything else yes.

I haven't read all of the responses here. But I will give my input based on your OP and some of your responses.

Also name changed to reply to you.

There are two separate issues here. One, your marriage. And two, your affair.

You need to treat them separately.

If you choose to leave, you need to do so on the understanding that it may not work out with the other woman. It's not a choice between staying with your wife and leaving for the OW. Its 2 choices:

1. Do you stay or do you leave.

And then,

1. do you progress in your relationship with the OW or not.

Honestly, in order to make decision 1, you need to tell your wife. Currently she is in a marriage that is not the marriage that she thinks that it is, and that's cruel. If you respect her, she also needs to be fully informed in order to make the choice as to whether SHE wants to be with YOU.

If you both decide to proceed, you must end it with the OW immediately and go to counselling.

If she leaves you, or you decide to leave and divorce, you do this on the understanding that it is as a result of your own actions and that the OW may not be the solution that you think that she is.

If you leave for the OW and don't treat each issue separately, you will end up resenting her when the inevitable "bumps in the road" arise, as you will see her as the reason you left your wife. Treat them separately and you will be sure that you left for your own reasons, not simply for another woman.

When you take the OW out of the equation, would you still leave? I doubt it, honestly. But only you can answer that question.

"When you take the OW out of the equation, would you still leave? I doubt it, honestly. But only you can answer that question." 👍👏👏👏

I think this is the crux of this situation - real or AI created.

So often its about a wife for convenience until a better offer comes along. Its the height of disrespect and I think this says it all.

Of course your wife may well find she is massively more enthusiastic about having sex once she has started having it with someone else. I would have cheerfully gone months without having to indulge my now ex-husband’s porn-fuelled whims, which became more and more impossible for me to enjoy. Later, in a relationship with a man with a huge appetite and talent for “vanilla” sex I couldn’t get enough. Naked and missionary position didn’t suit my ex, yet I found that not having to dress up in crotchless pants and peephole bras / invent fantasies that were not just dirty, but repulsive / him ejaculating over my hair or face / having to play with his arse - I remembered how absolutely joyous it was with the right man, and wondered why I’d put up with dreading it for so long.

OP do stop kidding yourself that you know how to be a good husband and father. You’re neither.

To be honest I can't imagine a woman who will say no to a good sex at least once a week if she's not tired and overwhelmed with her life.

The problem about sex is at least 50% on you OP. You either aren't really good in bed and obviously you didn't care about your wife being overwhelmed after giving birth and looking after your kids.

I agree with you, women want sex, but there's plenty of man who can't do it in the right way. If I were you, I wouldn't want your ex husband too🤮