Would your marriage survive this?

[Namechgd]

Name changed for this.

I've been with DH for 37 years, married for 27, we have two grown up children, one of which (DS age 22) still lives at home.

I found out via google maps (which tracks him as well as me because we share an email address) that he has been visiting a swingers club once a week when he said he was at the cinema.

I confronted him and he initially denied it, then admitted that he does go there but claims he only uses the sauna. He said it was relaxing and I should come with him sometime.

For context our sex life has been very sparse recently - it was never great, I don't have the greatest sex drive and recently weight related issues have meant he has ED. His whole family had weight problems and he has always been overweight except for a brief time about 10 years ago when he put his mind to it and got down to a healthy weight which lasted approx 6 months. His Dad suffered terribly in his latter years and died of conditions where his weight was an aggravating factor. I have warned DH til I am blue in the face that he is heading in the same direction but he can't/won't do anything about it. If anything he has headed further into obesity.

He's a lovely guy and our family life is great. The kids would be gutted if we broke up. Financially we would both be living on the breadline if we tried to maintain separate homes, and so much of our lives are intertwined I can't begin to imagine how I would go about unraveling it. But I can't reconcile myself to spending the rest of my life with someone who refuses to address their own health problems, potentially making me their carer within a few years, while they go to seedy clubs.

He says "nothing happens" at the club and nobody would be interested in doing anything with him there because he is "hardly an adonis", but even if that is true I have no doubt he would go through with it if someone was interested. I feel as though it's the final nail in the coffin of our sex life, due to threat of STDs etc.

I genuinely don't know what to do, and whether I'm making too much of this. Grateful for any perspective really.

Would he go with you to a counsellor to work out why he feels the need to go there, and why he has such low self esteem that he is content to shorten his life.

With respect he doesn't have low self esteem, he has an enormous sense of entitlement. He feels entitled to eat crap and not care for his health as he expects OP to run herself ragged as his carer, probably shortening her own life in the process, he also feels entitled to attend swingers clubs as he expects OP to just put up and shut up as he's unfaithful to her after she has spent most of her adult life in a relationship with this man and financially cannot leave, he knows she's stuck so is using that to him advantage.

I think you have three options here OP:

1 Turn a blind eye, separate bedrooms, and then be his carer while trying to have some life for yourself.
2 Divorce and try to figure out a way to survive financially.
3 Serve him full English for breakfast, ploughman's lunch and chippy tea everyday and let nature take it's course a bit faster (may or may not be joking on this point)

I would go to the club and see how people greet him!

Hi. I'm wondering if he has addiction issues, maybe with food and sex? Only a thought. In which case he could get help.

No I don't think it would. I'd be absolutely disgusted with him for that. Married 31 years this Christmas. He has truly given you a get out of jail free card on this though and nobody in their right mind would judge you for wanting out because of it.
I think if you stayed together this incident would always be there eating away at you. My DF had an affair quite late in age, my DM was understandably devastated and after a very difficult year they(she) decided to stay together. It definitely ate away at her though afterwards.

With regards to the health side and his refusal to change his ways permanently, how are you honestly going to deal with caring for a sick husband with self inflicted conditions who you hate because of how he's treated you?

Would your marriage survive this?

I wouldn’t want it to.

Are you sure there's not more to this?
Maybe he is having an affair with someone who's into swinging ?

In my view marriage is a contract. Your DH broke that contract and lied to you as well. I'd not tolerate that. I was married for 22 years to my first DH. He cheated, I found out, I immediately divorced him. I have no regrets at all. I found a new partner and am happily married to him. He knows If he ever cheated on me though, I'd divorce him too.

You need to work out what you want.

If you want the family life and financial stability, then maybe you lead separate lives in every other way.

But if he as repulsive as he sounds in your post, then perhaps you'd be better off without the pervy slob?

Weight wouldn't be an issue to me if I loved the person. Frequenting swinger clubs would be a huge issue however - especially when said person lied about their whereabouts in going!

It would be one thing if you AND your husband decided "a swinging life for us" collectively. That isn't the case. I have totally no issue with swingers if they aren't lying to partners in swinging - your husband clearly is!

His weight has nothing to do with it. His loyalty and trustworthiness is what hangs in the balance here.

Seriously, I would walk. If you want to try and save the marriage get counselling. This isn't a good tale. I wish you the very best. 🌻

If he was just going there for the sauna, he wouldn't hide it from you. The moment a man starts lying or trying to hide things, run!

This above 👆 I have to say I think this is it in a nutshell. The swingers ‘thing’ and the denial and then lies around it are pretty bad and disrespectful (understatement here!) but the doubling down and claiming he doesn’t do much while there… I’m sure as a PP has said - you are catching up and processing this new information but I would seriously be looking further down the road - how will you feel duty bound by your own decency to be caring for him perhaps for years - your own quality of life diminished from his choices… all the while knowing he was doing this behind your back? Please don’t let this be you. At the very least I would be requiring him to attend couples therapy. But I think it’s hard once the scales have dropped to put the knowledge back in a box. This is not the behaviour of a loving husband.

Of course he's not going there to use the sauna! He must think you are extremely gullible if he expects you to believe that.

It's such a deliberate act of deceit: actively seeking out a swingers club .

He is not a lovely man. He is liar and a cheat who deceives his wife to get his sexual kicks in a really seedy way. And doesn't have the decency to be honest with you when you found out but continues to treat you like a fool.

For my own self respect I wouldn't want to stay married to this man. I actually wouldn't want to be in the same room as him sitting playing happy families and the good guy with all the other people he has been actively deceiving.

I do know people on the swinging scene who go to events for the atmosphere/voyeur kick, without having sex with others. However, they do so with the knowledge and blessing of their spouses.

Like fuck does he "just go to use the sauna". If that's all he wants he can get a David Lloyd membership like normal people.

Thank you @honeylulu
😁😂🤣

OP, we all know he isn't going there for the sauna! This is so difficult because people who haven't been married for best part of their lives don't understand what's it's like to contemplate anything else. My DH had an affair after 26 years of marriage and you've got another 10 years on that. I'd spent over half my life with him. How do you disentangle yourself emotionally, financially and psycologically from that? However, you will not be able to be this man's carer, knowing what you now know. Your adult children will survive and somehow you will too.

Forget the kids and everyone else. What's in it for you if you stay?
He's fat, unfaithful, unhealthy and you're likely going to end up as a carer for a very long time. Doesn't sound like a great plan. If you were my daughter I'd be saying excellent. Now you have a really good reason to leave.
Noone else has to live your life, so they actually don't get a say.

How old are you? My advice is v different if you're 52 than if you're 75.

Two seperate issues. He's getting something out of visiting the club every week that he can't get elsewhere, it's not like popping for a pint. It's a bit of a move, and weekly is quite enthusiastic. He's probably watching other people having sex, at a guess. Make of that what you will. I think you could probably get round that if you could decide that you'd rather stay together on a platonic basis and live seperately together for finanical reasons... BUT.....

You are right in the crosshairs of spending the last years of your life as a carer for this man if you stick around to find out. That's what is coming down the track at you, so like others, I'd bite the bullet and use this as your get out of jail card.

Everyone is entangled after a long marriage, that's the point, it must feel overwhelming but you can do it if it's what you want. Quietlly get your paperwork together and make a fact finding appointment with a solicitor. Get together all the financial info, mortgage, pensions, savings, assets, debts and income basically, get on Rightmove and suss out what the situation would look like to house both parties seperately.

And then have a think about what you want the rest of your life to look like.

You're lying to yourself if you think one day he googled "saunas near me" and a swinging club was the first/best result.

I haven't been to a swinging club but always got the impression they aren't full of beautiful models, they are for like-minded people who aren't necessarily judgey about appearance (I mean that in a complementary way, not an insult before anyone jumps on me!)

No, with grown up children you would be mad to stay. You absolutely would be better off on your own.

He wouldn’t go every week if nothing happened.

Honestly the shit some of them say. My ex joined a hook up site to "make friends". This is not a "lovely guy'. I know your kids will be upset but honestly, that shouldn't be a deciding factor on whether you leave a serial cheater and liar who will probably need you as his carer in the not too distant future. Get out now with no guilt.

No it wouldn't survive that level of deceit - in particular the insulting lie of 'just using the sauna'.

I wonder what else you've put it up with over the years if you are pondering if you're 'making too much of this'. Does he have form for treating you badly and telling you you're over reacting?

He lied to your face multiple times and is trying to take you for a fool. The rest aside, which are reasons to ditch him anyway, the disrespect would make me hate him. What a loser.

Sorry you find yourself here OP, and I agree this could be a blessing in disguise as it’s giving you a clear reason to walk.

Btw, your kids won’t blame you for leaving him when they know what he’s been doing. Yuck.