Husband had an affair - advice needed!

[Strawberrina]

I found out last year that my husband had an affair with a work colleague who is 25 years younger than him. The affair was emotional as well as physical. He was and is her manager at the workplace. The difficulty is that they continue to work together in a small office consisting of 4-5 members of staff, including them, and see each other almost every day. The town in which we live is a small regional town and there are limited jobs available for someone with his level of experience. We have reconciled and are working through things, but I'm at my wits end about what to do! I'm not happy that they work together and see each other almost daily.
Any advice would be welcome!

I posted earlier on this thread and had to step away as I find the OP’s passivity quite disturbing. Can’t quite believe she’s still not left him. She is destined to become one of those brittle, nervous women who are constantly sad and angry and drink a little bit too much, and just blows up like Krakatoa every now and again because the energy to maintain the facade of a respectful husband and a happy marriage ebbs and floods.

And then eventually he’ll leave you anyway.

Sadly I wholeheartedly agree. I know a woman like that. Early 60s and on the wine by 9.30 just after her husband leaves for work because he’s a womanising narc.

Id just accept you are now in an open relationship and go and have some fun of your own! He’s taking the piss and you will believe anything the liar tells you.

@MounjaroOnMyMind there are no good options. If he leaves the job tomorrow, we have a chance of saving our marriage but will be relying on my income only and I will be the only breadwinner.
If he stays in the job, it will drive me nuts and there will always be a risk things with OW will start again.

@853ax Yes, I agree that keeping him away, him breaking up with her won't make our relationship any better. I was annoyed with her driving past our house down the street where we live. She told him the next day that it was completely innocent, but I don't buy it.

I’ve just read all of your posts OP. I’m so sad that you have decided to be a supporting character in your own life and let this cheating arsehole not only be the lead character but the fucking director and hero too! The other woman is not the villain, your husband is.

He has faced no consequences for his appalling actions and you seem to be desperately hanging on for his extended leave in August so he can be away from the ‘bad woman’ And then what? He is not going to change. And that extended leave will come to an end. And then what?

You are consigning yourself to a life of paranoia until he does eventually leave you for another woman. There will be others as he has learned he faces no consequences and you will quick to forgive. He will probably stop even hiding it at some point because he has no respect for you.

Your husband is awful and - while I think women who are affair partners have a special place in hell - you need to direct all of your anger at your husband and recognise what a worthless waste of space he is.

Replace your passivity towards him with some energy to leave.

OP, you’re so passive. How how how can you stand it??

You do realise that nothing he is saying is true. Doesn’t that scare you?

He is constantly spinning stories to you. None of it is true.

And yet again, the OP updates her thread with these repetitive, bland, passive, almost robotic-sounding responses that she's been writing throughout, quoting a couple of posts and ignoring all the rest. 'There are no good options. Yes, yes, I agree. I'm angry with the OW. My H needs to leave his job. We've been married for nearly 30 years and have DC and own properties so it's difficult.' Rinse and repeat for nearly 20 pages.

Now I know who you remind me of. There was a woman I knew and she had a major health issue, had to have surgery to remove something and was so ill. Anyway she went for her follow up appointment and the consultant said ‘great news, it’s not cancer’ and she said she nearly fell off the chair in shock. She told me, honestly that it never entered her head.
Everyone else I know would have looked it up and had the funeral music picked out.

Not her! She just went along and did what she was told and never had any thoughts.

I remember thinking, how lovely to be that innocent/passive I don’t know the right words for it. But it’s not lovely at all.

Your marriage will be 'saved' because you are not going to kick him out.

He will carry on in this job with this OW or another one

And you'll put up with it

** “there are no good options. If he leaves the job tomorrow, we have a chance of saving our marriage but will be relying on my income only and I will be the only breadwinner.
If he stays in the job, it will drive me nuts and there will always be a risk things with OW will start again.”

Clear choices here. You’ve spelled it out for yourself.
You’ve stated yourself that the only chance of saving your marriage is if he leaves that job.
You can’t stand him going to that job every day and neither could I.
To save my marriage I needed to see an almighty shit ton of work from my husband.
There was no quibble, he said it was all his fault, he’d ruined the job opportunity himself because of what he did, he knew him staying there would drive me nuts, he knew his word meant nothing, so he wanted to show me and prove he was absolutely committed to me and the marriage and he resigned.

The difference is that he accepted full responsibility and was desperate to prove to me it was a one off personal shitshow that he didn’t want to repeat. He didn’t want to see OW any more and he wanted it over, he saw it as his rock bottom lowest self rather than a love affair to be missed or mooned over. He didn’t want the reminders of the shittest parts of himself either.
If you want to save your marriage that’s what you need to see, plus a ton of effort improving the marriage relationship itself. It’s not just about leaving the job and the situation. It’s about wanting to, it’s about seeing what needs to change.
He became present again, gave full transparency and accountability, he put me and the kids first, initiated stuff for us to do together, he became the husband and father he knew he ought to be and could finally look at himself in the mirror again.
If he’s doing as he’s told and paying lip service without self-awareness and a desire to put things right, your marriage won’t be saved, it will limp along until he leaves with this OW or finds another.
Leaving the job won’t improve your marriage, but it’s the gesture you need to see. Then he rolls his sleeves up and becomes the husband he ought to be.
You need to decide though that even if that happens, do you still want this marriage?
It’s as simple as that, @Strawberrina .
What do you want?

Isn't it soul-destroying to be living with someone who you know doesn't love you and obviously loves someone else? No matter how many barriers you erect to try and minimise or completely stop him having any contact with the other woman, it won't fix your marriage and make him love you again.

You have a job and you don't have small children living at home who will be affected. Your self-esteem must be in tatters but you can feel much better about yourself by making a decision to end your sham of a marriage. You are currently on constant alert for signs that he is still in a relationship with her and that must be absolutely exhausting. It will be like a weight off your shoulders to take the initiative and tell him to leave.

So you don’t buy that she didn’t intentionally drive down your street, but you do buy that your husband has stopped shagging a woman he sees on a daily basis who he has admitted he is in love with? Your bull shit radar is fucked.

Many years ago OP I was an OW, in a relationship with a senior colleague. It ended a long time ago, he’s still married, & we have worked together ever since. I do not have any romantic or sexual feelings or interaction with him. I mean I get on with him ok at work, there’s no issue about that, but that’s it. (I have a very happy relationship now with a lovely man who I know would not have an affair, ever.)

I am aware- through work- that since his affair with me, my previous affair partner has had 2 more work affairs. One of them is ongoing & is with someone who I think is vulnerable, a single mother who adores him. I feel very sorry for her.

People can change (I recently commented on a thread about that- my lovely current partner was a complete tit until becoming a father) but this isn’t a case of someone being irresponsible when young. Your husband is almost 60. He already knows the responsibility of fatherhood & marriage. If anything, it sounds as though he has changed to become a more self indulgent, selfish person.

I think you should consider the very strong possibility that it doesn’t matter whether you manage to stop contact with the OW: because there will be more women, in more offices, & potentially more lies. Your rage towards her is understandable, but very misdirected. The issue is your man, & the selfish, self-pitying person he has become. You deserve better.

The Op is desperately waiting for August to come - only 2 months or less !
then her husband will be on extended leave from his so important high paying job and will be home all day every day.

The Op believes this extended leave will stop her husband from seeing the OW

Totally forgetting he will have all day every day to do as he pleases as the Op herself will be at work for the majority of his extended leave.

As he will not be in the office the Op totally believes that out of sight means out of mind...

Hold on hold on... According to you, she didn't answer the door. So her communicating was via messenger app, which means they're still in touch. Darling, wake the fuck up.

another option, is she did in fact open door and he retrieved his belongings (which, let's face it, he didn't get from his office) and is now protecting her.

Either way he is lying. I don't think this affair is over. Wake up.

@LaaLaaLady They are still in touch as they work together in the same office. She told him at work the next day.

@OlderGlaswegianLivingInDevon I am aware that, in theory, he can still see her during his extended leave and while I'm at work.
Do you not think that out of sight means out of mind? If one does not see or speak with their former affair partner for 5 months, things can fizzle out... But feel free to call me naive.
I'm desperately trying to keep my family together and am probably clasping at straws here.

@Strawberrina I have read every post on this thread. At this point I think you are so materialistic and cowardly you intend to ride his affair out. I don’t think this will work. I think he will continue to have affairs with this young woman or another after her. You are giving him permission. I actually have no sympathy for you now.

But he will still have contact with her? Why would he not, I’m sure both of them have phones.
And she’ll be in your bed at lunchtimes while you’re out at work, meet-ups at 5 when her office hours finish and you’re not home yet.
Take it from one who came home unexpectedly from work one lunchtime to find a naked young woman hurriedly getting dressed in my sitting room.

@SunnyIslands What do you mean by riding his affair out?

@BuntyBeaufort I'm sorry this happened to you, that's terrible! We have been working on our marriage, he would be utterly stupid to jeopardize us by restarting the affair or, even worse, bringing her into our home.

@SunnyIslands OP has said that she’s desperate to keep her family together, instant LTB, no matter how justified, is anathema to her, her husband has had an affair and has a mistress at his workplace, she’s in a living hell of his making, and you have no sympathy for her at all and think she’s a coward and call her that on this forum? Because she won’t do what people think she should do? She’s not worthy of any compassion because she won’t live the life randoms on the internet (who in ten minutes will go back to their lives and put the kettle on, until they remember to tune back in to the next exciting instalment of somebody else’s nightmare reality) want her to?
OP needs to reach a conclusion in her own time, armed with the advice given here. She’s decided to try the five months’ extended leave and see how he behaves during that time.
No matter how foolhardy any of us think that is, cowardly it is not. She is risking further heartbreak, living with mistrust, further humiliation and disrespect from a man who should have her back, not stab her in it. For the sake of keeping her family together.
That takes courage. I applaud her motives if not her methodology.
Whatever you may think of her, a coward she isn’t.