Husband wants open marriage after 38 years

[OldFatUglyUnwanted]

Thread Content Warning (added by MNHQ concerns suicide)

Married 29 years, 39 years together, 3 sons age 22, 19 and 18. After 22 years raising kids, I was looking forward to having time for ourselves. Turns out he opened our marriage 3 years ago and wants to be ethically non monogamous. He has changed his wardrobe, got into dance/rave music and likes to go for weekends away with women in their 20s and 30s. He says he still loves me and wants me to stay. I have no friends, no one to talk to. I had 6 months of counselling I couldn’t afford and the upshot was “do nice things for yourself”, what about a knit & natter group?! (my husband & his new girlfriends will be laughing their socks off at that!) I am climbing the walls. I’m terrified of being alone (I’ve been with him since I was 18). I can’t get over the rejection. I’m embarrassed in front of mutual friends. 3 years ago we took our much loved elderly dog to the vet and had her put to sleep (she could no longer walk). WHY is this humane option not available to unwanted wives? Why do I have to continue to suffer when I have nothing to live for?

He’s never been abusive. Nor would I say he’s ever been a “looker”! He pursued me at the start and tbh, I didn’t think he was my type. He was, however, very confident, charming, intelligent and popular. He’s never let himself go: he’s slimmer now than he was when he was 19 and he’s made huge efforts to get fitter in the last 14 months or so, I would say to the point of obsession. He did grow a horrible grizzly grey beard about 2 years ago, which he knows I hate but he keeps it anyway. I have to assume this was something one of his earliest new “friends” liked or told him was attractive.
Apart from the wanting to go out and go away with other women, he hasn’t treated me badly. I think Covid was a turning point for us. At the start, he was terrified for me (I’m asthmatic) and he basically put me & the boys under house arrest (we do have a big garden so we weren’t constrained in that way) and took on all the shopping etc himself (which is something he’d never done before). I have always struggled with going “out” in the world. I don’t like noise, busy places or even the idea of any kind of human confrontation. But pre-pandemic, I did it, I travelled to London on a weekly basis for work. I made myself get out and about and keep doing it. I knew that if I once stopped going out, then I would find it very difficult to start again. And so it proved. I found myself having panic attacks on the first domestic holiday we tried to take, just because of the proximity of other people. WFH was in some ways a godsend for me, but then again, it allowed me to withdraw further: my trips to London went from every week to monthly and have now dropped to maybe six times a year.
my husband decided he wanted to go out and have some “fun”, to socialise, to dance and I got left behind, initially through choice (or fear). So I am partly to blame.
i feel like he’s now become obsessed with his little outings, that he can’t see or doesn’t care how much it hurt me. But then he would come back and be “nice” to me until he sprung the next one on me.
however, I got the impression when I left on Sunday he just didn’t care (maybe he really liked the new woman). He has msgd once to ask if I’m ok, and I said “no not really, but he’d made his preferences clear”. He basically responded with a thumbs up and we had an exchange about logistics for our youngest son. Life goes on, but I’m stuck in lonely limbo.
when I say fight over the house (or money), it’s not that I think he wd try to withhold anything, I just think getting solicitors involved wd make everything very complicated. His brother had a horrible divorce after his wife’s affair(s), when their two children were v small and she totally took him to the cleaners and estranged him from his son. Everyone will say it doesn’t have to be like that, but it’s hard to see past the experiences of those closest to you.
sorry, I’ve wittered on for far too long, but thank you for the advice and empathy

He IS BEING abusive.

It really sounds like you have a lot of issues that you really need help with. Please be strong and get help and work on yourself so that your trauma is not passed on to your children as your parents trauma has been passed on to you.

You might not believe this now but you could have decades of a great life to come. You might be a grandma at some point and have many things in your life that bring you joy.

The hardworking of therapy and facing some or all of your fears will be worth it. You have your DC to think about and you really don’t want to pass everything on to them.

I've read everything on this post....please seek counselling......you are NOT ok....please ask someone in real life to help you...

His lack of concern for your current wellbeing is very cruel. But it should harden your resolve to make this work, because you deserve far better than this man who just doesn't care. Life will get better - hold onto that.

You are stronger than you think - this is not just easy words, look at the EVIDENCE:

You have insight into how you got here and you know that you are capable of forcing yourself to go out as you did so before.

You are well-educated and articulate.

Deciding to leave and doing it is the single hardest step and you have already done it.

You have firm views and are capable of being assertive.

At the moment, you are at the bottom of the mountain and the top seems impossibly far away, so focus on the steps just in front of you. Only you can decide your own priorities. In your situation, these would be mine:

Marriage - decide if you can ever be satisfied and sane with your husband being openly unfaithful. Can you disengage, find interests, friendships and even romance for yourself? Or will you obsess over his partners, what he's doing, what his girlfriends think about you etc. What impact will it have on your relationship with your sons - would they respect your choice or would they lose respect for you? How secure would you be that your husband might not at some point leave you for a new partner? If you go back, will your husband's behaviour worsen now he knows you will tolerate it? If so, what's your plan for working on yourself and living a separate life under the same roof? How will you protect yourself emotionally?

Getting help to feel more positive and understand that just because you've seen bad things happen before, it doesn't have to be the same
for you.

Children - call them, ask to meet up. Don't talk about their father, ask how they are getting on, what they're up to etc. Ask them to think of something they would enjoy doing one on one (meal out, cinema, pub, walk in the park, whatever) and commit to doing it, just you and them.

Divorce, if that's what you decide. You have to have a solicitor, like it or not. Find a good one, ask only for what you're entitled to (50/50) and there does not need to be a fight.

Sorry for the long post, I just want to help!

OP, good morning, that’s a really interesting long post about your experiences in COVID and how it has contributed to the situation you are in. I agree that a lot of people were quite profoundly affected by COVID and found it difficult to get out again afterwards (including me, with quite a lot of experience of panic attacks and finding public places difficult).

In your situation, having a job is a big positive, you have your own income and you have work that you have to do so you can at least try to focus on that. Is there any way you could slightly increase the days you spend in the office now? Is there anyone you know at work that you see as a friend that you could turn to for a bit of support? That doesn’t necessarily mean telling them everything, it could just mean letting someone know you are going through a hard time.

Does your work have an EAP (employee assistance programme). If so, there is often an offer of free counselling - what you tell the counsellor will never be reported to anyone at work and while it will be a limited offer I can tell you from experience that at our work that while for some people it was OK but not amazing, others genuinely found it transformed their life and helped them get on a completely new path. So I would suggest giving it a go - you don’t have to carry on if you don’t like it. It would be online or on the phone. You can always hang up!

I’m sure you know this already but to reduce panic attacks you need to practice - the less you go out, the less you will be able to go out, as has happened to you. Is your new flat near anywhere you can go for a walk/the shops? You need to make sure you get out. Have you ever learned any breathing techniques to help you when you feel that you are starting to panic? Have you learned any other relaxation techniques or anything else that works for you?

Going back to exercising choice. When you speak about solicitors you speak as if you don’t get a choice. Or that if you speak to one you will somehow automatically find yourself employing them and then not be able to get rid of them. You’ve explained that your past experience has shaped your thinking. But respectfully, this is your emotions not your logical brain. Just because you’ve come across a bad solicitor doesn’t mean that they are all bad. Just because you speak to one for an initial meeting doesn’t mean you are committing to engaging them - or anyone. They can’t make you! You can speak to as many solicitors as you like for an introductory meeting and then not go on to employ them. Many will offer the introductory meeting for free. If you have a solicitor and you don’t like them or trust them you can replace them.

By the way, I’ve been wondering if you’ve read “The body keeps the score.” You might find it interesting.

People here are here for you. We are only here on the internet, but suddenly you are having a different conversation that isn’t just going round and round on a loop. I know it’s not easy to accept a lot of these comments or even just sit with them. Like others, I’m thinking of you. Have a better day.

OP, so happy to see your last post sounding stronger than the earlier initial ones were , I think talking about this at least on here , if not to family/friends, is helping you. Talking is always therapeutic on here, most threads I have seen.

Pandemic has been similarly difficult for a number of us in our 40s and 50s , you are not alone. We're in this together in many ways, pls know that.

Turn this around on its head OP, detach mentally from your H by getting more interested in yourself , and doing things that build you up and make you happy. You can do all this while still in the marriage. Also sounds like both of you still work (not yet in 60s and retired etc) , but he has time to work on his fitness, date , go away etc while you presumably do all the cooking and cleaning for both of you and the three DC ?

If you feel his additional earnings over and above yours (x 4) is ethically his, then why are you doing all the cooking, cleaning and admin for free .....You were also the one who went through the load of being pregnant for almost three whole years not him....

Please stop doing more than half or less even to make up for the past, around the house - let him spend his money on cleaner and order in food etc , instead of having so much leftover to date ffs.

Make your life easier, and his more difficult . Ethically.

Have your sons get him to do his will so that their inheritances are safe, I'm a dummy when it comes to legal stuff, but lots of posters on here can advise.

They may have stood by quietly for his 'harmless fun of ethical NM' but surely they are not going to stand by re allowing this to escalate into anymore serious. Thereby conditions can be put by you with their support, on keeping the non monogamy strictly casual and infrequent, Please do let him know that ENM applies for both parties not just him. Even if you dont intend to indulge, make all the noises and moves as if ( and who knows, maybe you find someone who makes you go H who? soon, stop thinking you know exactly what life has in store, there are greater things on heaven and earth than you and I can imagine :-)

You really have to start seeing how ridiculous a 58 year old man with a 30 something looks OP .....that itself would help you tremendously here ...you are not the one people will be laughing at if this comes out....

Let me tell you @OldFatUglyUnwanted yes money doesn’t make you happy but not having it is far, far worse. At least if you have money, it’s one less thing to worry about. Give your head a wobble and find some common sense.

Op, you aren’t the first woman to feel like this and you certainly won’t be the last. There is a club of women who feel they were discarded by the people they loved and trusted. It is truly awful and you sound heartbroken and like you’ve given up.

But, feelings pass. Even those of love eventually fade away. You’ve had a lot of trauma. When your dad took his own life, he left you. Then your mother in her illness and now your husband. I can only imagine how deeply scarring that is. So don’t do that to your boys. A good mother isn’t someone spectacular….they are just there. Be there for your boys and you’ll be the best mother they could ask for.

Now let’s chat about seeing a solicitor to take your share from this marriage. Not for you. You clearly aren’t interested in money or possessions. But do it for your sons. If your husband decides to remarry in the future, do you think she will not take her half? Including your share at the moment. And that means less for your sons. Claim what is rightly yours, for the time you put into this marriage and those children and even if you never spend a penny of it, at least it’s protected for your sons. And the fight. Who knows - it might be plain sailing or it could be a ball ache again, but you won’t be doing it for you. You’re doing it for them.

As for your husband. It’s his loss. He’s a fool. Giving up the richness and depth of a 40 year relationship for a couple of flings. He must be crazy. Eventually he’ll tire of the string of meaningless relationships. He’ll get to know one just about enough to settle again, and then he’ll have built his new life on sand. Doing all that to himself. He won’t realise until too late what poor choices he made, but he’ll live it out in old age, when he’s no longer got the energy to chase younger women.

At least you haven’t chosen this, so you don’t have to live with regrets in the future. You are free to be who you want to be as soon as you’re ready. Your future is what you make of it. It feels impossible now, but I hope you choose a good one.

Rooting for you op.

There is one thing op, all this time, the past three years since he has been abusing you and gaslighting you about just being a common a garden cheater, you have been enduring this and changing.

Your stance of leaving, your periods of not being able to cope with the pain is all part of the experience, you are living it and surviving it now.

You believe it's the end of line but it's part of the process, you have felt the excruciating pain and you are still here, you may feel you are standing still but you arn't, you are experiencing the detatchment of love, it takes a long time and there is no start and no stop, it is continuous.

This is where strength builds, you may not think so but it's happening. He can't hurt you as much as he did, this is a different world, not one you want but you will see in time how he had far too much power over you,

And one day you may not be in so much pain and will think how the hell could he have caused you so much pain because he will become irrelevant.

Give it time.

How are things now?

This is really sad reading, hope you're ok OP.

Sooooo, I’m still here. Not much has changed. He’s still having occasional weekends away, with the same 36-year old positive life coach who has 3 kids of her own. Sadly this weekend, he got food poisoning on the train journey to their event, and he’s still really ill now, 5 days later. I’m looking after him. I was raging before he left on Thursday night, but I still ironed his clothes (& then went out for a 2 km walk barefoot at midnight). I made a GP appointment, but it’s not until 10th September! Eldest son has left for new job in new city in new flat with girlfriend. Middle about to go back to Uni. Youngest not leaving until 20th November.
i’m calm at the moment, but I was climbing the walls last Thursday. I still don’t know what to do and he still says he loves me, but wants to have fun with her…… 29th wedding anniversary is looming! 🙄
I am on a diet and trying to do something positive for myself by eating more healthily (during a row, he said he’d asked/told me to get fitter/lose weight 20 years ago & I hadn’t done it - I pointed out I’d been 3 months pregnant with our 2nd child & the eldest was not yet two - his response was “rounding errors”!!!) he’s now joined the life coach’s v expensive gym and bought Lycra for going out on his bike and today, €83-worth of testosterone support drugs arrived in the post…….

Honestly you sound a bit mental. Who the fuck cares if he got sick on his way to meet up with somebody else or needed to look good beforehand.

Unless he commits to you. You do fuck all for him.

Stop looking after him. Let his girlfriend deal with him. Food poisoning is hardly an aphrodisiac. I hope he shits himself to death.

I could have written your post! The difference was that as far as I know he declared he wanted an open marriage before he started seeing others but was mad as helll when I struggled with it. I ended up leaving. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. He is soooo much happier without me and I am recovering. I not only survived this but I am beginning to believe I can thrive. I get how scared and hurt you are...goodness it is hard! It will be okay.

Please stop doing this to yourself

As someone who is going through the same and has been with my OH the same length of time I will not tell you to stop doing this and that, nor will I tell you to leave. I am walking in your shoes and I know how hard this is. This is not about you, how you look, what you weigh or what you say/do or don’t do. This is him. He has to make you the bad guy to salve his own conscience and continue on his path.

I’m further along this road we both find ourselves on than you, and am still on it, so please DM be if you wish to talk xx

God these posts are so sad. Heartbroken for you ladies x

He truly sounds absolutely awful. A walking cliche. No wonder he tries to blame this on you - if he accepted this is all his own doing and all his own choice he might die of embarrassment.

I think the words of those who have lived through this are very wise. Please try to take care of yourself and remember he’s putting you down because otherwise he’d have to admit to himself what a total dick he is.

Don’t go for barefoot walks (unless it’s a new hobby and makes you feel amazing) - you have nothing to do penance for.

OP. It's such a sad life youre allowing yourself to lead.

Please divorce him.

You didn't choose to be in this situation, OP, but if you go about things the right way you'll one day look back on this as the more positive thing to have happened to you. Seriously!

Your whole life has revolved around him, and all of a sudden he's out of it. No wonder you're flailing around wondering what the point of life is.

He is off on a merry little course of delusional mayhem. In my experience "life coaches" are bonkers (sorry to any readers who are, or who have ever met, a sensible one). Let him go and do his thing, whatever that is.

Your number one priority in life is to look after yourself. This is the time to start learning how. It will be enormously difficult at first but will get easier with time.

It might sound like an odd suggestion, but for starters you could try doing Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way (look it up on Amazon).

Also have a quick read of the Amazon "Read sample" of this book and see if it resonates with you. I'll never stop recommending it!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coming-Apart-Uncoupling-Breaking-someone-ebook/dp/B09L15WWX7/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1YA252LWNRFF2&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.GKISRMuOpCPcr-EyWUtCMWWHPw6bb8jcLUdU1hG-fcHMmCSlKCotzPUDlF3_YAMK.kS1hAuTKYmBmAIvYdzADq71GA2n5CJjoYEI0HBXpiGM&dib_tag=se&keywords=coming+apart+daphne+rose&qid=1756246391&sprefix=coming+apart+daphne+rose+%2Caps%2C109&sr=8-1