Also have you tried marriage counseling ?

how old are your kids?

Dear Sadyia,

I am sorry to hear your difficulties and thank you for sharing your story. I understanding your feelings as I have been in those hardship for a while now. It was very  shameful and heart broken for me too for not being strong enough to stop the heart falling in love with someone else while being married, even though the intention were not to break the family but to  love and experience the love and intimacy passionately. I know the affair will be never acceptable under any circumstance, but sometime it happened beyond our control and sometimes we thought we could manage to work it out for every one.

I am sorry I don’t have any better advises to give you, but please don’t be too hard on yourself (which I have been very hard on myself but I managed to make it lessen each day). I still try to find the best solution that works for everyone. I hope you will find support and insights from this forum.

I hope you will find strength and peace  to deal with this difficult time

Take care

Sincerely

Hi Sadiya,

I get that you are unhappy in your marriage & are over it and considering divorce at this point. Marriages are really difficult contracts because of the legal things that go into it and also the emotional & belief systems people have about it. I’ve come across a number of post where people were in a very similar situation to you, these women shamed themselves really harshly for falling in love with someone else after being in a relationship with someone they were unhappy with, and a few of them stayed not because they wanted to but because of fears about what society would think of what others would want.

At the end of the day, yes every decision has some consequence. And in these cases , neither will make anyone super happy .. It brings me back to the fairness vs Justice Question. Do we choose fairness or justice? Fairness may make everyone happy but it is not always just for the person. While justice may not make everyone happy but atleast its just. Two moms cry because they want a baby, the biblical figure on the deciding end isn’t sure who the real mom is… he can go with fairness & split the baby in half or Justice . One mom says “give me the baby!” The other mom says “split it in half!” Of course he finds the real mom is the one who wants the full baby- Justice. Even though it lead to the other one being unhappy.

This is to say, no one really knows what they want but you. No one has the answer but you. We can give you opinions all day. But I’d hope you’d choose the answer that makes you feel the most at peace outside of others opinion of you.

On the other end. I’m glad you are considering the well being of others. I had assumed you already did. It seems your husband may be okay other than a broken heart (though he has seemed to stop trying to resolve the issues Years ago..) , but your worry about how it will impact your children is valid. Yet in my opinion and it’s just my opinion – divorce is always hard on children but they are at the age where they can handle it way better compared to Let’s say young children under the age of 10 where psychologically their world are there parents and so they blame everything on themselves and internalize as such and it affects their cognitive development. The only one who I could really see it do damage on the most is the one in college. College is really hard and I’m glad you’re considering this.

Do your children know y’all are having issues? How has it already affected them? Do you think they already know?

If you did decide to leave I’d recommend making sure the one in college enrolls in therapy & getting some family counseling as well to help them process. If divorce is healthier for you, then trying to get them to understand it’s more of a mental health decision than anything else etc. because I get the sense that either something is happening between you and your husband  that is unbearably toxic for you – maybe like his unwillingness to listen after breaking boundaries  or doing harmful things or, maybe you’re just quick to get one now because of the emotions you have and built up irritation from your recent break up?

Do you really need to get a divorce? Can you just leave it separation and still live there and date happily and do you? Or what’s the marriage stopping you from doing that you would do otherwise?

Either way finances is an issue whether you stay together or not, and this is a basic need that people need to have in place before they make any decision . And it will probably help you breathe better and clear your judgment once you secure a savings. So I’d say start practically. Create a plan & a savings. End your relationship, go into separation if you really want to see others. But you don’t have to move out just yet. You can just be actual roommates until you save. All my opinion. All your choice.

With the person you has an affair with. I noticed some red flags then again I’m only hearing your side of the story. For him wanting to hang but it being last minute I could understand how that would be difficult for both of you. As adults scheduling is hard. In my opinion I think he should have been more patient With you and tried to schedule things ahead of time. That is a reasonable boundary and adult thing to do. On the other side in his defense, if it were a situation where there wasn’t clear communication, any cat and mouse stuff going on, he felt frustrated about you still being with your partner- maybe he was stand offish because of that. Sometimes people don’t always communicate their frustrations but I like to ask myself “what are there unmet needs?”

When it comes to him constantly wanting to meet at hotels. I can see why that registered as a flag to you. You said you risked it because you thought he was long term material. So Id imagine you wanted to do things that would build to a long term relationship. Meeting at a hotel , I mean, did he just want sex? Did you ask him? I wouldn’t get too caught up in norms or old beliefs that sleeping with someone makes you a “slut” as you said or bad person. If that’s what you wanted to do then okay . If you wanted to do something else like go to dinner then suggest and communicate that.

But if he blocked you. Then the communication can’t happen and you can’t work it out. He may just be hurt about some things and will unblock you later. If he does come back and you still want it to work, ask him about why he did it. Tell him your true intentions. And see if your intentions match . Be clear about your boundaries what you’re willing to do, and why they matter to you. And then, if it’s a match it’s a match , but if not that’s okay. What did it all teach you?

Hi,

dont beat yourself up about R.

Dear Sadiya:

You are welcome.

“I just don’t seem to know how to pick the right men”- I hear/ read women say this sentence a lot, problem with this sentence is: there aren’t a whole lot of right (honest, trustworthy, empathetic, kind) men at any one time, so statistically it is more likely that a women ends up with the wrong man.

What I understand from the information you provided is the following:

1. You and your husband cannot afford separate residences.

2. Both your children are young adults, your youngest will be starting her first year in college this month, a four year program which you and your husband are financing.

3. You and your husband do not have any savings.

4. Your husband does not have a stable income. When he works, he makes good money, but his work is never steady. “we have always had to save for those slow periods, and there is no guarantee the slow periods will end”. Several years ago, he was unemployed for about a year and a half, your savings were drained at the time and you incurred debt.

5. Your husband “isn’t a bad man” and “On a daily basis, we’re fine”, but he is often impatient, insensitive, selfish and rude, and the communication as well as emotional and physical intimacy is severely lacking.

For his 60 birthday you arranged a dinner at a very nice restaurant for him, with your kids, and you bought him a 60″ TV. For your recent 50 birthday he… did nothing at all to celebrate it.

The above example is “typical of our relationship”, you wrote.

My thoughts this morning: regarding the man you refer to as R- doesn’t read to me that the initial R stands for Right, as in the Right Man, not at all. When you met him you were like a woman living in a desert (your relationship with your husband is that desert). You were very thirsty for intellectual stimulation and for feeling like an attractive, desired woman. You experienced those two things with R.

Back to my comment that a woman is statistically unlikely to find the right man at any one time- it is even more statistically unlikely for a man in his 40s (married or not) to meet a married woman at work, a woman close to 50, knowing she is married, and to think something like: I want a lifetime relationship with this woman. He is more likely to think something like: this is fun! What an exciting distraction from the boredom of work!

I understand that you didn’t behave perfectly with him, having made self deprecating comments to him- but the affair with him didn’t last not because you made self deprecating comments- it was very unlikely to last. In 100 affairs between two people, one or two of them married, how many of those affairs last and become lifetime, the two making a life together?

Maybe one, or two. The chances are very small.

Question now: is it time for you to give up on love and resign to the desert kind of relationship you have with this man, your husband or is it time to look for the love you longed for, for so long?

There are places in the world, big cities, let’s say, that a single woman in her 50s can find love, enroll in a respectable dating site with thousands of men, many fitting the age requirement, and after several months of a thoughtful and strategic online activity, setting a date to get to know a candidate better in a coffee shop, let’s say, then setting a second and third date.. finally making it work. The chances are lesser if online dating is not available or the pool of men in geographical proximity is very limited.

There are married women (who have physical intimacy with their husbands) who settle into a lifestyle of having affairs, chasing that good feeling, holding on to it as long as possible, doing so for years. Some of these women will tell you that they feel guilty but they are invested in this lifestyle, basically supplementing their lacking marriages with affair-excitement.

Reads to me that you are a good woman, concerned for your children, especially your younger daughter who is currently experiencing some emotional/ social trouble. You are even concerned for your selfish husband. And reads to me that you are not  okay with the affair-excitement lifestyle- you are simply not that kind of selfish, self centered, dishonest woman, are you?

You believe that your husband will not agree that the two of you stay in separate bedrooms, officially roommates, so to make it possible for you to date a man openly (a man who will be okay with dating a married woman who shares a residence with her roommate-husband).

In summary: if you are or would be able to financially support your own residence, however humble, (and if you live in a place where online dating is promising), then it would  be a good idea to legally separate from your husband as soon as possible.

It has to be very frustrating to live with a selfish man who did not do a thing to celebrate his wife 50 birthday- I can hardly digest this sad fact!) and I wish you didn’t live with him, even if you didn’t meet the right man). To live with a selfish man because one cannot afford living separately is … an undesirable situation.

I don’t know where to go from here. I would like to read more of your thoughts…?

anita