Hello, this is my first time writing, but I have been following along for the past few weeks. This site has been my saviour. About 6 weeks ago, I found out that my husband of nearly 30 years has been cheating on me for the past 6 months. I was absolutely devastated. While I will admit that our marriage may have become pretty routine after so many years, I never thought we had reached a point in which he would become unfaithful. We have 2 children - 16 year old son; 20 year old daughter. Our sex life was still pretty good, or so I thought, for a couple in their 50's and approaching 30 years of marriage. I do believe that this affair is a result of my husband's MLC as he is exhibiting textbook MLC behavior -- bought a new sport's car a few months back, is having serious financial concerns, is very stressed and concerned about his career and the choices he has made professionally and his future, lost his best friend to cancer at about the same time the affair began. I will admit that I began to get suspicious several months ago when I started to notice the classic signs -- he paid more attention to his appearance, lost weight, started to exercise more, grew a beard and bought new casual clothes (which he hadn't done in years, despite my asking), and bought a car which I was opposed to. He was also working very late hours and home less often. He had always been a very attentive father, but had been less so for several months. I mentioned this to him on occasion, but he claimed it was because our children were older and didn't need him as much -- I didn't buy it. I also found that he was less interested in sex as time wore on and that his libido was pretty low. I tried to attribute that to his age. So that's the background. I learned of the affair over the course of a few weeks, starting with many lies and denials on his part, until he finally admitted that there is another woman. Initially he claimed that she was unimportant and just someone "fun" to be with -- "a distraction". He claims that he is under a great deal of stress and that she likes to do things that I do not like to do. Initially he said the classic lines "we don't have much in common any more", "maybe we aren't in love any longer". We met as high school sweethearts, and now he thinks that perhaps we should have dated other people first. All of these comments were so painful to me and I believe they are part of his MLC. A few weeks have passed since he made these comments and things have gotten much better since then. Oddly enough, despite the incredible pain of finding out about the OW, I do think it helped. My husband is much closer to me and to my children now. He is spending more and more time with us now and seems happy to do so. Perhaps it is a load off of him to not be living the lie, or at least not as much. However, he is still seeing the OW, although probably not as much. We speak fairly openly about this, and I have expressed my deep unhappiness about the situation, but also my sincere commitment to get through this rough patch together. I am committed to getting through this and I believe he is too. We have had many discussions about things which have gone wrong in our marriage over the past several years, the rut that a marriage can fall into and I now think that we may look back on this (some day) and think it gave our marriage a kick in the pants, if you will. At least that is my hope. However, for now, I am on this crazy roller coaster ride where I feel pretty good on some days and sad as hell, like I want to get off the ride, the next day. I would love some feedback on the issue of having sex with my husband who is still seeing the OW. For the past couple of weeks my husband and I have been talking more and more, and getting closer and closer, which has led to us having the best sex we have probably ever had -- and often! It seems pretty insane and I am terribly confused. It feels so right at the moment, but the next day, I ask myself why I am doing this? He has not ended his affair. Intellectually, I feel that I should not allow him to come near me, so long as he is still involved with the OW. But emotionally it feels so right. I truly believe it is pulling us closer and closer and he feels this is true as well. The sex seems to be rekindling the love we have for each other. He has told me that he "we will be okay", that "everything will work out", but that he just needs time to end the affair. I have read a bit about this, about how it is difficult for some people to end their affairs, but I still don't get it. It is causing me so much pain, that I cannot understand how he can continue to do this to me. His answer is that "she is a distraction from the pain he is enduring from MLC". He claims that he is not in love with her, but at the same time, he is "in a relationship" with her and that he cannot simply end it overnight. He says it will take time and that he cannot give me an exact date, as much as he knows I would like one. He doesn't think it will take months, or perhaps even weeks, but he still cannot say for sure. Our 30th anniversary is 1 month away. The countdown is ticking in my head. And the pain in unbearable. Would love your thoughts.
