A
female
age
41-50,
*onely 81
writes:I woul love some advise please.13 years and 3 kids in he says " I have been wondering what it is like to be with other women" he was a virgin when we met (not that he told me) and he regrets not sleeping with more women. He works away a lot and the very next time came back I stumbled across lots of searches for single ladies in the area? He said it was a stupid mistake and it will never happen again? Next time he went away it was for about 6 weeks and when he came back he seemed a changed man, a real turn around on the cold distant man I had known for the last 10 years of our relationship. That's when I read the phonebill! He had been sexting someone, sadly I got my hands on a copy of said sexts and they were graphic and heartbreaking. He claims that he loves me and wants to keep our family together but I am just so hurt?!? I spent a few months crying and asking why and he basically said because I am not good enough in as many ways as he could. Now he has changed his tune and says he had a midlife crisses and he really wants me to stay. The thing is, I just don't see a point in trying? He wasn't happy with me then, I am still the same person, why would he stay faithful now? I just dont think there is any point in trying again if it is all going to end anyway. To be honest, I feel pretty guilty that he hasn't had more partners, I want him to sleep with other women then choose to be with me because I am all that he wants. But I am scared that he will find out I am not so great after all and a new relationship is always more exciting.If I gave him the choice he would have sex with lots of other women, so is it wrong for me to expect him to stay with me, even if he could easily find someone he could be really happy with??? Reply to this Question
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female
reader, janniepeg  +, writes (11 August 2014):
 Is he trying though? Did he do anything to show you that you are the only one he wants? If he's trying are you willing to forgive the sexting and saying you were not good enough (which was probably said in anger)?
A
female
reader, Euphoric29  +, writes (10 August 2014):
Dear OP,
You sound really scared. But before you let yourself get bullied to stay in an unsatisfying relationship: Is your situation the same as your brother-in-law? IF you "go", as in abandoning everyone,.. okay, but what if you just want a divorce? Can he still just "keep" the children? I don't know the law in your country, but it wouldn't be possible in mine. There are many rules that both partners can see their children.
Before you get desperate, check your legal situation, to know if the threats of your husband are just hot air.
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reader, anonymous, writes (10 August 2014): My heart goes out to you!
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female
reader, Lonely 81 +, writes (10 August 2014):
Lonely 81 is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThank you all for your answers, they are wonderful and varied. I really am pleased I found this site.
I do think there is more to this then just sex, I know he isn't happy with me. I wish he would talk to me, and I wish I could trust that it will be the truth when he does. I love him and I love my kids, and I hate the fact that I can't be the partner and mother that I once was. He says that if I go, he is keeping the kids, I know he can because I watched them do it to my brother in law, he hasnt seen his kids for 7 plus years. I will be homeless and broke and given that I haven't worked outside of the home for the last 12 years (his idea, I hated it!) it will be a while before I could support them anyway.......... It is just so #%~¥ sad!!!!!!!!!
To any one out there that thinks this sort of behavior is OK, wake up, look at the people that love you, look at your wife, look at your children & know that you will cause untold harm.
Thank you all.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (10 August 2014): I don't think you should stay with him. Why would you expect him to ever be faithful or honest again? He cannot be trusted. He is willing to throw away a marriage and fatherhood over LUST. Just lust. He did something he knew would hurt you. My ex had an online affair, and I read maybe 5% of what he wrote to her, and it was enough to ruin our relationship for good. We tried--or more accurately, I tried--to make things work for another couple of years, but my trust was destroyed forever and he did nothing to earn it back. Now that I have left him, I am so happy I wish I did it sooner. You might feel guilty and think you should stay with him for the kids, but you are not the one throwing away your marriage. He is the one who places so little value on what he has with you and his children that he is willing to risk it all over LUST. My mother put up with my father cheating on her for several years before divorcing him. I look back as an adult and wonder why the hell my father had children. He brought us into the world, and then cheated on our mother (among many other terrible things). I look at her as a mother, and the only thing I can fault her for is not being strong enough to leave him earlier. You deserve better than this immature loser. Don't waste any more time on him.
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (9 August 2014): With all due respect, I don't think anyone can relate to your husband's situation unless they have been there. He is wondering what someone else would be like, AND he is way past his expected single years, AND his wife got to experience other men already. Without all three of those things I don't think anyone else can really get it. This goes for the original poster and the other Agony Aunts too.Its so easy for people to say something isn't so amazing AFTER they have experienced it. People are so quick to forget how impossible it would have been to convince them not to try it just a few minutes earlier. But hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it? Most of us have been there at some point in our lives. If it wasn't sex then it was something else. *lonely81, I am not trying to say your husband should get to sleep around. That is not for me to decide. I don't know if it would help things or how much damage it would do. Even if it's something he "needs" it may be fatal to your marriage and not worth it. I really don't know what to tell you.I am just saying its easy for people to condemn him when they aren't in his shoes and never really have been. Its not the same thing to have once wondered what a second partner would be like back when you were still young and unmarried.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (9 August 2014): Hangon , let me get this right! You give up the best years if your life, your pre baby body and your freedom and now he decides he wants to sow his wild oats ... And you're considering it??? Wow!!!!
Ok well here's what I say. Tell him go ahead ... But on the condition that you also want to be with other men . Men who appreciate a real woman .. A commited side and mother and may be able to be a decent husband and father to your children
Explain to him you were nothing more than you girl when you met not a real woman with a mothers body and mind and that you would like the experience of a real man who finds that the biggest turn on
Wow good luck with this one
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female
reader, Euphoric29 +, writes (9 August 2014):
Dear OP,
First of all, I feel a lot of compassion for you. This situation must really hurt you a lot. Especially that your husband is somehow blaming you and then again, just blaming a phenomenon like "midlife-crisis".
What I would suggest though, is that you ask yourself, if the relationship you had was really still so great, when he began searching for single ladies. Because, to me, the "problem" that he didn't have sex with other women was always there, for 13 years, but only recently the matter became so urgent that he would change something about it. Is it possible that the responsibilities you two had, work-wise and family-wise, somehow killed the intimacy between the both of you, so he felt so distant to you that he would start dwelling on escape fantasies? I know this is a very suggestive question, it just came to mind. Because I think there must be a reason why it only seems to bother him now. For all I know, it could have bothered him after 1 year, 2 years, after the first or second child.
So, before looking for a simple solution like "let's quit" or "let's pretend nothing happened" or "do whatever".. do some research about what is exactly going on. In relationships, things may be more complex than they seem and maybe not the whole problem is about sex and sexual experience, or your short-comings, or his age.
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male
reader, Sageoldguy1465  +, writes (9 August 2014):
 How unfortunate.... Perhaps you could relate to him my experiences?
I have "been with" oodles of ladies during my life. What I've finally figured out, is that, after the lights go out, they are ALL beautiful and sexy....
What Hubby needs to learn is that YOU are HIS WIFE.... a GREAT PARTNER... and he's be an idiot to jeopardize your (and his) marriage just so's he can "try out" some OTHER woman/women.
Ask him this: If you are driving a great Corvette... is it necessary to then test-drive a Lamborghini, or a Porsche, or a Mercedes in order to you to understand just HOW COOL your Corvette is???????
Case closed.
Good luck....
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reader, anonymous, writes (9 August 2014): It comes down to what will make you happy. It appears he has already found a way to satisfy himself. Your marriage is damaged; because he your trust is broken. He isn't sexually satisfied within your relationship, and he told you he was just going through a middle-aged crisis and he would stop. He didn't. He just found another way to do what he wanted to do. Every-time he goes out of town, he will likely do the same. Either that, or you will always suspect that he will. No one could live under such conditions.
Once a person has decided their marriage isn't enough, it is best to let them go. You can go to marriage-counseling, and go all the other motions couple go through to save a failing marriage. The other option is just to get it over with and leave him. Divorce.
If you don't think you will ever trust him again, you're hurt beyond repair, and this fiasco is the straw that broke the camel's back. Go search for your own happiness and satisfaction. Make the decision you can live with.
You've got three children to raise and they need a stable environment; with a mother who can function. Watching the tension and friction between their parents is going to effect them emotionally. So I guess you have to also do what is best for them as well.
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female
reader, xTheAlmightyDuckx  +, writes (9 August 2014):
 There is nothing wrong with you, and you are good enough for him and anyone else.
HE is the one here who has a problem, and it isn't your fault that he hasn't slept with many woman, he was the one who choose to settle down with you after he lose his virginity so in retrospect it is his own fault, and his choice.
Its silly that 13 years in he suddenly decides that he wants to sleep with other women, and trust me its not because you aren't satisfying enough or you are doing something wrong, its because his curiosity has got the better of him.
I know men who have been with women for years and years, and they suddenly decide they want to have a taste of the other apples out there so they start sleeping around. Even if they have slept with 100's of women in there time, but for example have been married to one woman for 20 or so years, it still makes them what this guy is...a CHEAT.
Think about it, these men have had to make the same sacrfice as your man, agreeing to just have sex with one woman for as long as they are with them, he can't use the fact he hasn't slept with any other women before as an excuse.
He wants the best of both worlds, he wants to go out there and be able to sleep with other women and then he wants to be able to come home to his loving partner, and frankly it doesn't work like that, you have to pick between one or the other.
I think you need to talk to him, seriously, you need to make yourself VERY clear that you are not here to be cheated on, and that he needs to pick between having a life with you, or being able to go out and sleep with other women, don't think you are being unfair to him because you aren't, and he knows for example if you did say "go and sleep with someone else so you can come back to me" even if he did come back to you he could get away with sleeping with more women over and over again.
Tell him that if he doesn't want to remain with you, then he can leave because you aren't a doormat you aren't there to be walked all over, and make it VERY clear to him that if he cheats on you agian, by sending texts, meeting up with women for sex ANYTHING, anything at all, that you will be the one leaving.
Don't take the bullshit from him, you don't deserve it, and frankly he is using the "I have never slept with anyone else" as a bit of an excuse. I would of course tell you to just leave him but I know when you have been with someone for 13 years, its hard to just walk away.
Don't let him make you think that you are the problem, because its obvious he is just being greedy and trying to have the best of both worlds x
Good Luck x
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