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male
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anonymous
writes:I am a male, age 56 and recently left a 30 year marriage after falling in love with another woman...Gosh, heard this before, I'm sure. Anyway, to complicate things, she is in an unhappy 30 year marriage herself and is in love with me as well. We totally click and connect. Her husband is a good provider, but does not treat her well, emotionally. Totally controlling and expects her to behave, react and act in ways that suit him. He has never been physically abusive although he does have anger management issues. Obviously, he does not love her unconditionally, as I do. We have been in a "secret" relationship for over a year now, and her latest explosion with her husband had her leave for a night with me, looking for apartments the next day. Now she is in anguish over what to do. Her therapist and her have decided that if she leaves, it must be to end her marriage, not to run away with another man. This is killing me, as I see her go through this. Any Advice? Reply to this Question
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (10 November 2010): It's never easy to leave a long marriage even when you really are very miserable in it. Even if you are very unhappy and your heart is desperate to leave, you can stand to lose a lot by leaving. It is the fear of losing all the other stuff BESIDES just your spouse, that keeps people trapped in indecision while onlookers like us think what's the big deal, just leave already!
Deciding whether to leave is a huge mental and emotional process and is very discomforting and anxiety-provoking. Many people don't want to experience this discomfort and thus remain in limbo indefinitely postponing a decision or hoping that by waiting long enough sooner or later a decision will make itself for them (like hoping their spouse will leave them first).
I agree with whoever said that by continuing an affair, you could actually be enabling her to "stay" with her husband because this enables her to do the above waiting game. You are lowering her daily discomfort by providing her with relief and distraction from her actual problems at home. If you stop being available to her, she will experience the loss of that temporary relief and thus be motivated to choose between you and her husband. Of course there is always the risk that she will choose to stay with her husband even if she doesn't love him but out of fear of losing all the other stuff.
On the other hand, by continuing to be available to her, this might work to your favor IF the guilt of the affair is motivating her to make a decision, then in this case you are reminding her of the 'good' that will happen if she chooses to be with you and make that outcome more likely.
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reader, anonymous, writes (10 November 2010): Firstly, it's not a relationship it's an affair. Secondly, if she loves you and wants to be with you, why isn't she leaving her husband? I have a feeling that she wants to stay with her husband but when things get tough e.g. they have a fight, she can come running to you. If her marriage was that bad and she loved you like you think, she'd leave. I think you might be being taken for a ride and she's useing you as an escape.
Ironically by you having this "relationship" with her you are actually making her stay with her husband because if they have any problems she comes running to you then when it blows over she goes back to him. If you really want to know if she loves you, tell her it's either you or him. She'll show her real intentions.
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reader, anonymous, writes (10 November 2010): yes I read my reply and like it so therefore...sticking to it ...clearly states you left your wife after falling in love so you cheated in order to fall in love.....
yes I like my reply and sticking to it
:D
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (9 November 2010): "I cant help but to wonder why people thing getting into a marriage is such a big deal, but getting out of it is completely non-chalant. "
where on here is anyone showing a nonchalant attitude toward getting out of marriage? if anything it seems there is a lot of angst and turmoil surrounding whether to get divorced. otherwise why are people even posting to ask what to do?
So the OP said he left his wife. How can anyone know/judge from this one sentence how much personal angst and turmoil went into that decision? Now the OP's lover is in therapy to figure out if she should divorce or not. Doesn't sound like anyone is being non-chalant here.
if anything I think people get into marriage too nonchalantly!! I've known so many friends (men) who married because their girlfriends pressured them or threatened them with ultimatums or because getting married is "the thing to do", a necessarily milestone to check off on the list of life's goals in order to be seen as successful in life. A few years and kids later, they are almost all unhappy and going through an existential crisis as if they were teenagers all over again.
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reader, Serpico +, writes (9 November 2010):
My view on this -
You are 100% married until you are 100% divorced. This is almost exlusively a binary condition.
I cant help but to wonder why people thing getting into a marriage is such a big deal, but getting out of it is completely non-chalant. On a legal and emotional level, it is the most important contract you will ever enter into. It must be ended with the same furvor that it was entered into with.
Looking at it this way may clear up your options a bit....
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female
reader, Denise32 +, writes (9 November 2010):
 Well, people marry for all sorts of reasons, don't you think? I suppose that for some, having two incomes makes life easier if one of the two of you has been struggling to make ends meet. Nothing wrong with that, PROVIDED there is genuine love and caring for the person you marry. I mean, it shouldn't "just" be that you marry for money......
And isn't marriage meant to be a matter of give and take, emotionally? I mean, this is someone who, in your (both of you) best judgment(s) you feel you can be happy with and who will be there for you, through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, as the marriage vows have it? If things begin to go wrong at some point, you both make a sincere (and not just one) attempt to resolve your problems, and only after you've done your utmost do you decide to either end it or put up with things as they are.....
Yes, marriage is supposed to be a lifelong partnership. However, bear in mind that in the past, people didn't live as long as they do now. Hundreds of years ago, a woman would be considered old at 30, a man the same at 40 - with some exceptions of people living into their 80's, that is. Even in Victorian times a man was considered old at 50. So people died younger and marriage WAS "until death do us part." Today, if someone marries at say, 20 or 23, by the time she/he is 50, 60, that person's ideas, outlook, goals may well be vastly different to what they were when younger. It could be the person has changed so much that they no longer have very much in common with their spouse.....then what? Hopefully, try to infuse new life into their marriage, but what if they can't?
One more consideration: a man or woman may enjoy good health for many years, yet eventually be struck down with alzheimers (for instance) at 50 (if very unlucky) or 65. Assuming their spouse is roughly the same age, he/she can expect to spend the next decade caring for him/her, but the time will come when the person she/he once knew and loved is no more. What then? Maybe not divorce if the spouse can still come under the husband's health insurance, but he may eventually meet a woman and find love again. Does it mean he has stopped caring for the woman he married? No. By no means. Yet, their marriage has effectively ended.
Heavens, this is complicated, isn't it?!
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (9 November 2010): Denise32: I am that anon poster you were talking to. Thanks for answering my question.
Now I have another one. I can see why it is said that the "right" way to leave a marriage is because you want to be on your own, and not because you want to be with someone else. because you need to be able to stand alone and not be dependent on being in a relationship.
However isn't it true that many people stay in marriages forever, precisely because of being dependent on the relationship or on their spouse? Isn't that what marriage is supposed to be - not two independent people (because that would not be a marriage, it would just be casual dating relationship). Marriage is two people who are dependent on each other to some degree. that is why it is so difficult to leave a marriage even when it's bad. And yet people say this is "right", it is "right" that it's hard to leave a marriage.
And when people are deciding whether to leave their marriage or not, they are always told they should not leave, they should stay because their spouse has done this or that for them, has stood by them for x number of years, etc. So if it is "right" to stay on forever in a marriage because of dependency on one's spouse, then why is it wrong to want that kind of relationship with someone else?
I'm just trying to wrap my head around all these "right and "wrong" reasons. I always accepted that were "right" and "wrong" reasons to get married. I never knew til now that there are "right" and "wrong" reasons to leave a marriage. I mean, if you really really want to leave, doesn't that mean that basically the marriage is already over anyway? Shouldn't marriage be voluntary?
If you really really want to leave then there is no love left in the relationship, it is hurting you or you are hurting your spouse so why should you stay and continue to subject yourself and your spouse to misery just because your reasons to want to leave are "wrong"?
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female
reader, Denise32 +, writes (9 November 2010):
Re: anonymous poster: the reason her therapist - and indeed the lady herself - is encouragin her to leave the marriage (if that is what she finally decides to do) and be on her own is because she NEEDS to stand on her own feet, be her own person and be strong. It may not be easy, but it would not be good for her to go with the man who has written us and be dependent on him, no matter how strong her feelings for him may be.
Look: I'm widowed. I was married for a good few years and while there was not another man in my life at the time of my husband's death, I needed to learn to live and cope on my own. Fortunately, I've always been an independent-minded woman, and have a number of good friends and involved with my local church, and other interests. In some respects I was fortunate in that for the last six months of his life, we both knew he could not survive his melanoma, so that I had a chance to already grieve (and even if her marriage is unhappy, there most likely WILL be some grief for her and regret that things couldn't ultimately work out in her marriage. She would need to be able to face that).
THEN once her divorce is final and another year or two has passed after she has come to terms with life on her own, she decides to be with the poster, she'll be coming from a position of strength, and not from fear of being alone, or for financial/emotional support.......
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reader, anonymous, writes (8 November 2010): All I can say is your a cheater and shes a cheater....I feel sorry for the spouses who are trully the loyal people here, you are not that great husband you claim to be....because you clearly did the unethical immoral thing you cheated....your wife is a lucky woman because you left....and for this woman same thing she should do the same leave her husband and let him find a nice woman with morals who also will not cheat on him
In the end I hope you and this woman end up together and live the rest of your cheating lives together...
:)Good Luck
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (8 November 2010): I will offer some contrary suggestion here. Yes everyone says the "right" way to proceed is for her to leave her husband in order to end her marriage, but not to leave to be with you.
But fact is, many times people leave marriages to be with other people. why is that so wrong? If the marriage was 'good', there would be no comparison, the marriage would be secure. The fact that such a comparison (between you and the husband) is even on the table speaks volumes about the state of the marriage. Why is it so wrong to admit that this is the way things are?
basically this is saying there are three options for her:
A. stay with her husband (and give up any chance with you)
B. leave her husband to end the marriage but without you in the picture, as if you didn't even exist
C. Leave her husband to be with you.
Her and her therapist says it should be either Option A or B. but truth of the matter is, there are times when people know that Option A is not something they can do anymore, yet are too fearful to go with Option B. They may not love their spouse, they may really hate their married life but are nevertheless too afraid to give up the world that they are familiar with for the unknown which is basically what Option B - the "right" way to do things - is. Option A thus becomes the "easier" default even though it is making their life miserable. This is how people stay miserably married for decades or their entire lives. It would be nice if they developed the inner strength to do Option B from the get go before meeting someone new, but truth of the matter is that many people need an external stimulus as a kick in the rear end to develop the strength.
But such people may, if presented with Option C as a legitimate choice, go with that and finally bring about the same conclusion which is leaving their unhappy marriages and ending up in a potentially better relationship. Why is this so wrong??
What is so wrong about admitting that you are leaving your marriage in order to be with someone else, if you are being honest and truthful to your heart??
Denying this and only allowing yourself to consider the Option A (stay with unhappy marriage) or Option B (leave marriage but without knowing what comes next) may well sound good on paper, and does work for many people because it sounds nice and clean, but I don't think is a one size fits all solution for every situation like yours.
I would talk with her and tell her that you very much hope that she will choose to be with you. Why? because she already knows that her marriage is unhappy and that she loves you. So..?? OK so if she wants to work things out with her husband, then she should say so and then you can step back. But honestly, if after 30 years of being married to him she is still torn over whether to stay with him or not, I think that speaks volumes about the state of her marriage, it sounds like she should have done Option B a long time ago but was too afraid. After 30 years, what are the chances that NOW doing "work" on her marriage will improve it??
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male
reader, Cerberus_Raphael  +, writes (8 November 2010):
 I see the way you describe this problem and I take issue with the fact that you seem to be comparing yourself to her current husband as if you wish for everyone to think that she would be much better off with you. That may very well be true but you have no right to describe him in that way. We all have our problems and those are nothing that cannot be fixed with counseling and devotion. Else why would they have stayed married for so long? She seems well enough to be on her own financially.
See reason in everything. Her husband is a good provider and in that, there is care. I am sure with counseling, all those problems may be resolved. I take no sides, this is merely my opinion and in my opinion, she must leave her husband and spend some time alone to collect her thoughts and to ensure that this is truly what she wants. She must ensure that she truly wishes to be with you and that the time you spent together was no simply based on the thrill and emotional 'benefits' of that affair.
You need to give her time, she cannot instantly run into your arms before at least trying to conclude her relationship with her current husband. That is to say, she must attempt to remain on good terms with him in which case, there shall be no 'loose ends' to deal with later on.
I hope that helps.
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female
reader, Denise32 +, writes (8 November 2010):
Now look: you can't solve her marital problems. She's going to have to deal with it on her own, one way or another.
You may have left your wife - I hope you are getting divorced if you want to pursue someone else, by the way - but this woman is STILL married.
Her therapist is right on target. You need to back off and leave her alone until such time as she either decides to try to make a go of things with her husband (in which case that will be the end of it between the two of you) OR decides to leave him permanently and goes through with a divorce.
She is not free to have an affair with you.
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