Wife cheated and is experiencing a mid-life crisis...someone make me understand

[Confused5150]

About 3 months ago I caught my wife cheating on me with a co-worker. According to her it had been going on for about a month. I went to a very dark place for awhile trying to deal with the pain of it all. I then went through the whole phase of checking up on her, checking cell phone records, spying, etc. She lied to me so much during the initial phase that I felt I couldn't trust anything she had to say. Things got better for awhile but dealing with her seeing this guy on a regular basis caused the jealousy to linger. She finally gave into my requests to see a counselor about the problem. The appointment was set for two weeks after she agreed to this. During this time, I caught her again and unlike the first time, I got her to admit that she had feelings for him and it wasn't just sex.

 

During this time, she has also admitted that she is going through a mid-life crisis. See, I am 33 and she is almost 41. She looks like she is about 30. She likes getting her ego stroked about this even though she doesn't seem to respond favorably when I compliment her. At first she acted like she wanted to stay in the marriage and now she seems apathetic. The guy in question is also married with a kid. He doesn't speak well of his wife but he is not willing to leave her.

 

She keeps saying that she needs to get her screwed on straight so she can figure out what she wants out of life. She hints that she would be interested in pursuing a relationship with this guy but also wonders what it would be like if she was just on her own with noone to answer to. At the same time, she says that most of the time she realizes that she doesn't want to lose me and wants to spend the rest of her life with me. The problem is she acts so damn apathetic when she is around me the only way I can get any emotion from her is to bring up the subject and she starts crying.

 

We recently bought our dream home and brand new furniture all of which, in hindsight, she says she did to avoid her own inner turmoil. This group that she sees periodically from work are nothing more than horny, married guys that complain about how little they get it at home. They stay out late drinking and doing whatever they want and their spouses are apparently not phased while I am calling to find out when she is coming home (once it gets past bar-closing time, you should definitely be leaving).

 

I feel like I am trapped in a state of limbo while all my friends say that I should leave her now because I will never be able to get past the trust barrier. I have been in this relationship for 14 years and have never really been on the dating scene so I am holding out hope for a positive outcome but I will never see her the same way as before. Add to this the fact that her desire to entertain a relationship with this guy and her desire to be completely on her own are in direct conflict. She admitted earlier tonight that before I caught them that she told him that she was the one that was going to get hurt because he wasn't going to leave his wife for her.

 

Am I getting jobbed AGAIN or should I continue the counseling and see where this goes? We just bought a new house and have made significant financial commitments that will make a divorce financially difficult. Any help would be appreciated.

[Merin]

Ugh!

 

Well, I'm so sorry you're going through this..

 

I don't know.. it seems that your wife is wanting "permission" to do as she wishes, and keep you for a back up plan incase the thing with the MM she is seeing doesn't work out..

 

Not okay.

 

I really believe it's got to be that she cuts off contact with this other guy, gets into the marriage or.. gets out.

 

Yes it does sound cut and dry.. but honestly.. the marriage cannot go forward unless she is willing to put herself into it.

[Dave555]

Women cheat. What else do you want to know? Of course she'll continue to cheat if she knows she can get away with it. What's been the consequences of her action so far? Nothing. You should've left her by now.

[Bryanp]

Hello,

 

I agree with the previous poster. No consequences to her actions equals no motivation to change. She screws and has an affair with a married guy at work and still sees him. You catch her more than once. You wait for her to come home from the bars after closing while she hangs with horney married colleagues. She is playing you. You beg her to stay in counseling and she is apathetic toward you.

It sounds like you are fearful to try to date again and you have a financial committment with the new house. Let me tell you what will probably happen. She will continue to have affairs because it sounds like she is seeking your permission to continue anyway. You will lose your financial committment anyway. Are you proud she is your wife? Are you proud that you keep catching her? She should have quit her job. No contact is essential. Did you contact this OM's wife? No offense but you sound kind of like a puppy dog and your wife knows she can do anything without consequences. It is sad because you deserve more than this. The more kind and accomodating you are the more she will see you as weak. Judge a person by their actions and not by their words. Her actions speak volumes.

[LucreziaBorgia]

You have every right to be angry and hurt. Maybe the solution is to turn that anger and hurt to productive ends, rather than destructive ones. It will be like removing a huge ragged splinter from a throbbing infected wound - hold your breath, yank it out, the pain will be worse, but it will begin to drain and the pain subside. You have to be willing to let yourself swallow the pain though, in order to get to the healing part. Part of looking at it is to look at how that spinter got there:

 

There's a lot of grey area in situations like this. Does your wife love you? Of course. But... after a while, you reach a point where you realize that what you have is likely all you are ever going to have. You have the marriage, the house, the cars, and you think "is that it"? And you start looking for something to make you feel young and alive again (usually sex is what is used in this case) - something to make you feel attractive, dangerous and exciting. Hence - the midlife crisis. They don't love their spouse any less, they just turn the sexual part of the relationship to someone else - someone who does not represent all the trappings of 'normal life'. Someone who can fulfill that 'wanting' part of themselves without interfering with the family/home/emotional side of things.

 

I've heard cheaters say that they didn't do it *because* of anything their wife/husband was doing - they did it because of some personal emptiness inside themselves that wasn't a part of the marriage or had anything to do with the spouse. I chalk it up partly to panic and fear - they see your lives settling into what they can expect it to be for the rest of their lives and they being thinking "will anyone else ever see me as an attractive sexual being again?" or "will I ever know the hot excitement of being with someone new for the first time"? - stuff like that. For some people it doesn't matter if the spouse still finds them attractive - the spouse rarely 'counts' in that equation. There is a need to be found sexually attractive by *objective* parties.

 

Its very self-centered, for sure and does not excuse cheating - not a bit. But I see plenty of spouses falling into the trap of not realizing that the cheating isn't their fault, and that there is very little they can do to prevent it if the other spouse is already tightly in that mindset. The angrier you get, and the more you demand that the affairs stop, the more distant, secretive and alienated your spouse will become toward you. However...

 

What can happen is that your wife needs to come to grips with her fear/emotional problems and needs to talk to someone about it. She may think that having these affairs is somehow 'helping' her, and filling that 'wanting' part, but - they are doing nothing more than making her problems worse, it sounds like.

 

Her affairs are not the solution to her problems - they are the direct result of them. I just don't think she sees that. It looks like she is unwilling to let go of them, because she is terrified of the other option: having no outlet at all. She needs to understand that there ARE other outlets, other ways to address her problems. She needs to know that you are aware of her REAL problems, and are willing to help her with them. You'd help your wife out if she had cancer wouldn't you? Would you get angry at her cancer or would you try to help her be free from it? Affairs are cancers in otherwise loving marriages, that grow from unresolved emotional crisis. The blame gets laid on everything except the root of the cancer itself.

 

Your marriage can work, but it is imperative that she find better outlets for her 'mid life crisis'. Maybe she can begin to see that she can find better ways to deal with what she is feeling than compounding the problem by getting into these affairs. Counseling sounds pretty cliche and trite, but I think if she comes clean with you, and you allow her to tell you honestly (without you getting angry) why she does these things then you two can begin the process of digging out that cancer and making your marriage healthy again. Maybe she can begin to see that her happiness doesn't lie in what she *doesn't* have, it lies in what she *does* have.

 

Don't address the symptoms of her problems (the affairs), address and try to fix the causes (her own personal motivations for having them.) I think that if she just hears you say that you understand what she is going through, and that you genuinely want to help her - then you can begin to move on together and begin healing.

[Ladyjane14]

I'm not sure why you'd want to save the marriage, but it sounds like you do.

 

I'd have a really hard time applying myself to salvaging a relationship with someone who was soooooooo ambivalent. Merin is correct when she tells you that eventually your wife will have to commit completely to the marriage.

 

My best suggestion is to go to <URL removed> for suggestions on ways to help a wayward spouse out of the "fog". There's quite alot of information to guide you in this.

 

Good Luck.

[jmargel]

Unless she wants to be a part of the marriage 100%, then there is no use trying to reconcile. Mid-life crisis is an excuse she is giving you to try to make herself feel better about what she is doing. You have no trust in the relationship which is the foundation of any marriage. She is using you as a safety net until she decides on what she wants.

 

She doesn't value you as a person, at least not enough to be with you in the way you two should be. She is being immature, selfish and hateful. As long as you let her continue to do this, she will. Only way to make her understand what you are feeling is to kick her out. She continues to goto bars without you? That in itself is wrong. She has not taken any of your feelings into consideration, and her saying 'she doesn't want to lose you' is her way of playing head games. If she didn't want to lose you, then she shouldn't be doing this. The only reason why she is continuing to do this, is because she knows you'll put up with it.

 

Do you really want to be with someone who will not give you 100% of themself? Maybe in the future she might be able to, but it's better to let her deal with the harsh reality of what she has done.

[lovesucks]

She keeps saying that she needs to get her screwed on straight so she can figure out what she wants out of life. She hints that she would be interested in pursuing a relationship with this guy but also wonders what it would be like if she was just on her own with noone to answer to. At the same time, she says that most of the time she realizes that she doesn't want to lose me and wants to spend the rest of her life with me.

 

Confused5150, this sounds almost like the exact version of what my husband said to me. My H has been having an affair with a co-worker since April. He confessed to me and after that he has been telling me many times he wanted to break up with the OW..... how the OW would not let him go, how the OW isn't making it easy for him to end things, how he loves me still and see a happy future together etc ........ the breakup with the OW never happens. In early November, I realized I reached my limits that I could not put up with this anymore and that I had done enough to save my marriage but I realized I couldn't do it alone. So I left. I moved out to be on my own. Initially, he was very upset and cried in tears to beg me to return. I told him it's was too late and he took my love & effort for granted and treated me like an object. I told him that he might feel different after he calmed down his emotions. And guess what, I WAS RIGHT! Now he told me he feels better having more space and time to be alone to sort things out that it was a good thing that I left! He still calls me often. But he doesn't ask me to return home anymore. Honestly I don't know what his intention is.

 

Now he is alone in our apartment. He keeps contact with me and the OW. He hasn't made any further move. He says he doesn't know what he wants. Jmargel, you could be right - l keep having a feeling that he is using me as a safety net because he knows I still talk to him. I have a feeling that he is still avoiding to deal with the situation and is just waiting around for something to happen (either the OW leaves or I file for a divorce).

 

Confused5150, I can tell you that this is not a good feeling at all. It is like allowing your life to be controlled by someone else. That makes you feel powerless and lost and nobody deserves that kind of treatment. There are times you need to come to ask yourself, after all, will you settle for being the second best for the rest of your life?

[confusedkat]

Wow! I am sorry for you to go through this. Your situation sounds similar to mine and my husbands, but with some differences. I have been going through difficult time in my marriage of 8 years. We've been together for 10. I am a stay at home mom and sometimes feel like I am going through a midlife crisis really early. I am in no condition to give advice, but I will say that unless she is really committed to making your marrriage work, it won't get better. I turned to a co-worker for emotional support and found that it distanced my husband and myself even more (duh! right?). I finally have taken myself out of the environment where I can confide in this person, made it clear there will never be anything more than a friendship, and feel like I can finally put myself in a place where I can start to discover if my marriage is right or not. I can probably understand how yor wife feels a little. Being in a smiliar situation myself. I can only say from my experience that until she takes away any fantasies of this other guy, friendship or otherwise, that she will never give you and your relationship the fair chance it deserves. I know I complicated my problems by looking outside of my marriage, and your wife will just cause herself more pain and confusion by looking outside of you and herself for relief. Take care of yourself, do whatever you need to do to feel you are trying and working at the relationship, but realize that if she isn't willing to try, you can't do it alone.

 

Good luck to you!

[Confused5150]

So how do I know the relationship is truly over. She gets offended when I accuse her because she says she has done nothing wrong even though it was just a month ago that I caught them a second time. I'm trying to balance distance, caring, skepticism and anger.

[Bryanp]

The answer is quite simple. You judge a person by their actions and not by their words and her actions speak volumes. Why should she wish to get divorced. She has a husband who has caught her twice is a short period screwing another man and continues supporting her. It seems you wish to settle for a wife who wishes to play the field and have you as a safety net. It is sad that you feel you wish to settle for so little in your life. I wish you luck and hope you do not pick up any STD's since your health is at risk.

[Confused5150]

I only caught them kissing the second time. She says nothing happened sexually since I caught them the first time. To answer the bigger question though, I am angry at her but still love her (for some ungodly reason). I probably do need to distance myself from the situation and think about how I would handle the problem if I was giving someone else advice. I'm not entirely sure how to just let go of everything and start over, hence the name, CONFUSED.

[michelangelo]

Have you ever noticed that people who cheat rarely admit to anything more than what you already know?

 

Of course she's being sexual with the guy.

 

Think of that kiss as the 10% of the iceberg visible above water.

[btanner]

Sorry man, I know what your going though. What I've found out is. Once a cheat, always a cheat. Only you can decide how much pain you can deal with. Your more than welcome to give me a call, if you need some one to talk to.