My advice to those contemplating affairs (even better…long before that temptation occurs):
Choose your spouse wisely. Be humble enough and wise enough to take care of yourself and address your own issues as time goes on (we ALL have them). And don’t take the marriage for granted for even one day. Do your part and then some! Don’t expect to carry your “burden” only if your spouse is doing their part…your role is still your role. Don’t look to your spouse to “make you happy”–that’s your job. We Americans are often lazy and are over-influenced by what we see in the media–on TV, people swap partners every week–sometimes several times an episode in popular shows. We’ve been conditioned to believe that people are disposable and that we NEED constant, wild stimulation. REAL life is about the smaller moments, adding up over time. And that is OUR responsibility. If you want the other, then DON’T get married. It makes a mockery of a holy commitment. Look up the word “commitment” in the dictionary. It transcends “feelings”, on which American culture also tends to rely heavily. It’s about being in it for the long haul. When you consistently “do” love with a cheerful heart, you will be amazed what you receive in return…particularly if you made a wise partner choice when you married. It’s also surprising how good it feels to treat another person with love, kindness, and respect. If you yourself have been selfish with love and kindness and support and partnership for decades, you can’t then turn around and blame the partner for being a “bad choice”. America is such a “me” country, and we’ve been conditioned (again through the movies/TV) to view love/romance as an egocentric experience. According to their prtrayal, it’s constantly passionate, electric, exciting, new, fun-filled (with a couple of pivotal arguments/misunderstandings thrown in…so that a making-up scene can occur)…and they walk off into the sunset. You don’t usually SEE a loving couple who has weathered the long haul, faced challenges together, overcome obstacles (except in action-adventure movies :-), and grown to love and respect each other more deeply because of it. Why not? Because it’s too hard for them to portray those quiet subtleties in a way that would “sell” to an audience that’s accustomed to X-Box and extreme sports and the constant bombardment of text-messaging and the internet and a hundred other distractions….
but I can tell you, if you nurture it, there’s nothing more beautiful than someone who knows everything about you, who has shared so many experiences with you…both exciting and mundane…and loves you deeply because of and in spite of them all. I had it. And now I don’t. (But I still believe in it).
If you are depressed, I would urge you to seek help. Therapy is NOT just for people who are in crisis. There is deep value in talking with someone. I have been doing so for about 18 months, since before my husband embarked on this, and it has been instrumental in my healthy processing of this situation and in feeling fine about myself.
I am currently alone in my home and calmly, proactively working on myself. My husband moved out because of an emotional affair, fueled largely by a childhood “control” issue (diagnosed by our therapist). No sexual abuse of which I am aware. Just a mother who was pathologically controlling. He was controlled by people his whole life, and felt unable to assert his needs and preferences. This has been brewing for years, apparently, and ironically, my nurturing may have given him the freedom & courage he needed to express it. About 6 months ago, he seemed to “snap”, although there had been an undercurrent for a few months prior to that (it turns out he had been conducting the emotional affair for 6 months prior to that; a year total).
My loving husband of 17 years (he’s 39; I’m 41) told me he’d “never loved me”. That he married me because he “didn’t want to disappoint me”, even though he didn’t feel ready (how foolish does that make him look, if it were actually true?)…these are classic statements designed to separate himself from having to deal with ambivalent feelings toward me. As mentioned in the description, he has been uncharacteristically cold…icily cruel. He maintained (as did she) adamantly, angrily, that they were “just friends”…even when he sat me down and made a production out of telling me about his “just friend’s” husband having discovered their “relationship” and wanting to file for divorce. (The husband later changed his mind but, if it was not an affair, why did MY husband need to make such a production of it?)
At one point, he even suggested that we double date! (with different partners!–he likes me as a person, but just doesn’t want to “be” with me, he told me then). He would check his phone for text messages in my presence, knowing that I knew. He spent entire Saturdays out of the house…with her…and he told me where/with whom he was going to be. He refused to be seen in public with me, despite there being no reason for his “shame” (I’m definitely “prettier” than his OP…prehaps he doesn’t want to get caught “cheating” with me). We have no children; for the first time, he said he was interested in them (she has 2), but NOT WITH ME (I am feeling a longing since my sister had her son; I’ve been told I would be a great mother, and I believe I would be, as well). It goes on; I won’t.
I don’t know how this will end. I don’t believe in divorce in about 90% of the cases. It’s an “easy out” that’s not at all easy, I believe. It gives people a way to not work on the personal issues they need to face…they just revisit the same issues and inflict the same personal pain on a new partner. In my situation, divorce is definitely not the answer. It may happen, but it shouldn’t. If it does, it will be an unnecessary tragedy.

I’m not afraid to be alone. I am daunted by the amazing number of options I have, I’ll admit. But I WILL find my way. I pray that my marriage will be healed, however, because I believe in it. But I’ll survive either way. I’ll flourish either way. I’m going to learn and grow, either way.

The OW lives in Europe, and my ex-partner has been there about 4 times in the last two years, for extended stays, but apparently still “needs to make some decisions” about his life. It would appear at this juncture that he’s not 100% committed to the OW either, and remains confused.

This particular part right here:

1. Such infidelity is often with someone of a “lower social class.” The OP (other person) is thought of by many as a “loser.” The OP may have a history of unstable relationships. Often substance abuse is in the picture. The two of them together certainly, to most, seem to be a gigantic miss-match.

… is the pattern my ex had all of his life. Now that I know it this has been a question that nags at me to find the answer WHY? Why the drug addicts? I asked him that, and of course got no response.

I could only assume that since he does not do drugs that this type of woman was an easier target for cheating.

His sins have not gone without payback though. He cheated w/a low life at a truck stop on his 2nd wife in her thrid trimester. Once the baby was born she died a week later, and the wife filed for divorce.

Fast forwarding to me he moved a drug addict into his house behind my back. Six months ago she committed suicide on a drug o/dose of oxycontin for her hemmoragging blister disease. He had called the CDC after she moved in, to see if the disease was contagious.

I think that is about as low as it gets. You know you’re a loser when you screen your livins through the CDC.

I urged him to go for help seeking a psychotherapist. He says nothing is wrong with him. Still in denial, and 61 years old.

Does anyone have an idea they could share about the drug addict attraction?