DEAR DEIDRE: My wife has told me she’s been having an affair and is planning to leave me. My world has fallen apart.
Finding out she’d slept with someone else would have been bad enough. But this isn’t just sex – she’s fallen in love with him.
I’m 46 and she’s 42. We’ve been married for 16 years and have four children, two of whom have special needs.
Life has been tough and we haven’t had much time for each other.
Our sex life died a few years ago. She said she didn’t have the energy anymore.
But even though our marriage has been in trouble for a long time, I truly believed we would work things out one day.
About six months ago, my wife told me she needed more time to herself as she felt she’d lost herself. I agreed to do more of the childcare while she had evenings off.
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What I didn’t imagine was that she had started seeing another man. When I think of all the times I let her go out – supposedly with her friends – and she was going to his place with him, I feel so sick and betrayed.
I didn’t suspect a thing.
Two days ago, she sat me down and said she’d been seeing someone else and that it was serious. I was totally blindsided.
She coldly told me I needed to prepare myself to move out and move on.
Since then I have been constantly crying, going over what went wrong and remembering how happy we once were.
My boss had to send me home from work because I couldn’t concentrate.
I’m a mess. I just want to go back in time and make everything better.
MORE FROM DEAR DEIDRE
DEIDRE SAYS: Although you knew things weren’t right, it sounds like you had no idea your wife had checked out of the marriage.
You’d stopped communicating.
You’re in shock, and grieving for what you’ve lost, but this will get easier to deal with.
Sadly, you can’t go back in time. But it would help to talk to your wife about what’s happened and see if you can get some closure – not least because you will have to parent together in the future.
Think about having some counselling to help you work through your feelings. My support pack on Counselling will tell you more about this.
Ask your boss if you can have a few days off. Your company may also have some occupational health support.
