SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

No truer words were ever spoken. Here we are, 16 years later, and H has basically given up on life. He lost his long time (almost 40 years) job in November. He hasn’t found one since then. You would think he would use the time to get all the things around the house that he "was going to get to" taken care of but, no. Apparently, sleeping, watching TV & looking at porn is the choice of activity for him. He won’t talk to a therapist and won’t do marriage counseling. It hasn’t always been like this. The past few years have just been bad. He’s had health issues but those have been addressed.

I’ve reached the end. I always wondered how do you know when it’s time to say divorce, well now I know. My time came when I could only look at my husband as someone I was taking care of. The bulk of everything falls on me. I work, I clean, I cook, I do the laundry…..I’m tired of not being a team and being the only one pulling the wagon. I don’t like who I’ve turned into when I’m with him. I’m a nag. I can understand the saying I love you but I’m not in love with you. I’ll always care about him. We’ve spent 40 years together. We basically grew up together. No, I grew up, he just got older.

I’ve decided I’m going to get my life together and once our adult son with autism is moved into a group home I’m going to tell him I’m done.

There’s nothing there for me This used to be the man I would turn to for comfort, shelter & love. Now he’s just a roommate. We haven’t had sex in almost a year. He’s suffering from ED. He’ll acknowledge that weight and no exercise is the issue but won’t do anything about it.

This is not how I expected my life to be at this point. I’m 56 and my life is going to look radically different a year from now. I didn’t have a choice when he had an A and I feel like I don’t have a choice now. He’s pulling me under and I finally have to save myself. I’m starting to feel dead inside. I want real love. I want adult love. I want to get as much as I give. I want a happy life.

My hope is that this doesn’t turn into a battle with lawyers. I just want to fairly divide things and we each go on our way. With one income for the past ten months it has put a huge dent in our rainy day fund.

It really wasn’t what he did, it was what he didn’t do🥺

Has your H been evaluated for depression?

Seems to be some signs there (but porn use is not one of them).

I’m sorry you are so unhappy. I have a good friend who recently went through the same thing. She finally D her H in her very late 50s b/c the marriage no longer worked (I don’t think he cheated).

Your post brings to mind something thats bothered me about being a man for a long time.

Im not defending your husbands waywardness, or him giving up. Its totally understandable that you arent in love with what remains after someone shows you they are capable and motivated to engage in affairs. There is no putting that revelation back in the box, and the context of that understanding makes compromises we have made regards our satisfaction in our relationships a lopsided equation. You have every right to be done.

Males are generally raised with a handful of expectations. We are heaped with notions of honor, given programming to resist our own feelings from a young age, and are often punished, even as children, with being discarded if we are found to be weak or burdensome. Our lot in life by our recognizance is to exchange our health and time to make a difference in the world. We take huge measures of pride in the things we do in life that stands as testament against our fears that we are in fact, hurt, replaceable, and powerless. Our usefulness is often our whole identity.

But the real truth is we are hurt. We are replaceable. We are powerless. And we cant stand it. And we cant share it. We cant even fully share ourselves. We dont believe anyone would care, for one, and for two, we think no help is possible. What would happen if we did?

Well, we’d be found out. The difference weve made would be accounted for, and it might not mean shit in the present, after all the time and health weve exchanged. Didnt make a permanent mark on the world, didnt do our one job of taking care of them that matter most to us. And then, they would discard us.

Im familiar with men giving up late in life. They lose something they were holding onto for self worth and they decline. Time makes fools of us. We live shorter lives than our females. We often decline before they do.

My father wore many hats. He was a dental lab technician, and then a high school teacher, and then he built a construction company. A kind, wild soul who never let an opportunity to fix a problem for someone else got to waste. I helped him do the work for 15 years. When his health went and he couldnt build anymore, he gave up. He drank, killed his liver, got a transplant, and lived for another year. It was fucked up.

None of us understood. He hated alcoholics. His father drank and beat him. I never knew him to drink, but then……. He lost his sense of being a man when he couldnt create, provide, or have mere erections. Each of those losses compounded the others and made his sense of disability stronger.

He was just a sad thing, waiting to die, Boiled by my moms resentments that he didnt help anymore. He was powerless to get off his ass and turn it around. He reckoned that he had already crossed the river and kicked out the boat.

Im so sorry. I watched my mom stop loving my dad the same way. Now hes gone, and all she does is cry about missing him. She didnt appreciate his mere existence when the uefulness faded. And what remained of him faded away too. It was the saddest thing I ever saw.

Id never blame you, especially after infidelity, for extracting yourself.

I also wouldnt blame you for trying to get the man help. But it will only work if he finds that fight in him. And your time is limited too. You deserve to be happy. You deserve better than being tied to a sinking ship.

Bless you. I feel for you.

1st wife…..yes I do believe it’s depression and he’s been on antidepressants for years. He’s seen a therapist for years. This decline came before losing hours job, if fact I believe it was a contributing factor to him being one of the chosen ones to be let go.

5 blue….. you’re very insightful. I do believe that he has lost his purpose. The thing is, I would be more than willing to help and I have helped. He literally just seems, like your father, to have no will left to better himself, to help himself, to do anything.
Honestly, I am so tired. I can understand where your mom came from because you grieve this relationship. I grieve for the relationship that was expected in a marriage. I grieve for the friend. I thought I had because I don’t even have that anymore. I grieved for a partner who is equal. I grieve because I don’t even know if I respect him anymore. I grief because I loved him and he can’t see that. I grieve because I would do anything and I have done anything. I have compromise my values thinking I would never stay with somebody who cheated on me and disrespected me that much, I have learned how to live with the fact that he broke our vows I have learned to live with that he not only broke my heart, but he devastated our girls also. I would still help him if he would just try to help himself. He epitomizes the saying of you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. I don’t think that I would cry saying I miss him how he is now if he were to die. if I’m honest, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, it would just make my life so much easier if he did die. I grieve for the young couple who started a marriage with such expectations and now here we are and the love is gone. I’ve literally just become a caretaker Secretary, a mother I’m not a partner. I’m not a lover. I don’t even think I’m a friend.

[This message edited by Flatlined123 at 3:03 PM, Friday, August 15th]

It's sad when you arrive at this place where the love is gone, the friendship is gone, and all that's left is coexistence. I started feeling that way almost 5 years ago now, and was rebuffed by an angry WS when I brought it up to him. Of course, back then, he was in the throes of his secret love affair.

When you're done, you're done, and that's okay. You've given him 16 bonus years after his infidelity, and it sounds some of those years were good to you too. I think it's okay to close that chapter of life.

The one thing I don't understand is why he's watching porn if he has ED, and I have to wonder if the former is contributing more to the latter than he wants to admit. Also, there are a lot of ways to physically connect and be intimate, and also ways to for him to get help with ED that don't involve weight loss or exercise (though obviously both of those would be beneficial for many reasons).

My husband has a physical issue that stops him from his hobby. He started letting me wait on him until I wised up. I tell him moving his body is too important to sit all day. I absolutely will not do something for him if he can do it himself. It has made a huge difference in him. He found a different hobby he can do. I think the death of a friend who basically sat down and stopped caring scared my h.
Depression can be treated but getting him out the door to walk every day is important enough to nag about.
I teach a class to adults and one question I always ask is for them to name the 3 most important things in their lives. Every single man has had his job as one of the three. Ask a man you have just met to tell you about himself and his job is usually number one or two. Their description of themselves is tied up with what they do. The loss of their jobs is such a body blow they can’t get over it.
I can’t tell you what to do about your marriage but I hope you get him a thorough work up either way.

Flatlined: It is so understandable that you feel this way. You do need to do whats right for you and it is a more kind choice to leave rather than cheat. You are young at 56 and could have a second life.

But, it is sad. Everything 5bluedrops said is very true. I see how men are put in these boxes from such a young age, nearly babies, and told to be tough, not cry, not be caring. Told their value is only tied to their accomplishments. Unsurprising they go through periods of being so completely lost.

My husband was talking about how lost he is now at work. He had devoted his whole life to his workplace and now that he has taken a step back from leadership positons (to devote time to recovery) he feels irrelevant. I told him he was lucky b/c he still has a job and a skill whereas you see so many men castoff from their jobs in their 50s/60s with a « it’s been nice knowing you… » from their companies. These jobs that they gave up everything for. And of course they were in many ways selfish, betrayed their families (at least mine did) for some cheap flattery.

I was let go from my job once and it was so demoralizing. It took me a few years to get back on my feet. And of course as women it is not our whole identity. Your husband most definitely sounds depressed and I disagree that porn use is not a sign. Its escapism, no different than drinking, smoking or any other maladaptive behavior to distract you from your woes.

I’m not saying you should accept the porn, or even stay.

I think affairs break something in us, its impossible to offer the same blind support a spouse might offer if they had never been betrayed. My mother was cheated on too by my dad. They « recovered » and he fell into similar slovenly behavior to what you’ve described after he retired. She would not care for him. They fell into a cold detente. It was sad to watch. When she was in her late 70s she got a new boyfriend but hid it from all of us as she lived with my dad who lived on the couch, gained a ton of weight and sank into oblivion. In the end I guess she became the thing she despised (a cheater). So my take would be…if you need to go go. Not that you were asking permission.

Hi, Flatlined. I'm sorry things didn't turn out the way you'd hoped. But! I think you've got a brighter future on your horizon.

Best wishes!