am i just a typical confused man

You know what they say, "You can look at a menu but you don't have to eat", to be honest I am married and would be chuffed if a younger bird started flirting with me but that is where it would end! You said that you have a happy 15 yrs of married life under your belt and now your head is turned by somebody else who wants to remove that belt (pardon the pun).
I have seen it all before, married guy start a relationship with other woman, wife finds out, married guy is out on his ear, relationship fizzles out and married guy ends up loosing everything, I don't know nothing about your circumstances but I think you are stone mad, work on your marriage

confused40 wrote: »

Hi,

Thanks for the replies. I guess it provides affirmation when I really cant talk to anyone about this.

Just to clarify, I dont think she was ready to be my mistress, she more made it clear she liked me and would like more....I think she more meant a relationship. And to answer another question, yes we have 3 kids, from primary to secondary school.

I have actually booked a weekend away for Valentines already, so I am working on this. I guess sexually though I have tried to spice things up with temporary success, but never seems to stick. It is a sticking point....but I have to say the single lady doesnt strike me as a sexually adventurous type either so its not like I see that as the reason behind this.

I have been following your advice....doing nothing....I just thought I would have recovered by now. Im trying to minimise time with her but its not really possible to eliminate it without major major hassle (not as much hassle as a broken marriage I hear you say and point taken).

My question might be along the lines of.....how long would you have to like someone else before it might actually be the right thing to think about leaving? Is this even a valid question? Like if I looked back and think I fancied a girl for 5 years and did nothing about it, would not not be a crazy thing to have ignored?? Its beginning to have an impact on our marriage as I feel distracted.

You're at it again!, this is a case of the balls ruling the brain, could be a mid life crisis you are going through, it can't be having an impact on your marriage because your wife doesn't obviously have a clue what is going on, this isn't really very fair on your wife or kids is it?

Look, honestly, judging by your last post I would say that this sounds more like a mid-life-crisis that you are going through at the moment, you stated that this 'single girl' told you in an environment fuelled with alcohol that she would fancy you if you were single. Has she approached you since when she was sober? I am been serious here and don't mean to offend but since she has told you this and from what I can make out you are going around like a tinkers greyhound with two mickeys think you are in love again!! or have I missed something altogether?

I will go against the grain here and say I think you should leave your wife.....not for your sake, but for hers.

Allow her the chance to be loved, appreciated and happy going to sleep at night in the arms of someone who wants her, not someone who doesn't want to be there.

I know IDE rather sleep alone than with someone who thought of me in the same light the op sees his wife.

OP go talk to a professional.

I or anybody else can't tell you what to do as we don't know you or your family.

It may be a choice of talking to a good counsellor for a few hours now or spending your 40's crying to one.

Married at 25, 3 kids, 15 years of marriage your in mid life crisis territory! Take a little time and a space for yourself before making a life altering decision.

All the best

Hi confused2,

I had a read back over this thread to see what you were referring to as 'judgemental posts', and the fact is, they're ALL judgemental, even your own! Why? Because without being judgemental, you can't form an opinion. It can either be a negative judgement, or a positive judgement, but most posters here will base their judgement on their experience of an issue, and try to put themselves in the OP's shoes, try to advise the OP based on what they did and how it turned out for them. This forum wouldn't exist if there weren't people who had been through these issues giving their time, energy and effort to advise people who in very rare circumstances want to listen to advice, and even more rarely want to act on the advice they're given.

The OP has indeed articulated themselves very well (I wish I could express myself like that!), but what's coming across is that they are lusting after someone that is clearly unavailable to them, and the more the OP focuses on this unavailable person, the more they become consumed by the idea and start to build a fantasy around what life would be like with that person. That's exactly all it is, a fantasy, an escape from the humdrum reality of their daily lives where their expectations for themselves haven't met with reality. They've lost appreciation for what they have and they take it for granted, because they're unsatisfied that their achievements don't match their expectations they had for themselves when they were younger.

What you and the OP need to realise is that you've literally made your own beds. This other person could've been ANYONE, because you'd both tuned out of your marriages having made no effort to make them work for yourselves, and before either of you come back with "Fcuk you, I made the effort, s/he hasn't!", ask yourselves, have you REALLY made an effort to make the marriage work?

In the OP's case, he's looking to put his two eggs in another basket and looking for someone to tell him "You go do that, sure life is short, everyone deserves a second chance, yada yada"; in your case, you blame your husband from the beginning and were looking for a distraction from the get-go! Distraction has a way of finding you, you don't have to go looking for it, and in both your marriages it's stopping you from focussing on and engaging with the person you're actually married to. You're both using the oldest cliches in the book to justify your distraction - "My wife/husband just doesn't understand me any more", "I love them, but I'm not in love with them", and the only people that fall for that craic are people as immature as you are - young women in their 20's, and grown men in their 40's. For women, just reverse - women in their 40's are as immature as young men in their 20's. I think it's the attraction of freedom and irresponsibility, much less to do with their looks as what they actually represent, which again feeds into the fantasy and their escape from reality.

The solution? Grow up, the pair of you. Stop acting like it's not your fault you're unable to at least ACT like adults in a mature relationship. A relationship isn't supposed to stay the same, it's supposed to grow and mature and evolve, and you're supposed to work on that together, a plant needs food AND water to grow, it won't grow on just food alone, it won't grow on just water alone, just the same as a marriage needs input from BOTH parties to grow and become what you want it to be. Forget about the fantasies and distractions and take your marriages back to their basic roots and work from the ground up, because right now that tree is fcuking rotten, and you're looking over the wall into your neighbours garden and turning your back on your own. You're only going to bring that rot with you into any new relationship if you don't kill it at the roots - that immaturity and insecurity that is within yourselves.


In the interest of disclosure, yeah, there was a time too when my testosterone levels outweighed my common sense and I was dipping my eggs in a lot of baskets, but because my wife actually DID understand me, all too well in fact, she wasn't prepared to put up with my shìt and put her foot down, stood up for herself, made me see that I wasn't going to be allowed to take her for granted and earned a whole new respect from me. I saw that if you treat people like shìt, it's not a reflection on them, it's a reflection on you, and that's not something I was very proud of. It took some time for the message to hit home, but I sure as hell am glad my wife gave me the kick up the hole I needed to re-engage with the person I fell in love with and gave me the motivation I needed to work on our marriage together.

Under normal circumstances (barring domestic violence, etc) if you want to walk away from your marriage, then walk, but don't walk because you think the neighbours have a nicer garden, that's only bringing the rot with you and soon your neighbours garden will look like the one you walked away from. Walk away because you made a mistake and you weren't ready nor mature enough for marriage. Walk away because if you genuinely care about the other person but just don't love them the way you used to, you'll set them free to find someone else who will appreciate them when you don't.