Much in the same boat, but older and longer. I'm 63. I thought I was happily married. Thought we were living the fantasy. In 2017, 5 months after our girls both graduated from college/grad school and right after our 34th anniversary, I discovered he was having an affair. How? I was slipping a love note into his wallet when someone else's fell out! People used to ask what I most admired about him. My answer was always the same -- his intelligence and his integrity. Color me a fool! I later figured out that the affair began after his father died was had been going on for almost 3 years. THREE YEARS! She was looking for a sugar daddy, and I got rid of her with one wordless text -- enough to make her wonder why he was still living at home if he said he loved her. And 6 months later, she was living with someone else. Anyway... I let him hang around for another year, hoping things would change. He refused to go for therapy and didn't have much to say. He was sleeping on the couch, but like the dutiful wife, I was still cooking and doing his laundry...and crying a lot. I finally forced him to answer me. I asked if we had a chance, if we could fix things. I wasn't even sure what was broken. And then he said something that broke me -- he told me that he was never happy. Never? Not before kids. Not after kids. Not in 36 years? I call **bleep**, but he stands by it. The kicker is that it took us 9 years to have a baby, and in that time, I had an amazing career. He could have easily walked away, and I would have managed. (I'm glad he didn't because my girls are my best friends.) I asked why, and he said he thought kids would make it better. I guess not. I told him I wanted him out. I gave him a month, and he left. We're still not divorced. At first, we didn't because I wanted to hang on to his heath insurance. I have glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy, and those tests and treatments add up pretty quickly without great insurance. But the pandemic put everything on hold. But now he has a new girlfriend, and I guess he wants to move on. I'm terrified and completely overwhelmed. I'm living in our house that he ran into the ground. It's a money pit with no C of O, so we can't even sell it as is. And I'm looking to relocate. My girls are 500 miles away. They never came back after graduating, so I'm going to them. So between trying to keep up with floods and other messes her, trying to dump things and downsize, trying to virtually search for a condo, trying to figure out what's fair in a divorce when I have assets to protect, and mostly trying (but failing) to get some sleep and keep myself some sort of healthy, I'm exhausted and on overload...and still cloistered at home because I caught Coved at my doctor's office, and I don't want it again. 63 is not what I thought it would be. These aren't golden years...they're downright rusty!
Good luck to all of us! I'm never getting married again. Probably never dating again either. I'm sticking with pets.
