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I am really at a loss about what to do about my marriage. Basically my 62 year old husband of 30 years is infatuated with a young woman of 30 he met at his golf club, 3 years ago. He is semi retired and plays a lot of golf so I am accustomed to being something of a golf widow. But I accepted his interest and thought we were happy until she appeared on the scene. He gives private coaching and she asked him to help her with her golf and generally be her mentor. He agreed and since then they have become almost inseparable.
She is also a teacher, and so has time on her hands during vacations when she can and does play golf all day everyday. Mostly it turns out, with my husband. He did not tell me how often they were playing and by the time I found out, about 3 months ago, their relationship had escalated into a full scale emotional affair and embroiled my husband in a mid life crisis. I found out that they were seeing each other all the time during the week, in the summer vacation, and often he would lie about this to me, and also at weekends, when he plays in a foursome sometimes with her boyfriend and another older male friend. Also she was texting him at all hours of the day and night, mostly about golf but also very affectionate too.
When I found out the scale of the deception- how often he had been seeing her and lying to me about it. I confronted my husband but like happens so often with midlife crises, I did not get much sense out of him. He went on about how he had always been fond of me but never really loved me. She had awakened feelings in him he never thought possible, he adored being in her company and that all he really wanted was to be with her. If she would have him he would leave me in an instant even if it only lasted a few weeks it would be worth it.
He also said he really liked being flattered by her and going around with a very attractive young woman hanging on his every word. It made his friends envious too. The twist is that their relationship, while clearly intensely emotional, is not physical, as much as he would like it to be, as she had made it clear she did not want a relationship of that kind with him due to the age gap and in any case was settled with her own boyfriend.
She has had a very nice boyfriend her own age, for the last two years, who she sees at weekends (he works some way away and comes here to be with her). Her boyfriend plays golf but not to her standard. She treats my husband like a second boyfriend and expects him to jump when she tells him to (which is also how she treats her real life boyfriend). His mood depends on how she is treating him from day to day and spending time with me seems to displease her.
As you can imagine all this caused a major crisis in our marriage and with no sense from my husband I texted her and asked her to back off a bit explaining their closeness was causing problems in our marriage. Nothing doing. In fact if anything she turned the screws even tighter, expecting him to see her every weekend for a game even if it intervened with our own arrangements.
My husband and I have discussed separating but we simply cannot afford financially to split up, I help in his business and we could not sell our house in the current market and need our joint incomes to stay afloat financially. So we have been trying to work something out to stay friends. Also if he leaves I feel she will have won and that eventually he might find himself alone and isolated while at present he is so infatuated he is not thinking straight.
Recently it was my birthday and my husband proposed a truce and invited me to go away for a couple of days and it went really well. Just like old times. He bought me a nice present and suggested we do it again next month. A day later he went very quiet and sulky and reading between the lines it was clear he had told her he was not available for golf that weekend and she had given him a really hard time.
In desperation I phoned her fiance and asked how did he feel about their relationship as it was giving me a hard time, friends were talking openly and it was becoming humiliating for me. He said he felt entirely secure and did not feel jealous as he did not believe she had any physical or romantic feelings for my husband.
He was not concerned about it. He did not seem to be fully aware himself of how much she was seeing my husband in the week denying for example that they spend hours chatting in the club bar and my husband always gives her a life home. Which is what happens. So I wonder if he is really aware of how she and myhusband interact.
I have been hoping given time it would pass but his feelings for her seem to be getting stronger and he will not pass up any opportunity to be with her. They seem to have intimate discussions about me, and about her bf, and my husband describes her as his best buddy, and she has convinced him he is "mother ridden". This is so not true but appears to be based on the view that he finds it necessary sometimes to consult me about when he can play. There is no sign yet of her getting married and my husband seems to be hoping that one day her relationship will break up and he can step in and fill the gap, and he is prepared to wait as long at it takes.
Meanwhile she wants him to be 100% available to her. Indeed we seem to have arrived at the position where he has to clear his family commitments with her first, so that they do not conflict with what she wants to do. Unless he puts her first, she gives him a hard time. The more upset I get the more he says I am making him feel hunted and put upon.
Now she has said she wants to play in a tournament between Christmas and the New Year when our son and daughter in law and baby granddaughter,, who live overseas will be here, for 4 days. We will not have seen them for nearly a year. However as a Hindu she does not celebrate Christmas and her bf who does, is packed off to his family for the duration. My husband says he has to play with her then or she will be on her own during that period. It seems she is more important even than seeing our own son and grand daughter.
What I cannot understand is why she is doing this when she has a nice boyfriend of her own age. Any comments which might help me make sense of it? Should I just let it run its course?
She is also a teacher, and so has time on her hands during vacations when she can and does play golf all day everyday. Mostly it turns out, with my husband. He did not tell me how often they were playing and by the time I found out, about 3 months ago, their relationship had escalated into a full scale emotional affair and embroiled my husband in a mid life crisis. I found out that they were seeing each other all the time during the week, in the summer vacation, and often he would lie about this to me, and also at weekends, when he plays in a foursome sometimes with her boyfriend and another older male friend. Also she was texting him at all hours of the day and night, mostly about golf but also very affectionate too.
When I found out the scale of the deception- how often he had been seeing her and lying to me about it. I confronted my husband but like happens so often with midlife crises, I did not get much sense out of him. He went on about how he had always been fond of me but never really loved me. She had awakened feelings in him he never thought possible, he adored being in her company and that all he really wanted was to be with her. If she would have him he would leave me in an instant even if it only lasted a few weeks it would be worth it.
He also said he really liked being flattered by her and going around with a very attractive young woman hanging on his every word. It made his friends envious too. The twist is that their relationship, while clearly intensely emotional, is not physical, as much as he would like it to be, as she had made it clear she did not want a relationship of that kind with him due to the age gap and in any case was settled with her own boyfriend.
She has had a very nice boyfriend her own age, for the last two years, who she sees at weekends (he works some way away and comes here to be with her). Her boyfriend plays golf but not to her standard. She treats my husband like a second boyfriend and expects him to jump when she tells him to (which is also how she treats her real life boyfriend). His mood depends on how she is treating him from day to day and spending time with me seems to displease her.
As you can imagine all this caused a major crisis in our marriage and with no sense from my husband I texted her and asked her to back off a bit explaining their closeness was causing problems in our marriage. Nothing doing. In fact if anything she turned the screws even tighter, expecting him to see her every weekend for a game even if it intervened with our own arrangements.
My husband and I have discussed separating but we simply cannot afford financially to split up, I help in his business and we could not sell our house in the current market and need our joint incomes to stay afloat financially. So we have been trying to work something out to stay friends. Also if he leaves I feel she will have won and that eventually he might find himself alone and isolated while at present he is so infatuated he is not thinking straight.
Recently it was my birthday and my husband proposed a truce and invited me to go away for a couple of days and it went really well. Just like old times. He bought me a nice present and suggested we do it again next month. A day later he went very quiet and sulky and reading between the lines it was clear he had told her he was not available for golf that weekend and she had given him a really hard time.
In desperation I phoned her fiance and asked how did he feel about their relationship as it was giving me a hard time, friends were talking openly and it was becoming humiliating for me. He said he felt entirely secure and did not feel jealous as he did not believe she had any physical or romantic feelings for my husband.
He was not concerned about it. He did not seem to be fully aware himself of how much she was seeing my husband in the week denying for example that they spend hours chatting in the club bar and my husband always gives her a life home. Which is what happens. So I wonder if he is really aware of how she and myhusband interact.
I have been hoping given time it would pass but his feelings for her seem to be getting stronger and he will not pass up any opportunity to be with her. They seem to have intimate discussions about me, and about her bf, and my husband describes her as his best buddy, and she has convinced him he is "mother ridden". This is so not true but appears to be based on the view that he finds it necessary sometimes to consult me about when he can play. There is no sign yet of her getting married and my husband seems to be hoping that one day her relationship will break up and he can step in and fill the gap, and he is prepared to wait as long at it takes.
Meanwhile she wants him to be 100% available to her. Indeed we seem to have arrived at the position where he has to clear his family commitments with her first, so that they do not conflict with what she wants to do. Unless he puts her first, she gives him a hard time. The more upset I get the more he says I am making him feel hunted and put upon.
Now she has said she wants to play in a tournament between Christmas and the New Year when our son and daughter in law and baby granddaughter,, who live overseas will be here, for 4 days. We will not have seen them for nearly a year. However as a Hindu she does not celebrate Christmas and her bf who does, is packed off to his family for the duration. My husband says he has to play with her then or she will be on her own during that period. It seems she is more important even than seeing our own son and grand daughter.
What I cannot understand is why she is doing this when she has a nice boyfriend of her own age. Any comments which might help me make sense of it? Should I just let it run its course?
