'My husband's affair has actually improved our relationship'
By The Telegraph UK|
B?y Anonymous Author
We've been married for nearly 25 years and have two sons, who are 17 and 19. Like many long-term relationships, the passion had long gone from ours.
A combination of work, menopause, age and taking each other for granted meant that our sex life gradually became virtually non-existent and we co-existed more like friends than husband and wife.
Then, just over a year ago, my husband left the job that he had been in since graduating from university to take up a new, better-paid position with more responsibility.
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Within a few months I started to notice changes in him. Small ones at first, like the fact he started staying later in London for after-work drinks, not getting home until I was asleep. He also began taking more care of his appearance than he had done in years.
It was quickly obvious to me that he was having an affair, and while I felt angry and upset at first, I began to see the difference it was making to him.
He started losing the beer belly that had hung over his belt for the better part of a decade and took more care about what he wore, like he had done when we first met. Gradually I started to recognise the man I'd first fallen in love with all those years ago.
And as strange as it sounds, the thought that someone else found him attractive made me realise that he was still attractive. That he was worth fighting for.
I suggested that we should go out for dinner together จC a pastime we had long since abandoned. Over dinner I talked to him about my suspicions. He admitted that he had become close to one of his female colleagues.
Even though it wasn't a surprise, I had to gasp at his admission. Panic rose in my chest as he went on to confess to a brief affair, which he insisted wasn't "overly" physical.
Fighting back the tears, I didn't push him on the specifics. The thought จC the reality จC of him with someone else seemed unbearable, and losing him was something I couldn't contemplate.
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But as he held my hand and looked at me, I just knew, and trusted him, when he said that it was over now. He explained that it made him grateful for me, and our children and all that we've achieved together.
And at that moment it actually made me grateful for him, too. Because it was the wake-up call we both needed. It was a momentous energy shift, which made us both realise what we were lucky to have จC and what we stood to lose.
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Weirdly, it breathed new life into our stale marriage. We became intimate again, for the first time in more than five years.
I'm not saying our relationship is perfect now, but I would say that we talk more, spend more time together, and are more tactile and thoughtful towards each other than we've been since the boys were young.
Some of my friends have even commented when they've seen us out for a walk holding hands, but I wouldn't dare tell them the reason why. I know they would think I'm a mug, a doormat even, for accepting him back after what he's done.
But deep down I know that I was partly to blame for our marriage stagnating.
I neglected him just as much as he did me. So maybe the affair was just what we both needed to reawaken it.
? Telegraph Media Group Limited 2023
