Dear Emily,
My husband and I have a 12-year-old daughter. Before we married, I discovered he was in an office relationship and I made him quit his job. I forgave him.
In our 13 years of marriage, he continued to have indiscretions. I cried every time but always forgave him.
Recently, a friend of my husband’s new girlfriend reached out to tell me that my husband has been having a yearlong affair with a girl who already has a boyfriend.
When I confronted my husband, he said he wanted to feel that he was still attractive at 40. Most of his friends are apparently playing the field, as well.
No amount of trust is left in me. I cannot bring myself to forgive him. But I have to stay in this marriage as we have a child.
It has been four months since I heard of this affair. I don’t know if they are still together and if I can still believe anything he tells me. How long I can last in this marriage is a big question. For the sake of my child, I will keep the marriage intact even if seeing him makes me angry every day.
—HOPELESS WIFE
Hasn’t he always been that way? He didn’t just start having these girlfriends out of the blue.
There were already red flags waving at you at the start, but you chose to ignore them. After 13 years, were you so sure that the strength of your personality or love could straighten him out and transform him into the man you wanted him to be? Did you see in the stars that you alone could change him?
Make containers of lemonade from the lemon you’ve been handed. Perish the thought that you’d leave this marriage. You could have if you wanted to but didn’t and couldn’t.
There’s something about this relationship that is preventing you from leaving, and I think it’s not just your child. It could be that you really love the scoundrel, much as you refuse to admit it. And he possibly loves you, too. With all the women he has ensnared and are still trying to ensnare, there must be someone out there he could be making a life with—but hasn’t.
Make a go of this marriage instead and show him what he’ll be missing, should you decide he wasn’t the hot dude he has been proving he was all these years!
Email emarcelo@inquirer.com.ph or emarcelo629@gmail.com