DEAR EMILY,
I am a 56-year-old woman and have been married for 30 years. We migrated to California in 1994. My husband, whom I met in my senior year in college, was my very first boyfriend. We were very intimate physically until I found out that his mother, a full-blooded Chinese, was very much against me. We cooled off for a while after college and I allowed an office mate to enter my life—fully knowing that I really hadn’t broken up with my first boyfriend. My office mate pursued me relentlessly. We were together everyday including meals. One thing led to another until we had a relationship. It got serious enough for him to propose marriage and for me to consider it. He was, after all, intelligent, romantic, refined. It was during this time that my first boyfriend returned to the picture and pursued me again. I chose him for sentimental reasons—like his being my first. We had four children, but our marriage failed. My husband couldn’t hold a job and that contributed to his sense of failure. My office mate also got married but we kept tabs on each other. When he became a widower four years ago, he sought me out.
I came home shortly after that to visit my ailing father and got in touch with office mate. We were able to pick up from where we left off. We became lovers again. I’ve been home often since then for various reasons—like the death of my father, fixing family properties—and all that time we’d be together. I would like to be open about my relationship with him, as clandestine meetings involve considerable hassle, which reduces the pleasures of the meetings. Also, I would like my husband to know about us so he can decide whether to leave me or accept being a cuckold. His leaving me will mean one less mouth to feed, lower medical insurance premium to pay, etc.
—ER
Ouch! Not even a fleeting spark from a dying ember?
After 30 years you must know what you’re talking about. But why go around the bush and create all the unnecessary hassle? Why not just go straight to your husband and lay it thick on him. It’s bad marriages that create enough toxicity in the body that give morticians or doctors sustained wealth!
The first recourse definitely is to save the marriage. Have you seriously thought about the consequences of a separation, the effect this will have on your family as a whole, taking into consideration that you may just be having a mid-life crisis and need excitement? But then, you’re 56 and should know yourself quite well not to act like an irrational teenager. If the relationship you have with your husband is already in tatters, whatever for is the sense in this rigmarole?
Life is too short to turn marriage into a death sentence, or life in prison without parole, or create needless martyrs for nothing. Let it all out and gift yourselves with a new lease on life, whatever the parties in this drama decide. Everybody deserves peace—including unhappily long-married couples.
E-mail emarcelo@inquirer.com.ph or emarcelo629@gmail.com. Do listen to my podcast at https://kalikasanvigilante.blogspot.com.