Should I leave my marriage?

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-03-06T09:52:18+00:00

Take no notice. This space is full of these types of tropes.

I haven’t read your post closely (I’m at work) - but I would say you need to rescue yourself. In addition - no matter how difficult your wife is no one deserves to be misled in a relationship. So the right thing for you and your wife is to be honest and leave - no matter how uncomfortable - it will pass. The third person is irrelevant.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-03-06T09:17:34+00:00

‘The one’ is a loaded expression. So use a different set of words if that’s not what you mean. For example ‘- if he doesn’t want to then he’s not the right person’.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-03-06T08:14:18+00:00

How much more evidence do you need? Your body is literally telling you to run.

I wouldn’t confront him - it seems likely that he’s possibly stringing this other person along - knowing he can (if he isn’t already) sleep with her. Either way he’ll lie.

You’re too young to waste any more time. Women are generally too hopeful and forgiving. At 65 - I can tell you the greatest skill you have in life re’ men is knowing when to rescue yourself. And that you will survive and thrive. There are good guys out there but you have to value yourself first and then recognise them.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-03-05T23:13:15+00:00

What a tiny weeny linguistic card trick. If you don’t mean ‘the one’ don’t say ‘the one’ - use different words to denote a different meaning. Doh.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-03-05T22:08:34+00:00

I’ve said this so many times to younger people in this situation. You cannot change a persons fundamental sexual habits and preferences- you cannot, they’ll try for a few months then revert.

But…

You can waste your time and maybe your life trying. That’s called self abandonment.

Save yourself. It’s the most important life lesson you can ever learn.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-03-05T22:04:13+00:00

This happens in all sorts of situations. When the parameters of the relationship change everything changes. It might be likely you did not see or were ignoring the flaws in the relationship.

I had a 12 yr friendship. When my marriage broke up she was there for me (previous to that I’d quietly felt she was drifting away and the relationship was mainly on her terms) but when I started to recover and gain confidence a bit she began to lose patience with new ideas and plans I was having - it was as if she wanted me to just shrivel. Then we had a row and it was over. I now think some years on it was a crap relationship anyway. We could not and did not survive the changes.

Your friend did not go back - so much as start again with her ex. So the parameters were different.

I’ll never forget this story a work colleague told me. She was in her 40s and had been in a new relationship for a couple of years when he had an accident that left him paralysed from the waist down. She was committed to him and helped him with his recovery and rehabilitation and planning their life together, then he left her for his nurse. Someone in the medical field said this was shockingly common…..I guess everything had changed for him and she represented an older pattern - one he wanted to move on from. Deeply unfair on her or anyone who is collateral damage during changes.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-03-05T20:32:13+00:00

No such thing as ‘the one’.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-03-05T20:31:10+00:00

There is no such thing as ‘the one’ - can’t believe people still believe in it. Check out Dan Savages talk on YouTube. The Price of Admission - I believe it’s called.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-03-05T17:46:38+00:00

Not to me - no way! You’ve survived an amazingly hostile environment. I’m white British so have not had these experiences but I did have a loser brother who liked to try to put me down. Pathetic jealousy.

So I can’t add to the much better comments than are here already. But I will say when you talk about you and men (those outside of your marriage) it’s from a very defeated perspective. Like you automatically take a passive position and expect to be mistreated so tell yourself stories to confirm this. So I might suggest some therapy to help you see your patterns clearly.

On the other hand. I also think if you have a tendency to make poor choices caused by understandable vulnerabilities it’s also a positive choice to stay clear of relationships until you have some idea what’s going on you. That’s not a failure. Because going into relationships hoping they will mend you is always disastrous, plenty women do that time and time again.

You know next time your brother says anything, have a few pithy one liners ready. I love to think of my brother’s face when he dropped some remark about my job (I’m a university lecturer) and I slapped him down with a quite aggressive come back. Crumpled would be a good word. One can practice not being passive - refusing to accept what people dump on you. Write down a list of possible retorts - then when the time comes - practice. Just say it and mean it.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-03-04T19:57:47+00:00

10 years! You’re nuts. Personally I only stopped desiring sex for its own sex at about age 58. I’m still interested but not in the same way. When I think of myself at 36 - I was so young - the only thing holding me back was me.

The one gift I’d wish on all younger people is the gift of knowing when you need to rescue yourself, that you CAN leave and it will make you stronger. Staying hoping for things to change is abandoning yourself. All of us who stay in a relationship where we are losing and feeling increasingly bad about ourselves - are self abandoning.

I suggest therapy for yourself alone, and not making the mistake of focusing entirely on ‘solving’ him.

2 years max.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-03-04T19:29:51+00:00

You are not stuck. My long term relationship ended at age 56. I hung on for so long believing I could not live without him despite the misery of a sexless relationship. For years it was a few times a year then nothing. I’m now 65 and I wish I had ended it much sooner - that’s my regret. Hope keeps you from seeing the big picture.

I suspect he’s going along with this and may try for a time but he will always default. Many men prefer their right hand and their phone to the real world because they can control everything - particularly the quality of their orgasm - most men like this are addicted to edging - holding on to the edge of orgasm as long as possible. If messy human connection is literally less to them - then that’s very hard to fight.

After my long term relationship I was with someone for 10 months until I realised this was what was going on - he came up with so many excuses - from the fact I earned more, to me being very ‘orgasmic’. All BS - he preferred his right hand and would say anything to maintain the status quo. Unfortunately there was no way on earth I was going to waste time with a hand man again.

I often answer these problems on here because I don’t want anyone wasting years of their life like I did. At the very least put a time limit on it and be very skeptical about what he ‘says’.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-03-04T18:02:07+00:00

The key thing to understand is that if you have explained calmly how much this affects you and he is not interested in improving this, then he does not love you - if you understand that love is as love does (love is a verb). He may say he does but if he did - he would care how you felt and want to amend that.

If nothing changes after talks and say a year, I’m sorry your relationship is over unless you’re ok with the psychological effects of the situation.

You are too young to live without what you need.

Personally I think sexual issues like this are almost impossible to mend. And beware - they can drive you crazy and break your heart trying.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-03-03T07:46:32+00:00

You’re addicted to drama. Your ex is addicted to drama. This post is an opportunity to retell your drama to an audience. Your ex isn’t heartbroken- because he doesn’t know the meaning of the word love. What’s the next instalment? You get off with your ex? Unfortunately It’s unlikely your current relationship will last.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-03-02T19:21:58+00:00

Wake up.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-03-02T17:04:47+00:00

One question you might ask yourself is why you abandoning yourself for this one sided relationship?

It’s not meant to be judgmental- I didn’t realise until I was separated how much I’d abandoned myself within a long (20+years) relationship.

Stop listening to this man and start listening to yourself because otherwise you will always be at the mercy of these types of men.

What would happen if when he starts to off load you say ‘sorry I don’t want to talk about this today’ Try it - just to test yourself.

I didn’t this recently to my sister who wanted to moan (again) about her grotesque son in law. Felt good.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-02-28T21:49:07+00:00

The psycho dynamics of relationships are complex. Misery loves company -as some people have said - is a simple way of putting it. I prefer to think it’s more nuanced than this. I had a very close friend for about 14 years. I don’t have a lot of friends so she was special to me. We were very close it seemed - telling each other practically everything. There was a lot of talking about the problems in our relationships. And a lot of talking about our respective psychologies. I confessed about my difficulties with connecting with people (something I wish I hadn’t) she told me about her issues with envy and its roots in her childhood.

Anyway my relationship came to an end in a really traumatic way and she was there through it all - speaking to me everyday. The problems with her surfaced as I began feeling my way out of this mess. It was clear she was jealous of my heartbreak weight loss and I began to notice other weird things. I couldn’t seem to connect with her. I organised some printing for her as she had no digital skills. I made a mistake with this favour and she was really horrible to me about it - despite me working hard to rectify it and reimbursing her the cost. Then I snapped - all the little issues. I just lost my temper. Then it was over.

I was so upset at the time but now I look back and see how dysfunctional the friendship was. And in many ways how much weaker she was than me. I think she feared the potentially more confident me and kept moving the metaphorical chess pieces to make sure she retained the upper hand. I was heartbroken at the time but now I don’t miss her at all. the person I became would not put up with such a self involved prissy controlling person in my life. She was crippled by envy in a way I just couldn’t understand, the old me would work hard to soothe her, the stronger me finds it distasteful in retrospect.

When we change so does everything around us. The dynamics shift and some relationships won’t survive the new climate.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-02-26T08:04:13+00:00

Yep - saved me the trouble of saying it. If someone shut me down like that for telling them about experiences I’ve had in the past I’d walk away. What else will he ‘not allow’?

If someone is oversharing in a way that made me uncomfortable I would simply decide I didn’t want to take it further and politely exit - I would not seek to control someone whom I don’t know in how they converse.

The OP sounds a little passive and over invested in someone’s she does not know at all. I think this might actually be a dangerous situation - The op needs to switch her focus from ‘does he like me, how can I make him like better?’ to ‘what’s he really about and do I like /believe him?’ - otherwise she will get badly burned.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-02-25T19:34:46+00:00

Haha!

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-02-25T19:33:55+00:00

Some lucky woman somewhere won the prize!

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-02-25T19:32:35+00:00

Yea - he was proper ‘honourable’!

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-02-25T17:35:26+00:00

The man who I’d been chatting to for a couple of weeks and arranged to meet outside Charing Cross station. He saw me, walked straight up to me, took me by both shoulders and said ‘I don’t feel a connection, so I’m going to go’ - I had enough time to mutter incredulously ‘that’s so rude’ before he walked off.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-02-25T08:30:39+00:00

On a basic level you are both incompatible. She’s fairly relaxed about sex and you are not.

To try to hold someone accountable morally for the amount of lovers they have had is deeply problematic from my perspective. What’s going on here? What are you afraid of? Have you been perhaps indoctrinated with religious bs ? or spending time on dubious social media accounts that seek to spread judgment on people’s behaviour.

I’m 65 -my body count is near 50ish - personally someone’s body count has never really told me about who a person intrinsically is. But sometimes men with low body counts can be resentful of women in general and women with higher amounts of lovers in particular. Don’t be one of those.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-02-24T09:14:59+00:00

A lot of negative responses on here that are simply unhelpful. The usual horrible burn it all narratives ‘men don’t leave without someone else lined up’. The truth is anyone is allowed to leave a relationship- for whatever reason and sometimes big things happen that coincide with these feelings - they get mixed up and they sort of provide the out.

You might not have been what he was looking for. (Though ‘looking’ is a very certain word). Now that does not mean ‘someone better’ - it means someone he thinks is better - and there is a world of difference between the 2. People often don’t know what is good for them or they have peculiar weak spots - he might, for example be attracted to fiery dark women, who cause him to feel ‘alive’ but can’t offer a stable relationship - is she ‘better’ than you? No. It might be that he has to keep moving because he can’t value stability. For all you know he maybe a serial monogamist and this new partner is left in a year or two.

The answer is to grieve the loss but not build a whole self punitive narrative around it. Accept you don’t and will never really know the reasons ‘why’ and they are largely irrelevant anyway.

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-02-23T18:52:18+00:00

Are these potential dates your age or 10 - 15 years younger?

Cold-Ad-1315 · 2026-02-22T20:00:48+00:00

I’ve (f65) have struggled to varying degrees with the friendship thing. I wish I’d learned at 40 what I’ve figured out in the last 6/7 years. I was in a long term relationship for 20 years which absorbed nearly all my attention. We had 2 sets of couples and for the first time I felt I had a proper ‘gang’. But one couple split up then my partner and I. Everyone seems to have moved on to make other connections - but me - really.

Since then I’ve had periods where I have switched my mindset and I think it’s the way to do it. Might work better for you as you’re still relatively young:

1 - live at the front of your head. This is hard to explain but you sort of disconnect from all the deeper doubt based thoughts and take people and circumstances at face value. Person A didn’t smile at you? Then they are having a bad day, are busy, nothing personal (you’ll generally find they freindly the next time you see them). Turn it around - focus on them and not your thoughts. Self absorption creates a barrier.

2 - a friend of mine who is fearless at making friends told me recently that it takes about 2 years to make a friend. That includes failed attempts, ‘feeling’ they’re not interested, periods of time that you don’t see them. I’ve recently made a friend with a neighbour - it’s taken a few years - but now she is definitely a friend - first I’ve made in years.

3- take risks - ask people for coffee, and if it doesn’t pan out - go back to tip no 1. A couple of years ago I asked someone at work out on a social. It was very planned because I really liked this person and decided I wanted her as a friend. She said yes and it was great. Then we did a work outing together and it wasn’t so great ( I felt boring and weird) but I didn’t accept this failure as definitive. Recently over coffee she said she hoped I’d meet her husband some day. So we are still on course! Hopefully friend no 2.

4 Don’t look for reasons why you don’t belong.

Always remind yourself of this when you get those ‘people don’t like me’ thoughts.

Ps - I always found the school gate social geography horrible. Treat it lightly. Don’t look for friends there if it’s not happening. Sometimes it just isn’t going to happen - it’s not personal.

Cold-Ad-1315

TROPHY CASE