Marital Problems, Special Needs Children, and an Affair

Reader’s Question

Hi, I am a married 40 year old female. I recently started having an affair with a wonderful man who meets all of my needs physically and emotionally. I have not been in love with my husband for many years. I have viewed our relationship as a safe partnership. We have two special needs children together, whom I provide for, and I am very financially stable.

Recently my husband found out about the affair after doing his own little investigation. He has confronted me with this information, and I have denied it. He has told me that if I am having an affair he will have one also and we can stay married until the children reach 18 (15 years from now). I cannot stand to have him touch me and have not been intimate with him for over 6 months. He has threatened to have me followed and says he has other things on me and says he will take the children away since I cannot handle them myself.

I am not happy around him and want to leave him, but do not want to have anything happen to the children. Would I be doing the right thing for me by leaving him and going with the man that I love who also loves me very much? I am very torn and don’t know which way to turn, any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Our Consulting Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

You’re in a heap of trouble here. As I’ve said before, an affair is like visiting Las Vegas. It’s a great time but it’s less than three percent of our year and we have no responsibilities when we’re there. It’s relatively easy to meet someone’s needs when you only need to invest 3% of your time and effort. These are artificial relationships. Your Lover loves you very much…but only 3 percent of the time and with no responsibility for the children, bills, etc. I think if you proposed taking the two children, moving in with him, setting aside time for him to care for the children, pay bills, etc. — his view of the relationship would change significantly. It’s a sad situation…but that’s the most likely outcome.

What’s really most likely to have occurred over the past few years? Psychologists have theories about everything. Here’s mine: The arrival of two special needs children created severe stress on your marriage. You both became emotionally overwhelmed and exhausted (this is very common). The intimacy in your marriage died during this stress. As most extramarital affairs occur during times of severe stress or depression, you found yourself visiting Las Vegas/The Affair. It was the attraction of fun with No Responsibility versus a marriage with Maximum Responsibility.

Here’s the major issue. No matter what way you turn now — maximum responsibility will follow you. You can recognize that the severe stress of the past three or four years has damaged your marriage and try to repair that, giving the children two parents who will work on bettering their relationship. You can explore leaving the marriage and going with your Lover, although he signed on in this relationship for Las Vegas…not a daycare center. I seriously doubt that he’s ever talked about building on a room for your children at his place.

You can also develop an exit strategy for yourself, recognizing that you may be a single parent with the children in the near future. Lastly, you can work with your husband to make a deal — perhaps working as a team rather than a marriage until the children are at an age where single-parent custody would be more manageable.

In this complex and difficult situation, there are no easy fixes. You should also consider supportive counseling as you review your options. This additional situation has added more stress to your already-stressful life situation. You will benefit from external professional help and guidance at this time.