Church-going husband has been having sex with another woman and blames me
DEAR DEIDRE: MY husband makes out he’s holier than anyone at our church and yet I know he’s having sex with another parishioner.
Everyone tells me what a good man he is and he loves volunteering for all the fundraisers at church.
Yet since this new woman arrived, he’s become the worst — a sinner.
I’m 57 and he’s 56 and we have been married for 30 years.
I suspected something was wrong when he suddenly began to refuse to sleep in the same bed as me.
He claimed it was because I was snoring, which has never been an issue before.
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He’s always fallen asleep and snores much more himself.
Then I noticed he kept speaking to this woman at church.
She’s single, mid 40s and seemed friendly, especially with the men.
She’s exactly his type, with blue eyes and blonde hair, so I kept a close eye on them.
Sure enough, he started attending more sessions at church, insisting that I didn’t need to go.
We used to go once or twice a month, but now he attends every Sunday without fail.
Then he stopped answering his phone after service and didn’t return until later than usual.
Then one of my church friends came over one day and confided in me there was rumour going around that my husband was with this new woman.
I confronted him and he admitted to having an affair.
My whole world fell apart. How could he do this to me? I thought he was a good Christian.
He now insists they’ve only slept together once and blames his cheating on our non-existent sex life.
As I’ve aged, I’ve found my sex drive has lowered, but whenever I asked my husband how he felt about this, he said it didn’t matter as he loves me.
He insists it will never happen again and that he doesn’t want a divorce, but I no longer trust him.
How can we move past this?
MORE FROM DEAR DEIDRE
DEIDRE SAYS: Your husband should have told you he was unhappy with the lack of intimacy in your relationship – only then could you have addressed the problem.
But now that you know it is up to both of you to decide if you want to try and repair the damage.
You’ll both need to start talking through what is making you unhappy in your marriage and work towards the changes you both need.
It won’t be an easy conversation and will take many discussions to rebuild any trust.
My support pack How Counselling Can Help has more information on this, and the one called Your Man Cheating On You? will help you think this through.