Married 30 years and thinking about having an affair?
Image by Karen Roe
The BT Artbox Story
The good old British phone box was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott to commemorate King
George V’s Silver Jubilee.
This year we’ve got a Diamond Jubilee and London 2012 to look forward to, so we decided we needed to do something to celebrate.
That something turned into BT ArtBox. It’s a campaign that thrives on the nation’s artistic talent.
Across London’s streets you’ll find replicas of the Gilbert Scott phone box, transformed by the
imaginations of some of our very best creative minds.
Then later on we’ll be auctioning all the boxes off to raise money for ChildLine’s 25th anniversary.
“The Poetry of Life”
Artist: The DnA Factory
Location: Old Spitalfield’s Market
This sweet scent of memory,
green hills and pleasant seems
the cool dew in distant dreams of birdsong,
nostalgia bathes the scene,
And my heart belongs to thee.
Within this soft and satin world
these tears will dry and leave no stain,
as rain implores the sun
to kiss your hair, your face and hands
a feather’s touch upon the skin.
Of diamond edge and gilt refrain
a pledge of life and love,
to the follower of dusty trails
across the sea, the land, the sky
the Seeker seeks and so will Find.
Mighty as the Queen of Bees
gold dust heavy on silver wings
a diamond hard, will cut it seems
fair and foul and fair again
uphold the laws of majesty.
We journey long, as far as eyes can see
beyond which, time is light and air
all full to brimming through Englands green,
rose tint in the mirror sheen
romance the fire and melody.
Of suns rise and sets full
moons and stars all things forgot
just look beyond the here and now
the dream is all, safe and warm
in hope, for peace and charity of soul.
For here is Life and Love and All You Ever Dreamed Of.
Question by bee: Married 30 years and thinking about having an affair?
I have been trying and trying to talk some sense into my own head for 6 months now but keep coming back to the matter of being so sexually attracted to someone who is not my husband. Is it possible to have an affair with someone and keep it private. I don’t really want to hurt anyone. I just want to be irresponsible a little i guess and have something that is strictly my own!
What do you think? Answer below!
12 Responses to Married 30 years and thinking about having an affair?
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Split from your husband then. Don’t sleep around behind someone’s back, especially not when they’ve stood by you for 30 years. If you’ve been married that long you must be what? 50? Act your age, you sound like a hormonal teenager.
Michael
December 7, 2012 at 2:43 pm
if you dont find you own husband good-looking then friggin divorce him!! But don’t cheat on him, that’s just so wrong!!!!!!
whateva
December 7, 2012 at 3:12 pm
nah,its your life you’ve been married for 30 years you owe yourself some excitement. After 30 friggen years of marriage,why not? yea just be smart about it
Summer Rain
December 7, 2012 at 4:09 pm
It’s never good to cheat on someone, but if the urge is unbearable, then I suggest leaving your husband and going to the other man/woman that you are sexually attracted to. It’s difficult to respond to this in a professional manner (mostly because of my age and lack of experience with this sort of situation) but again, don’t cheat. If you have to, leave, but never cheat. That’s the most professional answer I can give you. If your husband is the kind of man who really wouldn’t care if you cheated, then go for it, but don’t hurt him only so that you can have your sexual pleasure.
Ranulf
December 7, 2012 at 4:23 pm
DON’T DO IT! i did and it almost ruined my marriage. you think that you can do it and get away with it and not get caught? think again. and then think about the cost that you just might have to pay. do you think that it is really worth the chance? you could lose your husband and your respect and your reputation. i lost my respect with my family, my self respect and my reputation. they aren’t easy to get back once they are gone. not to mention my husbands trust and this was 12 years ago. please rethink what you are seriously thinking about doing. plus think about the diseases you could catch. once you cheat once it is easier to do it again and again.
christina c
December 7, 2012 at 4:53 pm
Get a divorce
Duke
December 7, 2012 at 5:51 pm
If you’re still in love with him, don’t do it, and if you’re not still in love with him,then leave, and mess around with all the ones you want. Is it ok for him to go get a little on the side too ? I’m sure he sees other women, that he’s attracted to. Do you want him to pursue them ?
Gab
December 7, 2012 at 6:20 pm
Bee,
This seems to indicate some fundamental issue with your relationship with your husband. The “surface” problem seems to be that he’s just not “doing it for you” anymore, while some other guy is.
I’ve found, though (in my limited experience), that for women, sexual attraction is considerably more complex for women than for men, and that emotional involvement seems to be a significant part of that attraction. If this is the case with you, then I suspect that your husband may not be fulfilling all your emotional needs quite the way you’d like, and that his loss (by comparison) to this other guy may have more to do with that than even with how he looks.
You want a “private” affair that’s “strictly [your] own”? You “really don’t want to hurt anyone”? May I be blunt? If you’ve been married thirty years and think that you can really get that without hurting anyone, then you’re probably ignoring an awful lot of experience that really *should* tell you that what you’re after is, literally, the stuff of fantasies.
If you raised kids with your husband, did you teach *them* to be irresponsible? To be unfaithful to their spouses?
Point blank, you’re taking an awful big chance of hurting yourself, your husband, your kids (if you have any), and even “Mr. Hot Stuff” by getting into this. You already know what you should do, hence the fight with yourself. I think you’re smart enough to know what’s best in this case. Yeah, you could keep it quiet for a while, but *you* will always know what you’re doing.
Do you want to live with that guilt? Is sex with this other guy really going to be *that* good?
Talk it out with your husband. You don’t have to tell him you’re sexually attracted to another guy, necessarily, but talk about what brought the two of you together all those years ago, and what has kept you together for 3 decades. Maybe he’s not the knock-out charmer he once was, but chances are he still cares for you, and that he wants you to feel loved.
Men can change, even after years and years. If your husband has let himself go, maybe it’s just a sign of how comfortable he is around you.
I’d strongly suggest that you shift your focus away from this other guy (and even stay away from him, if that’s possible), and focus instead on revitalizing the relationship you’ve invested half a lifetime in.
An affair might be fun for a while–it triggers all the same “feel good” stuff in our brain that gets us married in the first place–but it’s a lie in the end, and an awful risk.
Do the right thing, for your man, yourself, and those who would be impacted by you being “irresponsible a little.” It’s still possible to have a ball with your husband, the way you probably used to. It’ll just take some work.
Best wishes. 🙂
Stan J
December 7, 2012 at 6:27 pm
I strongly advise you to think very carefully about this. Do you no longer love your husband? Are all feelings for him dead and have you definitely drifted apart 100 % and there is nothing there between you anymore that is worth fighting for and seeking the help of a marriage councellor for or even of a councellor who can help spice up your sex life if that is what is lacking here?
Definltely if it’s over then don’t have an affair behind your husband’s back because sooner or later somebody will find out and it will be a lot more hurtful to everybody involved if they find out from other sources than if you are honest about your marriage not workng anymore and wanting out if that should be the case.. Most people who have clandestine affairs will be found out and this is a trust issue.. if you do something such as have an affair and you don’t talk to your husband openly about your problems and try to fix the marriage or else if it’s not fixable, tell him you are lacking something in your marriage and you need to find that with somebody else, if you don’t do that, then he will find out about it one day and then the ”trust between you is truly gone forever and the marriage can never be fixed again and there may be somebody else in the persons life you plan to have an affair with who will also find out and ”having a clandestine affair is a lot more hurtful , than to be open and say ‘[We truly have drifted apart, I need to make a start elsewhere and I don’t feel for you any longer what it takes to make a marriage work… at least that is honest, but going behind someones back and cheat and they find out that shows them you may have lied to them all along and they will then not trust you anymore at all and you can’t even part on reasonably civilized terms. I definitely would not do it over an affair.. not unless that other man means ”your future for you and more than a shortlived clandestine intimate affair based on sexual attraction only”’ that is infatuation and that will wear itself thin and peter out into nothingness…it’s not worth the adventure!
Vera Gabriele
December 7, 2012 at 6:29 pm
What you’re feeling is normal — the urge to have an affair strikes a lot of married people at some point.
But, no, you really can’t act on it and keep it private and out of the relationship. Why? Because YOU’LL know. And that makes all the difference in the world. Acting on it would take away some of the tension you’re feeling, but it will create so many other kinds of tension, you’ll later end up longing for the days when the ONLY tension you had to deal with was the tension of extramarital attraction.
Please take a harder look at the situation. You don’t say whether this is a “push” situation because things are bad within your marriage, or a “pull” because some sexy stranger is holding out some fruit you think you deserve a bite of.
Maybe there’s another path you could take to feel alive and connected with your sexy self, without all the self-hatred and guilt and legal/financial/emotional damage that comes from having an affair. Please do a little more soul-searching and investigate other options before you take a step where there’s no turning back.
Kim
December 7, 2012 at 6:32 pm
Just to add to some of the good advice here.
Have you thought this out to the logical ends? What if your par amour doesn’t reciprocate? Or worse yet, what happens after you have the affair (whether you divorce or not) and one of you discovers its no more than a fleeting fantasy. One that quickly wanes with the loss of anticipation and withers when the reality can’t live up to the fantasy?
You are at the age where hormonal changes could certainly be a factor in your restlessness. Have you tried to find a different form of excitement? Preferably one that includes your husband or family.
As stated, you will always have to live with yourself regardless. You have so much at stake with your family, friends, community stature, and reputation, to name but a few. Much to lose little to gain. There will be no “unringing” this bell.
Nermit
December 7, 2012 at 6:38 pm
Bee, you hit the jackpot in the people that responded to you. Much good advice here
I will just add a few things…
Human beins have some unusual thought processes that help them make bad decisions. One is called IMPACT BIAS and the other is called FOCALISM.
This is even demonstrated in the Bible. When Essau who was the oldest son, was coming back from tending the herd of sheep he was very hungry. His younger brother that wanted his birthright knew this, and put himself in his brothers path. The younger brother made a stew that was very enticing, and Esau asked to eat. His younger brother said no, not unless you give me your birthright. (inheritance) Essau convinced himself that unless he had that stew he was going to die of hunger, and sold his birthright to his brother for a bowl of soup. I am sure after he ate, it was neither as good, nor as useful to him as he had imagined. This will be your situation.
Impact bias means that people tend to overestimate the length and strength of there future feelings for something they think they want to have. ALSO they tend to minimize any obstacles that would stand in their way to getting this. The other responders here have pointed some of these potential negative results out.
Focalism is the human tendency to magnify the importance of one thing until it overshadows every thing else. Which it seems like where you may be getting to be.
You want something just for you? Try prayer, exercise, art, photography, writing. Your statement sounds selfish and immature. If this is not normal for you, then there are things that could have caused it. You have not fallen down recently and hit your head? You could have developed fluid on the brain, or t could be having some changes to how you think from the hit. Do any kinds of dementia run in your family? This could be the start. AND there is always the surge of hormones as one approaches menopause. You want to make sure that it is you and not your hormones that are making the decisions here. See your doctor.
Like the others have said there would be an impact even if you kept it quite. You would know. You would know that who you are, is NOT such a nice or good thing as you once thought you were; no matter how you try to justify it. It’s not what others do that makes us who we are, it is what we do.
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December 7, 2012 at 6:45 pm