Midlife Crisis or Hormones?

by agi
(Toronto, Canada )

I've been with my husband for 9 years. About 10 days ago he told me he had met a girl as our relationship is dead and he's unhappy. He expected me to allow him to have an affair, he came home from work went out with her. For 5 days he did so, 2 nights he didn't come home. I spent sleepless night crying and asked him to leave if he wants a relationship with someone else. He left the same day. The next day we had a talk about trying to fix our marriage, but it's not an overnight process.. Two days later he left again, and I found out he was still seeing the other woman. He says the relationship is not serious, but he might be falling in love with her and relies her for emotional support. He says he only loves me as a friend and is not sure what to do. He shows typical signs of midlife crisis. I mentioned this to him and he laughed at the idea. He asked for a week to think, but he's already making plans of renting an apartment, but have not told me anything final. One thing though I hope could be is that he started some hormone therapy to loose weight a while ago and I was hoping that once his testosterone levels re-balance he might snap out of it. I read so many stories just like ours with men leaving and not coming back. I'm very scared of losing him without having the chance to work on out marriage. What do I do?

Noel's response

The only thing I can think of is that you live apart while this works itself out (either he will come back or not). I trust you do not want him living at home while he is having an affair.

At some point he might be willing to go to marriage counseling, which you may well need in order to re-establish trust, even if he does want to come home.