Hi, I am new to the board. I desperately need some insight and opinions. First some background. I am 52 years old. My wife is 50 years old. We have been married for 30 years. We have 2 grown children that turned out to be fantastic adults. We have a comfortable life. We have no financial worrys. We both took care of oursleves throughout over the years so we are both fit and healthy. Overall we have a blessed life.

Now the issue. As you can see we married very young. I was my wife's first boyfriend and for the most part my wife was my first real girlfriend. We were each others first and only sex partner. We were high school sweethearts so we never really even dated anyone else. My wife is perfectly fine with this and is totally content with her life. I am not totally content. Actually I am very restless and I feel like I missed something. I feel like I missed 'sowing my wild oats'. I feel like I missed the 'chase'. Now I have this strong urge, an urge that is getting stronger by the day, to go out and try to recapture some of that fun that I missed. I am seriously contemplating going out on my own to experience the independence that I missed in my early years. Of course the 'experience' that I refer to includes shagging as many women as I can because I feel like I missed out on that. I have an aweful lot at stake but this urge that I have is so incredibly strong. Its not that our sex life is dull. Overall we have a pretty good sex life. It has become somewhat routine over the years but still pretty good considering 30+ years together. I fear the thought of reaching 65 years old and having regrets that I didn't go out and experience life on my own and my independence. But, I also fear that if I act on this urge I could end up regretting my decision and hurting the great relationship that I have with my grown children. There are many guys out there who would give their right arm to have my life.....and my wife. I am totally torn.

First, you did the right thing by coming here. There are a lot of people with good advice. These thoughts are animalistic and primitive. You are thinking with your wrong head. Use the one with the brain in it.

Do you want your children to hate you? Do you want the mother of your children to hate you? Do you want your wife to hate you? This is what happens if you break up your family or commit adultery.

This thread sounds like yours...

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubb...in=154042&Number=2158097#Post2158097

HurtandShocked is right. Thank goodness you came here first.

I wish my ex had asked for some help from somebody. Instead he had an affair. We were like you, had a good life, both about to retire, a wonderful family and friends. It is all gone now.

We are divorced, retirement money is gone, family split, and he is depressed and miserable, cursing his choices.

Please keep reading and posting here. Your feelings will pass. Don't ruin a wonderful life for something tawdry and cheap.

believer,

do you know if your ex husband's affair was prompted from thoughts like I am having? ....missed sowing his wild oats, ....missed the chase .....missing his independence.

I have been with my wife since I was 18 so all these thoughts about things I missed are coming back to haunt me now.

You mention you are divorced, retirement money is gone, family split, and he is depressed and miserable, cursing his choices. This scares me to death that I will end up this way.

Dave,

From my experience, when I focused on lack, that was my experience. My life became about lack...what I was missing.

Not what I had in abundance.

The irony is when you act on your urge, and you will as long as you continue to choose to dwell on your lack...you will lose everything and truly experience lack...uh, in abundance.

Then it will be clear you haven't missed a thing...you've been granted in this life what most dream of...wish for...long to experience. You are a person of envy, interest, most fascinating how you made your choices up to the point you stopped living in reality.

That you made happen (and it takes work, even when it doesn't feel like it) to have three decades of loyalty, love, fidelity and care.

Change your focus, change your life. You're doing that. Your fulfilling, marvelous and incomparably real life isn't worth your fantasy.

You will have no regrets...and in fear of them, you make feel intense remorse for what is undoable, often unforgiveable...and mostly, for going into fantasy because YOU chose to dwell on what you MIGHT have missed...and missed what certainly you have had.

Your choice. If you dwelt in the very real consequences...that your dear wife will feel raped, replaced, annihilated...your children will believe you are not who they thought you were and don't know who you are now...and may choose to not have anything to do with you...for an idea you MIGHT have a regret someday.

You know this...I hear it...

Where your thoughts dwell, there is your treasure. You are training yourself to be an adulterer...or to divorce so you aren't an adulterer, except you already have been betraying your marriage and yourself. In your head.

You have chosen to treasure what isn't real...what you might not have missed...because real intimacy cannot be had that way. You missed out on using other's bodies? Or you are you saying you want a deep, intimate, truly knowing new people (a lot of them), for all of who they are, inside and out?

When you have that as your partner...and what your real urge may be is that you haven't been being truly intimate with your partner...knowing and sharing your stuff (for it would even hurt to hear, wouldn't it?) with her...being known down to all your parts, even the horrid ones...creates a painful longing which may be telling you to be really intimate with your wife now...not who she was yesterday or last year or when you met...to be intimate now.

And to know her right now, new again, today.

Because you both are. You are sleeping with a new woman every day...she's your wife.

LA

Dave -

I sensed for months that something wasn't right in my hubby's life. But when I asked him about it, he told me not to worry, that everything would be alright.

We had a wonderful, close family, did everything together, and after years of hard work, were about to start living our dreams.

All of it was tossed away. Everything is gone.

I have moved on and am dating again. He is depressed and miserable.

You haven't missed ANYTHING. It is all in your imagination. Stay with the wife of your youth. Work on developing some dreams and plans together.

Dave,

I wish I could save every man and woman from the anguish of adultery. I beg of you not to leave your wife. It sounds to me like you may be going through mid-life crisis, and I truly think that both men and woman have those thoughts at some point in a lengthy marriage. I want to share our story with you. I am 45 and my husband is 48. We have been together 27 years, married 26. We have 5 children aged 25 down to 7, and two grand-children. We too had a great marriage. Five years ago my husband retired from the Marine Corps. and started working in a civilian job. I had fears of him working with women who out-numbered him, unlike the military. He always assured me that he loved me and didn't want anyone else. Then he started having problems with erectile dysfunction, which hurt his ego and self esteem. He began saying he felt unattractive and overweight and like a failure at work. Which he wasn't at all. I tried to convince him otherwise, but I couldn't get through. He had always been the confident "tough marine", and he became a man that I didn't know, understand and couldn't get through to. Our once fantastic sex life started to dwindle and we started to drift apart. Around that time he had to go on a business trip/conference. A younger 38 year old woman was there from another company but working on the same project. They spent time together with other people and then one night, a third person backed out on going to get some coffee and they went together, that night this other woman told my husband that she was unhappy in her marriage, my husband told her that he was unhappy too, this opened the door to their relationship. She convinced him to have dinner with him the next night and she told him how intelligent, good-looking and funny he was, and how much she liked him. It struck his ego to have this younger woman affirm his desirability. They started having an affair that lasted three months, until someone in his company discovered inappropriate e-mails and called me and the other woman's husband. The fantasy world all came crashing down. To get to the point, my husband thought the grass was greener, but it was very brown. After my discovery, he chose to leave her immediately and begged to reconcile with me. What he later found out, made him feel like a complete fool. This woman already had several affairs on her husband, and she had repeatedly lied to my husband during the affair. He thought she was a sweet good person and she wasn't. He feels awful for betraying me (a faithful & good person). After discovery we decided to work on things, we found out that he had a pituitary problem that caused all of his symptoms and we believe was the catalyst in the breakdown of our marriage. He now takes testosterone shots regulary and is back to the man that I always knew. However, it has been 3 years and I still have not recovered from the pain of what he did. It has been so devastating to our marriage, and I still have trust issues and fears of him working with women. Please don't do this to the love of your life, it is truly like experiencing a death and in a way it is a death to the marriage that you had, because it will never be the same. It has effected our older daughters. One who is married, cried to her Dad and said "I always looked up to you, now what do I have for a role model". Enough said. I hope you make the right choice.

My compliments to a well written reply, I hope that dave will listen to the opinion of those who've been there. I don't want to see anyone destroy their marriage only to end up alone and regretful.

You will. I watched my dad do just that.

Do you love her? Then there a LOT of things you can do for your marriage that will work with these urges you are having, so you can have it both ways.

First, get out of your rut. Make sure you go out on one date every month. And each time, make sure it is someplace you've never been before. Also start taking less typical trips; try some new kinds of vacations. I think I have a list somewhere of suggestions for shaking up your marriage so you feel like a kid again; I'll look for it.

As for the bedroom, I have a great suggestion for you. I gave this book to my H and it was the second best present I ever gave him, in 30 years (the first was a weekend on a sailboat B&B). It's called 52 Invitations to Grrreat Sex. There are 26 invitations for you to give to her, and 26 for her to give to you. Take a look, and you'll see what I mean. I can't imagine a better way to make you look forward to coming home, knowing you got an invitation from your wife like this.

ETA: here's my list I give to people:
Read a book together
Take turns picking out a movie to watch
Bring out the board games, at least once a week
Start a solitaire club with some neighbors or friends, play solitaire against each other one night a week or month
Start gardening together
Grow herbs/vegetables/fruits
Take walks
Start a sport together; take classes at a community college, such as racquetball or volleyball
Get bikes and start riding bikes together
Sign up for an MS 150 and train for the bike ride all year
Plan some day trips, start taking one every month
Try out one new restaurant every week, take turns choosing and surprising the other with it
Go to bookstore and get a book like “52 great invitations to sex” in which you both have 26 invitations for a special evening to invite the other one, and you set it up, give the other the invitation (included in book) and then put on the evening
Join an online gaming community together (but don’t get addicted!)
Buy a Wii or Guitar Hero and play together
Give each other foot rubs
Take massage class together and practice giving each other massages
Go back to school together
Get a pet, take it to obedience school and learn to train it (if applicable)
Join a neighborhood dinner club or other club
Volunteer together
Join a church or get more involved in your church
Take a cooking class together and take turns cooking for each other
Go to HGTV.com and pick out a project to do for your house together
Take free classes at Home Depot on how to fix something at your house
Start a business together
Organize a block party
Organize a family reunion
Start working with a financial planner or learn about stocks together
Take dancing lessons together; if you like it, start entering in competitions
Go online for your city and look up 'activities' and 'family' and maybe even 'free' if your city is big enough; subscribe to those websites and go there every month to look for upcoming activities you can all do together; you can find plays, music events, art things, sports things, picnics, etc.

Good luck!

All of your responses have been very helpful and insightful. I appreciate them and I thank you. Anita, thanks for sharing your situation. Believer, great insight.

Cat, yes, I do love my wife. I just have this crazy notion that I missed having independence and sowing my wild oats in my early years and now I want to experience it. I know deep down that if I ever did follow through that I would have deep regrets. I just need to keep reminding myself what a blessed life I have and as Loving stated, if I keep focusing on my 'lack', I'll never appreciate what I have in abundance.

Dave, you may need help with retraining your focus...

which is reasonable.

If this has been a thought (which lately has become closer to an obsession) throughout your life, in different ways, only now is focused on sexual experience, your coping skill may be at an end.

For good reason.

God didn't make us to cope in this life...he designed it for us to thrive. And thriving isn't easy.

So when a coping skill runs out...doesn't give you the feelings of coping anymore...then take notice.

Dig a little deeper...flip it into yourself...there's an expectation, a belief, part of you is buying into that you don't really believe...has a false payoff. Distracts you from something else.

Find it. Which is why radical honesty, Openness and Honesty, is essential to intimacy...knowing and sharing your stuff as yours...with your wife. Share your struggles as yours...not about her...helps you find your way through to discovering more about yourself, which is affecting your marriage, even though you can't see how right now.

One theory is that you're seeking disowned parts of yourself through these thoughts and fantasies. Things you don't own are in you, but once were...or things you chose to believe you got rid of...never had.

Just throwing that out there...hard for our self to know itself separately from other selves...we are all one...all created from the same material, by the same hand, connected...and separate at the same time.

To experience abundance is as scary as experiencing lack. Not for the feint of heart or the uncommitted. Maybe you've questioned yourself lately about how committed are you versus how afraid? Maybe you just want to cope your fear back into quiet levels...and I'm asking you to query yourself even deeper, that this isn't about choices you think of making...it's about yourself...and you get to face these questions because of the blessed life you already have.

Not many have the luxury, really. Luxuriate.

LA