In spite of my husband’s cheating ways, I cannot leave him

What do you do when your husband is the kind of man that will chase anything in skirts? I have been trying to figure this out for years now and still I have no answer.

Before you judge me, know a few things: I live in a very conservative society where the man can kick his wife out with nothing to her name. In my world, he can even take the children away from me if I do not co-operate with him. In my world, a man can almost do whatever he pleases especially when he’s got money and my husband has money.

For what feels like the hundredth time, my husband is having an affair but what worries me now is how serious this one appears to be.

 

Shamelessly, he travels with her all over the country and instead of hotels, they stay in our personal homes where she cooks and cleans. I know this because I have eyes everywhere (I’ve had to get creative and willing to ignore my embarrassment and spending money for information). They have joint business projects and he is actively involved in her family’s affairs where he contributes time and money to help her. This woman is not a random young girl who would, like some of the others, either dump him when they were ready to settle into committed relationships, found bigger fish or simply were not able to contribute meaningfully to his extracurricular activities so he dumped them. No, this woman is a mature woman, seemingly well connected to contacts that are relevant to his business and who has abandoned her own husband for mine.

It is so bad that he parades her even before his friends under the guise of some work colleague and I have had these men, who are notorious in the female department as well, calling me to ask what was going on as they were worried.  One of them even told me that when he felt real panic was when my husband told him that intimacy (and I am being PG here) with a mature woman was the ultimate experience. The friend was in so much shock and felt so much worry that he had to finally concede that my husband, his friend, was losing his mind in the shady relationship.

 

Now, as I sit and ponder on what to do next, I cannot help but feel hopeless. I still love this man as we have been together for more than half our lives – since we were teenagers. We have children together and after going through so many years of having nothing and having to manage frugally, I feel like I have earned my right to be here, especially now that the wealth has come and it is time to relax and enjoy the fruits of my patience.

 

I am confused, depressed and in a lot of pain. Some days I wake up and it feels like I am losing my mind. I just don’t know how to deal with this.