The most unsettling thing about a long-term partnership is the illusion of permanence. It’s hard to picture waking up one day and having your happy, amazing partner walk out on you simply because they met someone else in their free time.
This 40-year-old woman has spent the last 16 years married to her 39-year-old husband, and they have three kids together. Her husband has been a picture-perfect spouse throughout the majority of their marriage.
Her husband was always nothing but sympathetic and kind. He made a meaningful dent in their household responsibilities. He would always step in to care for her whenever she got sick, and of course, she did that for him when he didn’t feel well.
“Always affectionate and caring. Never gave me the impression that he was not happy,” she explained.
“Then he started going to the gym, meal prepping chicken, and 5 months later, met a 25-year-old woman. [It was the] only time he was distant with me.”
“It only went [on] for a month, then he asked for [a] divorce, and told me that he wants to go with this girl. I asked if I could do anything to save our marriage, and he said he just likes her more than me and wants to be with her.”
Her husband is not being a jerk or making their split contentious. He’s planning on being charitable in their divorce and will not fight her on a single thing.
He’s still being that same stable, considerate, wonderful man, even though he’s made it clear that he’s moving on and no longer going to stay with her.
But she’s left feeling blindsided over how her husband met another girl at the gym, and that’s the only reason why he’s walking away.
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“Just like that, he is just gone. Left everything we built together for a girl he barely knows,” she concluded.
Sounds like her husband could be going through a midlife crisis for pursuing a girl 14 years younger than he is. And if he has only ever interacted with her at the gym, that’s bound to be interesting trying to develop something outside of that environment.
It’s just hard for me to believe that he’s willing to throw away his entire marriage for a girl he has never dated or kissed or anything like that.
But perhaps he really is done and thinks the grass is greener, so he doesn’t care that he’s leaving behind a wife of 16 years, or that he hasn’t really formed much of a bond with the gym girl before going all in on that.
Anyway, I understand she’s going through it right now after not realizing her husband was unhappy in their marriage, but the good news is, he will treat her in a generous way with the actual divorce.
That’s a sad, small bright side to hold onto, but it’s better than the alternative.
What advice do you have for her? How do you grieve a marriage you didn’t know was ending?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
