Feel I am being used.

I agree Delila. That part of the text passed me by completely. I just didn't clock it really. I hope that people don't all judge each other so harshly. (There for the grace of God, etc etc...)

Thankfully, most peoples’ comments are a lot more thoughtful, anotherGran.

Affair partners often get old after it isn’t forbidden fruit anymore. I hope the affair seems worth it now, when your husband died did he know you’d been messing around on him for 30 years?

sparkle1234

Why don't you just tell him what you've told us . After 35 years you must know him well enough . Ask him what his intentions are and that you are feeling a little used . Time for him to put his cards on the table
If he won't commit financially and emotionally then you will have your answer .perhaps the thrill of the affair is over now he's moved in .

Well said Sparkle.
If you don't have a serious conversation with him nothing will ever change and you will always feel the way you are doing so now. I doubt wether he will ever broach the subject spontaneously... He's sitting pretty....why would he.
Best of luck to you

Why don't you just tell him what you've told us . After 35 years you must know him well enough . Ask him what his intentions are and that you are feeling a little used . Time for him to put his cards on the table
If he won't commit financially and emotionally then you will have your answer .perhaps the thrill of the affair is over now he's moved in .

Lesley60

I can’t believe how judgemental a lot of you are about the affair, who knows what op marriage was like.
she came on here for some advice not to be judged for something she did all those years ago

Well said👏

Butterandjam, and previous posters. I agree. It reminds me of nephew who lived with my mother absolutely free. When I mentioned that he shoulx be paying her rent and share the bills, he left immediately... He was spongeing. If you feel that you are being used, then you probably are.

I’ve seen this in a different context.Couples who have lived together for years and then get married.
One couple who eloped to our area from the south of England and after 10 years together were separated within the year.Another couple who had been together for years , ought their house ,had a wedding and she had a burning the wedding photos party 2 months later.
I think expectations are high but once the wedding is over ,there’s often only the bills for it to look forward to and life without that something to look forward to is not what they expected.
So they split.

You held on to a 30 year plus 'dream to eventually live together' during a long marriage to your deceased husband for the sake of your children. That's not a judgment just a long time to dream whilst you were focussing on your family and the needs of your children and he was going about his own life on a day to day basis.....

A dream is not day to day life. Over those 30 years your partner's health deteriorated, and after your husband died he then lost his employment and income. Plus his mother also had aged, maybe somewhat vulnerable and your partner spends time with her very day, willingly or not so willingly.

You have finally accomplished your 'dream' of living together but finding the reality is not matching up to your dream. Not surprising really. After 30 years many happily married couples might say the day to day reality of their relationship 30 years later does not match up to the dream held at the outset.

What were things like in the 2 years specifically after your husband died when you and your partner could finally be open and finally focus on each other and building your new found exclusive relationship? As that stage began your partner still lived in his own home paying his own bills. Were you both happy? Did you both finally make each and your relationship the priority? Was good communication established as to the wa forward?

If so that is what you could both return to? If not- what didn't match up to the long held dream when your partner lived in his own place? If not happy then that will continue if your partner returns to his own home to live now. And you will be living alone- which is not the end of the world- just another life challenge to navigate.

All the other things can be sorted out one way or another with communication and good will to get back to the space when your relationship was actually happy on the day to day basis? If it never has been the problems are being masked by financial or living arrangement considerations?

OP isn’t even asking for advice. She just asked if if she was being unreasonable for feeling the way she does.

What comes across most strongly here is disappointment, but if you spend years, decades, building your future expectations on a dream of being with one person, sadly there’s a very good chance that you will be disappointed.

Real life is messy. Other things and other people get in the way. That conversation you planned never goes the way it did in your head because the other person doesn’t say they things you wanted them to say. Living under the same roof has a habit of stripping away the romance.

I must admit I don’t really understand why OP feels she is being used. It sounds like the agreement to live together was a joint one but one that came about more through circumstances, his heart attack, than anything else. Presumably they discussed and agreed financial arrangements at the time and similar can discuss any rearrangement if she feels she is being left out of pocket compared to when she was living alone.

We don’t know exactly how old the two of them are (although around this time last year OP described herself as a pensioner not entitled to a free Covid vaccine) so she must have been between 66 and 74 at that point.

OP hasn’t mentioned her family beyond saying she stayed in her marriage for the sake of the children - who presumably now have children of their own going by the user name. We know nothing of the man’s marital status, whether he once had a wife and has children and grandchildren. All we know is that he used to live in a flat that he now rents out.

I wonder if this is an arm’s-length legal arrangement, else keeping that address as his official one would be concerning for legal tenants for all kinds of reasons. How does he collect his paper mail? A landlord has to give at last 24 hours notice in writing to enter the property and the tenants must agree. He can’t just pop around to collect his mail whenever he likes.

And then there’s his mother who must be quite old. Maybe she is playing him and laying it on a bit thick about how much help she needs. She won’t be the first. He won’t be the first man either caught between mother and wife (or partner) each vying to be the centre of his world. He won't be the first adult child with expectations about inheritance (and maybe a parent using it as bribe or threat). That's messy real life. People have to figure out a way round these things.

This is yet another of these stories where we need more detail and to hear the other sides.

He can only use you if you let him. You are wise to the current situation but do not really want him to leave as you will miss his company. You have choices - tell him to leave, tell him he must pay his way, or continue as you are. The choices are yours. You have had an unrealistic hopeful view of this man for years but now he is living with you the scales have fallen from your eyes and you see the real man.

I feel the same Cossy as I've seen children made very unhappy with their lives disrupted by affairs apart from the deceived partner's unhappiness.
This is a general thought and I am not singling out the OP as all circumstances are different. She has the man she wants and I hope she can resolve problems between them.

I just think OP should sit down and if all else fails, write a list of the pros and cons of continuing the relationship with her partner.

Nothing has to be a 50/50 split, just fair splits of costs based on what each of them can afford.

I hope OP manages to live on in her life, with or without this partner, and finds some happiness and fulfilment.

I completely accept that my comments re the affair might feel and sound very judgemental to some, however I have very personal reasons for having my own “moral” code in relationships, and unless they were both involved in consensual “open” relationships, someone was being deceived for many years and I’m afraid, and it’s an entirely personal feeling, staying in an unhappy marriage for 35 years “for the sake of the children” isn’t a good reason for not being honest.

As I said in an earlier post, no one can undo acts from the past, so now is the time to work things out and move on.

I wonder though if the OP will ever be truly happy. It seems something is missing from her life that neither her husband nor “lover” can fulfil.

Depressing, isn’t it?

And how many of the people wanting a 50/50 split of all the expenses have always contributed half of everything in their own homes? I have said that IMO the OP should get some of the rent coming in from her partner’s house, but after 30 years together there will be payoffs and shared arrangements that are about far more than money. Relationships are not financial transactions.

We don’t know the detail of any of it, and comments about the OP being abused and her partner being a selfish user are based on very little other than a rush to judgment.

We know that nanafish is unhappy with the relationship and is asking for advice, but that she values the companionship of having him around. The suggestions that she throw him out and live alone after 30 years with him, as opposed to finding a way to make things work seem to me to be based on a wish to see her suffer loneliness and pain because people disapprove of how the relationship started, even though she has said that things were complicated.

Maybe it is over. Maybe she would be better off without him. But that’s not what she is saying- she is asking for advice, and if things were as clear cut as some say, she wouldn’t need it.

Few relationships are perfect, and this one has lasted for decades, so it’s not the same as refusing a third date. Why the rush to persuade her to start again in what is, presumably, later life if there are ways to salvage what they have?

I strongly suspect that had she omitted the detail about how they got together (and we don’t have the full story at all) the advice would be different, and based more on what is likely to make her happy in future, not punishing her for the little we know about her past.

I can’t believe how judgemental a lot of you are about the affair, who knows what op marriage was like.
she came on here for some advice not to be judged for something she did all those years ago

Split all bills 50/50 including food bill, if own home and no mortgage then charge 50% of what his income from his rent is. As for his mum, well so many men don’t bother with their elderly parents, we see it on here all the time. Lucky mother I say! As long as you don’t have to look
After her. It sounds like
Your not happy and finding things wrong so
You can justify how your feeling???

Agree!

I’m sorry to say this and do not wish to upset you! But! I think you are being used, taken for granted and abused!! He sounds very selfish to me like a lot of men who want their cake and eat it! Moving in when he was sick was a disgraceful thing to do. If he cares so much for his mother he should have gone to live with her. They could have helped each other as it seems they do any way?
I think you should let him go!

SporeRB01

It is almost as if you were leading a double life. You were married but all along, you had an affair for 29 years and presumably your husband did not know.

Now you are living with your partner, the scales have fallen from your eyes. You are seeing him for the person he is – a user and a taker.

It’s so interesting how many of you see the “lover” as a user and taker?

He’s certainly go staying power.

i think you have to have a clear conversation; either he starts treating you like an equal not an unpaid skivvy or he has to leave

It is almost as if you were leading a double life. You were married but all along, you had an affair for 29 years and presumably your husband did not know.

Now you are living with your partner, the scales have fallen from your eyes. You are seeing him for the person he is – a user and a taker.

To be fair to them both, OP did say he pays a “little rent” and they share food (I’m assuming she means cost of food) and that it was both their decisions for him to live with her and rent out his home.

Perhaps at this point they should also have discussed exactly how this should work?

Also it’s hard to know what’s going on without know a little more?

Does she still go to work or now getting her pension, is he now getting a pension, do they both own their properties or rent or have mortgages? How old and unwell is his mother?

I think if we knew all of this, advice would be much easier to give.

I do hope they can work out something which is fair for both of them

I have no sympathy for people who have ‘affairs’ - having their cake and eating it too , comes to mind. Your poor husband ……

kick the bar stewrd out.

Why does he call the place he rents out “ home”?
Why does he have this address as residence for important stuff like passport office, banks etc?
Surely the residents in the property he rents to them think it’s odd?
Unless he knows them.. perhaps it’s a cash arrangement?