My DH & I are both sixty six, been married forty six years next month, been together for fifty years, three children & ten grandchildren.
This long journey has had its ups & downs, know doubt like most of you, but for the most part we have I believe been happy, even through some of the down times.
We are reasonably comfortable financial , both of us semi retired.
My hobbies have never been many, or anything exciting, just the usual sewing, painting, reading, & of course my mainstay is family.
DH let go of hobbies in the early years it was all work work work! His job took him pretty much worldwide, at times the children & I would go too.
However these past five or so years, he took an interest in selling at car boot sales, this eventually spilled over into selling at different weekly markets, although he never spent much on stock, his enjoyment was in acquiring things for next to nothing & then selling on, never really making much more than pin money but he was happy. Then one day, September 2016 he arrived home, tired as usual but with a few quid in his pocket & casually announced he had decided to get himself an assistant as he wanted to carry on in this line of work but was started to find physically it was taken its toll.
That sounds like a good idea I said, have you anyone in mind( he had in the past told me of several young lads who would hang around asking the traders for a few hours work with the unloading & loading , his reply was,
yes, actually this young girl named Sam, she has bought a few things off me in the past for her children, she bought a guitar the other day....
Now, before I go any further with this, I will say DH in his younger days was to be blunt a womaniser! Times I knew, times I forgave, times I turned a blind eye...
But he is old now I thought, how naive was I, however this time, it turned into what apparently is known as an ‘emotional affair’, which believe me is far far worse!
He had started ‘working’ with her in the September, by the end of October I knew I clearly had something to worry about, ( she was half our age, married with young children).
Eventually I confronted him, explained how it was making me feel, & that I wanted him to end his association with her, by this time it was January we had been on holiday abroad for two weeks, I deal with the bills & on our return home I looked at the mobile phone statement! They had been texting each other every day several times a day, even when we were at the airport waiting for our flight out & the return flight!
Yes, I did stoop to looking on his phone, the texts in content appeared to be innocent enough, condolences on the loss of his dad... DH telling her he had arrived at the football match, how high up in the stands the seats were & how much his legs were aching from climbing all those stairs... telling her he had arrived at a doctors appointment... her reply ‘ it’s was a good thing I put it in my diary to remind you!....
Times when he was going out for the day to collect things he had bought on eBay & it turned it she went with him... text when you are outside... how far away are you... traffic bad, eta 9.10 .... ok love, but you said you would be here at 9am....
Christmas morning 6.30am, give your children £10 each from me... still in Portugal, sky is blue, sun out, sitting in shorts & t-shirt...
He finally managed to drag himself away after another month of trying to convince me I was being stupid & making a fuss over nothing!
Initially he gave up the car boots & markets but that didn’t last long, & but this time I started to go with him, even though it wasn’t really my cup of tea, I soldiered on, dark winter mornings, rain & cold, got to the point where I couldn’t stand trying to help sell his ‘junk ‘ (as he would call it ) any longer so I started to sell ‘pre loved’ costume jewellery.
Which I have enjoyed & I have had many good days with it..
& of course we were continuing to do something together...
In our teens DH played guitar in a band, this he gave up when we got married, but he has always had a guitar in the house & played it now & then.
I suggested that he tried buying & selling guitars, he liked the idea, & took to it, over time not bothering so much any more with all the other bric a brac, one evening our two oldest grandchild suggest that he go with them to a local bar where they have an open mic once a week, it took him three weeks to pluck up the courage but he did & thoroughly enjoyed it, the grandchildren said ‘you should come too Nan’, but I declined as I knew DH wouldn’t want me to whiteness his ‘performance’ until he became more confident & proficient, so I stayed home... big mistake! It started to take over all of his spare time, he was going further afield to different places, meeting new people, three , four times a week, he was happy, I was not, but I didn’t say or do anything until one night I was really unwell & he had to take me to A&E & I was kept in for a couple of days, when I got home still feeling physically unwell I also realised I was nervous to stay home alone when that same night home from hospital he still went out to an open mic?
So as soon as I felt well enough I started going with him, this happens several times a week, it’s mainly the only times we go out together, but of course we are not really together I am just tagging along,
although to be fare, for the most part I do enjoy the music , watching the other performers & my husband.
This past couple of months he has had a partner, he plays harmonica, he is seventy two, lives alone, sadly lost his wife two years ago, so for sometime now there have been ‘ three of us in this relationship’, as well as several jam nights a week they also have a rehearsal night, this is one thing I don’t go to,
this gets worse, as now in the clique there are several young woman (he calls them girls) one who is actually in her fifty’s, who I like, & we get on, the other two are in their late twenties early thirties ? they won’t speak to me, won’t even look at me, even though I have tried to be friendly towards them!
Yesterday evening DH & I were sitting chatting about this that & the other then he starting telling my he would love to form a big band (jools Holland type) ( if you can’t dream big why dream at all, is his motto), anyway he is telling me the different people that he knows who he would like in this band , of course it would need ‘ girl backing singers ‘ & who’s names were thrown into the hat ?of course Miss E & Miss M!
At this revelation DH saw my eyebrows raise, he is well aware that these two will not speak or acknowledge me & he knows how initially I was upset about this!
However DH is the kind of man that really doesn’t know when it’s best for him to shut up ! Especially after a couple of glasses of wine!
As he went on to say .... when we were at the Friday night jam Miss M told me how much she loves my singing, & she would like to come to our rehearsal nights!
This is where I think my eyebrows, as sparse as they are actually left my face as I then said, so what did you say to that?
His reply, I said yes of course you can that’s fine by me...
Suffice to say this turned into one humdinger of an argument, as I am apparently being stupid by making a fuss about the fact that my husband wants to spend several hours a week in social company of a single woman half his age? given his track record....
Good people of Gransnet please feel free & do be as blunt as needs be, in giving your thoughts & opinions on this situation, those of you who have managed to keep reading that is!
I'm trying to cover all the points you raised - but I will inevitably miss some!Anger management!!! Help needed.
