My husband is 8 years younger than me. We’ve been together for 25 years. I have grown up children from my first marriage. He made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want children when we met and that suited me as I didn’t want anymore. Due to this fact we have always kept our finances very separate, just having a joint account that we each pay an amount into to cover household expenses. We have a beautiful home which due to us both having full time jobs, we have contributed to equally. We now have no mortgage and our house is my husbands pride and joy as he built it. When the children were at home I paid in more than him to our living expenses but since they left home over 10 years ago we now pay the same but all other finances are separate. His family are very well off whereas I don’t have any family other than my children. I have always had a very stressful job and about 2 years ago I became quite unwell due mainly to work stress, with this as the main factor I looked into taking early retirement (aged 56). This meant losing quite a chunk of my pension however when I tried to discuss it with my husband he just said that I should do whatever I wanted to do, my finances were none of his concern and as long as I could ‘pay my way’ it was my decision. I’ll admit that for the last few years of my working life we grew apart, mainly due to the fact that I was working 50-60 hours every week, I was tired and unwell and made no effort in our relationship. He also didn’t support me when I was stressed and I felt resentful of this, he works in his family business and comes and goes as he pleases, hasn’t really known a day of stress in his life. I’ve put on a terrific amount of weight, sleep badly and feel miserable and unattractive. I’d hoped that removing the work stress would make me feel better however it’s been almost 2 years and our relationship has fallen apart. He has never been one to talk about his feelings and any kind of discussion I try to instigate gets immediately shut down either by him walking away or just refusing to engage.
For many years he has had an interest in vintage cars and travels around locally to meetings, weekend rallies etc. Several years ago we bought a caravan (paid exactly half each) so we could make a bit of a holiday of these meetings however most of the time he makes it clear that he wishes to go alone and I’ve only attended twice in the last couple of years. The last time was in August last year. At the event I became aware of a woman who was all over my husband, I was watching them giggling and chatting for several hours from my vantage point in the caravan. The feeling I had in my stomach was dreadful, I felt so upset as he basically ignored me for the whole day and spent his time with her right under my nose. When it was time to do the parade of cars, she jumped into the car with him and off they went. When he returned I said to him I thought I was going to go on the parade with him and he looked a bit sheepish but said that X was there and wanted to go so he didn’t like to say no! I promptly packed my bags and went home. He sent me one message saying what’s the matter, I replied with a very long message telling him how upset I’d felt watching him laughing and chatting with another woman when he can barely speak to me most of the time and he said he didn’t know what my problem was and they’re just friends. I confided in a friend about this and she said that a mutual friend who also attends these events had commented on how much time my husband and this woman spend together. When he returned after the weekend I tried to talk to him about it and he was very defensive and said that there was nothing going on between them and they were friends who had a common interest (this has always been his hobby but I have tried to get involved). I talked a bit about how I felt unloved and lonely in our marriage and he did little to reassure me apart from to say I had nothing to worry about. I asked if he’d consider some counselling sessions to help us to communicate better and get back on track but he flatly refused to consider it. Since then we have just limped along, living in the same house, sleeping in the same bed but there is no emotional connection between us, in fact most of the time I feel that I’m irritating him. I think if it wasn’t for the fact that he knows he’d have to split our assets with me he’d be quite happy to divorce however when I broached the subject he said it’s not what he wants.
This is my dilemma and I feel very ashamed to admit it but a couple of weeks ago when he was in the shower I had a look at his phone and there were lots of messages between him and this woman. It was all jokey chat, no I love you or kisses but lots of messages going back a couple of weeks. I think he’s probably been deleting the chats every so often in case I see his phone. They talked about the new vintage car that he’s going to buy, how she’ll be able to help him with it when they go to meetings etc. she referred to things that weren’t in the chat thread so I got the impression that he’d deleted previous messages or they’re communicating another way, possible via text message or telephone calls. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach and I don’t know what to do. If I confront him I’ll have to admit to looking at his phone and he will go ballistic and I’ll be the one in the wrong. I looked again last night and all chat with her had been deleted so my suspicion is that he has been in constant contact with her since last year behind my back and I just don’t know how to approach it with him without admitting I’ve been checking his phone. I’m afraid to be on my own but my jealousy is eating me up and I feel stupid and unloved and like I’ve wasted my life. 
