My husband and I have been together for 35 years. About a month ago, he went off on a sun holiday to Spain for a week with the lads. When he came back, he told me all about the holiday. It was late when he got back so we went to bed and had sex.
he next day I was unpacking his case and, to my shock, I found two unopened condoms. We don’t use condoms when having sex, so you can see why I was shocked. I confronted my husband with my findings when he came home, and he denied knowing anything about them.
A few days later, he started having a sore throat and nothing from the chemist would help. Then he started having flu-like symptoms as well. I did Covid-19 tests and they were clear. Now, we are almost four weeks on from his sun holiday and he is still sick with these symptoms and nothing seems to be working.
I have confronted him with the possibility that maybe he has picked up a sexually transmitted disease, which, of course, he has denied. My husband has never had any problems with his throat before now, and any flu that he did get would normally clear up with the usual meds. But not this time.
He has become very quiet in himself. We had sex only once since he came back from the holiday. I have booked an appointment for myself with my GP just to be safe and will be tested for STDs in case he has passed something on to me. I am usually a very good judge of character and my gut feeling is telling me that he did sleep with another woman.
I am heartbroken because, even though we have been together for 35 years, I know that I am going to walk away from this marriage, as I could never trust him again. I think I know that any test I have done will be positive as he can’t even look me in the eye. I would be so grateful if you could please reply to this letter as I haven’t told anyone what is going on, not even our grown-up children. This holiday has destroyed our marriage.
Mary replies: One of my very first clients as a relationship counsellor was a married couple where the husband had contracted an STD and passed it on to his wife. As it was a recurring STD, she was left with a constant reminder of his infidelity and their relationship most certainly suffered. So, I can fully appreciate your hurt, shock and disappointment at the likelihood that your husband had sex with another person and contracted something.
But we have to give him the benefit of the doubt. One of the ‘lads’ may have thought it funny to put condoms in your husband’s suitcase and land him in trouble. Or he may indeed have bought condoms in case he got tempted, but then decided against it.
I keep coming back to the fact that there were condoms in his suitcase, and if he put them there then he must have known there was a possibility of you discovering them. But that doesn’t make sense, unless he felt so guilty that he wanted you to find them. There are also the unexplained symptoms, so I can understand why you are so suspicious.
Only your husband knows what really happened, but whatever happened I urge you to think carefully before walking away from the marriage on the basis of one transgression. Even if he did, I think your husband deserves a second chance, and if the roles were reversed then you would surely hope for that.
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You have over three decades of memories, children and, no doubt, happy times behind you and it would be a shame to destroy all that. You would, naturally, have to have relationship counselling where all of this can be explored in a non-judgmental and unbiased way, and you would both be given the chance to talk about your feelings about the relationship in general.
You would then work on repairing your trust and that is where you will have the most difficulty because there is no quick fix. Time, above all, is what will help the most.
As you would normally discuss problems with your husband, it must be difficult for you to feel so alone in this dilemma, and naturally you don’t want to discuss it with your children, so I’m glad that you wrote to me. I hope the results of your tests are negative but even if not, with some work, you can get through this together.
Discovered on: 2022-11-20 02:30:00
Source: Dear Mary: My husband’s holiday fling has destroyed our marriage and I worr…
