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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. I didn’t mean for this to happen - at all. I met this new woman while I was gone on a trip, after some drinks, and got carried away. This has never happened before. I started dating my wife when I was 22. I’m 46.

[b]My wife just doesn’t like some things about me.[/b] I try to be a good husband. We’ve been through it all together, of course. But there’s a distance between us that I don’t see us being able to bridge. We’ve tried. She’s lovely and wonderful and we are friends, but we’re also - different.

I love my kids so much. Our oldest is about to start the college application process, the younger is starting high school. I don’t want to create a disruption in their lives.

This new woman - I know it’s a fantasy. But she’s warm and beautiful and sweet and [b]it’s nice to feel noticed and appreciated again[/b]. It is. I’m not a monster. I’m confused and I’m scared and I don’t know what it will be like to have another forty years with my wife. I also don’t know that I want to start over at the wrong side of 45. [/quote]

1) of course there are some things your wife doesn't like about you.  No one likes anyone else 100%.  Anyone you know that well there will be something you don't like about them.  The relevant questions are whether your wife doesn't like some things that you think are fundamental to your self in a way that someone who doesn't like them can't really like you and/or whether your both recognize that the things she doesn't like about you are small potatoes in the grand scheme of life.  Personally, I know that the things that drive me nuts about my DH are "too much" of exactly the things that made me want to marry him in the first place.  I wish he'd be a little less extreme in these traits, but they are also things that make him who he is and make him a really good person.  So, are there some things I don't like about him?  Of course.  Are the consequential in the grand scheme of a life together? no.  They are part of what makes him him, and part and parcel of all of the good qualities I value in him.

2) of course it's nice to feel noticed and appreciated.  That is something you can easily work on in a marriage if there is actual taking for granted going on.  That is also something that can change if you successfully deal with and wear down old grievances and resentments.  OR, there is a certain type of being noticed and appreciated that can only come from someone new - if you are feeling it so much just because it's a new person who thinks you're pretty great, that is the classic "shiny new object" feeling that is not going to last and that you just have to get over and give up.  Does it feel really good?  Yes.  If it's something you can't live without then you have to blow up your life for it.  If you don't want to blow up your life for it then you make a rational, thoughtful decision and just don't put yourself in a situation where the temptation is there.  [/quote]

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