She said her husband cheated a couple years ago when she was spending a lot of time working and not spending much time on their marriage. She says the love she had for him has never returned and now she’s considering cheating. She hasn’t cheated yet but thinks that if a stranger paid the right attention to her she might not be able to say “no.”
I said:
Please don’t make this situation worse by cheating. If you seriously want to end this marriage, then do it the right way by divorce. When you’ve got your legalities out of the way and you’re emotionally healthy enough to start another relationship, then do it. Actually, at that point, you can do whatever you choose as you’ll be legally and morally free.
It won’t be just your husband you hurt if you cheat. It will be yourself and it will be your family.
You’ve made the choice to put your business first, above your husband and family. That’s your decision. If the tables had been turned, and your husband had been the workaholic, perhaps you would have reacted the same way he did in order to get some attention. He wasn’t right in what he did, but perhaps someday you’ll understand why he did it.
You can get those old feelings back if you try hard enough. I don’t think you want to at this point, you’re still hurting from what he did and possibly even what to show him how badly he hurt you by cheating on him.
Do you have enough time in that busy schedule to try to repair your marriage? Do you understand that these years your daughter is growing up will be soon over and you won’t be able to look back on all the things you shared with her? Will you wonder in later years why she doesn’t spend much time with you?
It’s nice to strive for financial and business success, there are many positive rewards that come your way. If you can learn to blend your families needs into the mix, and actually put them first, you’ll be happier, they’ll be happier, and you won’t grow old alone.
Incidentally, perhaps you get your emotional “stroking” by being so successful. Your husband got his emotional “stroking” with a married woman (perhaps one married to a workaholic?). You both have needs. In a successful marriage, where you put each other first, you’ll fulfill each others’ needs and not leave that important task to strangers.