Ancient History Feels Like New Betrayal
My wife and I are both 73 and have been married for 53 years. We have two children, 4 grandchildren and a great granddaughter on the way. Six months ago while cleaning out my mother and father-in-law’s house to sale. I discovered a box of letters. Maybe 30 or 40 letters with 4 of the letters open on top of the stack. I immediately recognized the handwriting as my wife’s. The letters were very deep very passionate and very sexual. I read one letter and picked up another trying to understand what I was reading and who they were written to. After I had read four of the letters I finally realized that they were love letters written by my wife to her apparent lover who was at the time her foster brother and second cousin. He has since become her adopted brother as a result of an adult adoption about 4 years ago.
He was 16 when the relationship started and she was 18. As best I can tell it lasted 2 to 3 years and ended (if it did end) about a year before we got married. I was 20 and she was 21. I know that the relationship is long past history. But it is by no means in our past. He is still part of the family therefore the physical relationship may have ended but the emotional relationship is very much alive. This is complicated by the fact that when I confronted her with the letters she vehemently denied that it ever happened. I asked her if we should get the letters and read them together and she replied that it wasn’t what I thought. I asked, "then tell me what it was". She said it wasn’t any of my bussiness. We had only three conversations about it and she stonewalled each conversation with "its ancient history, he’s my brother and it’s none of your business".
I am coming to grips with the fact that we sat at the family table for 53 years and I was not the only man at the table that had sex with my wife. I also saw comments in the letters that her parents knew about the relationship and were "unhappy". The thing I struggle with the most is her reaction to my discovery of the relationship. She has stonewalled, her body language, eye contact and voice tone told me that everything she told me was a lie or a half truth. Also she now act like nothing ever happened.
I feel betrayed. Not so much by the relationship that occurred before we were married but the fact that what ever the relationship was or is, trumps our 53 year marriage. I need her to tell me what the relationship was, how long it lasted and how it ended. I don care what kind of games they played in bed. I just need to know what their relationship was and is so I can know what our relationship really is.
At this point I done think their affair ever truly ended it may have only changed. They have always been close. I am slowly coming to the realization that she probably never loved me but saw me as a consolation prize or a Plan B of some kind.
I am trying to decide at 73 if I can stay in a relationship where I was never truly chosen. I need a new perspective. .
2 comments posted: Saturday, November 29th, 2025
