An affair has the power to destroy a marriage. If the cheating partner falls in love with his or her lover-on-the-side, the original relationship could shatter and collapse. But when this husband came to his wife to tell her that not only was in engaged in a steamy affair, his mistress was dying, and he wanted his wife’s permission to continue to see her until she passed away.
Because the wife did not know how to handle the difficult situation, she turned to Reddit to get advice from strangers on the internet. She began her post by explaining that she’s been the primary breadwinner in the family for years and has not minded the added responsibility. The primary reason she has to provide the main source income is that her husband is visually impaired, which makes it hard for him to get and keep a job. They’ve been together for a dozen years and share two children.
“I’ve never minded being the breadwinner or making [do] on less,” she says. “He’s been an amazing father from day one and takes care of the kids so I can work. I honestly thought we had the perfect relationship.”
But eight months before posting her story to Reddit, the wife noticed the “obvious” signs that her blind husband was having an affair. She didn’t confront him about his side chick because it was too painful for her to face.
“Well, I finally broke down and confronted him, and he confessed everything,” she said. “Just as I’d suspected, he’d been seeing the other woman for about a year. What I didn’t expect was that she’s 68 years old and has advanced cancer. Her doctors have said she’s living on borrowed time. I wasn’t prepared for this. I asked if he’d been sexual with her, and he said yes. I’m devastated. He says he still wants to be with our family and me and that a lot of what he talks about with his ‘other woman’ is the kids and me.”
Then he told her that he was sleeping with the dying woman because she was rich and promised to give him a chunk of change when she croaked.
“I was expecting that he was just completely selfish, but he then told me that this all started because she has money and promised to put him in her will,” she explained. “He broke down crying and told me he’s felt like such a failure because he’s never been able to provide for our family the way he’s wanted to, and this would be enough to pay for the kids’ college.”
Now the mother is confused. She wants the mistress’s money but doesn’t want her husband to have to sleep around for it.
“I honestly still love him and don’t want to break up the kids home,” she admitted. “I’m willing to go to counseling, but I can’t deal with him seeing her again. He said they haven’t been sexual in a long time since she was placed in palliative care, but he doesn’t want to abandon her now because she has no one else in her life (her only son died in a car accident 18 years ago) and he doesn’t want her to die alone. Is this relationship worth saving? Should I put my feelings on the back burner until his mistress passes, so he doesn’t resent me for it?”
The story shocked the internet. Few people sympathized with the cheating husband despite his intentions.
