I Am Not Okay With It

Author’s Note:

This post explores themes of emotional infidelity, loneliness, and the struggle to hold on to love during a partner’s midlife crisis. It’s written from a place of honesty and healing. If you’re in a tender season, please take care of your heart as you read. You’re not alone.

*

*

*

I am not okay with it.
I don’t accept it.
I’m not even sure I tolerate it.
I’m simply becoming used to it — but that’s not the same as being okay.

“It” isn’t one thing.
It’s them.

It’s the talking about other women.
It’s the reels he sends — women with big boobs, perfect bodies.
It’s the porn he watches so he can stay hard with me — but never shares the screen.
It’s the flirting. The secret lunches. The quiet messages that leave me questioning what I don’t know.
Maybe there’s more — maybe not. I have no proof. But the doubt lives in me either way.

So why do I “tolerate” it?

Because aside from leaving him, what choice do I really have?
I am committed to this marriage. He is the love of my life — even if he’s playing with fire.

I don’t accept his behavior, but I’ve accepted that this mess is part of who he is right now. I still believe he’s committed to me, even if he’s lost inside himself. I know his behavior isn’t mine to control.

So I draw on patience, love, and compassion — the same things my ex-husband didn’t give me when I was falling apart.
I give my husband what wasn’t given to me.

Why? The Golden Rule.
Why? Empathy.
Why? Compassion.

Because I was once in his shoes.

Sixteen years ago, I had my own midlife crisis.
I had an online affair. I can name a thousand reasons I might have been “pushed” toward it — loneliness, emptiness, pain — but the truth is simple: I was a mess. My life was a mess. My health was a mess. I was deeply, achingly lonely.

I didn’t know how to make myself happy, so I tried to fill the void in other ways. And while my then-husband permitted some of it, that doesn’t make my choices right.

Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20.

Now, years later, I’m on the other side of that story — and it hurts to be here. But maybe that’s what empathy really is: remembering the pain of your own chaos while standing steady in someone else’s.

I don’t know how this chapter will end. I don’t know if he’ll find his way back to himself — or to me. But I do know that I’m finding my way back to me. Every day, I learn a little more about what I will and won’t accept, what love really means, and how to hold on to my self-worth even when my heart is breaking.

I’m not okay with it. But I’m still here. And for now, that’s enough.