Annie’s Mailbox: Trust gone from marriage of 44 years

Dear Annie: After 44 years of marriage, I can no longer trust my husband. “Steve” reconnected with a high school flame, and the end result was late-night emails, texts and calls. He even bought throwaway phones so they could stay in touch and meet out of town.

We went for counseling, and Steve took a stack of note cards to the first session with ultimatums for me. He accused me of being a lesbian and having affairs with women at work and in our neighborhood. He then shared the intimate details of our sessions with his old flame and invited her to come along! He wrote long multiple-page letters and slipped them to my therapist when he thought I wasn’t watching. Recently, Steve spent $12,000 of our money on a facelift, and he has set up at least 10 email accounts to hide things from me.

He finally promised to cut off communication with this woman unless it was about the upcoming high school reunion. We began to put things back together, and then he again initiated intimate contact with her and went to our high school reunion without me.

Is there any hope of trusting this man again? Or at age 64, am I looking at moving on? – The Faithful Wife

Dear Faithful: Steve seems to be going through a major midlife crisis. The old flame makes him feel as if he’s a teenager again. And the facelift was intended to make him look like one. Will he ever return to Earth? There are no guarantees. Please don’t plan your life around what Steve may or may not do in the future. Get some counseling on your own, see a lawyer about protecting yourself, and figure out whether you are better off with or without him right now.