Is There an Answer to the Eternal Question?

Daisy from Adelaide, Australia asks:

After 30 years of troubled marriage to a heavy drinker who shouted a lot, I fell in love with someone else – a lovely, gentle well-educated man. Last year we got married. We got engaged because I discovered a secret e-mail friendship with a woman he intended to visit overseas, for an unknown outcome, and I said that I would leave him, and so he proposed. I quickly said “yes” because I loved him and hoped for a bright future, but I now realize that my trust in him has evaporated. I recently discovered that he was still communicating, from time to time, via Skype and e-mail, with another old love from his past, although this basically consists of telling her sad stories about his loss of friends post-divorce, and so on, and basically seeking sympathy during low patches. It is not romantic and doesn’t refer to me in any negative way at all, but still, is emotionally intimate in a way that makes me uneasy. I think this woman has now left her husband and is “free.”

I can’t tell my husband that I am checking his e-mails and Skype calls, as he would get very upset and change his passwords, and I don’t trust him enough to lose access to information I may need to make important decisions about my future. On a day to day basis, we get on really well and he is very loving and affectionate, although he seems to have lost interest in sex other than a routine time once a week. His long-time history of a double life while married for many years makes me insecure about my future. I am in my mid-50s, and don’t want to keep starting again, as I am not getting any younger and don’t think I can go through the emotional turbulence of divorce again. Financially, I can’t afford to keep starting again. Any words of wisdom? Should I just turn a blind eye to this behavior?

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