“I was married for about 16 years, but unhappy and had been contemplating leaving for a couple of years (dead bedroom, we never did anything together, she spent all day watching soaps to have me come home and watch a couple shows together before she'd fall asleep on the couch, etc). I had tried to get her to agree to counseling several times but her personality didn't work with airing our problems to someone else and she thought we could fix it on our own.

I remember one day thinking that if I could just consider her my roommate or friend instead of my wife I could just suffer through it (for the sake of our kid, etc). I cried myself to sleep that night...

So anyways, awhile later, me and a co-worker (15 years younger than me) went to a conference together. We had some drinks and some flirting but nothing happened until about a year later when we got put on a project together and started texting more. Ended up developing feelings over time and then several months later we spontaneously/unexpectedly kissed and it escalated from there.

To make it worse, she was engaged to be married about 6 months from then. About three months into our (physical) relationship, we had to make some tough decisions because we both felt we had both fallen in love with each other over the last year or so before we had even started anything physical.

She broke off her engagement (she had been with him 8 years) and I started the painful divorce process, all the while second guessing myself that I was throwing away my now 18 year marriage to a person I had been with for 25....well over half my life. But I had to come to terms that I wasn't happy and had to accept that even if things didn't work out with the new girlfriend, that I would be happier alone than staying in the marriage.

Once I accepted that and got over the fear of being alone, it was easier. I was then doing it for myself, not for the other woman. Plus I knew it was a new relationship (red alert), she was 15 years younger (red alert) and it was starting out as an affair (red alert). Not much of a chance it would work out.

I moved out about 1.5 years ago and divorce was finalized in November. My girlfriend and I moved in together this past July and things are going great. We've been together for almost 2.5 years at this point and have been talking marriage.”