I Resent My Husband for Sending New Year’s Postcards to a Woman for the Past 40 Years

The Yomiuri Shimbun

11:30 JST, August 4, 2024

Dear Troubleshooter:

I’m a homemaker in my mid-60s. My husband has been exchanging New Year’s postcards for about 40 years with a woman he met on an overseas trip before we got married.

At the beginning of our marriage, I didn’t mind. However, two years ago, when we were talking about not sending New Year’s postcards anymore, I found out that they still do so. When I told him it was inappropriate regardless of their relationship, he said nothing happened.

We are a couple only on paper and have not shared a bedroom for about 25 years. The woman’s New Year’s card included her phone number and email address, with a message saying, “Please contact me if you have time.”

Given that my husband often lived away from home due to his job and went on many business trips, it’s quite likely that he had an affair with this woman. I feel pathetic just thinking that our marriage might have become a sham due to the existence of this woman, and I cannot forgive my husband for being so dismissive of my life.

I’m not considering getting a divorce because it would affect our daughter’s future marriage, but my resentment will never go away until I die. It makes me so sad to think that I can’t go back and live my life over again.

T, Ibaraki Prefecture

Dear Ms. T:

Over the past 40 years, the idea of having friends of the opposite sex has significantly changed. In the past, opposite-sex friendships were considered impossible, and such a friend was thought to be a precursor to a romantic relationship.

However, today’s young people would laugh if you tell them that they should cut off friends of the opposite sex after getting married. More middle-aged and older adults also now enjoy talking and spending time with friends of the opposite sex, just as they would with those of the same sex.

Moreover, it could be considered today as a form of abuse if you forbid your spouse from talking to friends of the opposite sex.

I do not know what relationship your husband and the woman have. Since they have exchanged New Year’s postcards using their real names, I do not think they have a particularly deep relationship. This may simply be an issue of differences between your and your husband’s values.

One option is that you can blame the woman and spend the rest of your life resenting her for your poor relationship with your husband. However, given that you have not been emotionally connected with your husband for a quarter of a century, he probably won’t care either way.

Considering that you and your husband have such different values, I think it might be best if the two of you to live separately. If that is impossible, I suggest that you just focus on enjoying your life in your own way by putting your resentment aside.

Masahiro Yamada, university professor