DH and I going through another difficult patch in our relationship. Anyone else have these? How do you get through them?

[Mintyy]

Am very fed up with him, and the utter fantasist in me wants to up and leave him and start a wonderful new life alone.

HOWEVER I know this is rubbish and our relationship isn't dead yet and marriage takes working at.

But I'm in a hole and don't know how to get out of it and wish I didn't have to "work it through". I just want to ignore him and wake up one morning and find he is a different person.

.

[reducedfatkettlechip]

Oh I hear you! I seem to be really up and down in my relationship at the moment, it's horribly unsettling. I can swing from wanting to kiss him or throttle him in a matter of minutes, and I'm generally a pretty calm and rational person!

Will watch for some wise words..

[Caz10]

Me too......

Mintyy the thing I was wondering the other day is - how much/often should we need to be working on it? i feel like we're always at that stage...

[BodenGroupie]

Ditto - I do the financial calculations, work out how we'd tell the kids, look at places to live........but I can't do it. Have lived in this cycle of desperation then not bad for many years now - sorry, not encouraging and I don't have any answers. Maybe talk to a counsellor?

[yousaidit]

snap mintyy

we argue just about every day, we keep having 'talks', its not about any particular thing, its just us not getting on brilliantly, which is just as bad as there being one particular problem that you can pinpoint, isn't it, because if there's no r'real' 'issue', then theres no justification for leaving / splitting up, is there? time, patience, mentally drifting off, positive reasons for spending the evening in seperate rooms so you don't wind each other up.... ah, the joys of marriage...

[Mintyy]

Oh dear everyone. Arms round shoulders.

Look, I'm going to log off and actually sit in living room with dh right now [shows willing emoticon] but will come back to this thread tomorrow. Hoping that someone wise and clever has words of advice for us all.

I have been married 15 years and I love my dh but I find living with him very difficult indeed - and he is not unkind, abusive or boring. We just irritate each other constantly. Its very WEARING. Hope we don't have yet another row tonight .

[yousaidit]

good luck with your evening of close proximity!

irritating is a good word, i'll be dipping in and out of this thread and i suspect a few other people will, too.

is a horrible shitty phase of marriage isn't it, when you just want it to all be alright, not fractious and eye rolling and flying off handle at ecvery word with tension always lurking?

any magic hints and tips gratefully received....

[ineedascoobysnack]

hmm, we are at that stage, or actually sort of past it to the point where I am contemplating suggesting we separate. It's too tedious and really for us I feel it is time to call a halt, know we have both tried and move on as amicably as possible.

good luck

[Snorks]

Hi Mintyy. I know exactly how you feel. I find it helpful to keep repeating to myself "It's just a phase" like some kind of wierdo mantra. I do it with the DCs and my DH and find it very useful! When things are bad it is so hard to remember how it feels when it is all going swimmingly, so for me it is just about treading water until it all comes good again.

I also find that at times the bad phases clump together, so that a few come in quick succession and this is when you start feeling worn down by it. At times like this it is helpful to remind yourself why you are together - often just thinking about the kids is enough here - and how hard it really would be to be apart. Before you know it, you will be back in a good phase again, with any luck a long, long one and then you cant believe that you had such negative feelings such a short time ago.

Every relationship is different of course and some are just too destructive to work at, but generally speaking I am sure that any new life alone (which it is completely natural to fantasise about) would end up in another relationship, which would be bound to have its fair share of ups and downs as well. Better the devil you know, and all that...

[nickschick]

My dh is an absolute arse .

We are either the best of friends or the worst of enemies.....and for a while we havent been friends .

From what I gather this is true of many relationships.

[mummy2isla]

Ha ha I am in exactly the same place with my dh, he's just SOOOO annoying sometimes but then can be so lovely, it drives me absolutely bonkers!!