I'd appreciate some objective opinions please, cos I feel like my life's gone totally off the rails. I'm not about to be too rash, but if I had no kids I'd certainly walk away right now.

[diffnameforthisthread]

Ok, name changed for obvious reasons. Will try and keep this brief, and I'm not looking fr sympathy or solutions, just a different perspective that I havent considerered maybe.

Together with dh 12 years, 2 kids. Never been a great connection with us, but its aalways been good in a companionship kind of way. Sex ok if you just need the basics; he's happy with that, I'd of course like to feel more emotion, and also that he cares about my tastes. But its never been really dire.

Emotinally not alot of connection; I think we were just playing the fantasy out for a long time. And we always had friends lodgers jobs etc to dilute our being together. We also had shared recreational activities that we now cant do cos got 2 kids and no family to babysit (dont say ask friends, we do, but we need those favours for emergencies etc).

I've been feeling really unhappy for about a year I suppose. Dh thinks its cos I'm bored.... I'm looking for part time work, altho we had planned for me to be SAHM till youngest in full time school (another year). But its more than that. Long story short, I had an affair. Not just a flash in the pan; he has turned it into friends-only cos he thinks that gives me a chance to save my marriage. Dh found out but we agreed to still live together cos cant afford any other arrangement.

Dh now thinks we should try again. I know I didi the bad things. But I cant get out of my head that he read my diary ie my innermost thoughts, he has told many people including a parent things as he sees them ( no parent should hear about their childs sex life. yuck), we still bicker, he snores so badly I cant sleep and neither can ds1, I dont want to sleep with him because it makes me feel used and its all robotic.

I need a job, childcare for it, somewhere to go to. It all seems so mammoth. There is some retraining I've set my heart on, but I couldnt do that till ds2 fulltime due to childcare costs, but by then I need to be earning. And I wonder if I'm being selfish wanting to be happier, I should just stay here and put up for the children; this is their best chance of a happy life, nice house etc.

Am I just hankering after a happiness that no one has? Its not the other guy that made me feel this way, but of course he exacerbated it.

I feel like there's too much water under the bridge for me to ever be with dh and not feel constantly cringing. We have both told each other alot of home truths.

[diffnameforthisthread]

Btw, I'm not posting and disappearing; I'll check back later... but I'm scared of forgetting to namechange back again and outing myself!

[Alambil]

how does he make you feel used? in that there's no emotion?

Would a spell at counselling together help, perhaps - it doesn't seem utterly lost to me; more that you're wracked with guilt, he's forgiven you, perhaps only to an extent.... all issues that can be overcome with a bit of support, I'd imagine

what exactly would make you think "yeah, actually now I've found it - I've hankered after it and here it is...." ?

[bloodyright]

Have you had any counselling yet?

I think counselling might help you decide what you want and what you can actually do. It can also help you both if it turns out you can't carry on living together.

If your DH wants to make another go of it and your conflicted I would say you should both go for counselling.

If your head is as muddled as it sounds then an objective 3rd party might be very helpful.

And if your unhappy, then maybe you could do separate work on trying to concentrate on finding your own happiness. Lots of good self help stuff out there. You can download mp3 and listen while doing your housework or whatever and then at least whatever decision you make your making it positively.

I hope you have someone who will give you a big hug and take you for a coffee and big slice of cake and let you talk.

You sound quite sad, I wish I could give you a hug. It'll be okay, its been okay before and you'll get it back on track.

[Spidermama]

Whilst I would normally agree that reading someone's diary is a gross intrusion, I think that if you deceive people behind their backs (eg have an affair) you're totally asking for it. My DH had an affair and I found myself rifling through his stuff something I'd never normally do just to try to find out why I had this nagging dread. When I found out, I was satisfied and once again had no reason to rifle.

So I think you can't reasonably be annoyed with him for this and have to accept the blame.

All that said, I'm really sorry for the situation you find yourself in. You obviously feel very trapped and down. Is there no hope of retrieving anything from the relationship? If you go to Relate for example?

To his credit he is willing to try again even after this enormous and hurtful betrayal. I don't think you're sorry for deceiving him and that strikes me as a bit odd and unhealthy.

Is their part of you which has lost respect for him because he's willing to try again even though you did this to him?

[Tillyscoutsmum]

It almost sounds as though you wanted your dh to end your marriage because of your affair. Would you have been happier if he had ended it ? Taken the decision and thus some of the guilt away from you ?

Do you think getting a job and/or retraining will compensate enough for having an emotionally dead marriage ? I am sure lots of people have "average" marriages (i.e. not awful but not really happy either) and they make up for it by having loads of friends, a career, hobbies etc etc so that they are fulfilled in other areas of the life. Its something I very much tried to do with my ex h but in the end it wasn't enough for me.

Is it only the financial side of things that is stopping you from ending the marriage ?

Sorry - I appreciate the above is mainly just me talking bollocks musings and not actually any advice so I'm really not sure how helpful any of it is. Sorry you're going through it though - must be pretty shit for everyone concerned at the moment

[diffnameforthisthread]

I didnt want him to end it; when he told me he wanted divorce, it was traumatic. But prob cos he wants to still live together here, just divorced.

You're right, maybe i dont feel very sorry for the affair. I feel sorry for what Ive done to him, but I dont regret having my own happiness for a while. And given his opinion of me even before he found out, I'm even less inclined to be sorry.

What would make me happy and stop hankering? A relationship in which we talked together; doesnt have to be major all the time, just some contact. But also to be able to talk about feelings and opinions and views. To respect each other and value each other as individuals. To not criticise each other all the time. To want to do things together. To look at each other and feel love and desire. To have a much wilder sex life; we are very mismatched in that respect, although he didint used to be this tame.

I also feel that alot of the time its easier to look after the kids if I'm alone. Kind of just getting on with it, doing it your own way. He turns everything inc childcare into a big difficult drama eg he cant take both kids out together, he cant deal with them riding scooters together, he cant pick up any groceries o the way home if he has children with him. And its not cos he cant do it, he's perfectly able to.

We also have alot of issues about him working and me not.

And alot of problems cos some of his friends have seen me being horrible to him, but he is always horrible to me only in private, so he looks like the totally innnocent hard done by one.

He also has sais he wishes we'd never had kids and it was only me that wanted them (altho he'd never give them up now, he loves them dearly)

[diffnameforthisthread]

Oh, and tillyscoutsmum, my Dad did the whole thing of filling his life to avoid my parents shit marriage. It worked to a extent, but he left when I reached 17 and he thought I could deal with it. He said if he knew how mature I was, he'd have left earlier. No, I dont think a job will replace a marriage. But I do need to be able to support myself and my kids. I dont trust him not to be finding out his options etc; I need to be prepared. He has said the kids happiness is priority and they need their mum so he must put up, in essence. But if he could find a way to ensure their happiness without me, I think he would.

[Tillyscoutsmum]

So the getting a job isn't to try and prolong your marriage, its more of a way of making it easier to move on ?

It seems that you have a few options:-

1. Get relationship counselling and see if the marriage can

be saved

1. Accept the marriage is over and either co parent but live separate lives until such time as you can afford to split

1. Split now and rely on your dh to support you

1. Stay in an unhappy marriage

Could you both commit to, say, 6 months worth of counselling and then make a decision then ?

I appreciate I am over simplifying btw - just trying to establish what you see as the options...

[bloodyright]

So at one point the fact there was no great emotional connection was not important to you. Equally, you did not place great importance on your sex life.

The important thing or at least the thing you placed importance on was a companionship and joint interests and shared desires.

Now an emotional connection has become important to you and the sex life has become important to you.

Or has the emotional connection always been important to you along with a good sex life but you consiously recognised you were never gong to have either with the man you decided to marry and have children with.

Emotional connection and sex life problems make me think that maybe intimacy is a problem. Do you have issues with intimacy, does he.

Perhaps if your parents never shared an intimate relationship you were unaware of what an intimate relationship was. Maybe your affair was your first experience of true intimacy.

If he never before, I'd imagine he definitely has issues with intimacy now. There is no chance of intimacy getting any better without a lot of trust building and effort from you and a lot of work from him.

I couldn't imagine resigning myself to a second rate relationship for the rest of my life for the sake of my children. But I think I would definitely work my arse off to make sure I'd tried as hard as I could to make the relationship work for the sake of my children.

Ultimately, if you have done everything you can to try and make the relationship work and it just doesn't, then you leave. The children will suffer. But the children will suffer in any event. Better they have an opportunity to witness their mother happy and involved in a good positive relationship than grow up learning relationship behaviours from an utterly disordered one.

[mustrunmore]

Bloodyright, you have such clarity!

Maybe its just one of those stand off situations? You know, the worse things get, the less inclined each person is to be lovely to the other one? Its so easy to let things slip like that, in any kind of relationship. Has it gone too far for one of you to just bite the bullet, make the first move, try being nice? Too late to draw a line under all that you've said thats bad, try to just be positive?

But if its a really shitty atmosphere, I wouldnt leave my kids in it.