how many of you love your husband but are not in love with them anymore......

[allthreerolledintoone]

my friend is very unhappy in her marriage since having children. Like us all it can put a big strain onto the relationship and her and her dh hardly go out as often, have much in common, dont have or want to have sex regurlaarly etc and feel more like friends then husband and wife. She says she loves him like a friend and not a husband. She doesnt find him attractive anymore but knows he is a good man and a good father which makes it so hard to leave.Has anyone felt like this and come through it?

I know a few friends who feel like this since having children-myself included . I too love my dh but not in the same way i did. Hes working away alot at the moment and weekends are always busy so i feel we've drifted apart.The sad part is i often think about leaving but i know i never will .I mean is it fair to settle for someone who is a good husband and father but may not be the love of your live? Is it a reason to leave or can you work things out?

[allthreerolledintoone]

anyone?????

[mrsruffallo]

I think if it's real it comes back. Little by little you have more time for each other and the passion returns.

[kcartyparty]

I am not married, and never have been. So my advice maybe useless.

But if I did find the right man and my life became as you described, I would try to re light the spark.

A holiday away together alone (a second honeymoon). Doesn't have to be far or cost the earth. It could just be for a few days.

If the spark is still gone when you come back. Maybe try some marriage counselling. Alone or together.

It's up to you!!

[allthreerolledintoone]

i hope so

[OrmIrian]

Me.

But it's OK I think. My life involves a great deal more than just my marital relationship and we are stable and contented.

Yes I sometimes yearn for a bit more. Some passion perhaps. But then I give myself a slap and come to my senses I think I'd rather have stability and affection than great passion and endless fights. I don't want to live in a Wagner opera.

[ItsOvernow]

Hi There, I've had to name change for this so here it goes....

I've been with my H since I was 17, I'm now 39 and have been married for 15 years. I love my H he's the father to our beautiful DD, but am not in love with him. H likes the idea of us but not truly willing to put the effort into us. DD and I just do our own thing majority of the time.

This has created many problems in our relationship, we live seperate lives, seperate beds, seperate everything. We only get together for DD's needs etc.

There's alot more too this, but to cut a long story short H and I have agreed to seperate. I couldn't carry on as we were anymore...

[JesusChristOtterStar]

it may wax and wane

dont feel ' this is it' because you are tired etc

it may well come back...

dont feel disillusioned yet.

DP took my hand and dragged me through a crowd in ikea on sunday . It took my breath away.I have been with him almost 20 years and 6 kids.... things can and do change
x

[Malificence]

It DOES wax and wane, no relationship stays the same over the years.
If you can keep the love and respect going through the difficult times, and raising kids can be very demanding - they are quite rightly your priority while you are bringing them up, you are well on the way to rebuild your life as a couple when you are finally shot of them!
I use to think my sister in law was selfish for offloading her kids every weekend but now I realise it probably helped her marriage, she had PND both times and I know they both found things hard.
You get into the habit of just being a mum and dad I think, some people never recover and find they have nothing in common once the kids grow up, some of it's probably luck but people have to make the effort to stay connected too.

[Malificence]

I also meant to say, that me and my hubby are more "in love" now that at any time in the last 10-15 years of our 25 year marriage.
It just takes a bit of effort on both sides, it's when one partner is not so bothered that things start to unravel imho.

[Maleeka]

I'm in this situation too but we have been making a real effort to spend more time together and its making life a lot easier.

Sometimes i look at him and think, he would be so much better off with someone who loves him to pieces and he knows i feel like this, but he says he loves me enough for two.

It would be so much easier if he was a shit to me, but he is the total opposite, always taking my feelings into account, helping round the house and making sure i'm ok, my friends adore him and tell me how lucky i am.

He misses me when i'm not with him and is always texting me, but to be honest i'd love it if he was the kind of bloke who worked away for a few days a week, just to give me a little space.

[MORgueOSKY]

I agree about the waxing and waning, I think for some time dp has been a little more in love with me than him. This caused real problems and last year I admitted this to him and we split up very briefly. We have however spent a lot of time working on our relationship and I am now regularly to be seen chasing him around the bedroom.

He has just dozed off on the sofa and I have spent the past few minutes gazing at him thinking "how lucky am I"

[elastamum]

My relatonship with my ex was a bit like that and i would have stuck with him except hewent off with someone else

[JesusChristOtterStar]

i think i am more 'in love' with dp than i was ten years ago and have been EVEN more in love over the last couple than ever before... these things can actually get 'better than ever' even after rocky stuff

[Hunibee]

I'm another 25 years + wife and through all sorts, we have tried to retain sight of what we felt way back in the early lustful, happy stages of our partnership.

Oh, but if only life were like in the films and in the soaps where 'issues' get resolved in a few episodes, but RL has a habit of bring much harsher, more emotionally demading than you can ever be prepared for.

We have come through financial challenges, career highs and lows, children, family shit and all that life throws at you and we have come out the other side.

It is by no means perfect, but we still feel the same as we did all those years ago, its just the nature of the relationship has evolved and we have almost a better understanding of each other than when we got together.

I don't want this to sound soppy - its not. Its RL and the desire to stay together despite all the crap that has been thrown at us over the years. Its that shared history which makes it stronger.

[yournotalone]

Please read my thread I still have my inner core xxxx

[corriefan]

I find myself questioning things a lot and I would like our relationship to be more demonstrative and tactile, a bit more passionate etc. I can feel sad when I think I'm never going to have that heady in love feeling again. But then on the whole we have a great family life, agree on fundamental issues and have a laugh and quite a lot of sex, so I think I need to stop looking at what I don't have. It's just when we fall out I so easily seem to start imagining life on my own, even though I know it's not really an option and after seeing 2 close friends go through it, the last thing I'd ever want really.

[cheeseandeyeballsarnie]

am i your friend in the op. it could well be me.

i put up.as im sure he does.

[sayithowitis]

As others have said, things do sometimes go stale, not because you don't love each other, just because the demands of work, children, wider family etc all seem to conspire to pull you in different directions. It certainly happened to us. One day I woke up and realised it had been ten years since we had had any sort of sexual relationship. there were health issues that had been the cause at the start, but they have been pretty much resolved. We both had to decide that we did want things to improve. I guess that at that stage we both felt like we loved each other but not 'in love'. So we just began to do more things as a couple, easier now the DCs are late teens/early twenties, and to appreciate each other. Little things like making a cup of tea and the holding hands thing. As someone else said, we are now virtually chasing each other around the bedroom and I would say that our sex life is actually better than it was when we were first married, nearly 30 years ago!

Yes, you can work things out, but you need to want to do it and you need to make time to do it, rather than finding excuses/reasons why not to do it.

Good luck!

[lisad123wantsherquoteinDM]

Been with dh for 10 years now and we go though stages. Sometimes it feels like he is a pain, but would say, yes still in love with him. Been though some tough times together and it only make us stronger. we do spent alot of family time together, walking, biking, farm trips, swimming, and camping ect. We dont go out together on "dates" very often at all, mainly because of money. Our girls come first and there always seems to be something else to buy for them or the house or the car

I would say, we all go though phases and sometimes you have to wait it out and make some changes, to improve it.
HTH

[WhenwillIfeelnormal]

I think posters who are worried about this are wise to be concerned. Those heady "in love" feelings are very intoxicating and if you don't have them for your partner any more, it makes both of you very vulnerable to an affair.

But it's difficult when you have responsibilities and the mundane things about life take over. I also think we all tend to have very child-centred marriages now, where everything in life revolves around the little darlings and it's easy to forget that they wouldn't have come along in the first place if you hadn't become a couple.

I've also been with my H for 25 years plus and can honestly say I am more in love with him now that at any time in our relationship. But there were years when I didn't feel in love with him, although I did always love him. His "in love" feelings lasted a lot longer than mine, too.

Sadly for us, it took him having an affair to bring back all those "in love" feelings, but what I really mean by that is that for the first time in years, we really talked about our relationship with total honesty. For me, I know that communicating at an emotional level, with honesty, is the biggest turn-on of all. I do think my biggest erogenous zone is my mind....

We now have dates, are forever touching and kissing each other and the kids love it that their parents are so in love. In fact, some of their friends have commented wistfully that they wish their parents were like that.

I wouldn't however recommend the route we took to achieve this. The pain of betrayal very often outweighs the pleasure of rediscovering one another and I wish we had woken up to how we were feeling and acting without this misery.

I want to reassure people that you can absolutely fall in love again, but take action now before a crisis forces you to.

And even after saying all of that, I suspect that some of you are shaking your heads thinking that affairs will never happen to you. Believe me, that's what I thought - but now believe that affairs can happen to ANYONE. Especially when a cast-iron opportunity presents itself and isn't perceived as a threat to the marriage.

[electra]

I think that the only sure thing about falling in love with someone is that one day you will fall out of love with them - it's just the way it is. Apparently the passion is destined to go out the window after 3 years.

[Malificence]

Electra that's rubbish.

There is more passion in my marriage after almost 25 years than ever before, It's just not a constant, everyone goes through tough times and relationships evolve over the years.
If people get to the point where they feel not "in love" - it's their responsibility to try and make things better, whether it's just one person or both.

Riven , if your dd needs 24 hour care, is it not possible to have her in respite for a while - it would do you the world of good, 2 knackered and unhappy parents are no use to her. You need a life beyond caring for her too.