To ask if you’ve regretted leaving

I’m so sorry you had that experience. I’ve vowed that in the very unlikely event my dh and I split up, I wouldn’t seek another partner until my children have left home. I’ve seen too many very, very unhappy children with step parents/siblings they haven’t asked for, forced upon them. My children’s happiness will always be a priority.

Your replies strongly suggest there’s nothing to be done so you’ve answered your own question, OP. Must admit I feel a tad sorry for the DH who apparently hasn’t changed and still fancies you, but hey-ho. You wouldn’t be the first couple to break up due to lack of sex, you now just need to talk about how best to co-parent.

Also to answer your question, no, I don't regret leaving. Living in a passionless relationship with someone much older was something I just couldn't live with. You only have one life.

A mixed bag of comments here. There seems to be this general belief that the choice is either a good but boring and passionless relationship, or a passionate one but toxic/hes a dick. That is simply not true. You just have to also be comfortable being single and resilient enough to refuse to settle until you find it.

You're only in your early 30s and already married with a young child- I'm getting the impression that you don't know much different so I can absolutely understand your predicament. I recently ended a relationship of nearly 8 years at the age of 38, but no children involved and not married. Same reasons- no passion, large age difference, but he also lied to me about his age and was wasting my years. Much, much happier being single and doing what I want now, built yes its different to being married with young children and possibly owning assets etc.

I went off my DH for about a year, it was the peri menopause. I actively disliked him at that point. He was exactly the same, it was me. I just wanted to get away. Well those hormones settled down and we are fully back on track. How old is your child? It can take a good couple of years for hormones to settle down after giving birth, plus as your on meds this could be affecting you.

@Flowerpie I understand exactly how you're feeling, and you're more sensible than I would be re: new man, as I think that even now I'm liable to rush in too fast, for the sense of connection I've lacked for so long.

The progress I've made in finding a home within myself and/or being able to imagine moving on and letting xh go, has been through a combination of EMDR, journaling, yoga, the sheer passage of time!, my own verion of Internal Family Systems, and leaning on friends - having fun is very healing and I've also poured out my feelings on whoever will listen.

It's got me quite far and I'm basically secure in myself now. Not saying you need to do all these things!

Agreed. I think you make some really great points. I think people are far too selfish these days and very much have an attitude of the grass will be greener. It’s all part of the increasingly greedy, instant-validation society we live in. And waiting till kids are older (eg. Young teens) isn’t better, in many cases it’s much worse.

My parents divorced when I was 13 and tbh it fucked me up - my mum left my dad for a much younger man, abandoning me and my siblings for a year and behaving like a giddy teenager in love for the first time - and expected us to be happy for her (there was no abuse in their marriage, she just wasn’t in love with my dad anymore). My dad became a monster due to being unable to deal with what she did - took it out on me, emotionally and physically abused me throughout my teens (when before he’d been nothing like this), I eventually started living part-time with my mum and new step-dad after their honeymoon period was over. He was a creep. He criticised me constantly and clearly didn’t want me around. I was constantly walking on eggshells and never had a home with my mum again, it was always “mum’s house”. I hated living between two homes, constantly lived out of a bag, had no emotional support- my mum was too wrapped up in her new man and my dad was too fucked up and just constantly shouted. I became severely depressed and started self-harming. My dad then moved in his new gf and her kids. Tbf I always got along with my step-siblings but my step-mum was a nightmare to live with, so then I ended up walking on eggshells in both homes and never felt either was my “home”. DSM was clearly a rebound for my dad - that dug her claws in - and my dad just settled for her despite how rude and critical she was towards his kids. He prioritised her kids over me and my siblings and I’ve always resented that. To this day I don’t have any “family” to go back and stay with - my DSM decided she doesn’t want me staying anymore, and my dad is too weak to do anything about it, and my mum’s husband no. 4 is awful and likes to hug me for a completely inappropriate length of time and kiss me on the neck. It grosses me out so much I refuse to go and stay there. The problem with step parents who come into your life halfway through childhood is they don’t love the child, they love the parent, so the child no longer has a loving, supportive home. I had especially bad luck with step parents, I’m sure there are some good ones out there but at the end of the day it’s still a strange adult invading your “home”, a place a child is supposed to feel safe and loved.

I’m not saying you have to stay in a relationship that makes you miserable but I think separating when you have kids should be an absolute last resort and the impact on children, and your future relationship with those children, should not be underestimated.

I was in exactly this position for many years, and in the end, I decided we should separate. That was three years ago and I'm still figuring it out tbh. We live separately but we are friends who co-parent amicably and I still have no romantic attraction to him whatsoever - but for whatever reason, I seem unable to get out there and find someone else. I think I don't want to hurt his feelings.

I do love being in my own house and waking up alone (well, with my cat and dog!) and not having to worry about having an extra person to look after tbh.

Sorry, forgot to quote the post from @OhBow in my above post!

@OhBow thank you! Yes, I really resonate with what you said. My home life was pretty dysfunctional, and then my exDH provided me with another "home" which then also proved to be dysfunctional. And right now I am feeling so lost and adrift without that.

That really makes sense, that I need to find that sense of home within myself before I can truly have an adult to adult relationship. It's why I haven't rushed into anything with the new guy I like, as I know I have more healing to do.

I feel such a lot of guilt sometimes about the effect our separation may be having on the dc (although to be honest they seem like they are happier than when my ex and I were together). And I feel so pulled back sometimes towards the familiarity and comfort of family life. But even if my ex and I both continue to work on and are healed (sufficiently) from our trauma, I know a relationship with him would never involve the degree of emotional and physical intimacy that I would want.

It seems a lot of us have to face the choice of keeping the family together, and therefore sacrificing our need for intimacy if we don't have it with our partner - or leaving, potentially finding the intimacy we want in a new relationship, or staying single, but then having to face the heartbreak and problems of a split family.

What attracted you to him originally?

Well, we were very compatible in terms of taste and he was much more liberated in bed so there was that. I genuinely don’t think DH and I are well matched and we never were.

BUT I’m positive that (as a PP has mentioned) that it was great also because it was dangerous and that’s linked to some trauma/CPSTD issues. I don’t regret breaking off the affair and I’m so thankful I didn’t destroy my life for him despite incredible pressure from him to do so. He showed me who he was eventually- someone with zero boundaries and a capacity for cold cruelty. He was in a sexless relationship as well and I think he had a lot of issues with disgust that would have returned if we’d made a go of it as a real couple. (Although we would have not been living with each other for another 10 years while our children grew up so maybe that would have extended the natural lifespan of the passion a bit.)

I know now what I was and am still missing in my marriage is true intimacy, and I mistook sex for that - easy to do in the pressure cooker of an affair. At the time it felt like an unreal fusion of making love and fucking. I look back now and it was probably just fear and grief.

Even if I’d reversed time and agreed with my DH to have an open marriage or a discreet agreement to look the other way it would not have fixed things because it wasn’t just sex I was missing and the old oxytocin trap always kicks in.

I think it’s something only you can really know

@snowdrop2011 It doesn’t help that the affair sex, of course, completely eclipsed everything I’d ever experienced

But can you honestly say that if you'd got into a relationship with him, had a child, worked full time, washed his pants and slept next to him snoring for 10 years the sex would have remained earth-shattering?

I married someone who is lovely but for whom the sexual attraction side was never that strong, and I totally lost it after kids. I made some stupid choices, had an affair, separated from the lovely man, and then reconciled. We had a short lived revival of our sex life (make up sex I guess) but now…we’re back in ‘loving friends’ mode. I am simply not attracted to him. (It doesn’t help that the affair sex, of course, completely eclipsed everything I’d ever experienced.)

I feel in my heart that sex with DH is never coming back - for many reasons. But, we are in our late forties with two DDs late primary/early secondary, and neither of us want to divorce. We love each other, partly because we survived. I have made an active choice to forgo a sex life for the privilege of seeing as much of my girls’ childhoods as I can, and although we haven’t talked about it, I think he is on the same page. I did the 50:50 thing when we were separated- I hated it. I hated not being there when they needed me, and you can’t arrange their crises so they happen on mummy time. My DH would not contemplate me being with someone else inside or outside the marriage, and so this is the sacrifice.

I am happy. It’s a different type of fulfilment to having a relationship that stimulates, in all senses of the word. But, after many mistakes, I have found other, quieter types of fulfilment within the boundaries of the life that I unknowingly chose for myself when I married my partner. Motherhood, female friendship, dog ownership, swimming.

Having said all of that. If I was in my early thirties, and this was happening to my relationship already, I would be making different decisions. OP if your children are young there’s a window for you to change the trajectory of your life with least amount of pain and it might not open again for decades.

I’m glad your risk paid off - but being unfaithful isn’t something I’d brag about. What you both did to your ex’s was awful, most people couldn’t do that.

Ending a 2.5yr relationship with no kids is completely different to breaking up a family. There are a LOT more considerations.

I have been dating someone he not my child’s father but I am now at the point where I don’t even want him to touch me. He knows this and seems to be trying harder im distancing myself I have tried to tell him twice but he just brushes over it like I didn’t say it. Love spending time with him but zero attraction i do not like the way it makes feel. Luckily did not move in or anything so I know I could not live like this so glad I kept my everything separate. It is tougher financially but still better.

I don’t regret it at all. It was lonely when dad was younger but now shes due to go to high school I feel a bit more freedom I was miserable with my ex.

Sounds like a sure way to break the marriage up…..

We’ll said!

I left and it's the best thing I did.
I didn't have children at the time so know that's very different but I couldn't have stayed my entire life feeling like that.
I was married to the ultimate "good man" Kind, funny, hard working, he had a great job, we had loads in common and enjoyed an amazing life. BUT it was completely devoid of any passion whatsoever and I suspect he was asexual.

I reconnected with my childhood boyfriend and we both left our relationships for each other. That was 9yrs ago, we now have 2 small kids, half the income i used to have BUT absolutely completely madly in love. Despite young children the attraction is still as high as it was on Day 1.

i know you don’t want to, but If I’m honest i would consider the possibility to have subtle, protected anonymous one night stands. Obviously he would need to know and be ok with it and would be open to him to do so also.
or its leave. You’re too young to settle for a sexless life. You’ll grow to resent each other and it will end regardless. Sorry.

This sounds like my relationships with exDP. I sort of fell into it because we got along really well? Plus it was a weird time for me (Covid) and maybe I wanted the security of a stable relationship with someone decent. He was never the right guy for me. Consequently, after about a year, the relationship completed killed my sex drive. I had zero attraction to him. None whatsoever. We lasted 18 more months because I couldn’t admit to myself that I wasn’t attracted to my ‘perfect on paper’ boyfriend then we finally called it quits. No regrets - we weren’t right for each other. No kids involved so there wasn’t that layer of complication. I do think you need to be brave and go after what you want in life - you’re only in your 30s.

Have you had any changes in hormonal birth control since when you met him? Eg were you on the pill when you met him and later stopped taking it? Or have you started taking hormonal contraception during the marriage? Or changed type?

The pill can influence who we’re attracted to. So if you are on any hormonal contraceptive I’d say to come off it.

Make an effort to see you husband doing things where previously you felt particularly attracted to him, whether that’s doing physical strong things, being dominant at work , or whatever it was that made you hot for him in the first place.

If you fancy him most when he’s dressed up then organise a dinner date. If you fancy him most when he’s hot and sweaty and dirty from working in the garden then organise some alone time then.

Don’t break your family up over this. Your children will suffer most and it’s not a good reason to break the promise you made in marriage. For better for worse, for life.