To find my husband disgusting

You can't come back from this. You're already in counselling so it probably won't come as a complete shock to him when you say you want to split, surely?

I can’t believe people are blaming you or peri menopause for this! God the handmaidens are out.
I’m perimenopausal and can get very irritated by my husband but the difference is- when I tell him to turn over when snoring he does it, because he’s a decent human who doesn’t want to disturb my sleep. Also, he doesn’t eat like a pig or have a snotty nose like a toddler.

Sounds like your husband has a total lack of regard or respect for your feelings and THAT is the problem not perimenopause.

Your only chance of saving the marriage is openly discussing how these things make you feel unloved and disrespected- rather than turned off maybe to be a bit kinder? If he continues doing them then warn him you’re considering separation.

I bet he wouldn’t do them in a new/ next relationship and many men claim they didn’t realise there was a problem. He needs to know how bad it is for you.

Peri-menopause can really lower our tolerance for people, especially those we have to be around on a daily basis... not saying that he's not got room for improvement, he clearly has, but be aware that your disgust may be amplified for several years due to hormones!

Five years ago I definitely was certain I'd be leaving... now we've settled back into a quiet companionship and I mostly quite like him now 😆 and I'm glad I didn't leave.

I know 2 people who have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and both of their Partners noticed a change in their smell long before diagnosis. Don’t want to alarm you but if their smell has changed it might be worth reading up on

Familiarity breeds contempt.

He was always like this, I think peri/menopause just makes us less able to tolerate it all.

Something has changed. Could he be depressed?

Are there other things in the mix? Money worries? Demanding family? Why has he given up on himself like this?

Tell your DH to blow his nose ,how disgusting

Why is she vile? What a random thing to say with no explanation. OP it sounds awful but....I do think you owe him honesty. The counselling was pointless if you weren't going to address what your actual issue was. It will be hard but he needs to know where your mind is so that maybe he might be shocked into making changes to save his marriage and family. If you tell him, with carefully chosen language that you find his habits off-putting and becoming intolerable and unless things change you cannot continue and in 3-6 months whatever, there is no improvement then it's fair to say you've tried, given it a chance.

Within reason, a divorce doesn't have to be dramatic and cause a lot of pain if you both agree to remain friends, separate and keep the DC lives as straightforward and normal as possible.

In the first instance, go and get some legal advice because at the moment you are all about reaction. If you knew what action looked and felt like, it would all feel clearer.

When I was with my ex, someone said to me, "how would you feel about nursing him if he had a stroke or something?" That was the push I needed to crack on and get free of the tool.

Why don’t you communicate with him? You say you have young children so his table manners are sending out all the wrong signals to the children surely? Challenge him with this, tell him mealtimes should be a family social occasion. And as for his other behaviour, why not start an interesting conversation on another topic before he starts his.
If you genuinely want to save your marriage then starts communicating, otherwise walk away.

OP look, he is gross. Do you ever say anything? He is setting a bad example for the DC.

The even worse example though is DC growing up thinking this dysfunctional marriage is normal.

Divorce OP, I can tell you as a lone parent of many years being on your own is preferable than having a gross/lazy man around.

If you think you’ll be able to co-parent well with him this might be the best thing for everyone! You’ll be happier, DC will benefit from a happy mum.

You’ve got perimenopause

you need:

1. separate bedrooms
2. omeprizole/lansoprazole for him to reduce stomach acid. It’s why he’s ’eating too fast’. He’s not really, he’s having to lie down because of the acid
3. to be TRUTHFUL. Said, not when he’s being disgusting but in advance. Tell him he has to pay attention to personal hygiene

I had to change our washing powder from the eco friendly one to one much more deep cleaning as the smell of my DH’s clothes seemed ‘old man smell’ to me. I also changed his shower gel to proper soap because of the ‘old man smell’.

crucially I realised this was MY PROBLEM, that I had changed. Disgust is a very normal but strong human emotion and I’m sure it was provoked by the peri menopause rage. I also had him move some of his activities which never bothered me before - nose blowing, toenail cutting to the BATHROOM.

I also remember getting the rage at some of his clothes and asked him to wear a much smaller selection of ones I approved of when we went out together. I know that sounds hideous and irrational, but irrationality is part of being human.

Honesty is the thing that made the difference. Don’t swallow this, it will just make you more annoyed.

Go back to therapy if you can afford it and talk about the repulsion, own it as your problem if nothing has changed in him.

I’m not saying you’re going to make it as a couple, I am saying this is why a lot of couples break up in middle age. Women just get sick of it, saying nothing and doing nothing about it.

What's the point of going to counselling and then not talking about what bothers you?

I would hazard a guess that if you were to sample those who felt similar to you do after 10 years another 20 or 30 years on, and they are still together, most would say things got worse not better, they wish they had done something no matter what, and that they regret keeping the marriage going. Not just for the individual, but there is guilt too that the partner could have been happier too with someone else, and guilt at the lack of honesty.

In the big scheme of things, ten years is nothing and 47 is still pretty young.

Just my ponderings anyway, not based on any science or professional knowledge or anything!

I think once you get to the stage of your partner making your skin crawl, they disgust you and you can’t bear them to touch you, there’s no coming back from that.
What you had has gone now, and you need to make plans to separate, or one day you’ll be on the news because you’ve flipped your lid and stabbed him for slurping his yoghurt.

And this is where I am as well .just not every day
Some days I think with huge effort from me it will be ok
But it's gone from me spending years trying to make it work ,to me not wanting to make it work...but we have adult kids with disabilities who will never live independently and refuse to go anywhere else or allow any help in ..
So I'm stuck
But your not op x

You’ve got the ick.

There is no coming back from this. 💐

I totally relate to this ..feel the same .. nothing has come back for 20 years ,all the effort to keep relationship going has been me ..now I simply don't want to ..am glad he's not making an effort either as I don't want to feel I need to have sex with him

Has someone else turned your head .. 🤔
This can make everything distasteful about your dh magnify ..

Your done , you've got the ick, no coming back from this, get out now.

ugh you have the ick. Once you have the ick there is no going back I’m afraid. Been there.

I don’t understand why you didn’t tell the Counsellor how you feel.

As a PP said you could have used less emotive language but still made your points about personal hygiene, not feeling that he’s interested in you and not taking care of his health or setting a good example to the DC.

Also agree that you can pretty much ignore what the Counsellor has said becauae you’ve effectively hidden so much information that the advice they gave is irrelevant.

I find it hard to understand why you went to the Counselling sessions if you weren’t going to be honest. It seems as though it was a box ticking exercise for you? “I feel guilty for wanting to leave, we’ll go to Counselling, oh look that didn’t work, now I feel less guilty about ending our marriage”.

Also agree that you could probably do with exploring whether you’re on the Peri and what support is available. Not so that you can tolerate your H better but so that you can feel strong enough to leave.

I’ve read all of your posts and I can also see that you haven’t answered the question “why are you still with him?”

So why are you OP? Divorce won’t be easy but it’s got to be better than how you’re living now?

You say you couldn't bring any of that up in therapy. Was he in the room with you - was it couple's therapy? You would benefit from therapy by yourself! Without him earwigging everything you say. I wish you a peaceful life - start moving towards it.

Sounds to me like you’ve reached the end of your tether, and this can often be seen in peri menopause.
If you’re not prepared to tell him the actual problem, and it’s fine to not want the agro, then make a move to end it. Do you really want to spend the next 30/40 years with him? And I can say from experience that you think ‘I’ll just stay until after Xmas/birthday/holiday/GCSE’s/A levels/going to Uni’ and then you are stuck because you’ve put up with it for so long that you now can’t afford to live alone.