Does anyone else think they've married the wrong partner after so many years

[cuthbertcream]

I'm nearly 40 and have 3 DC with DH. He's been my first and only long term relationship so not sure if this skews my experience.

Over the years I've sort of fallen out of love with him. I'm not sure I even properly loved him to be honest. I think I was just naive and just married the first decent guy that was interested in me. There wasn't a massive spark or anything. He was stable and decent and I thought this was as good as I'll ever get as awful as that sounds.

Fast forward 15 years and we hardly talk. Well, we do if I initiate a conversation but even then it's just a quick mumble under his breath and no eye contact. We can go weeks without a proper chat. We just get by with the essentials like shopping , what needs doing etc. There's no laughs, jokes, hugs or anything like that. I always used to instigate it at first and I think that's what kept me going. But now I just feel tired of always having to make the first move. As a result things have got even worse.

I find it utterly lonely, boring and feel dead inside. I'm just living like a robot. My kids are older primary age and If it wasn't for them I'd have noone to talk to at home. He hardly talks to them either. Dinner times we are all chatting away and DH just sits there eating and gets up soon as he's finished.

DH sporadically will talk to the kids for a bit or initiate a talk with me where he seems happy and relaxed and those times are really nice. But they're rare and unpredictable. He also gives me attention when he wants sex.

Because of the emotional distance between us, naturally I don't feel like having sex and he feels it's me that is the issue in our lack of sex. I find him really unattractive now too not physically but Im not attracted to his personality anymore.

I don't think he gets it. I've tried talking to him about it. And he feels offended saying that I want to change who he is or something.

Does anyone else have this? I don't really know what to do about it.

Bump

No I don't feel like that. My marriage isn't perfect and sometimes know he wasn't "right" for me but we still laugh and chat and do some stuff together after 22 years.

You sound so sad and lonely

What’s the thing with no eye contact? It must make you feel like strangers.

I imagine with 3 primary aged children you don’t get much leisure time alone together? Do you get the impression he still wants to be married but isn’t putting in much effort, or is it that he’s emotionally already disappeared?

@TottersBlankly

What’s the thing with no eye contact? It must make you feel like strangers.

I imagine with 3 primary aged children you don’t get much leisure time alone together? Do you get the impression he still wants to be married but isn’t putting in much effort, or is it that he’s emotionally already disappeared?

I don't know - I guess he's so not interested that he just doesn't even bother to look up when talking to me. It makes me feel rubbish.

It must be really really horrible living with him. What are your options now? Do you work full time? Are you in a rented or a mortgaged home?

My reading of this could be over the years issues have gradually developed for you both that continue to perpetuate the problem and you both have very different perspective on it. For example his version might be you pay him no intimate attention and clearly don't fancy/love/like/respect him, so he has gradually withdrawn and is stubbornly waiting for you to make the move towards fixing it. You see his lack of emotional connection as a slight and his reaction to you makes him unattractive so you pull away more physically. It sound like a deadlock and you need to break down the issues and communicate. Would marriage counseling be worth a try? It's so hard to unravel long standing issues without all the bitterness getting in the way

I would try marriage counselling as a safe place for both of you to say how how you are feeling and see if you are willing to work on changing things together.

I had a STBXH like this . I do not miss him at all as he was never fully present anyway. No companion, no partner, no lover , eventually not even a financial provider .He brought nothing to my life, so it was easy to get rid of him.

Do you want to resolve things with him or are you looking for 'permission' to split up? You don't need it. You are allowed to carve out a happy life for yourself.

It took me 15 years to admit to myself that XH and i were a total mismatch. I made the best of it for years. For the kids.

It was a mistake that we married in the first place. I was late teens - i wanted to pull out the night before the wedding but didn't have the guts. sigh.

I have no useful advice. I left. It was god awful at the time, I was public enemy no.1. But XH and i had new partners within a year and both happily remarried within 3/4.

His indifferent parenting meant the DCs were totally unfazed by the prospect of not living with him any more and excited to come to a new little home with me. He wouldn't pay a penny towards them for the first 2 years. Not even b.day presents. A punishment i think, for being happy with me (round the corner)

By 2 months after the split up he'd given up all pretence of being interested in them at all. We were happy without him. 15 years on DDs don't even speak to him. He never texts. They aren't bothered. Eldest not even inviting him to her wedding.

He reaps what he sowed.

Anyway - those are my ramblings :) Good luck OP. Its a short life. Don't waste it being unhappy.

I’m a very quiet person and I’ve always been this way. My DH is now complaining that I’m boring, disengaged and uninterested in everyone.

I find this very hurtful because I CAN’T change this about myself. I would love to but I just don’t know how to become more chatty and exuberant. I’ve thought about having therapy but honestly, I don’t get how therapy would help me to change my personality.

I love my DH and DC but just can’t seem to show it. I also don’t do jokes, silly behaviour, singing & dancing. My DH finds these things easy and thinks I’m refusing to change even though I’ve explained I don’t know how I grew up in a house that was unemotional and I guess that’s what I learnt.

I haven’t got an answer for you, just giving a different perspective. We’ve been married 20 years and I feel sad that I can’t make my DH happy

TheSpringtimeLady if you don't mind me asking do how are you with your DH? I get that you're quiet, DH is too which I don't mind about that. It's the fact he just doesn't talk to me or the kids. Is this how you are too?

DH feels hurt when ive brought the issue up saying I don't like who he is as a person and that is something he can't change.

He doesn't sound quiet, it sounds as though he's completely checked out.

Your post sounds so similar to me OP. I also married a man in haste and naivety eager to do the whole marriage thing when all my peers were marrying. Realised quickly I didn't really love him and then by then had 2 children with him, then 3 ....he nearly left me when I was pregnant with my 3rd...... Fast forward 17years hanging in on a thread and some very nasty unpleasant emotional manipulative abuse from him, and I divorced the arsehole like I should have done years ago.
If you truly believe you are in a marriage that in your gut you know is wrong, then only you know this. Your deep true feelings. You can suppress them for years but they will always come back.
How old are your DC?
Sending you hugs.

Thats the thing. When we have talked about this he says that he loves me etc. And doesn't want to lose me. It's so bloody confusing. Not to sound awfuk but sometimes I feel that there's something not quite right about him.

Whether he loves you is irrelevant IMO what is key is whether you love him and whether you want to remain in that relationship- this is the question you have to dig deep to know. If you are continually questioning this, then ?

How old are your DC? Could you support yourself financially? Do you work?
Do you envisage being away from that relationship and being on your own with the Dc?

This sounds really painful, sad and lonely. Has he always been this way or could he be depressed?

OP my DH can be an exacting, miserable git. After nearly 31 years of marriage if the DC are home (27 and 23) we still all render a "it's daddy" when we hear the key in lock. My heart still bounces and I go into the hall to see him.

We are a pair of miserable, boring sods, but every night he holds my hand and says he loves me and every morning he snuggles up to me and says he loves me - and then slithers downstairs to make me a mug of tea. And we grumble undernourished breaths that we have put up with each other for more than 32 years " 32 bloody years I've put up with you, etc"

Under our. We are, sadly, not under nourished. We are are both porky compared to 30 odd years ago.

I could have written your OP a year or so ago. Same sort of age kids, we’d been together 10 years. The difference being I did really love exDH at the start, but the relationship had big issues all the way through which I was too young and inexperienced when we got together to realise and by the time I did realise, many years later, habits were so entrenched and things were so far gone that it was impossible to solve. He was also slightly more involved with the DC than yours sounds but only slightly - often I’d be chatting to him and he’d look up and go ‘did you say something?’ Likewise the DC would be stood next to him trying to get his attention and he’d just be on his phone and act like he couldn’t even hear them. His idea of good quality couple time was to sit on different sofas watching shit telly every single night. We’d become entirely different people, different interests, different wants and aspirations. Sex was borderline nonexistent, also mainly down to me as I didn’t want to have sex with him - felt like a duty and a chore. He was then (supposedly) utterly shocked when we had ‘the chat’ as he didn’t think there was anything wrong.

I left and I’m so, SO much happier now. I don’t miss him at all - my life actually got easier in pretty much all ways, emotionally, practically, financially (we never had a joint account so I never really had free access to any money beyond what he gave me for basics). The children seem fine - it was always me and them on our own 99% of the time anyway so they have consistency on that front. He generally has them every other weekend so I actually get more child free time now than ever before. I have a new DP and things are amazing - he’s shown me so much about what relationships should be. I don’t know if exDH is happier or not but given that he never seemed particularly invested in family life (he paid lip service to being so but his actions said otherwise for 10 years) I suspect he’s quite happy. I have absolutely no regrets, it was the best choice I ever made.

TheSpringtimeLady if you don't mind me asking do how are you with your DH? I get that you're quiet, DH is too which I don't mind about that. It's the fact he just doesn't talk to me or the kids. Is this how you are too?

If my DH wants to talk to me then I listen and will participate in the conversation. It’s more a case of I don’t know how to initiate conversation myself. I really don’t know why or what I can do about it. It’s like I can’t think what to talk about with him.

I also don’t do spontaneous hugs or displays of affection. It just doesn’t occur to me to do it. I realise this sounds horrible and I get why he wants more. I’m really not withholding conversation or affection on purpose. It’s just the way I am.

Hey! I’m looking for some honest advice. I really love my partner and I think we are ready to try for a child. However I’ve been reading the “I’ve married the wrong person -” sub and I find it really interesting that some people can have multiple children with someone they don’t love? How does this happen? and do I have a naïve view going into motherhood - as I don’t think I could have another child if I fell out of love with my partner? Once you’re a mother - the romance is taken away from your other pregnancies and it just becomes normal - and it doesn’t matter about romantic love anymore to continue to have children? As I’ve seen this a lot in my personal life too- I’m not criticising it - I find it interesting and looking for honest advice

I don't think you will be alone in this OP, even if the responses here don't happen to align with that. Falling out of love or the demise of a long term relationship is hardly uncommon. It sounds as if it has been over for some time for you really, and the only remedy would be to take steps to move on.

I'm mid thirties and still feel I'm very young. If i were unhappy with my current DP I would want to leave as soon as I knew in my heart that was the case; there is an awful lot left of life to be had and the sooner the separation happens the sooner you can look to that. Feeling lonely when you are technically with someone is a horrible feeling, and far worse than being single and happy with that decision.