What are your expectations from a marriage/partnership

[VanessaSanessa]

Just that really. Interested to chat about it.

What do you expect as a minimum in a marriage? Trust, communication, emotional connection, sexual connection, being there for you at your lowest?

I ask as I recently initiated a separation from DH. We have two DC's. DH didn't want to split. I'm currently being gaslit by him as to my reasons for ending things, my own mother (another story of toxicity) is on one aswell. Both families don't get it. I guess there was no huge drama, just continuous misery for years, for me. I can handle people but from time to time, when they start, I second guess myself.

DH and I get on well as friends, similar sense of humour, can speak about superficial things, he is very helpful practically. We were never very compatible sexually and certainly not emotionally. I know, I know, why did I marry him but that's done and dusted now.

DH was never very emotionally connected and that was ok for a while but I've had a lot of traumatic events (suicide etc) hit my life and he has been found lacking, in fact he was downright horrid when I needed him the most, which was the catalyst for me pulling the plug. He drinks most evenings, has very little interest in anything bar sitting there on his laptop. I am not faultless but I've been willing to try and fix it for years but it was always all my fault, all my issues. I was miserable and I feel like a new woman now.

On the outside, no one except my close friends can understand it because I kept my head down for years.

I guess I am keen to hear other's points of view. I was brought up to do right by my kids and even up to yesterday my mum was throwing that at me. What more do I want, he's a great husband!!

It doesn't matter what I want in a marriage. You're the one who has to live with yours, so what you want is the only thing that matters. That separating was the right thing to do seems to be confirmed by how much better you feel. What other people think is irrelevant. My mother (born 1946 and brought up in a very poor, dysfunctional family) thinks that physical violence is the only justified reason for separating, and is visibly horrified when I say far more people of her generation should have divorced for their own sanity and happiness (divorce was illegal until the late 1990s in our home country).

My two baselines have always been that somebody has to actively improve my life and make it better for me to want to have them in it; and that I enter every relationship with another person on the understanding that this is who they are and that I’m not looking for a project or somebody to try to change. It’s always stood me well: I’ve never had a bad relationship and I’m either friends with, still in touch with, or ended on good terms with all but one of my ex partners.

Acknowledging that you married the wrong person, or wrongly assumed that you’d be able to make them change is a strength, not a weakness. “Doing right by” your children is realising that you weren’t modelling what a good relationship looks like, and that you can be better parents to them apart. Often, it’s people who haven’t accepted either of those things who will encourage you to stay, because anything else would admit acknowledging that their own relationship is problematic.

• They need to actively improve my life by being there
• They need to be able to handle being wrong, willing to apologise, compromise and try to do better in future.
• Need to be able to laugh at themselves and work as a team when things get rough - no excessive wallowing or taking emotions out on others.
• Need to be able and willing to face and work through the important things emotionally.
• Need to be fully formed adults who cook, clean, organise their lives etc, and continue to do so as part of a unit, with the principle of wanting everyone to have the same amount of work and downtime so noone's sat on their arsenal while the other is washing dishes.

Last one shouldn't be controversial but fuck me, I'm amazed how many people marry men who've learnt how to drive, learnt things for their job, learnt how to use a phone, learnt how to do their hobbies, but 'cant' cook and have either never bothered to try learning or gave up.

My sympathies to you, re: people going 'but he's a good husband!' I think it's absolutely incredibly rude when people comment things like this during a breakup and I was ASTONISHED how normal people thought it was to do when my long term relationship ended. It doesn't matter if he's the most perfect man in the world whose never put a foot wrong, if you don't want to be with someone you don't owe them a relationship because they are so 'good'!! Drives me wild.

Quite a few, and before DH I was regularly told my standards were too high. Now I know that was just coming from lazy sods, because he ticks them all and goes above and beyond them without asking or being guided.

• 50/50 in household tasks and life admin. I am not here to be anyone's mother aside from our children's.
• 50/50 parenting. Not "helping".
• Kindness. And by that I mean being able to be selfless when the time calls for it, just as I give.
• Not taking himself too seriously. I cannot stand men who can't laugh at themselves and think they're above other people.
• Humour. If I'm with someone, I want to be able to laugh with them.
• They need to be my friend. Not just a romantic partner, but someone who actively wants to be with me, and share a life.
• Sexually compatible. I've got a high sex drive and I've been in mismatched relationships before. It was horrible.
• Gentleness. By this I mean an ability to show care, let his guard down, cry, not bundle up emotions in some ridiculous display of toxic masculinity.
• Driven in career. I couldn't be with someone who was happy to coast. Neither could I be with someone who puts their career above mine/our family. There's a fine line.

So yes, quite a few. But I think it's going to vary wildly for everyone too. We've all got different backgrounds so you might find it's as variable as what we find physically attractive!

Thanks everyone for your replies, it's good to get different perspectives.

Yes, my mum's classic comment on my separation was, Is he beating you? If not, then what's your problem! Lovely. Sadly my DH said the same. Which is why I'm years in therapy for my childhood and I've outgrown both of them. My relationship with my mum has been badly damaged by her behaviour.

It amazes me too how so many people feel they can comment. Ah, you are not married to him ffs!!

So why did you marry him? Did you know that it wasn’t a good idea really? So many women settle because they want children. One of my friends divorcing now did just this.

To be honest, it was easy at the time, not overly emotional and I guess children were a factor. However it was after that, that I started to work on my own issues and I sorted myself out. And I would say that now, I am quite emotionally healthy. I did love him in some ways and he isn't a bad guy but he remains unchanged and hasn't dealt with any of his issues.

I shouldn't have married him. I did. I am trying to be fair and amicable now as I know I've changed a lot and he hasn't. I get that.