Not an AIBU but a question.

[KrayKray00]

Would you still be with your partner if it wasn't for the children?

I love my OH dearly. Really I do. But I do wonder sometimes if our relationship would survive if it wasn't for the fact we have young children.

There's a number of times I would of walked away from our relationship but the reason I stay is because I don't want to "break our family up".

Nothing extreme. He has never had an affair or been violent ect but the silly things wind me up, staying out wayyyy later than said (with "the lads"). Continuing friendships with fake, two faced certain types of people I do not like. Personal hygiene and mainly lack of ambition.
Simple things yet would be easier to leave a relationship over those things if no children were involved
I wouldn't want my kids to say "Mum and Dad split up because she couldn't stand the fact he only brushed his teeth once a day" or "Dad went out last night (again) with Andy the arsehole and didn't come home till 4am... so Mum left him".

You get the idea.
He isn't career driven and is happy to work in a dead end job with minimum wage where as I would love and have always imagine my OH to want a well paid enjoyable career with rewarding benefits. To be like a power couple I think children also changed that idea

I am only young. I would never want to break my family apart, but I just expected so much more. I do want my family to stay together, I do want it to stay us, but I also want more from life.

I don't know what to say really I just wondered if I wasn't alone when thinking children hold relationships together.

DH enriches my life enormously and I couldn't imagine life without him. He's my best friend, my rock, we have a shared outlook and interests, I fancy him something rotten and he works incredibly hard to provide for us. I waited until I was old and wise enough to know what I truly wanted out of life and to find that before I brought kids into the equation.

If I'd had kids with one of my exes it would have been an entirely different story and I'd either be a single mum by now or living an extremely mediocre compromised existence.

Thank you all for the replies. Especially the "grass isn't always greener one" I agree.

It's made me look at my OH differently he is a great Father and person in general, I think it is more so the lifestyle. And if he/we were career driven would I then wish for a family life instead.

I am also very close to his family who we rely on a lot and I love them dearly and I know they feel the same towards me so I also think if I ever split with OH I'd loose them too. I fell pregnant very young, very fast. So it was like we didn't get to know each other properly. We have learnt to love and live together and really have grown up.

I like the thought of traveling and working in a high paid city job with opportunities to travel, business meetings and being an individual rather than feel like a "slave" (not the correct terminology) to him and my children. I know these things will change with time as my children grow up too.

Thanks again!!

Difficult to say. We went through a bad patch a few years ago and I think we might have split up if it weren't for the kids but I am glad we didn't as things are good now!