... to think a lot of middle aged couples stay married for convenience

[HofstadtersLaw]

That's certainly my own case. We've drifted apart over many years and live very different lives. I've met someone else, a good friend, but that is all for now. I'd like to change that so have some big decisions in the coming weeks for me.

DSis is in an unhappy marriage too. Feeling unloved, not appreciated, no sex, etc. She's decided to wait things out until youngest starts work or goes to college.

My best friend has no kids, and happy staying in her marriage for financial and a few other reasons.

Is it just me and people I know?

I think a lot of people are in dull and unfulfilling but not actively unhappy relationships.

Mostly it's been the women I know ( like the op) who have gone out and found new relationships or just told the men to leave or whatever.

I think it all boils down to love and friendship, Tbh. I still love DH and find him interesting to be with. We disagree on a lot of subjects, and he really annoys me at times - and I certainly annoy him! - but we still find each other interesting. I recognize the same spark among other couple friends. If you don't feel that way about your long-termpartner, it's probably just convenience.

That is so sad ! If I wasn’t happy in my marriage I’d leave life is so short to be unhappy !

You don't need to justify your potential affair/leaving your husband for another man by claiming the people who don't do it are just lying to themselves.

Do it or don't. It's your family, not anybody else's.

I’ve been married 32 years this year. No children. I still love him to bits. No question of staying together for convenience or financial reasons - we could afford to split, just don’t want to.

I was very unhappy and nearly jumped ship, but since having the coil fitted I realised that it was PMT causing most of the problem.
I don’t think I love my DH, but we’ve been together a long time and I can’t imagine living alone. We don’t share a bedroom or kiss, but it’s better than being alone.
I thought about ending it when the youngest leaves, but I like this house, and I’d struggle financially alone.
I think I’ll stay for company and feeling safe.
He hasn’t said he’s unhappy at all, so I think we’ll carry on.

I think there’s a lot of truth in what you say OP but ax others have suggested it’s necessary to try to unpack whether you are fundamentally mismatched or if it’s just the normal wear and tear of living and coparenting. Both cohabitation and having children are dreadful for relationships.

Its not easy to tell either. Good luck with figuring this out.

There's a lot of value in companionship as people get older and their motivations change. Convenience isn't just financial, it's emotional security.

How did they meet someone else?

That's not my experience OP, are you sure you're not looking for examples to justify your own situation.

I know one couple where the woman is only there for the money/lifestyle, but everyone else I know is happy as far as I know (I know I can't know what goes on behind closed doors but surely they can't all be secretly unhappy??)

I think it depends on the person and is a question we'll never truly have an answer to as I think there's a thing out there that comfortable and safe are settling and boring but then if that person was taken tomorrow maybe it would turn out they liked their life! As well as that, people bitch about their other halves but it honestly doesn't always mean something. Yes there's people who split and are happy but again, you don't know how happy

Me and dh have been married 20+ years and bumble along together amiably. We're happy enough, no longer the youthful sparks full of passion, but generally OK.

Just remember the old adage... "the grass is always greenest where you tend to it the most."

Cuts both ways. There are also plenty of people who had their head turned, convinced themselves and everyone around them that their marriage was crap and a new and exciting life was there and should be pursued, only to find that their new relationship wasn't that exciting after a while, and ended up either single and regretful, or back in the same kind of domesticity they thought they were escaping. Lots of people only leave because they think they can trade up. Sometimes they're wrong.

Yes, that’s what I’m also trying to warn out, @WinterSunglasses I know someone IRL who left his wife and children for someone else, classic midlife crisis. The new relationship was over in six months and his marriage was destroyed. It was a definite case of the grass is greener, but it wasn’t.

*warn about

I know quite a few unhappily divorced 50 something year old women - financially they are in a tricky situation a so so marriage is much more appealing. I think the perimenopause leads to a lot of marriage la coming under strain. You need to wait it out and it takes years.

My parents hate each other. My PILs hate each other.
I tell my mum to shut up when she starts on a rant about my dad. They should just split up.

Mostly it's been the women I know ( like the op) who have gone out and found new relationships or just told the men to leave or whatever.

I always wonder why they don’t just say no.

I think it’s very common. Not just because of the hassle of separating. Money is usually a major factor - if they split they won’t be able to afford the same standard of living independently, which is particularly a problem if kids are involved. I could deal with living in a shitty flat in a dodgy area but I don’t want to raise my kids there. I don’t want my kids to lose the opportunity to do extra curricular activities which we couldn’t afford if we were paying for two houses. And if the woman has been a SAHM for any length of time she’s lost her earning potential and it’s even harder for her to leave. The other issue is how it will affect the kids - my youngest cried and misbehaved when Daddy went away on a stag do holiday for five nights, I shudder to think what would happen if he was gone permanently.

I’m not with my DH for convenience and I don’t know anyone else who is either.

We’ve been together 29 years, married for 25. I’m 50, he’s 53.

Still fancy him like mad. He’s an avid gym goer and very fit and hunky. I also love the gym and am not so fit but still….

There have been times that I’ve hated his guts and could have happily killed him or divorced him depending on my mood, in the stress of bringing up 4 DC including twins and a learning disabled DC with complex needs and very challenging behaviour, losing another one to a fatal abnormality at birth, losing all our money and ending up officially homeless, my MH issues from my traumatic childhood and dealing with both our shit, abusive, dysfunctional families. I couldn’t have realistically left then anyway due to finances and needing help with the DC when young but we have got through it and now I think of us as having the depth and richness of a fine, vintage wine 😄

We could split now much more easily as DC mostly grown and finances much better but I don’t want anyone else. Couldn’t imagine it.

Sex is still great and we have plenty of it.

I think when some people are unhappy, they like to think others are too.

There’s a lot of truth in that.

It wouldn’t surprise me if we weren’t the only couple that have had significant periods of drifting apart and “staying for child/don’t wish to become much poorer” reason.

As it turned out, as DS has grown up into an adult, we’ve kind of drifted back together. Pandemic was a bit much though, and we weren’t happy bunnies for awhile again. Still both licking our individual wounds from that awful time. But drifting (with a bit more energy on my part this go around, cos I can’t say I put my back into it before) together again.

I stayed because parental separation was ruinous emotionally, physically, financially, mentally on all of us kids, and eventually for both of the parents. It was hell on earth and it’s taken me over 30 years to feel like myself again. Once I got pregnant I knew I was only ever going to leave DH if a qualified professional was able to say, yes the damage to DS of staying together deffo outweighs the damage of separating. I wasn’t going to do what my parents did as they decided they were suddenly able to read our hearts and minds and lo it matched what each of them wanted. Never mind that what they each wanted was completely the opposite. We were mirrors of their preferences, not windows they looked into to see what was inside.

Never actually asked a professional. Mostly because over the years I came to recognise that I’m really really good at seeing the flaws in other people, and casting those flaws in the least flattering light when I’m angry, or disappointed, or just plain bored of somebody. But much less good at seeing my own. Every time I got to the point of constantly ruminating on a list of ways that DH didn’t make me happy, didn’t do things the way I wanted them to be, I made more of an effort to think about my own “not so helpful” contribution to the current doldrums.

Everytime I’ve put my back into being fair and examining myself in the same harsh light ….well he isn’t perfect, but bloody hell I don’t think there is another man on the planet that could put up with me.😂

I’m complicated, live too much inside my own head and have a gift for blowing things out of proportion. I really could not face going through the process of early romance “best behaviour” and s l o w l y letting NewMan find out what he’d let himself in for.

Besides, at least with DH I know that when we go through the rough, the smooth we’ll get back is the kind of smooth that I like. Not some new fangled NewMan kind of smooth that I have to get used to and pretend I like, while fiddling with the dials behind his back for five years, until I adjust things to how I like it.

I think many couples stay together because the alternative scares them. They would be less comfortable financially, have to sell their nice house and potentially be lonely. They don’t want to grow old alone.

I think YANBU OP and I knew quite a few people who think the same. I’m as sure as I can be without actually having lived it that my marriage would have ended up like this. I cut my losses and left and have no regrets. Far happier now despite a lot of shit that life has thrown at me over the last year or so.