help please - need a male perspective - what is going on with my DH

[thatlldonicely]

hi - i have been posting in relationships but thought a male perspective may help - i'll try & keep this brief - 2 days before xmas dh told me he wasnt sure what he felt for me anymore and had been feeling this way for at least a year - completely shattered my world - came about after a week without kids and me feeling as though i was being ignored again - he admitted he had been avoiding the issue and deliberately trying to keep the peace to avoid any conflict in the past as didnt want to tell me what he was feeling -and said he was hoping it would go away. His mum died in July after being ill for 2 months - he was very close to her but did say that he had been doubting his feelings before this. He has said he is not depressed although runs his own business which is stressful. Our sex life is non existent mainly due to me being on ADs but i thought we were both ok with this - we also went through extensive fertility treatment resulting in twins - one of whom will not sleep on his own - which means we are now in seperate rooms. He has said he will go for counselling after xmas. After spending 2 days doing a lot of talking we now seem to be communicating but not actually talking about "us". I am trying to give him space but it is doing my head in - i originally wanted him to leave but managed to get through xmas day for the kids and his dad who was with us but now that the initial drama is over i am concerned what will happen next. normally this time of year we would be planning what we would be doing next year but obviously arent. He appears to be functioning fairly normally whereas I cannot get out of my head what is going on. is he having a mid life crisis or am i just trying to cling on to something that is over - any advice greatly appreciated

No idea if this thread is still active but I am going through something almost identical and I will tell you the male perspective with out any sugar coating.

Firstly you don't have sex with him and you don't even sleep together and I would suggest to you that it is incredibly selfish for you expect your husband to be celibate.

So he's probably thinking what does he actually get out of the marriage for all the work he puts in and now that he is more established as a man he probably thinks he can do a lot better now than what he settled for with you all those years ago.

That is a very selfish way of thinking, probably triggered by the lack of sex, if you are over weight that probably doesn't help either, so he is feeling incredibly guilty about it, Even if he doesn't love you he will still have feelings for you and really doesn't want to hurt you or the children. He is also probably afraid of losing his kids as well.

So he is not a child that cannot make up its mind, he is being torn apart by these competing desires, but i understand this leaves you in an awkward position.

Depending on what you want to happen there are a number of things you can do.

1)Guilt, shame and threaten him into staying with you, he will never be happy but you will get what you want.

2)Fight for him and your marriage, go down the gym, be sexy, make him feel wanted and desired.

3)Let him have a fling, as long as he is discreet you can turn a blind eye to it and he will get what he needs from it. In all likelihood he is just looking for an ego boost.

4)Leave him.

i made him go - tonight - funnily enough ive lost over a stone since xmas - hes been lying to me - making out he didnt know what he wanted but all the time talking to other people - he knew what he wanted just didnt have the guts to do anything about it

So you didn't have sex with him and now he's lost his home.

He's just got the full house on relationships game of bingo.

it takes 2 to make a relationship work

Did I just hear your knuckles dragging along the floor there caruthers?

Caruthers, clearly you have a better grasp of the issue than anyone else so far. Well done.

Unless he happens to have zero sex drive too, if you are not having sex with your man he will feel angry, upset, unloved, unwanted, like a piece of rubbish. He may not show it, but that's how he'll feel. He won't be 'okay with it'. Not one bit.

When my wife stopped having sex with me this was how I felt. I'd made a vow to forsake all others so where was I going to find intimacy and affection? Unless you have mutually agreed celibacy, providing no sex and no chance of getting it put back on the menu, putting it frankly, means you've checked out of the marriage in my opinion.

I never wanted little more than a grumpy housemate from marriage that felt comfortable making all sorts of demands without giving an inch in return. But this is all I had.

Seems your husband is doing the honourable thing by floating the idea of a separation. It's either that or find intimacy by being a 'cheater'.