Not sure how he’d cope if I left

[Whattodo12345678]

I’ve been with my husband for 5 years and married for 1 year. We have a 2.5 year old toddler together. We have a nice house in a nice area.

I just don’t feel any real connection to him anymore. We haven’t had a proper sex life for 4 years. We have big arguments where I tell him how unhappy I am and ask if we can do couples counselling. He is always so surprised during these arguments, acts completely blind-sighted and pretends everything is ok.

I think he is a good man, good job, works hard. But he has family issues and needs therapy. He sometimes has depression-like spirals. He barely helps with our kid and did nothing to help when he was a baby.

I feel numb. I just want to leave and I feel I have the support in place - I have a job and I can move in with my parents.

I just don’t know how he’d cope. He is not close to family and has been terrible at keeping in touch with friends. My main reason for not leaving is because he would be totally alone.

What can I do, I’m so uncomfortable all the time and just have this burning desire to leave (with my son).

I think you need to recognise that if we won’t do counselling it won’t get any better. And not having a sex line for four years says it all really. I would go with your gut feeling and leave whilst you have the support mechanisms to do so

I think you just have to leave him to it. You’re not responsible for his happiness. If he’s forced to go it alone he might manage to reinvent himself and reach out to others without relying on you to meet his needs. If he’s so deep into avoidance it will be difficult to save the marriage ultimately. What in life can last without ever being maintained or repaired?

Thank you. How do I tell him?

I was worried my XH would be alone a lot, especially because I intended to have the kids much more than him, he seemed very isolated the last couple years of our marriage. He picked up old friendships and is living it up, so I wouldn't worry to much. I literally said, "I'm done and I want a divorce. I can't move out till the house is sold so we can either live together till then or you can move out if you'd prefer that. I've put our names down for mediation so we can sort things with the kids as soon as we can get an appointment." Though in your case you say you're moving out, Id give him a date if you can. Be definite. XH is actually abusive, and we'd gotten to that point a couple times but he always made me feel it was all my fault. So I didn't bring up anything, not talking about why which just leads to arguments and recriminations and him making me feel bad. Just that I'm done. There's nothing left to discuss about the relationship if you no longer want to be in it.

This is inspiring. What was your situation? Are you pleased you did it? I’m obviously nervous about regrets but I’ve been feeling this way for such a long time (although mainly pretending not to).

I have a similar issue and am considering individual counselling as a way of moving forwards (apart from my husband). We have been married for 10 years, 2 children (under 10). He is such a lovely and kind hearted person but I'm just not in love with him any more. I have no interest in being intimate with him but feel immense guilt at telling him how I feel since he has done nothing wrong. He works hard and it would just feel so mean of me to make him lose his home and all he's worked for. By having individual counselling I would hope we could use this to shape our discussions to find a respectable way out of our marriage. I am worried about hurting him but I think more damage will be done in the long run by not modelling what a loving marriage looks like to our children, and we will probably end up resenting each other as well.