Hi Whoever, I am so very sorry that you are in this position. My heart goes out to you and I empathise and sympathise completely. I have been with my husband for 20 years this December, married to him for 15 years. For much of that time, our physical relationship has fallen far short of my expectations. I cannot even look back on our Caribbean honeymoon with fond memories. Like yours, my husband is a fantastic man in so may ways. He took on my daughter as his own, and worked tremendously hard to overcome her reluctance to accept him in our lives. Due to having an early hysterectomy, we have not been able to have children together. When she became pregnant aged 17, he was the one who made me see that it wasn't the end of the world for her, and his readiness to accept and support her through her pregnancy helped me to come to terms with it. When my grandson was born (he was actually in the delivery room for most of the time until moments before the delivery when propriety necessitated his absence) he forged an immediate and incredible bond with him that has endured. As I write this, he is away on a camping trip with grandson who is now eleven years old. Yet, throughout all this, our physical relationship has been abysmal, to say the least. He is an incredibly loving and generous person...just doesn't have a particularly strong sexual drive. While I can talk with him about just about anything else in the universe, he cannot talk about sex or intimacy. I have come very close to leaving him in the past, and I am ashamed to say, have had casual (but safe sex) flings with other men, including a very intense affair which he discovered, and which left him devastated. We have muddled along since then, and despite my yearnings for greater intimate fulfilment, I have chosen to stay with him, because, ultimately, he is my best friend, my rock, and fulfils me in so many ways. That said, I got the shock of my life two days before last Xmas when I discovered that for the past two years, he had been having a series of sexual affairs with other women, as well as numerous internet relationships. I had always known that he had an interest in internet pornography but, deciding that it didn't threaten our relatively non-sexual relationship, I turned a blind eye to it. To cut a long story short, it seems that he has problems with intimacy - he can cope with casual sexual relationships that don't demand intimacy, but can't give himself in the same way in a close relationship. My first instincts were to keep quiet over Xmas so as not to disrupt our family Xmas but afterwards I went all out. We have talked a lot since then, more than we ever have, and the result has been a marked improvement so that we now enjoy much greater physical intimacy. It's not 100% perfect, but 50% better than it has ever been. So I have been where you are at. I have spent years sleeping alone in the spare room, full of anger and frustration, planning to contact a divorce lawyer first thing in the morning, while he has peacefully slept and snored on in the main bedroom. I understand completely why you have reached a decision to separate. It seems to me though that you still have some emotional feelings for him, and I am just wondering whether couple/relationship counselling might be helpful to you both? Your husband seems to have a very low or non-existent sexual drive and it might be worthwhile exploring that via counselling, if he is prepared to go along that route. Mine wasn't, but fear of my leaving him after finding out about his serial philandering was enough to get him talking to me. If he won't talk to you or refuses to consider individual counselling then I don't then you have any option but to leave, and find yourself a more compatible partner before it's too late. Fear of financial insecurity keeps many women tied into unhappy relationships , especially when there are children involved, but if you leave and gain custody of your children, he will be legally forced to pay child support. And even if he doesn't, I think you may well find, as so many other women before you have discovered, that while it is hard, difficult and tough, that you will manage. You will survive. You can rebuild a life for yourself and your children. You can find work for yourself. You can find ways of earning an income. There is a great deal of support out there, even if making your way through the maze isn't always easy. You are not, and will never be alone in your predicament, and you will find many other women in similar situations, raising children alone, who will be willing to provide a listening ear, a hug, words of advice and comfort as you embark on the possible new life ahead of you.