Would you accept your DH not loving you?

[iifsn]

Hi - just wanted some feedback as to how other MNs would feel about my situation where DH quite open abouly has always told me he does not love me (since soon after our marriage) and how it has always bewildered him how I have found it hard to live with that fact.

I don't think so, unless I didn't love him either, but we had decided that we would stay together to raise our family. But even then, it would have to be on the basis of trust and respect and a form of love, even if that wasn't romantic/sexual.

Do you think he's got a point iifsn?
Do you think the mistake that you made was unforgiveable, and therefore, he's got the right to withdraw his love and affection?

Because it's hard to imagine that anyone would willingly stay in such a sterile environment.

theQuibbler - that is interesting. A point about what?

I agree with ScaryFucker. You sound like an automaton. You're not answering anyone's questions, other than questions that are not linked to emotion.

The mistake was infidelity on one occasion before we married, by the way

Who's idea was it to marry in the first place iifsn? What were the terms of the marriage deal when the marriage was entered into? Because marriage is always a deal of some description, even if the deal is that the partners will both give and recieve love from each other. I think possibly unpicking how you got into the current situation may be helpful to you in seeing a way out of it.

A couple of years ago, my DS' father suggested that he and I should get married. We had a chat about it and I said I would think about it, but in the end I decided against it on the grounds that I simply don't want to marry or live with a partner (and living with DS' dad would drive me nuts anyway, he's not a bad person at all but I do not want to live with him). The deal would have been: share childrearing and expenses etc - for one thing, he wanted another child - it was not being made in a romantic glow and there was an understanding that monogamy wasn't going to be involved.
So I am wondering if when you and your H made the deal it was something you thought you could live with because there were benefits other than 'love' to you, or if you think your H decieved you over the deal.

theQ - do you think he had the right to withdraw love and affection and stay married? I have struggled with this.

Iffsn: Right. Your H is a knob. He should either have got over your breach of monogamy or ended the relationship.
Infidelity is a big deal to some people, yeah yeah, blah blah but however dementedly monogamist someone might be, it is not acceptable or ethical to feel you are entitled to punish someone for the rest of his/her life.
And if your H is the sort of man who thinks like this, then he deserved to be cheated on in the first place (for believing that other people are possessions), and it's a pity you didn't stick with the other bloke and bin the H.

IIFSN - it sounds to me as if your DH is a) emotionally abnormal and b) using your guilt over your previous infidelity in order to get "one over on you" for life.

He thinks he can withdraw affection indefinitely because you cheated on him once, 10 years or so ago. Did he know about it before you got married? It's really not fair IMO of him to behave like this and expect to stay married.

It's as if being married to him without love is the punishment for your sins.

FWIW my DP found out something about my past that really upset him (not infidelity in this case) and he behaved "unlovingly" for about 3 weeks and it was awful and I wouldn't have stood it any longer, I told him that I wasn't willing to put up with it any more.

You do deserve to be in a loving relationship, not in a relationship where presumably washing his socks and fawning over him is your "penance".

It was his decision - his proposal - which I accepted as we were in love. We were engaged. We got married because of love. I made the mistake before we got married.

And yes - he did know about my mistake before we got married.

If he knew he couldn't forgive your infidelity he should never have gone through with the marriage. The fact that he did go through with it, yet tells you that since then he no longer loves you, coupled with the fact that he doesn't understand why you find that knowledge hard to live with, makes me think he sounds like a sociopath.

What he's doing isn't ok and he had no right to trick you into marriage as a form of punishment.

You'd be better off out of this toxic situation so you can find someone who does really love you.

Yes, he married me. After we married he said he didn't love me.

Do you have DC? Have the two of you talked about separating? This does not sound healthy at all.

He sounds a bit nuts, to be honest. But there are some contradictions - for instance, he cannot forgive you for an infidelity before you were married. If, as he claims, he does not love you, then why does it matter whether you were unfaithful anyway? Or does it mean, as I suspect, that he sees this as evidence that you do not really love him, and has decided to spend his life beating you over the head with it?

It sounds as though he is treating the marriage rather like one of those arranged marriages where you hope that, in time, you might grow to like each other. Honestly - just as if you were living in a country where you had no choice but to have an arranged marriage.

Even where a marriage is not arranged, people generally enter into it with some sort of bargaining going on (eg: little thought bubbles about "well he is not the best looking but he will be a great family man or "her family are a bit weird but I like her more than anyone else" etc, etc.

This is fine, as long as the expectations are reasonable and you are both reasonably honest with each other (don't think people are ever necessarily 100% honest, even with themselves.)

However, it sounds as though he was completely dishonest with you in that he pretended that he loved you, when in fact he didn't. Or - he has decided that he wants to use that infidelity as an example of how you don't really love him.

God, he just sounds nuts to be honest. Unless you are willing to be in a marriage of convenience? Having said that, I do seem to meet an awful lot of married people who are quite horrible to each other, and I suspect they are only together because of inertia/children/shared finances/what the mother in law might think etc, etc.

Sorry, probably not helpful. However I suspect you are most definitely not alone in living in a relatively loveless marriage, not that that is much consolation. But why does your partner feel the need to throw this in your face - that is what bothers me. I would say that is verging on verbal abuse. For instance, you would not accept it from a friend.

If your partner is treating you worse than a friend - that is showing complete disrespect, then surely there is something deeply wrong. In fact, he is showing total disrespect for your feelings.

Counselling??

"Infidelity is a big deal to some people, yeah yeah, blah blah but however dementedly monogamist someone might be".

Do you trawl the threads looking for places to stick your anti-monogamy agenda SGB?
It's getting very tiresome.

Have you posted about this before iifsn? The story sounds familiar to me.

I do find it easy to take the blame for everything naturally. Maybe my story should serve as a warning to others that it is vital that you can talk to your partner when things go wrong between you - or that you have a relationship where you can communicate.

"theQ - do you think he had the right to withdraw love and affection and stay married? I have struggled with this."

Simple answer is 'No'. He had absolutely no right.

Besides, if he doesn't love you then I can't understand why he'd even want to stay married unless the reason is to continue to punish you. And if that IS the reason, then I would worry for his mental health because that is incredibly cruel and obssessive.

I was married briefly before DH. I realised very soon afterwards that I married out of duty, not love, and I was only 22 and very naive. I ended the marriage and left a little over a year after our wedding. It took me about three years to get over it. This was seven years ago. I cannot imagine being in a loveless marriage for any longer than that. I was more or less insomniac by the time I left. A loveless marriage is not a marriage. It's a miserable arrangement for all concerned.

tadpoles - yes. It feels like an arrangement but this was not the scenario of the wedding. There was love I thought. I would not have got married without believing there was love.

So when he told you that he didn't love you - what made you decide to stick around?

I was hard on myself because I did not approve of myself being unfaithful once while I was already engaged. I learnt from that mistake and got married because I loved my husband and there has never been any infidelity in this marriage.

Didn't take it on board properly. You hope it is maybe just a temporary blip. You don't want to give up easily. You keep trying. You have children......

iifsn...have you posted about this before?

OK - maybe not so 'temporary'!!!!!!!!