Do you stay in a dull marriage for good reasons?

[branflakesareboring]

People seem to think that getting out of a dull marriage is important and that people must find their happiness at all costs. Does this always need to be the way though?

I stay for security and companionship. We have virtually no sex and I don't have that much respect for him. We just go from day to day doing what we have to to get by. Neither of us is bothered about high romance or intrigue. We have two children who are happy and settled.

I could not be bothered to find someone else now. I am in my early 40s and heading for middle age seeing the bills are paid and we have enough to eat is okay for me. I'm neither happy nor unhappy.

Is the endless search for romance and happiness worth it? Do the dcs mind being dragged from new romance to new romance or is it just old fashioned to 'stay for the sake of the kids'?

Is anybody else in this situation and how do you cope? I'm beginning to think that I must be in a tiny minority the way things are these days.

Bran do you mind telling us how old the children are?

You sound awfully depressed, Bran.

"Facing" being alone can be damn good sometimes!

OP you do sound a bit dramatic if you don't mind me saying so.

Your H no more has you over a barrel than any other person who is living with their partner.

If you decided that the 'third child' in your house simply had to go (or you & DCs left) then you'd be in exactly the same position of 100s of other women who leave every day.

You might be worse off financially but you'd get a contribution from your X (hopefully).

And what kids ever do want their parents to split up for heaven sake?

But they are children and sometimes adults have to take the responsibility of making decisions that will benefit everyone in the family in the longer-term.

The DCs would of course be upset but they most certainly WILL know you are miserable. If you are happy then they will be too. Often children imagine they won't see the NRP when parents split but that doesn't have to be what happens.

TBH OP I think you sound really depressed and life is too short to accept that as a permanent state.

Staying in an unsatisfactory marriage for good reasons is one thing.

Staying in an unsatisfactory marriage for good reasons, and not trying to improve it, is another thing.

Bran, what makes me saddest about your posts is not the fact that you are staying with your H. It is the fact that you seem to have given up trying to work on improving your situation (ie by getting your DH to pull his weight). I can completely see why - if your H throws tantrums it is very hard and easier just to do it yourself. But he shouldn't get away with that.

I suppose what I'm saying is - your choices aren't "stay or leave". They are "stay, leave, or keep trying to get through to your H until he finally makes more of an effort". Easier said than done I know.

Surely you can't think that you can't manage without someone to do the garden and fix computers?

Of course, keeping a stable home for the DC is something different altogether and important, how old are they?

Did he give up work a long time ago? Does he own outright/have small mortgages on the places he rents out? Just asking in case you are risking a situation where interest rates go up and he is not in so much profit and you end up supporting him financially as well as being the housekeeper.

Is there nothing you can do to make things a bit less dull? Staying together does have benefits - There is a lot of evidence that kids do far better in stable 2 parent families, (so long as they are not totally at each others throats), so that is one good reason to stay together even if things are dull. Also living on your own with DC is no picnic judging by the experience of lots of divorced women I know.

Hello Branflakesareboring,

Both my BF and his exW are now in loving relationships. My BF thought that he will be with his wife till the end, but it was not meant to be and when we met he said he didn't feel like that in years. Hi ex also found a new relationship and is very happy and is getting married in 2.5 months.

So it is up to you - you can either stay in a sexless marriage OR you can stand up on your feet, meet new friends (inevetable you will as you may get lonely and therefore you will be more open to getting out of the house) and maybe you will meet someone special. Both my BF and his exW are 45 years old, so food for thought.

Good luck!
ALCS

This is one of the saddest threads I've read on Mumsnet for a while.

You get one precious life - and you can't just give up on it in order to be a good parent - because that will not, and has never been a way, to make children happy and secure.

Branflakes - you say you can't face the thought of leaving because you dont believe there is any better option - it sounds as though the pain you have been through in life, for many reasons, has left you unable to believe that you could actually have happiness.

Your marriage does not sound dull it sounds unhappy - your partner is actively making you feel worse about life - have you considered that without him around a weight might actually be lifted from your shoulders? Your children are learning, subconsciously, how to have relationships by watching you - and I can't believe that a marriage where he doesn't help or support you - and where you can't talk to him openly - are teaching them to have good relationships.

Most of the people who come onto Mumsnet to talk about problematic relationships are living out patterns they learnt as children - would you want the life you have now for your children, or do you hope for something more? They need to see you choose life - to choose happiness as a possibility.

Isn't it better to set off down the path to try and find a better life, than to stay in this situation - where you are numb? People here who say that 90 per cent of long marriages are mundane - I simply don't agree. Relationships are part of life, so if you have an interesting life that makes you happy, your relationship will reflect that. if you find your life mundane (rather than calm or temporarily uneventful) - doesn't it means you believe in your heart there is something more?

Even after 30/40 years, you can still begin new projects/ dreams/ work/ learning/ meeting new friends - how long your relationship has lasted has no bearing on that. And that in itself will revitalise your relationship.

I agree with the posters who said, you should be looking forward to the years ahead, to the plans you have together. Essentially - your partner should make you feel better about life, not worse, at the very least.

The BACP website will have a counsellor near you - I really think you would benefit from talking to someone about why you are afraid of being on your own rather than with someone you dont respect or love. You dont need to meet someone else - not at first anyway - sorting our your own life will be the first challenge - make a plan for the next 12 months - places to see , friends to make, some gentle ambitions to achieve... - you are YOUNG woman! get a grip and do not give up on life .....there is so much possibility ahead of you.

If not for you (at first) then start by thinking of being a role model for your children - they need to see you seize your own happiness so that they can learn to do it too.

Jasper thanks

However, I agree with your 2nd post.

Bran in your initial post you describe to me, a marriage that is normal for lots of people. Mundane, comfy but not full of romance.

Howver, your other posts seem to show you feel more strongly than that.

the fact that your DH does not go out of the house to work seems to be an issue for you. presumably as a landlord he has paperwork to do, and organising running repairs on the properties?

Presumably too, his income is relevant- or could you both live on just your money?

The question is- if you were to leave him what would the benefits be?

Would you feel a weight was lifted off your shoulders? would this be the start of trying to meet another man? What exactly do you want?
I am confused. Your first post says everything that you don't want- but it doesn't say what you do want instead.

You seem to be asking if what you have is normal for everyone. well yes, it is for some people- but they aren't posting on MN asking for help.

so what is it that you want?

and BTW you are young- you have another 40+ years left.

Branflake,

You may well live for another 40 odd years yet, is this really how you want to spend the rest of your days?.

What happens when its just you two and the children have left home?.

If your H has not made any real effort to date re your marriage then anything you try and do to change his inbuilt behaviours will be doomed to failure. He has previously shown you no will on his part to change. You've both opted out of this marriage in different ways.

You can only help yourself here; I think it is very telling actually that you have had a lot of things go wrong in your life (again I am very sorry to read that) and now your marriage has become a continuum of that. You are stuck in that mindset.

I hope that you do go and speak to a counsellor; as Waterrat states BACP will have a counsellor near you.

Interesting thread. This is what happened to my parents. They didn't bicker, they didn't openly show affection, they just got on with life, looking after me and my brother and were just mum and dad to us. We didn't see a daily life of 'very-much-still-in-love' type parents because you only have your own ones; we had nothing to compare them to. We thought all parents were like this (i.e. mainly plodding along). As kids you are so self-involved, it's rare that you sit down and think "is mum happy? Is dad fulfilled?" or not at least until you are a bit older and in your later teens. If they're not arguing, you just get on with things and are content, as a child.

In reality, my parents were not very happy, especially my dad. He almost left when my brother was 7 and I was 5. But he stayed for us. Worked on the marriage - it got a bit better, but they were always mainly friends rather than very in love (I learnt this a lot later when I was at University - my brother and I never knew about any of this at the time). My brother and I had an idyllic childhood - travelling the world as expats, going to international schools, visiting lots of different countries and experiencing things which a lot of children never get to. We were very lucky. If my parents had split up, I know it would have been very different. My brother and I would have stayed with mum in the UK whilst dad continued to travel the world; we'd have been fine, I'm sure, but having our parents together in a stable relationship (although not a romantic filled one) and us being able to travel and live with them both, made it a fantastic childhood. My brother, who is a bit more emotional than I am, would have not done very well I fear with a mainly absent father.

So I think in my situation, the parents staying together was definitely in our best interests. And what about them? Well they split up when I was in my second year of university and my mum has mainly lived a bit of a reclusive life in deepest darkest Norfolk and is still very bitter (she has always maintained she didn't want him to go and it was all his doing, the end of the marriage). She is ok, but this is not the twilight years she imagined. My dad on the other hand, is like an episode of Jerry Springer. He remarried an American, emigrated and took on a younger step daughter and step son. The son has been in and out of jail for domestic abuse and now lives in his dead father's trailer. The daughter is a complete waste of space who uses my dad for child care for her 1 year old daughter, and is now divorced from the (complete dickhead of a man) father and refuses to get a job so just sponges off my dad and my step mother. My dad argues so much with his wife about these kids, and other parts of their relationship, that he has turned to drugs and can be found in strip joints 3 nights a week. Now THAT is a marriage that he should get out of but he can't, because he says he genuinely loves her and can't give up on a second marriage. But he seems desperately unhappy to me...

Would he have been better off staying with my mum in a stable but not particularly loved up marriage? Looking at the status quo, I would say yes.

So that's going against the grain of the current thread, I know, but it's my experience.

|Bran he's sounding worse and worse. If he is a landlord with enough properties in rental for him not to need to work, he must be pretty well off, yet he won't let you know how much he has and is insisting on bills being split 50-50? And he tantrums when he doesn';t get his own way? This is not just a dull marriag,e it is beginning to sound like an abusive one.

Boobz, nothing in your story seems to me to be an argument for staying in an unhappy relationship. Your mother may be unhappy now - but it's her life, she is choosing her path - perhaps she is someone who chose to put up with unhappiness a long time ago and is stuck in that pattern. I can imagine branflakes being in the same position if she doesn't get out of this situation now. If she had put her happiness first a long time ago - she might not be unhappy now.

And your father - well, who is to say he made the wrong decision? Perhaps he has gone off and is having the adventures that are important to him - however ridiculous they look.

and that's a good example of why its a bad idea to stick it out unhappily - because one day your partner might up and leave, given that you have both accepted there is nothing there - and then, you have 'stuck it out' for nothing. - better to accept it isn't right when you still have some youth on your side...and then you dont end up bitter when you are old that you sacrificed everything and got nothing back..

There is a deep undercurrent in your answer - and in the OP - and in several of the replies here - that 'better the devil you know' -

well I just think that is a poor way to spend the only life you will ever have. Choose your own company and believe that living with integrity and enjoying life in the way you believe is what matters. Better to travel hopefully than to arrive as the saying goes....

I just can't believe there is an argument for staying with someone you dont respect or love - I think that if you try to put up with it because you can't get the energy within you to change - then one day it will come crashing down around you. Because it isn't sustainable to live that way for 40 years, with it eating you up - and always wondering what else there could be...