When / how did you know when your marriage or relationship was really over ?

[Fakeblondie]

After 20 years and 2 children I think its over . I'm so emotionally attached to my DH obviously after so long, but for many reasons I am thinking maybe we would be better happier parents separated.
I care deeply for him and don't want to hurt him .
he is keen to stay together even tho he is aware very much that I am not happy.
We are attending relate.

Its very scary . . How did you know ?

Well my lightbulb moment happened in the shower!! I just suddenly realised that if I didn't finish things I would end up like my Aunty age 60 odd and stuck in a unhappy marriage with no affection and an abusive husband, one of the biggest reasons for going was that I didn't want my dd to grow up believing that her parents marriage was the norm or that a woman should be treated how her father was treating me.
It was hard, very hard, there were many many ups and downs, but 9 years on and I have remarried and have a happy healthy marriage (and a couple more dc's too)! :)

When he spent all Mother's Day yelling at me, like he did on every other occasion. And our 5yo dd came in looking all worried and said, "Mummy, is there something nice you'd like for mother's day? Would you like to pop out with one of your friends?"

So wrong. 5yos do not need to be concerned with whether their mothers are being treated properly. It was time to split.

My realisation came when I had locked myself in the bathroom to have a good cry because I was so unhappy, looked in the mirror and saw my face crumple. That was when I knew I couldn't carry on in that relationship.

My DH has never abused me in any way but we have no intimacy anymore and like Catherine I really don't want the dc growing up thinking it's acceptable to be with someone who I don't even like being in the same room with more and more . It's a long story but I'm scared of being unable to cope because we have no family that helps now and he has always told me I wouldn't cope without him.
I'm beginning to realise that it may be him who wouldn't cope tho because his life is thro me. I make absolutely every decision about everything and not thro choice. he has never paid a bill or made an appointment or got the car serviced. he works long hours hands over his salary every month and goes to bed. End of. He goes nowhere except to food shop which he seems to like. he has no hobbies. he doesn't have a single friend. People stopped asking him out years ago after so many rejections. he just wants to work shop or sleep and occasionally eat out if I arrange it. We actually didn't go out as a couple for 15 years ! he let's me go out because my friends are important to me and my friends are his friends iykwim. hes never stopped me doing anything and hes a great dad.I feel like I'm just carrying him along and as many times as I've told him I'm not happy he just shrugs his shoulders ? he would never ever manage to move out and build his own life because it would involve .making decisions and organising ect , but would I be doing him a favour by sorting out this too ?

Fakeblondie, saying you will never manage on your own is abusive in itself, he is undermining your ability to manage on your own.

Why is there no longer any intimacy in your relationship?
It sounds like you would manage just fine, think about it really if you do everything now what difference will it make if he isn't there anymore.
Ultimately IMO you owe it to yourself and your dc's to be happy.
He shrugs his shoulders when you tell him you are unhappy....how is he a good dad then, a good dad would want to ensure that his dc's mum was happy!
He is NOT your responsibility, you and your children are, he is an adult and will have to learn to manage alone if you leave. It is hard, I know but if you look closely at your whole relationship I bet he's not as great as you think.

I knew one beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon when all I could hear was Sky Sports on the TV and he was slumped in front of it.

I sat on the bed and just cried tears of complete and utter despair that erupted so suddenly it took me by surprise. I had no idea that I was that unhappy until that moment. We split soon after.

Now on beautiful sunny Sundays I am with my other half doing something wonderful or fun together.

He tells you you could never cope without him.
He "lets" you go out with friends.
He has successfully isolated you from a thriving social life.
He shrugs his shoulders at your statements of unhappiness.
He gives you no affection and you have no sex life.

...and you don't think he's abusive in any way?

no when you word it like that it does sound a bit abusive but honestly he's not abusive really. He just wants whatever is easiet for him and I suppose that makes him selfish but if I say jump he says how high ? He'll do anything not to have to actually acknowledge that we need to part to be better parents . he's never actually done anything for himself and I feel like he isn't having any sort of life of his own but living entirely through mine. if I say please please can you do this he does it for me and many women prob think I'm so so lucky to have that. it's like running a business together tho with me in charge and I absolutely hate it . After 20 plus years it will never change. it's like we manage to run a full house really well together but have no fun together .W e just bicker . if anything needs sorting I do it . he is amazing at helping domestically . he makes the sandwiches for the children most evenings and puts on the washing. While he is doing this I am sorting out major things like house ,maintenance, bills and anything else. I feel like we just live together like house mates would. I've told him a million times I wish he would leave me to do the domestic stuff more and sort out the other things but that's just means he does nothing and I do everything . He has isolated himself from everyone and goes nowhere with no friends. he really is a lovely person but no one asks him out anymore because he just won't make the effort. I offered to support him in any hobbies he wants to take up but he just likes radios which involves sitting in the shed on his own listening to them ! It would have been so nice if one day he said we were going out with HIS friends or he was going to do X ! I feel like he is just living my life because if we go out it's with my friends and I always organise it. if we do anything whatsoever it's my idea, I sort it and yes he always comes along, but I'd be gob smacked of ever he actually said no he wasn't com ing shopping he was off do something else ! I'm spoilt by him in many ways because he just does whatever I ask, but believe me it's like having another child . he has never ever made me feel safe or loved or like I can share any worries because an worries I have to sort.
His parents had a similar relationship and when I first met them they must have been not much older than us now. They had separate bedrooms and just acted like companions. I remember thinking omg how sad . That is now us . Not separate bedrooms but we would if we had a spare room. His idea of intimacy is watching a film in bed together. I told him Id rather have sex that blew my mind away and he agreed and said ok hon ! it's just not happening is it ? I really worry about our dc going on to their own relationships and thinking this is normal ? if we split he will be heartbroken because he adores the children and really can't see the problem . He thinks I should stop moaning and shut up for the dc sake and that above all we should stay together . he can't see where I'm coming from at all ? Should I be grateful for wha I have carry on. I am just so thinking the children would be better off in the LONG term if I were happier and we would be better parents apart ?

I knew when I found myself sawing at my arms with a kitchen knife. Literally came to consciousness and knew. Saw that years and years of not facing up to my misery and depression had culminated in eating addiction and self harm. Like I was using my body to send myself messages, does that make sense? Because I wasn't listening to myself at all. I'd soldiered on and soldiered on until it nearly destroyed me. The self harming started after he started bullying me for sex. He went on and on and ON. It was merciless. He told me I had no right to say no to him.

When I pushed DS in a pram across a drizzly park to feed the ducks, on my own. DH was on the sofa watching the Grand Prix nursing a massive hangover. It was about to get dark, and the street lamp suddenly came on and the drizzle lit up like a halo around it. It was like an actual light bulb moment! I realised that the reason I was out in the drizzle was because I just didn't want to be in the house with him, doing nothing, as usual. I wanted a DH who was into Family Life and would be out feeding the ducks with me.

(I've got one like that now though! )

Bigumus

You sort of echoed my story. He would be slumped on the sofa watching sport and if we went on holiday he would be slumped on the beach.

how did you all make the split?did you just say im leaving/youre leaving?
how do you bring something like that up?

sorry crashing youre thread up!

I had moved into my own flat 6 months previously but we had agreed to try and work things out as prior to me moving out of our marital home we had been apart for about a year IYSWIM. We had finally decided that he could move into my flat and had decided on a moving in date. However, as the date loomed I started to get more and more anxious and felt that it was wrong. I finally realised that I couldn't go through with it whilst I was sat on my sofa, it was like a lightbulb moment.

I had previously looked on those websites where you can file for divorce online and chickened out but that instant I went to the website and made my 1st payment. He called me about an hour later to discuss the moving in arrangements. I said "Change of plan. We're getting a divorce".

That was Good Friday 2008.

Not such a Good Friday for him.

A FANTASTIC one for me

Mine was an obvious one; after a bereavement I just thought 'Do I want to die after a life spent like this?'.

When the landlord knocked on the door and said that he was selling the place and did we want to buy it from him. Sat on the stairs in tears realizing that I didn't want to invest in a future together.

how did you tell him?

me, I just remember getting teary one night soon after with him watching tele and just told him I wanted to split up. he was gutted, we were both gutted, but it was such a "civilised" splitting up. he helped me move out, he even went to supermarket and bought me my first shop for new home.

When I couldn't remember the last time I had smiled or laughed with him. Sounds dramatic, but its true, I was with some friends who were telling a story from a holiday and they told it together, both laughing and remembering little details, making each other howl with laughter, I looked at them in wonder!
OP my ex sounds a lot like yours, nice, good with the kids, but thats it. He hasn't paid a bill, -grown up at all-, organised anything etc either, he is learning now!
Like Fiona we had a civilised break up, we both agreed it wasn't working, it was very sad and there were lots of tears, but 10 months on, I am properly happy, friends with him and his new girlfriend and am hoping for a better relationship for myself. I did let our relationship drag on too long, as a non- desicion (sp) maker he just buried his head, I tried and tried to make things OK but they just weren't, we hadn't slept together for...months, maybe years I think. I can't remember the last time! I got to the stage of resenting him being in the house and everything he said irritated me.
You just have to take a deep breath and do it. It sounds to me, having been in your situation, that you think its the best thing but need reassurance. You will be fine, clearly you are a coper! At least he has a job, my ex didn't even have that sorted!!
Its hard to do but you and your kids deserve to be happy, my dd(5) played up so badly when we were disagreeing and we thought we were keeping our arguements from her. Its not a healthy way to grow up with parents who clearly don't love one another. Lots of luck with sorting your head out

cheesesarnie A couple of weeks after the duck-feeding lightbulb moment, I just said one evening that we needed to talk. I said during that talk that if things weren't better in the way he approached "family life" by April (it was November) then I would be looking to split. The way I see it, he had his chance and yet he didn't change anything. Eventually I said that was it and he didn't even protest, just agreed and then moved back to London.

He is a great dad now (now that he only has DS1 every other weekend), never lets me down re DS1, pays maintenece, takes him on hols etc, but I ABSOLUTELY KNOW it was the right thing to do as ExH is still in a band, still touring, been single since our split (7 years ago), loves his London bachelor life and would have still been a crap family man. We also have a great relationship and DS1 loves him hugely.

Its interesting to note that I didn't leave it till I absolutely hated ExH before leaving him. I left him when I actually still loved him. I chose to leave as i knew inside that it would never get better and DS1 was only 2 so would be relatively unscathed by the experience. I could have waited till there was absolutely no relationship left with him and DS was 8 or something and there would have been hatred and bitterness all round. I am SURE this is why ExH and I are still good friends. (I still have a massive fondness for him, not love, but a fondness. Just knew he wasn't the right man for me, for the rest of my life). I then met (new)DH who is everything I had ever imagined a family man to be. A proper family man, loving, kind etc and I have no regrets about splitting with Exh. And I'm sure he would say the same.

When I found a gift which was clearly not for me - a significant gift - I steeled myself for the body blow and realised I didn't feel anything.

bigusbumus i just cant imagine starting 'that' conversation.

When I had a nervous breakdown. I was in pieces for about a year and then slowly started to come back up. The very worst of it was the first five months or so. He was being such a twunt, infidelity, verbal and emotional abuse, financial abuse on a scale you couldn't imagine. Even though all this was going on I was too scared to make him leave as I didn't feel capable of caring for my dc because of the breakdown. I remember thinking if I can just get through this, just make it through then I will throw him out the moment I start to feel better. In the end he refused to go, attacked me and I had him removed by the police.

Up until a couple of months ago I would not have been able to type those details because I had flashbacks to the breakdown whenever I thought about it.

One day I will namechange and type what happened during the 10 years I was with him and probably be called a troll ! That's how far fetched it will sound.

Akaemmafrost

You must do that, just not in AIBU
Glad all you ladies got out! It's such a mix, abuse, neglect, amicable splits... Yet everyone has 'that moment'

My ex drove me to the coast after I had tried to tell him how unhappy I was. He said if I just stayed with him he would propose on holiday... And I just thought 'oh fuck no, no no no'

I told him right then that I wouldn't want him to as long as he was taking steroids and lying about it (I had actually seen him do it and all the signs were there, people had told me) and his neck went read and he started screaming in my face that He wasn't on steroids and I would know if he was because he would have no control and be screaming at me all te time.

I was ... Thanks for the confirmation then.

I managed to end it the week later at my mums house because I was scared and he was manipulative

cheesesarnie, I didn't have to make an opportunity - we were having a row about something and he said, "If you feel like that you shoud leave - go on!" And I said, "I am leaving you. I don't love you any more". He didn't really mean it and wasn't expecting it. He went to pieces more or less. Half the time he was raging at me - what a bad mother I was and how I drove him to drink - and half the time he was trying to talk me round. I left in mid November and he had someone else lined up by Christmas!