I really want to talk about my relationship without being told I'm a bitch

[KnockDiddyKnockKnock]

Am I a bitch for wanting to be happy? And if being happy means DS doesn't get to spend so much time with his dad because his dad has to move out, does that make me even more of a bitch?

I have been unhappy for a long time. In retrospect DP and I were never really suited, but I got pregnant so we stayed together. We've been together for 15 years now and although I love him as a person (he is an extremely nice man most of the time) I have no sexual feelings towards him. We still have sex and it's mutually enjoyable but I feel soiled afterwards. As if I've had sex with my brother or something .

I have a few friends and I have tried to confide in them about wanting to be single again. They look at me as if I've grown another head! In fairness to one of them, her husband is a prick who makes her the butt of his jokes and compares her to other women to make her feel inadequate. I understand why she thinks I'm insane to give up on a relationship where I am respected and treated kindly. My own mother thinks the sun shines out of DP's arse and won't have anything said against him. I'm not even allowed to complain about his snoring; I have to be reminded that I'm lucky to have him.

I have told DP how I feel but he says he still loves me. I don't know whether he does or not. I was his first girlfriend and I've always felt that he was insecure about meeting other women so settled for me. I think someone else could make him very happy but he is adamant that he wants to stay here. I have lost respect for him for not having enough pride to leave [bitch].

When I think about being single again I feel excited, but then really frightened. I'll be a single parent; I'll have to go back to work and DS will have to return to school (he is home-educated due to being bullied); I'll be skint; I'll have no support etc. I've tried to discuss a separation with DP and he insists that he will not move out unless forced, will not give me any money unless forced, and will insist on seeing DS every day. He thinks this is fair because it's me wanting to separate. It's not fair, is it? It just seems easier to continue and be miserable if that's the way it's going to be.

Another issue is that I want another baby but DP can't have any more children due to medication he is taking. I'm 35 so I don't have much time left [bitch].

Does anyone feel similarly? I'm not really looking for solutions; I know how to go about becoming single. I just want to mull things over without being told I'm a callous bitch.

Sorry - hit send too soon - wanted to add that I wish you every good luck and much strength in the next few months. They'll be times you will question your decision. They'll also be times you feel such relief. All of this is normal.

In a nutshell, balia, yes

MadeInChina, thanks. He was at the doctor's today and I suggested he mention that he's feeling low. He just walked grunted and walked away. I wish he would try them. I'm on SSRIs and I think they are fab.

FWIW, Knock, my sister separated from her husband this year from a very similar situation as the one you're talking about. friends and family were very surprised (but people on the outside always are!) What I've found interesting, and common to most of the couples I've seen go through this, is how invaluable individual counselling is to the process but also how resilient the mind is. We are hard wired, in most instances to design the course we've taken into 'the right one' in our heads and we tend to notice the positive over the negative and use it to strengthen our decision and our future. The most important thing is joint, committed parenting of the children.

My sister is now very solid and happy and talks about her marriage in a way that revels in its former bad points, which she's totally entitled and right to do. Once the decision is made and declared, everything else can be worked through, it eventually just becomes the business of living, however complex and scary. It is the decision and the announcement that is hard, and many people spend years or even decades in that state. Either option, committing completely back or leaving, is preferable to a lifetime spent in ambivalence.

Oh, sorry, balia, were you responding to my response to Fabby above?

If so, I don't think it's sensible for us all to lose our home. We have a secure tenancy here and we're not likely to get it again. Losing that tenancy would be a case of cutting off my nose to spite my face.

So your sister has made it work Vander? Was her DH agreeable to the split? Do you mind me asking?

Knock Now you are simply making things up about what I have said (and Fabby didn't suggest everyone should leave where did you get that?)

I am one of those who says separate, that you are not a bitch for wanting to be happy. I don't think what you are contemplating should be unsayable. A relationship can only work if both of the people involved are heading in the same direction. I think your mum and friends are wrong to tell you to see it all in relative terms, accept your lot, you've made your bed or whatever way they have put it to you. Nowhere have I said you don't deserve support because of lack of gratitude for advice. What I have said (and practically every second other poster here has said too) is look carefully before you leap and try to sort out relationship related misery from unhappiness that comes from elsewhere because that will remain with you.

Diary of Separation was excellent. It brings home the point that examining how you got yourself to that point is important when trying to set off in a new direction.

Agree with fab for once

I would say that it sounds like a discontent that's as common in people who stay in marriages as those who leave them. Neither one is better. I've seen my mother stay in a pretty unhappy marriage (not abusive, just mismatched) for forty years and I wish she hadn't for us. Equally I've seen my sister leave a marriage I thought was one of the better ones I knew and I don't judge her for that, I just admire her optimism!

Not ecstatic but content is pretty much the best we;re going to get in long term relationships, but that doesn't mean it's right for you to stay. Who's to say that the extended lives we all now lead thanks to modern technology and nutrition can be spent happily for most of us with one person anyway? (Different discussion for another time perhaps?!)

Here's what I think, take it or leave it.

Yes it will affect your lifestyle, your son and your whole parenting and residential situation and that's an awful, awful lot to take on. There probably will be times when you think 'what have I done this for?!' But equally there will be times in the next few years if you stay where you think the same.

If you feel relatively safe with your partner that's a good thing.
If you feel relatively emotionally intimate with your partner (not when it's bad, when things are good) that's a good thing.
If you feel there is a potential, down the line, that you could have fun together again that's a good thing.
If you feel even a little bit physically attracted to your partner, that's a good thing.
If you feel there's respect somewhere, still left, between you and your partner, that's a good thing.

If you can agree that, at its best, you have all of those things somewhere, however damaged they've become, you probably won't ever find a relationship that's somehow objectively 'better'. It will just come with different flaws. If one of more of those is totally absent, and unlikely to return, (not just low) then it will always haunt the relationship and living with that will make you bitter.

Knock -- your DP cannot just force you to remain in the relationship. It is fine to set your course and just go for it. I recommend getting a mediator involved because it keeps the process on the rails and it is less antagonistic than getting opposing solicitors.

I don't mind you asking at all, knock. No he definitely did not want the split and he spent a good long time trying to win her back. His great, abiding pain was losing them all as a family unit and he had to leave the family home through no choice of his own which was dreadfully hard for all concerned. She felt very guilty about that and the counselling was invaluable to her in that time. Never underestimate how much friends and family will impose their own models onto the advice they give, so an objective eye is key.

However, I think the defining quality is that they both from the very beginning, decided to put the kids first, and he is and always has been a very decent guy, so even if he was very upset or angry, it did not impact on the children any more than was inevitable and everyone is doing pretty well now, even though I am sure if he could wave a magic wand he would. Going to bed every night without kissing his kids goodnight tears at him and she struggled early on with missing them. But now all seems in pretty good order.

I would add that you should be prepared for him to hate you. That can sometimes come as a bit of a surprise to people who've known the love and support of a partner for years, that it can be turned off and the coldness that comes along with separation. If truly imagining him being with someone else and treating you as a colleague with whom he raises children devastates you, think hard about why that is.

"What you do is get another place to live and move to it on your own, tell him you are giving up the tenancy and he has to find somewhere else to live.

Simple really."

Yes, she really did say everyone should move out. Unless she meant DS should stay here alone. I am not making things up.

I know what's been said, really, I know I have not behaved myself too well on here, but I have taken the advice given, and I have thanked people for their input. Loads is spinning round my head, prompted from the advice on here. My back goes up easily but it is getting through.

It is very easy to blame DP for my own unhappiness, not just in the emotionally manipulative sense, but because his disability makes him more vulnerable (ugly, unsayable truth) and because a (perhaps, lesser man) would have said "fuck you, I'm off if you don't want me". It makes my misery a bit of a perversely comfortable convenience. It's a truth that hurts.

The tenancy agreement has been a bit of a red herring. I think some posters haven't grasped that a secure tenancy agreement is different to a mortgaged home or a private rented home, for our personal circumstances. DP would feel emasculated by me and DS leaving. There is nothing to be gained by him staying here without us. A secure tenancy isn't that important unless you have children living with you and he wouldn't want to take on shared care or sole residency. He's just traditional.

awomenscorned have you read the thread yet love?

Lots of cross-posts. It might take me a while to read, digest and respond so please don't think I'm ignoring.

Can't be arsed love.

I went on fluoextine an SSSI after my divorce for about 18 mths. During that time I seemed to be living in a bubble, not really thinking anything through properly and quite single track minded. Think my mom called it my 'don't give a shit phase'!. It gave me this amazing ability to block out anything that was inconvenient to think about too. It was pretty tough getting off them, which I did on my own as GP was useless about it but when i fully got it out of my system, I certainly had a lot of catching up to do. My life hadn't progressed at all during the time I was on them.

Alsteff, I had a similar experience on Prozac. There was nothing progressive about my time on them. Citalopram really work for me in contrast. DP only took Prozac for a few days (less than a week, def) which is why I'm not sure he's being entirely genuine about the side effects. What he described as a violent fantasy may have just been a sleepy, day-dream. I've had things like that when I've been really tired and depressed.

Vander, I take your point about contentedness. I would be content if I could 'connect' with DP in an honest, non-superficial way. We talk quite a lot, but about nothing. We used to have plans and dreams and they've been robbed from us because of his illness. We weren't working towards any goals, but it was nice to dream. I don't think we have that trust in each other anymore.

There are more ugly, unsayable things here. I resent DP for not taking his doctor's advice 20 years ago and taking medication that would have stopped the progression of his disease. I am bitter about it. And I feel guilty and responsible. If I'd have been more involved then I could have made him take it all seriously. And there's another example of this doctor/patient, mother/child relationship we have.

The 'if you feel' questions are a good exercise. Everything there is salvageable except the emotional intimacy and potential for fun. The fun may come back but it is down to DP. We've never really been the type of couple who have a good laugh together on our own, but we used to have good times out in a group and I liked being his partner in those scenarios. Days out and events are really difficult because of the adjustments needed to be made for his mobility problems and they provoke feelings of shame in him. I can't see it getting better without counselling and ADs.

He struggles with emotional intimacy, always has. He finds it hard to share things and keeps non-personal information hidden from me. It's a petty but frustrating issue. He will lie about being held up in traffic and then later on slip up that he spent a couple of hours looking at tools in B&Q . He won't tell me why he does this so I make guesses. Is he afraid I will want to come with him when he wants to be alone? Does he think I will tease him about his enthusiasm for power tools? Does he feel insecure in his masculinity and feels he shouldn't be going to such manly places? The more I probe the more he retreats. We end up arguing about this nonsense.

It's no better when dealing with intimate issues. He's always had issues with premature ejaculation but won't deal with it. His disability and meds have an effect on our sex life to some degree but he won't discuss that either. it's another aspect of our relationship that I anticipate will be falling to pieces soon.

The idea of DP hating me feels really horrible actually. Him being with another woman brings me a bit of comfort because it stops the guilty feelings, but hatred is another thing entirely. I wouldn't be jealous, I'm sure I'd be happy for him especially if it meant we could avoid the hatred.

I've loads of admiration and respect for your sister and BIL. I hope they continue to do well separately.

Math, thanks. Mediation appeals to me and it could be the catalyst to get DP to start some therapy or AD's. How do I access a service like that? I did look into Relate, but the fees were quite high (doable, if they are good though) and they didn't come very highly recommended.

Not passive aggressive awomenscorned, just reciprocating the tone of your posts to be polite.

I understand, Knock, and I sympathise. Sometimes a really good test is to provide onself with a 'bottom line'. I.e Setting up a timescale like a month where you say "I am going to make every effort I can to give to the relationship what I feel it lacks. I will give a tick, a cross or a dash in my diary every day for whether I would be content if I spent the rest of my life like this, whether I would be actively unhappy if every day was like this, or a dash if I feel just neutral.' If by the end of one month, the crosses outnumber everything else, give yourself permission to leave. Sometimes when a partner has a disability or mental health problems the guilt of leaving can be too much unless it's quantified properly and after that you have given yourself proper 'permission'. It sounds like communication is in such a poor state in your relationship (probably due to his illness) that recovery would be very very hard. The very questions you ask yourself here about his petty lying should be asked of him in a sensitive and unjudgemental way (as I'm sure you've tried). There is nothing more you can do. But this cycle of miscommunication seems to get worse and worse until both partners are too cool and resentful towards the other to make any open, trusting gestures.

If you really feel that both fun and intimacy are dead, I would say, hand on heart with no agenda at all, that you should accept that you should leave. Without it one or both of you will have an affair or just be miserable. Relationships do end. As for the hatred, it would pass probably, but you should be prepared for a spell of it, it is how most of us protect ourselves against rejection and missing the other person forever.

All the best.

Knock, the fact that you had counselling and it was not great doesn't mean it can't be useful on another try. It depends wildly on the counsellour and the chemistry between you (I've had counselling with a dozen people. Some were amazing, some were a waste of time).

Do you, by any chance, have problems with other people's boundaries? Do you accept how far you can go and how much you can interfere, and when it's time to just back off and leave others alone? Why would your DP lie to you about B&Q? If he tells you he wants to be alone, do you accept it? You sound a lot like my mum (even more in this last post). My mum have problems understanding where she ends and where other people start, if you see what I mean.

You didn't answer my questions about your DS. If you don't want to, it's fine.

Why did your DP refuse to take the medication 20 years ago? My dad is doing that today...

And well, answering your question, I think we always tend to repeat the patterns we've learnt at home. The way my parents raised me and the way they treated each other influenced the way I treat DH and how I raise DS, and it only became clear to me once DS was born.

My parents have a mother/child relationship, and that's all I've ever seen growing up, so I started to do the same with DH (but he doesn't accept that). Mum is always running around doing stuff and complains if my dad is just relaxing, doing nothing. Only now I'm starting to understand that relaxing is ok. I still have trouble accepting that DH is a different person from me, and that he likes things that I find stupid (like computer games), and he likes to do things in a different way, and that I have to respect that and, in a lot of cases, compromise. My parents don't do compromise: my mum decides how things should be done and my dad in some cases accepts it, in others just ignores, in a passive aggressive way. They don't negotiate.

I wish they could deal with their issues and find a way to be happier, together or apart. But the key here is "deal with the problems," not separating or staying together. That's the least of their problems.

Mediation is not a relationship service, it's a negotiation service for separating and divorcing couples. As with counselling, it provides a detached & informed third party to keep the conversation on track.

Your B&Q story reminds me of X2! I've subsequently understood that he was very emotionally/psychologically abusive, but that's not what I want to share about here. He abhors intimacy. His unannounced (and unexplained, except in the broadest terms) absences caused me, like you, to interrogate myself in excruciating detail and to fish around in edgy conversations for reasons why he needed to keep me out of ... a visit to a car parts dealer or the timber yard. He didn't mind talking but never about 'inner' topics. He'd occasionally unleash a flood of angst or anger about a friendship of his, or a relative's problems, but apart from that I may as well have been talking to the timber yard assistant. After a short while together, our conversation was limited to work and domestic practicalities. We didn't even like the same films.

It is part of my personal understanding to add these counter-intimacy traits to an overall picture of controlling mind-games. While I was with him I didn't perceive him as abusive but I did, ever so much, perceive a problem that I was endlessly trying to fix. Newly married, I was lonely with my husband. That's no way to live.

When we split he said "We're incompatible." It was true. If one of you wants to live in emotional detachment while the other prefers to feel bonded with their partner - that's a fundamental incompatibility.

Couple of points of information. Floexatine (sp?) is Prozac. It's also an SSRI. There are quite a few, sometimes it takes a while for you and the GP to light on the correct one, paroxatine (Serroxat) in my case. Or it may be SSRIs wouldn't be right for your h, and presumably he has drug interactions to factor in?

If you go for divorcing 'amicably' you can use the Resolution process - google for details, the site has lots of useful info even if you don't go down that route. Or you can work out your own settlement and get a solicitor to draw it up, and the court to stamp it. Or you can go down the court route for the settlement, which has advantages if one of you is dragging their feet. The aim is still to get you to settle out of court, however a timetable is set which means things can always move forward at each deadline. I have just started the legal route, had to pay money! sol says the courts will want us to see a mediator, am wondering whether to try and get out of this as I am claiming stbx has been abusive (not physically).

Not intended as a hijack, and IANA solicitor, but hope the above may be of some help.

Also, probably not an exhaustive list of the possible processes.

Julia, Garlic, Vandor and PinkPussycat, thank you. I keep writing replies that are way too long and waffly, so I'll get some sleep and post again tomorrow.

Julia, thank you for coming back. I do want to answer your questions about DS and I will in the morning. Again, I'm sorry that I didn't respond to you earlier. It wasn't that you hadn't made an impact.

Pink, highjack away. You're very welcome.

I'm sorry to everyone that I've behaved like a massive twat on here. I have been unforgivably rude and I am, genuinely, sorry.

I've been on MN for 8 years and have never had a post deleted before. I have been massively and disproportionately offended by small elements of posts and it has clouded my responses, even to those posters who I wasn't remotely pissed off with, awomenscorned for example.

I will post with more composure tomorrow.

I came in for a bit of ranting when I posted on a thorny relationship issue of my own. I was shocked at how much it upset me. I guess that, especially on this board, we post when we feel dreadfully raw, confused and are laying ourselves bare - I certainly hadn't talked to anyone in real life about my feelings on that matter. We hope to be treated reasonably and gently but, inevitably, there will be posters who assume the right to know what you 'should' feel or do - and don't mind telling you!

You've been far more equable than I was; I had to abandon my thread. I admire you - and wish you well, of course.

I hope you managed to get a good night's sleep, Knock. I've been thinking about you and this thread since reading yesterday. I'm glad that you seem to be absorbing the advice you've been given. One thing to think about is how much the fact all three of you are at home all day every day might be aggravating the situation. I took a career break for a year when DS was born. We were living in a country with very little maternity leave at the time. I'd saved hard to do this, then very last minute DH went on sabbatical for the same year. It very nearly ended our relationship. We are both prone to depression. He can be very passive aggressive and I can be very defensive. No outside life for either of us was hell.

Yous sound pretty selfish to me. What would make DS happy?