End of the road for me and DP - just how the hell do I tell him?

[GetOrfMoiiLand]

I had a quite long running thread in OTBT last year about me and DP - we never have sex - he is just not interested in it, and literally shudders if I made advances. So I stopped making advances towards him. We also can't talk about it as he gets completely clammed up, says he feels like less of a man. He was on citalopram for a while which would explain a lot, however he stopped those 6 months ago.

I thought we could work through it - we were getting on so well. I just thought I could go through a hiatus and get to the other side and all will be well. But these past few months have been grim. It has got to the point where we never touch, never hold hands, never kiss. We barely talk - we are just so full of resentment towards each other.

I don't want to split up - this is the last, last, last thing I ever wanted. But I am only 34. I haven't had sex in nearly a year, I haven't had a snog since then, i haven't had a cuddle. We are just frozen with each other.

But I am really scared. I don't want anyone else - in fact I hate the thought of meeting another man, I don't want to. I wanted to spend my life with DP but we make each other unhappy obviously. I am trying to throw myself into other things to make my mind off things - fitness training, baking cakes, running, swimming (I fucking hate swimming), doing another degree. But I am getting to the point whher I dread going home, and I dread DD going out, because I am left with him and the silences.

The reason I am writing this now instead of just plodding along is that for some strange reason I started thinking about it in a meeting at work, thinking about DP avidly watching some shite programme about string theory last night, and feeling that it really is the end of the road for us. I started bloody welling up in the meeting.

I never thought that we would ever split up. We have been together over 6 years and at one point we were each other's lives. There was so much love at the beginning, it has not turned to hate, but annoyance and indifference. It is bloody heartbreaking.

Oh I don't even know what I am trying to fucking say. I am very frightened or the future, dd is 16 and off soon, at the end of a relationsip, all my friends and a lot of my family who I am close to live bloody miles away (LA and New Zealand) and I am feeling that my life is at a standstill at 34. I am going to be a single woman with no friends and cats.

Oh god woe is me. It is just a rant of self pity isn't it?

Oh GetOrf :( Maybe some time apart would help to clarify things? It doesn't have to be the end if he'll meet you half way. But I think you do need to separate for a while, just so you can see more clearly. And as for telling him, say what you've said here x

of course it isn't :( i'm really sorry to hear this GetOrf. living without affection is a killer. it's no way for anyone in a partnership to live, regardless of age.

as for how you tell him - just tell him what you've said here? "we seem to be frozen, existing alongside each other rather than being together, and i am so sad about it. i don't think i can live like this anymore."

do you still want him, or has the resentment of the loneliness killed that off for you? (not a snide question, in case it sounds that way )

I think the resentment has stymied everything - we just seem so bitter towards each other.

Lots of small things which have made us react against each other. I think the main one is that he really wanted to move to rural France about 4 years ago (I didn't want to as I don't bloody well speak French for a start, how would I have worked over there, and also dd was 12 and it would have buggered her education). He thinks that has ruined his dreams. We have rowed so often and said we will split up so many times and every time we say we have had enough he says he will just go straight to France.

He won't go to counselling either.

I feel so bloody sad at the thouight that if we split up, in a couple of years time we won't mean anything to each other. I can't bear the thouight that he will be out there and I won't be in his life. But I think I am just reminiscing for what we used to have.

It's a mess. I don't think any of it is anyone's fault, just a massive fracture on both sides.

Thank you both so much for your kind words - I have got to do some bastarding work now despite wanting to sit in the loo and bloody cry Thank you .

i do think some time apart will help to clear both heads, tbh. give yourself a break and a chance to regain focus.

hugs to you. or, if you prefer, a manly punch on the arm and a glass of whiskey.

Oh no GetOrf. When I saw the thread title and your name, I was desperate for you not to be the OP.

I don't know what to say to you, I wish I could help. Hugs and wine, m'dear

How sad, I really feel for you. It is a heartbreaking situation. But - you don't want to be writing this post again in five or ten years, do you? It sounds like you've tried everything you can without success and there are no other options open to you.

(For what it's worth, I am single and 34 and have a lovely life - it's quite possible! You probably have more than half of your life ahead of you and it really isn't worth spending all that time being unhappy.)

Bless you op. no sex for a year is one thing, but to not even be cuddled must be just horrible You're young enough (and gorgeous enough I'm sure!) to meet someone lovely who can shower you in affection. You've probably got some 50years on you yet, don't spend them unhappy x

Oh dear OP. I'm another one saying tell him how you feel and say you need some time apart. You really do need to see the wood from the trees now don't you

Sorry to hear this Getorf. From previous threads, you do sound like you have tried and tried, but it sounds very one-sided.

Fwiw, I don't think you'll be a lonely or bored single woman, especially not at just 34. Once you get through all this and its horribleness, it could be more like a new life really beginning.

I'm sorry it's just such a sad process I know.

Thank you all, and bless you pol.

It's like I am in a fishtank, I just feel numb and can't think of a way out. I real cringe at the thought at packing my stuff, moving house, telling dd.

I know I am being really stupid fretting that my life is over and I am only 34 and think all the people who I knwo in their 50s who would clout me if they heard. But dd is going away soon - I have never lived on my own (I had her pretty young so my whole adult life has been as a mother). And the thought of unpicking all our lives together makes me feel sick.

Look, this knob is not prepared to make any effort to improve the relationship, because he's not bothered about how you feel.
You have given him plenty of chances. Let him fuck off to France, it will feel like a great weight has lifted from you. Because nothing is more draining than trying to make someone love you and treat you well when that person has no interest in doing so.

Can't you stay put in the house if he's likely to go off to France?

You are a hilariously funny obviously intelligent woman. Don't stay........there's life running through those veins that needs to be put to good use

And hormones

I think it's not so much how you tell him as how do you square it with yourself. I remember my own feelings in a similar situation and they could be summed up as 'well that was a bloody waste of time'. All that energy, love, hope, effort, patience etc. that you've poured into a partnership over the years. When you're getting nothing back and realise you've been flogging a dead horse it's a serious dent to your pride apart from anything else

I'd go for the 'ripping off the sticking plaster' approach. Have your exit strategy clear in your mind, bags packed and somewhere to go if necessary and then utter those immortal words.... 'we need to talk'.

First off, Getorf, I bloody love you and you are bloody brilliant so dont you dare think that you're not.
Secondly I am 2 years younger than you and planning to have another baby when I'm your age. It must be so hard imagining your life without him in it but arent you basically already living a life without him in it? Not even a cuddle and a grin? You dont need to fear being alone, lovey, you are alone.
But if you got past the initial horror and found yourself genuinely single, you know what else you mght find? The whole rest of your bloody life, that's what. More men. Another handful of DCs even, unless that thought fills you with shrieking horror.
My point is that you are young and life is short and precious.
You deserve to be happy. Wouldnt you.say the same to your dd?

I haven't seen the other threads, but I read the original post and just want to agree that maybe you guys should take a break. Life is way way too short to be unhappy and you might or might not meet someone else, you might or might not end up being a single cat woman, but I have no doubt what ever you end up doing you should be happy doing it.

I've been there, had to start again after a relationship breakdown and tbh four years later I look back and thank my stars that I was put in that position, even though it was horrible at the time.

Really sorry to hear this GetOrff, I remember one of your previous threads about him and it was all very close to home for me. I was in a relationship with absolutely no affection whatsoever for 2 years - we lived together for over a year and he would apologise if he accidentally brushed against me when we were passing in the corridor or if his knee touched mine when we were sitting on the sofa watching TV. It is soul destroying.

For a very long time I found it impossible to even contemplate ending it and living without him, and then one day something just clicked into place in my mind and the relationship was dead to me (actually the "something" was having a dream in which I was mucking about with a friend of mine over a piece of broccoli - I woke up and realised it was the first time I'd actually had fun with another person for a very long time) and that was it: we talked, he moved out. It was hard at first but it was also really liberating and I never looked back.

Don't even think about the point in the future where you might meet someone else, just don't even think about that for now. Just do what needs to be done now. Good luck. It won't be easy in the short run but in the long run it is absolutely 100% for the best.

I wondered one thing, which was about France...I mean at this juncture it might be a bit of a bloody huge risk to do it, but if he really wants to, and DD is old enough to be alright educationally, etc etc would it be just possible that you could give it a try?

It was just when you said you couldn't stand the idea of him being out there and you not being with him. Was there something else stopping you, because French is really bloody easy to learn you know, I'm just looking at it with another perspective iyswim. Hugs all the same xxx

GetOrf

At 34 your life is by no means over, far from it but this part of your life with this man is.

I presume as well he wants you to be the person to end this relationship as he could then say to others, "well getorf ended it". He's being very cowardly and selfish here.

What SGB said as well - he does not give a monkeys about you, let alone himself. You all going to rural France if you had decided would not have solved anything either or changed anything; he was just running away from his problems. Also your reasons for not wanting to go to France to live there remain sound ("incomers" or foreigners are not always readily accepted in such places).

You do not need him as a millstone around your neck because all he is doing now is dragging you down with him.

GetOrf I feel for you. I can offer no great advice because I am in the very same situation and posted a thread yesterday. you are right it is like being in a fishtank: I feel like I am walking with a fishtank on my head, a stone in my heart and an armour around me. It is def sould destroying. But cogito is soooo right in saying that "I think it's not so much how you tell him as how do you square it with yourself."
I am at breaking point too. and I am sorry. why does it have to get to this?

You are such a great source of sound advice, one of the posters I really like, I'm so sorry you find yourself in this situation.

I know the moment you mean, I had a similar moment of clarity in a work meeting. Must be because they are boring and your mind wanders. In our case, we have kept going, but it's different because the one thing we do have is physical affection, hugs etc. I cannot imagine living without that in the long-term.

Is he afraid of losing you? If he's so stuck on going to France, I'd let him go.

It also helped me to think, we'll do this for a bit and see how it goes. I am not one for big decisions, I just thought we'll separate for a bit and see how it goes. In fact, we never did separate, but the comfort of it not being 'for ever' helped me, it may not help someone else. What I meant to say is, if you take a break, he goes to France, you tell your daughter you are both living apart for a while, if you find you have made a terrible mistake (either of you), you can still correct it. I doubt that's likely, but the options are still there.

34 is incredibly young, I don't think you will regret taking a decision on this, having someone not even touch you (even a friend would give you a hug) for nigh on a year is just soul-destroying.

Betcha he won't go to France on his own. Betcha a million Monopoly pounds.

I was in a somewhat similar position to you (though lots of differences). I dreaded telling him, it was so hard. I practically gave myself a heart attack worrying. But I felt so relieved when I did it, and he knew that it was coming, like I would imagine your dp does.

Life is too short. Let him down gently, then take off all your clothes and run through your garden and shout 'I'm free!' Because you will be.

You are young, you are clearly fairly wonderful, you can have happiness and love ahead of you. Since I dumped my ex (who incidentally I adored inititally and who I wanted to spend my life with) everything is happier. Joy has been reintroduced into my life. It will be ok. Look ahead to 6 months time; do you want to be feeling then how you feel now? Or do you want to be feeling fabulous, meeting exciting, interesting men and living life? It is sad it's over but no one can take away the good things you experienced together. It's ok to move on. You don't have to marry/share a life with someone just because you love them.

Swigs brandy.