Considering leaving before I die of boredom

[IllegitimateGruffaloChild]

This is ridiculous. It's like a midlife crisis. We have 2 preschool children. Dh is a great father. He is a good man, done nothing wrong (except have a bit of a porn habit). Sex life is non-existant. I'm so fucking bored though. We rub along but I don't think we really enjoy each others' company.

I ask him to do stuff but it often doesn't get done. I have no life/hobbies (but a good job). I have loads of good friends but babysitting is tricky so I don't spend time with DH or many other people socailly.

I'm going to put the kids to bed.

Will be back in a bit.

TIA

You say he liked me, but thats a bit pleasing others. You liked him?

i think very few people would get married if everyone avoided the myriad versions of 'not right' reasons for coupling.

it wouldn't be enough for me hence i've never married but given the amount of societal pressure on people to get married, settle down, only have children in a secure, stable relationship etc it's hardly surprising that many do get married for less than perfect reasons. especially women who want to have children and are told the only 'right' way to do that is to get married to a nice, safe man.

it's the right and not right kind of judging that contributes to poor marriages being made and being endured and at the extreme end it contributes to people staying in abusive and miserable relationships.

she did like him weevil - she has said that previously.

the thing is what we like at a point in time is often guided by subconscious agendas. so if we've had an experience of (or witnessed our parents for instance having that experience) of love and passion being dangerous and leading to hurt and pain then that can create a subconscious belief that love is dangerous and it's better to not love someone and just pick someone safe who we are sure won't hurt us. poor example but ykwim.

more pertinently for women in our contemporary culture there is the reality of getting to your late 20', early 30's and really wanting to have children whether consciously acknowledged or not and that driving your attraction/feelings towards men. at which point safe, stable, reliable will appear very attractive because you're looking for someone to have children with whether you consciously acknowledge that or not and what at another time could have appeared boring, 2dimensional, not very bright will be transformed into attractiveness. it might be a better world for relationships and children if people looked for a co-parent at that stage rather than a life partner so the whole thing could be more honest and truly stable because it wouldn't rely on having to keep generating feelings of love and attachment for someone who really you were only attracted to as a potential parent.

i've certainly had relationships where at the time i thought that i really loved the person but in retrospect it was an issue in me that was driving it rather than anything in them.

difference being sometimes these relationships end up in marriage and babies before you wake up.

we're all human and muddling along. we get to know ourselves more and more as we get older imo yet we make decisions like who to marry relatively young. i reckon it's probably societal pressure to stay married that is the main cause of infidelity and shitty endings to relationships because people don't feel they can just admit they've made a mistake and are not happy and don't want to be together anymore so it drags on until it all turns to shit to force an ending.

sorry for long waffle on your thread OP

I'm sorry if I offended anyone. I do realise that my 'not right' comment was judgy.
I'm just someone who thinks that to marry someone and have children with them requires a bit more than what you described you had with your DH. But that's just me.

Dude it is not that hard to get a babysitter if you have a 'good job' i.e. one that pays money. Google for babysitting agencies in your area, look on Gumtree, phone childminders and ask if they do weekend/evening sitting. Then get yourself a life and have some time with your partner. You're going to be just as bored if you leave and still have no hobbies or adult time.

OK - I've been thinking about this all day. I did get that heart-flip sensation when I first met him. I remember it well. That lustful feeling isn't sustainable though. It changes to a deeper loving. SwallowedAFly - I was nodding along to your post. Thank-you for taking the time to write. What I wanted when I was 18 was different to 28 and now different again as I'm approaching 38.

I have got childcare this weekend. I have said to DH I want to talk properly.

I have ordered 2 books off Amazon - one of them upthread.

In the meantime he has cleaned the entire house whilst I've been at work, and has moved our wedding photo right into the centre of the sideboard. He's clearly been doing some thinking too!

i'm glad you'll get some time together to talk. nice that he's made an effort at least. i hope he makes sure that time is guarded for the two of you this weekend and doesn't let it get taken away.

That all sounds positive. I'm splitting with my dh - who I married for similar reasons to yours - good reasons - he's a good man and a great father. And who I definitely felt 'in love with'.

I can see now how things were on an inexorable slide with us for a long time. But I think looking back if we'd realised what was happening we might have been able to arrest the rot. But by the time we realised what was going on it was too late. It was a long way back down the road. Like you I changed a lot - married at 28, now I'm 41. The old 'growing apart' cliche.

I've accepted what is happening, and it's my decision, but breaking up a family is heartbreaking even when it's 'what you want'. I hope you manage to sort things out, you sound very sad. If you can, it's better than getting to where I am. Good luck with it. x

He just called me to 'check-in & chat' - that's what we do. Not 'check-up' but just catch up on the days events.

I am thinking of all the ways he's good. From little to big.

We've agreed on what we'll spend the time doing at the weekend. Even he said 'ah - it'll be like old times'.

Still confused.com here!

SaF I've been really interested in your posts and IGC I'm so pleased you're taking some time to talk properly.

It's fascinating isn't it that in such a short period of time, generationally, what we feel able to do as women and as couples has changed so dramatically. This choice means we're negotiating totally new terrain as a generation. My parents had to marry before they even could live together and since both of them lived with their parents that meant marrying young in order to get started in life economically and sexually! They also never felt prepared to split up or had any model for that, economically or psychologically. Unhappily married for the last 30 years (but apparently reasonably happily married before that) they have watched their children split and remarry with baffled incredulity, all the while sniping at each other and crying and fighting.

Seeing all these threads crop up on Relationships with such repeated, depressing patterns of affairs and discovery and separation and regret, one wonders what on earth we're doing as a species, hobbling around, bouncing off each other, making promises and breaking them again.

Should we be entitled to have different partners for different stages of life? Does everyone really mean their marriage vows when they say them? In which case are we lying at the time or are we just insane to imagine we know how to keep that promise?

Ideally both partners accept that there are going to be tough times and broadly hope they can change and grow together over time, rather than resent one another. Ideally one should be able to rediscover the original feeling and fall in love over and over. But how many couples are capable of that alongside working full time and raising children? How many of us are good at all of those things, and even more unlikely, good at them TOGETHER. What if you are very different from decade to decade? And what if after a certain amount of time an even slightly weak relationship always flounders?

Strangely it's this worry about the fragility of relationships that makes me aim for monogamy. It's hard work anyway, maybe better to work hard with the rightest person than keep facing it over and over!

Thanks both - it is really helpful to have this kind of discussion.

I think we haven't actually exhausted all avenues yet.

I think - in no particular order, we need to address the following:

1. I need more of a life. I need time away from everyone to do something for me.
2. We need time as a family
3. His working hours need to change (even if it means changing his job)
4. I need to accept that I do have ridiculous standards that are hard to live by
5. I need to accept that I am coming off ADs and I am pretty emotionally labile.
6. I need to put more into it.
7. He needs to lay off the porn (I think items 6&7 are linked)
8. He needs to appreciate me and my job.
9. He needs to listen; saying he has a crap memory is just lazy.

I'll probably think of more...

Vander - Great post.

I look at the relationship topic and think 'wow' there are so many ways for us to be unhappy.

Then I think - but we do have the tools to change things (by 'we' I mean 21st century women)

That's a really good list, IGC. It's really impressive to me that you're so prepared to suggest things for yourself too. I think being more independent almost always helps sexuality and attraction in a relationship. It forces both partners to see each other anew, as long as it's done with a sense of safety, not challenge to the relationship.

Even if once a week you make a plan for a dinner or day that's proper shared time, an art exhibition, a meal, a film, you'll be in a much better position to properly judge the relationship.

And yes, give it a few weeks for your mind to sort out the ADs. And ask for his HELP when you want it emotionally or practically. Men love to feel useful and important, rather than nagged or tutted at, don't they. And the most important thing I learned to make me easier to live with is to raise things WHEN THEY HAPPEN. Not to let them build up and fester so I resent.

If you're prepared to put in effort and so is he I see no reason why you can't reconvene, on this thread even, in a month or two and know with much greater clarity what the truth is. Good luck!

One good thing is that DH will agree to almost anything I suggest.

An idea I'm thinking about (from weevil?) is getting a babysitter on one of the 2 nights we have together and going out for a drink/walk.

If we don't go out maybe we should cook something decent/takeaway with the TV/laptops off.

sounds like you're thinking really clearly and being very self aware gruffalo.

interesting points about the myriad ways of being unhappy nowadays whereas before you were just stuck with the one version

i don't know. singleness for me at this point. and when you are single for quite a while, and at this stage of life - raising a young child, mid thirties etc it gets harder to imagine making a relationship work because the 'need' has gone which drives the standards up even higher itms. i can do, have done, it all myself. i think it's often need that drives and keeps people together - not only that of course but it plays it's part in making you try and not giving up maybe.

anyway.

I want to know that we're together as:

1. we're better that way
2. our love for each other outweighs our need for each other
3. The DCs are part of a happy unit

I don't want to think I could be better off alone. I want to know that we're in it for the right reasons.

I know I could do this alone. I pretty much do anyway.

I think it was you SAF who said it was quite liberating. I can really imagine how that feels.

I was liberated when my XH left. I was really glad he went and was very happy to be left alone. I've done amazing stuff in the last 10 yrs, but I'm about to sell my business, get married and move 100 miles.

All for the sake of making a life together with someone. With all the compromises and the giving and taking. Doing it all on your own does have a selfish aspect and i think its more fulfilling to do things for someone else and have them do things for you.

I just want to reiterate that doing it all on your own is tough.

This came up quite a bit up thread but I strongly feel that just because someone is a good man (debatable with a porn habit) and a good father that he is automatically a good husband?.

I woulld rather teach my children what a good partner looks like rather than a good father living with them. A good father will be a good father even if he lives somewhere else.

It's truly cruel, IMO, to pretend to your children that your marriage is healthy and happy when it isn't and just teaches them to put up with unhappiness.

good luck Op. I don't have any answers but I hope you find what you're looking for.

Thanks. I know what you mean about good husband/father. One mans rubbish is another mans gold. It's pretty subjective.

My children are happy. I know they're not being subjected to any messages about sticking with an unhappy marriage. There's no violence/arguments, abuse etc. yes I'm bored but the dc arent picking up on that. Yet.

I think it's truely cruel to split up a family (which will distress the children, even if handled well and they all settle down) for what might turn out to be just one of those bumps in the road which all long-term relationships and marriages go through. I've not seen anything on here which makes me think: run for the hills, it seems to me that Illegitimate's mid-life crisis is entirely necessary in the marriage, to make them take stock and make some really obvious changes which may well keep the family together. It sounds obvious, but spending some fun time together, if you still basically like each other, massively enhances feelings of love and affection, you connect back with what you used to have. I also get the impression that the husband is keen to please his wife, do whatever it takes, and will make changes. All good, if you try and fail, so be it, but not trying would be a mistake IMO.

I don't believe in staying in really awful marriages for the sake of the children, but I also don't think you are doing anything wrong by modelling a normal relationship, with ups and downs in it.

how about you give yourself a time limit, like 6 months, or see if you feel the same way a year down the line and re-evaluate, and then both put your all into making each other happy

Thankyou again. Yes - there is a good marriage underneath all this but yes there do need to be changes

Also I'd want to know that if the family did split then I'd be sure it wasn't just a 7 year itch. I'd want to know we'd tried everything.

This marriage has been neglected for far too long. I think a timescale of 6 months would be a good focus.

I have 3 good friends with children the same age as mine who have split - various different reasons. It doesn't look nice. More so for the future - Christmases, weddings etc. Day to day would look completely the same.

I don't think it's cruel to the children to split up. My parents did it when I was a child, after they lost interest in their relationship and started to understand that they had nothing in common.
I could sense the unhappiness and uneasiness when they still lived together, and THAT wasn't very pleasant.

OP, to clarify I don't mean I think you are being cruel to your children. I'm sure they are very happy and healthy :)

I just look at the mistakes I've made as an adult and I can see a lot of them come directly from the privately unhappy, bored and unfulfilled relationship my parents had that was presented as normal.