How do you know for sure that you should leave?

[Apty]

Relationships are full of good and bad. What do you do when you are confused about the balance and how bad it really is?

My instincts tell me to leave sometimes, and then at other times that seems like the worst thing to do.

Do you reach a point when you know?

Christmas is difficult but it is not the end if the world. Most people take turns in spending time with the children on Christmas day one year and boxing day the other.

We kept spending Christmas together for 2 years after the split for the sake of DS, then as we moved on, we agreed on an alternate Christmas pattern. The key is to organise something, tag along with friends or family, go for a holiday but don't spend the time on your own.

he doesn't seem to have any great expectations of happiness, he would be happy just to have me in the marriage. I do wish his expectations were higher, I might have something to aspire to?

Yes! This!! My DH seems so resigned to a mediocre life, and I want so much more for us. He's a real Eeyore and just never seems happy, which really drags me down.

tiredofwaitingforitalltochange - I don't go out in the evenings to get away from the family, don't worry about that. I have hobbies that pre-date any marital woes - I'm just someone who needs personal space and interests. I'm only out two evenings a week, once the DDs are in bed.

I may well suggest to DH that we go to Relate or similar. I just don't think he realises how unhappy I am with how he's withdrawing more and more into himself. He may not even realise he's doing it. I certainly owe him that chance.

Yes Eeyore exactly. My DH is never happy. it is making me depressed and I am not even a depressed person. Yesterday I went shopping to Waitrose and was anticipating him moaning that

A) I should not have gone shopping in the first place it's his job
B) I should have gone to Tesco.

Then I rang up to make a hospital appointment for him and he said oh your just making sure I don't drop dead in a way that suggested he would like to drop dead.

I will be glad to go back to work.

I have at long last plucked up the courage to post here, I have been following this thread, and it has given me hope for my life in general and made me feel very depressed about the demise of my feelings for my DP in turn.

My DP is not abusive at all, lets me see my friends and have outside interests, he is a complete manchild and has made some mistakes over the years, but I just don't "want" him anymore, and am currently trying to work through my feelings to see if I can get them back. I'm not sure I can . I told him I didn't think I was in love with him any more 4 weeks ago, and since then he has been trying so hard to make a difference it breaks my heart to see it, but it just does not seem to be helping my feelings.

I wish I could change how I feel, because he is a lovely guy, we laugh together most days, we have a happy family unit, he has started doing his fair share around the house and taking more responsibility. I just feel like such a bitch for still wanting to leave. I am having counselling but it is only making me feel more bleak about the future of our relationship, because it has made me realise how much anger I have towards him and how I'm sure we're pretty doomed.

Most people on the relationships board seem to have a concrete reason for wanting to leave, I don't feel like I have anymore.

We got pregnant very early on in our relationship and now have 2 dc aged 15m and 4y. He is shit with money, and is still a little boy in so many ways. I feel very responsible for his happiness. He emotionally pressurised me for sex for so long (after a difficult labour with dc1), and spent so long groping me like a teenager even though I asked him not to, that although he has now seen his mistakes and is doing his best to rectifythem, I can't get past it, and have lost all lust for him and feel sick when he touches me. How do you tell someone that? How do you get past it? Answers on a postcard please.

I had a thread on here recently but asked for it to be deleted cos I was so scared OH would find it and find out the truth about how I feel, even though I have namechanged from my usual name. That is how responsible for his happiness I feel, I don't even feel entitled to express my feelings anonymously, that is why it has taken me so long to post on here.

cannot ... this is what you say you're dealing with ...

• Pressurised for sex

• Groped when you asked him not to

- Feel responsible for his happiness - Don't even feel entitled to express your feelings anonymously

...so from this post alone, the problems are more serious than you think. Looks as if your feelings have been extinguished by him. :(.

Don't feel bad about making tracks out of there.

I feel like if he finds out the truth about how much I just don't fancy him, there is no going back, and I have blown our family out of the water. He is very insecure at the moment (understandably) since I told him I don't know if I love him anymore and I know he has been checking my Facebook, and he knows I come on here a lot. He also makes me feel guilty if I make him feel bad by bringing up difficulties in our relationship. That's why I feel I can't express myself fully to him.

He has admitted the way he was acting before was wrong and that he has been a twunt with money, that he will stop pressurising me for sex, give me space, start being more responsible and grown up, yadeyadeyadee, but when he is telling me all this I can see his mouth moving and I just feel nothing. All I feel is guilt, and sorry for him, and scared of the future. Maybe that is a sign that I know for sure I should leave.

Like other posters here and OP I often feel like our relationship and life is somewhere between tolerable and good, how the hell do you leave someone that you get on well with and treats the dc really well and is making efforts to change his behaviours that you have cited as being the ones that make you want to leave him?

I think maybe you need to be able to laugh together at things. It doesn't sound as if you do and I have no idea how you bring that into a relationship as I have this problem myself.
Does anyone else have any suggestions?

I just got told "This is going to ruin my career" , in reference to me leaving him and, presumably, not wanting him to over here with our kids long term.

Cannot, I feel almost exactly the same. I just don't want to be in a relationship with DH anymore.

He's my best friend and a wonderful person but I too feel repulsed by his sexual advances. I thought it was issues of my own for a long time but the more counselling I have, and the better I feel about myself, the more I feel like it's over :(

I'm heartbroken about it, and wracked with guilt too. I told him we need to talk on Sunday and his face lit up, said he thought it would be lovely to spend some time alone :( :( He clearly has no idea what I'm thinking...

I get the sick and heartbroken feeling. I just don't know how I feel about dh because I can't get the bad things into any kind of perspective, and then he has a period of being so nice again and I don't know how I'm supposed to react.

Hoping this time apart will give me clarity, I know I'll miss him, I know i'll be relieved not to have to manage his moods anymore. I'm scared of having all the responsibility for everything and how I'll manage with jobs and children and all the things that need doing.

This doesn't feel like the easy option but I know that I'm becoming more unwell the longer I stay living with him.

Frida, do you think he is trying to come up with reasons for you to stay, or has it gone past that?

hersuit I am 2 sessions in to a 5-session block of counselling at the moment, which was originally meant to be about me talking about my issues with sex. We have only had sex 4 or 5 times since dd was conceived (she's 16mo). The sessions have ended up with me just talking about him and our relationship, so I am beginning to see that the issue is not me and my sex problems at all, but that my lack of interest in sex is a symptom of our problems.

We had a massive talk last night, I talked about my feelings of resentment that had come up in yesterday's counselling session and about how angry I am with him for making me be the parent in the relationship. We talked about his other long-term relationship before me, which he has never spoken about much. It turns out that he finished with her because he felt that he loved her more than she loved him and he was pushing her away. Sounds like history has repeated itself .

He says he is going to grow up and start taking more responsibilty, and that he doesn't want to be alone. I feel like I should give him a chance to make changes, but at the moment it does not feel like it is going to change my feelings much, and to be honest, I doubt his ability to change in the long term.

Apty, stick with it, it sounds like you are being really strong and true to yourself at the moment. You are bound to feel a bit wobbly. I am scared of the same feelings if I leave DP, as I am so indecisive in most areas of my life! I think it is only natural to feel unsure of whether you have made the right decision if you end a serious relationship, unless there are definite reasons, such as abuse, for leaving.

cannot there has been abuse in this relationship but it really doesn't make it any clearer or more straightforward for me - because there's mental health issues and then periods when things are better and he can be very nice and we get on - the abuse is never acknowledged so it just stays with me and I try to get over it. It's really unsettling - that's the worst bit, the crazy sense that I don't know what could happen, while being with someone who seems to be acting normally again.

It sounds like you're being really strong and facing up to your feelings and talking to your partner and being clear about what's going on for you - that does sound positive, that he wants to change and sort it out - do you feel like it's too late?

Sorry Apty I should have read your earlier posts properly again before commenting. I realise after thinking on it that even if there has been abusive behaviour there must often be a grey area regarding whether to stay or go for a lot of people still. I don't think that I could stay in a relationship where I was wondering if my other half was going to become abusive again, even if he was acting normally.

I do feel it may be a bit too late for me and DP, yes. I wish it wasn't and I wish I had been more open with him years ago. I withdrew and simmered in a massive ball of resentment for so long, and I really could not put my finger on what he was doing wrong; they all seemed like really small things when taken on face value.

It's only in the last few months that I've even considered the behaviour to have been abusive. I really thought I could just handle it differently and it would change.

Have you tried the too good to leave too bad to stay book?

No, I haven't, although it was recommended to me on the thread I started a few weeks ago. I don't think my OH would like me reading it (God, that sounds bad, doesn't it?) and would notice an Amazon delivery. I may order it to be delivered to my work address though.

Have you got a kindle?

No, I am a luddite when it comes to books

Apty I can identify a lot with your pain and indecision. You are right to go ahead and strike on your own and see if time will answer the question, I think.

I mean to do the same. I don't know if this is the end for my marriage but I know I need space and freedom to find clarity. There is a huge temptation, all the time, to ask dh if he wants to come with me/us. I wonder if a new start in a new home could be the answer. And it is the path of least resistance because I am afraid of being on my own. But I, and you, need to see what it is really like. If I weakened and said these things to dh he would grab onto my coattails. I think I would feel held back and we would only transfer our problems to a new location.

And there would be the huge regret of not taking the braver step of trying out freedom having got really close to it. I haven't been through all this agony to capitulate now. Nor must you. Stick with it x

Hmm it's an easy trap to fall into though isn't it - new house, new start, if he only had a different job, if the neighbours were different, if the house was bigger, if we just changed something external, everything might be better. Everyone has said that if Dh enjoyed his job he'd be happier and therefore easeir and less depressed etc etc - but I've been waiting and I can't make those changes for him - we had the same problems in a different home, we'd have the same problems again if we moved or if he did manage to find a new job, I kind of know that.

Freedom is such an appealing word, but I don't know what it means - it doesn't sound possible. It's just replacing one lot of pressures with another isn't it? I'm going to really struggle for money and juggling childcare with several jobs, it's just overwhelming knowing what's coming up and still feeling like i'm recovering from what's happened.

Knew I wouldn't be able to not post for long.....

A few days on from our last counselling session and I'm feeling as trapped as ever. DH is back, I have been pleasant (because I am a nice person, and our kids are here) and I just know he won't instigate a "big conversation" because he's hoping that everything is "returning to normal". (Tiredof, it's that thing of him hanging onto cocktails, isn't it?) So I can either carry on as if I didn't actually say that I want to start planning for separation, or I can start the conversation and feel like the big mean nasty wife again.

I've been thinking about changing things to try to make it work - moving house, etc. But it's just putting off the inevitable, isn't it?

I don't know what freedom feels like either, and I don't know if I'm brave enough to find out. I feel so run down just now, I can't carry on this pretence forever. And I know I can manage on my own.

But what if I find that I'm just as run down without him? What if it turns out the problem is just me and not him?

Sorry, this is a pointless rant! In any case, I'm going away for the weekend, and even if DH asks for a chat this evening (his usual tactic is to start sharing his feelings as i turn my light off) I'll be putting it off until Monday. Hopefully getting away, away (no DH, no DC) will help me sort my foggy head out a bit.

PS Cannot, if you have an iPhone/iPad, you can download the kindle app and read your book that way. I may have been one of the people who recommended it to you, it is definitely worth a look :)

Freedom is such an appealing word, but I don't know what it means - it doesn't sound possible. It's just replacing one lot of pressures with another isn't it? I'm going to really struggle for money and juggling childcare with several jobs

I know what you mean. I am going to be SKINT and I'm crap with money, admin, practical stuff. I'm also doing a v demanding uni course, which will lead to an even more demanding job at the end of it in two years' time. At which time both dd will likely be hormonal horrors.

But I've watched a lot of threads and there seem to be many women who think that trading financial security and ease with emotional and psychological freedom is a no-brainer once you are on the other side and know what it's like.

I'm new on here and just spied this thread. I wanted to briefly share my experience. For a very long time I was in the 'should I stay or should I go?' category. My ex was emotionally abusive towards me but most people weren't even aware of it. To others on the outside he was a lovely bloke but its true what they say, 'no one knows what goes on behind closed doors'. He suffered with depression and I acknowledged this and did my best to help him for years. At one point his work was making him really miserable so I supported him when he gave up work, on the condition he sought help and at least attempted to get better. The result was years later he still didn't work, spent hours a day in bed (although he managed to get up and go out if it was something for him), he did nothing to help around the house, virtually nothing with our DD and became increasingly abusive towards me, although thankfully never physically, I couldn't do right for doing wrong. I was totally and utterly miserable, I dreaded getting out of bed on a morning and then found myself wishing the day away till bedtime. And yet still I debated with myself as what to do. I was very lucky to have an understanding friend who knew exactly what he was like and listened patiently while I worked through everything. The thought of spending the rest of my life in this situation filled me with dread and it had to change. I made the decision to end the relationship and have never looked back.

I took a long time to finally make my decision and after all that time I knew I had done the right thing especially when a week after the split my DD who was then 13 said to me "I'm glad you and Dad split up because now I don't have to worry about you".

Sometimes in life we have to make choices that not everyone agrees with or understands but ultimately in your gut you know what is best for you. Sometimes saying the words "its over" is the hardest part. Once the decision is made you just take the rest step by step. Good luck with whatever you choose.

Thanks Dogstar, that's really helpful - so glad you did it and felt better - did you ever have any regrets? Sounds like you were really brave.

I can hand on heart say I've never regretted it, I have peace of mind that I know what to expect when I wake up on a morning. It's a year since we split and are now divorced, I am very happily single, I genuinely enjoy being on my own after so long. I'm not against another relationship, I just don't feel the need to have anyone in my life. I was lucky that I was financially independent of him as I was the only one working and paid all the bills anyway. My only regret is that I didn't do it years ago but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

The strange thing is we are still on reasonably good terms, it hasn't always been easy to maintain that but we always said we would try to keep things friendly because of our dd.

No one can tell you what you should do but I'm a firm believer that life always has a funny way of working itself out. Try to imagine yourself in 5, 10, 20 years time. Where do you see yourself? I can't answer that question, only you can but one thing I know, you deserve to be happy regardless of what path you choose.

Take care.