How do I tell him?

[Coconutter]

I need to go. I have a comfortable life but I'm now fairly sure DH isn't the one for me. He is wonderful and I love him - but not enough. I'm not attracted to him. We don't have fun. I can't really talk to him. We have no children which helps but I don't know how or when to tell him. Do I find somewhere to go first or would that be too underhand? Do I leave immediately or give him time to get used to the idea?

That must be intolerably hard for your husband and I'm sorry to read that contrary to your opening post, you're today considering prolonging his agony. Most of what you say seems to be about your feelings and interests; the benefits and casualties of staying, whether you'll find someone else and how horrible the OM is to you. It is obvious that you don't love or respect your husband. I wish it was to him, or if he does realise it, that he knew he deserved better.

But what else do I do? Do I disregard my own feelings completely? Do I just leave even if there might be a chance of working it out?

Your poor husband. The more you write on here the more sorry I feel for him. If I could will him the strength to walk out and make the decision for you I would. Please stop this and either leave, or commit properly and finally, and do so NOW.

These ups and downs of good days and bad days will go on forever. They are no guide to anything and inevitable in any interaction with a loved one. There are always good moments, always bad moments, free yourself from judging moment to moment.

Drop the balance scale approach of one thing vs another, accept that you have had a jolt of dopamine and other chemicals that feel amazing linked to the novelty of this other man. The illusion of depth and connection is what begins any love affair, including you and your DH's. You are in the empowered position of making his choices for him and if you are going to take away his right to know the truth and decide on his behalf, be honest and own that selfishness.

Ask yourself this question; if your relationship were to get back to as good as it's ever been within the next few months, would you still be ambivalent about leaving? If so, leave now, you'r saying there's something about this man that makes you deeply uncomfortable. It;s okay to leave people. I know it's a taboo but more people, particularly women stay in relationship ambivalence for decades than seems believable. This situation is so common as to be heartbreaking.

If you're saying you don't know if you want him EVEN WHEN THINGS ARE GOOD, then you don't want to stay. If you would definitely stay if things could get back to their best, help bring them back to their best over the next six months, you can do that, you have been withdrawing so much from the relationship over your infidelity that you have kneecapped it. only you can make it good again.

It's as simple as that. so are you going to do it now? Or are you going to do it in a year when you're in exactly the same situation but a year older?

Hi Coconut - having been in your situation before, I'd say the best thing to do is an ultimatum - either insist he attends counseling with you to try and 'fix' things, or you leave. From my experience relationship counseling such as Relate tends to focus more on identifying what you each want from a relationship, so you can both try and fix it knowing more about each other, but it doesn't necessarily fix it by itself. If he won't attend it, then it's not going to work no matter what, and you should go because it's not going to fix itself.

Having had the affair with OM, no matter what a twunt he turned out to be, you saw how life could be - and even if he hadn't turned out to be an arse it woudn't have ended up like that if you'd married him - but the point of relationships when they go stale, which they generally tend to do, is that you can at least look back and try and get back, or at least look back to what you had, and remember fondly the good times, or even keep them going in some way. If you can never do that with your husband then it's going to be even more difficult in 1, 5 or 30 years from now. Maybe counseling can help you understand how to make things better, but it sounds like it's not possible. At least try, give him the option to try and help you both fix it, if not then just find a place for yourself and learn to be happy by yourself.

Do I disregard my own feelings completely?

What feelings? The ones for yourself or those for your husband?

I can't see any evidence of positive romantic feelings towards your husband at all. You say you're not attracted to him, he doesn't challenge you like the OM did, you can't be 'you' with him, can't talk to him or have fun with him. What you do acknowledge is that you never thought of him like that till OM came along but the only positives you've talked about is that life with him would be 'easy and comfortable'. You describe him like a pair of well-worn but comfortable slippers. There's no evidence of respect there and no romantic love.
Curiously too, absolutely no sense of how cruel you've been to him and how horrendous it must be for him to have to work with the OM. You seem to think it's alright because you can avoid the OM, but there was no empathy for the fact that your husband cannot, unless he leaves his job.

You started this thread on Friday and sounded resolute that you should end your marriage. Within 48 hours you've changed your mind again. Unless you're normally this indecisive and casual with people's feelings, I've got a hunch that something has happened in the OM's life (relationship got more serious with his partner perhaps?) and some of this is game-playing to give him a sign that you're available now.

If any of this is striking a chord, I hope your counselling is challenging you to look at your cruelty, lack of empathy and game-playing.

Charbon having reread my posts I can't say I can entirely blame you for coming to those conclusions. I can only say that if I didnt love him at all I wouldn't be here now - I would have left months ago. I'm not using him as a backup plan. But I don't want to go unless I'm sure it can't work out - because surely it working out is the best thing, as long as that's truly what we both want? (which is what I'm trying to work out)

So has anything changed in the OM's life then?

Charbon, with a great deal of respect for your good advice and straight talking, OP might want to give us the information she wants to give us and not be faced with humiliation from other more private sources disguised as sage guesswork.

Coco, love is profound and important but it is not enough. It would be easy to leave if you didn't love the person, that rarely happens, mostly there's always a bit of love there and whilst that pumps around the relationship it's not in our nature to let it die. But that's also fear of loss and fear of change and hear of hurting someone. None of these are good enough and they are all a bit cowardly and a bit selfish. You know all this I'm sure. You are in no state to view your relationship objectively. I think deep down you know that unless you get far away from your OM, work wise and or location wise you're going to be emotionally handicapped in this relationship. You have to make a gesture in some direction, and I promise you will be happier than the pain of ambivalence, whichever it is.

Think about whether you think you would still be ambivalent if everything in your relationship could get back to a good place.

Listen to the core of you. If someone came and gave you 'permission' to leave, some god like figure, would you feel relieved? That's a clue. "because it would be best' is not a viable reason or motivation to stay in a marriage. You will be unfaithful again out of resentment.

It's okay to leave good people. That's a shocking thing to say but it is. Kids complicate matters hugely but just because someone is good doesn't mean they are right for you. Equally, an affair sabotages a relationship at its very core. You have done that. And you need to work out whether you've got the motivation and courage to fix it and take responsibility for that. It may involve moving house, moving jobs, an adventure. Can you imagine your happiness inside that?

I know you're hurting but it will be kinder for OH and for you if you commit one way or the other. And leave OM out of either plan.

VE your post has stumped me . AFAIK I don't know the OP in real life.

The things you felt you could be and do with the OM vs how your DH is able to stop you in this. Think about what you want out of life, what you want to do in work, how you want to spend your free time in the future. Do you want children or not? Spend more on home life or spend more on travel and new experiences? Then be honest about it to yourself, does your DH prevent you doing these things or is it you stopping yourself and laying it at his door? Did you feel your DH was supportive of things in the beginning or have you never been compatible? Then think about whether you will be able to do these things only if you separate or can you discuss these things with your DH and get him on board, also in discussion find out how he views life. Find out what he would like out of life and see if you are on the same page. If you can't discuss it with him, is that a feeling within stopping you or is he not willing to. You only get one life and we all have a hand in our destiny.

I haven't had contact with OM for a while, Charbon. I'm pretty sure I don't know you either!

DH and I wanted the same things. What I want has changed, and did so before I met OM. I'm just trying to work out if we're still compatible, and what of the things I want I can live without if I stay with DH.

OP, that does not line up with what you said in your original post. You said you are not attracted to your dh, you don't have fun and you cannot talk to him.

That goes far beyond wanting different things from your dh...

I somehow get the feeling you are not entirely upfront with us or even with yourself. Your poor dh.

I also feel that you're possibly not being straight with us on here, or with yourself.

It's either what you said originally, which was that you thought you were happy and compatible before you met the OM and the affair either brought about your dissatisfactions with your partner or caused you to acknowledge those which had been latent - or before the OM, you weren't attracted to your husband, couldn't have fun with him and couldn't talk to him and the affair was a symptom of that and not the cause.

You've also said you have to work with the OM and so you don't have to experience personal contact to hear about what's going on in his life, or for his presence still to affect you and your husband who also has to be in his company.

It's puzzling that a year and a half of therapy with several practitioners hasn't given you more self-awareness or understanding of your issues, or more empathy for all the other individuals in this story.

If you're not in love with your husband and don't respect him, it doesn't much matter whether these feelings were never there or only departed on the arrival of the OM.

What matters is that they are not there now. Reading your posts and how you describe your husband, it looks massively unlikely they will ever be there. That might be a result of your own sabotage or fundamental incompatibility/poor couple-fit but what's done is done and you'll both get over it if you part.

And he really will move on with his life you know. You aren't his 'one' and quite obviously, he'll be happier by himself or with someone different. You've seen that happen for the OM after all, who you say is in another relationship.

To answer some of your points:

There were issues with DH before I got to know OM. I didn't think they were issues that could be resolved - compatibility related, due to the fact that what I wanted changed, making it more difficult to talk to DH and for us to understand each other - and that I'd just have to live with them. The fact that those compatibility issues weren't a problem with OM made me start wondering if maybe it was me and DH as a couple that was the issue, rather than either one of us as people. Obviously I should have addressed that then, and dealt with it in completely the wrong way, but beating myself for the next forty years with a big stick isn't going to help anyone (and itll take me a while to stop doing that anyway).

As far as details go, yes I have changed a couple of situations in the interests of remaining anonymous. Some of your questions I can't answer on an Internet forum for this reason.

It does matter how I felt about DH before, because if there's any chance we can be as compatible as we once were then I can't give up. This is what I am trying to work out.

And as for the year of counselling, I started that to work through a previous trauma. It's only recently I've been focusing specifically on this, but it is all tied in together because the trauma affected my relationships and self esteem and a million other things.