Stay together for kids?

[Miggins]

Should you stay with your DP if you no longer love him just for the sake of the children? We have a fabulous friendship and a happy family life but I feel no sexual attraction towards him and have not for many years. Should I just settle for this?

[Minnie11]

This really helped me, thank you.

[HeadintheSandpit]

I was going to post somthing similar and then I read your post - it seems there are lots of us in the same boat. I grew up in a family where I knew my parents weren't happily married and my mum showed little affection for my dad but kept the family together in that stoic, resiliant way that many mums do. As a child of course I wanted my mum and dad to be together but more than that I wanted a happy mum and dad. Now I've found that history is repeating itself and I'm in a marriage where I am not happy but have been too scared to deal with it because I know where it'll end and I'm not sure I can handle it.
I agree that you should try at all costs to salvage an otherwise good relationship (I read a good book called 'Let's stick together' by Harry Benson) but if too many things are wrong then surely it's more important to be happy (life is short after all).
On a separate note, do you find your feelings sway significantly depending on whether you are pre-menstrual? I'm certain that when I finally deal with this it'll be when I have PMT!

[Discrectionadvised]

Courage... I agree and it's the advice my rl friends are giving me. Use it as the catalyst. Unfortunately it's hard not to let feelings in. Particularly when in a fairly emotional vulnerable state

[mummymccar]

Just from the point of view of the children:
My parents separated last year and I really wish they had done it years ago. Up until I was about 11 or 12 I didn't really see how unhappy they were as I was too young. I think my sister and I would have found it difficult if they had ended things then, however, we would have moved on and recovered.
When I began to notice how unhappy they were it really damaged my sister and I. They couldn't even be in the same room together but didn't separate because they thought it would damage us, when actually staying together was much worse. When I think of my childhood now all I can remember is arguing and bitterness.
Personally, if my DP and I ever got to that point then I would leave as I know how damaging it is to the children.
It was much worse to go through years and years of unhappiness by witnessing all that anger than to go through a year of hurt whilst they separated.

[Couragedoesntroar]

discretion in your position it will be painful regardless. FWIW I lost my H and OM pretty much simultaneously and it was (is still, a year later) a huge loss. But keep an eye on what needs to happen for your marriage because that's the important bit (as a RL friend wisely told me) and if yours needs to end then perhaps this is a necessary catalyst.

Are you still there OP?

[Discrectionadvised]

Tiredofwaiting.... What happened to the relationship that you described? I so completely identified with it and I am head over heels in it now. So much so that I am terrified of it going pear shaped. My logical side recognises it for two hurting people needing something more and finding each other at the same time. But my heart feels more than that. I am not ending my marriage for him, I want out anyway, but now I am terrified of losing everything.

[Discrectionadvised]

Wonderful,post and thoughts tired of waiting and all of you. Seems so many of us in the same boat.


I have just turned 40 and realised I want out of my comfortable but passionless marriage. I have started the process which is completely due to having become involved with someone else. Whether or not this current relationship goes anywhere is irrelevant, I am determined I want more. I have half my life to go.

At the moment it is all painful, I don't know the path through as we are still living together. We have three small children, one with complex health needs following a serious accident.

Somive made the first step, just need the strength to keep going, I know it will be painful ahead. Dh is hurting badly. I am head over the heels with the om but do recognise that the situation could be causing those feelings. The om is also in a loveless relationship and in the process of ending it.

I do believe I have a better future ahead but still terrified of it.

[SmallSherryforMedicinal]

Great post Tired, hear hear!

[Couragedoesntroar]

OP do you still have a sexual relationship with DH?

[Couragedoesntroar]

It does mam of course. I think it's mixed, it would be nice to be a happy unit but that wasn't our reality. I think it was fine for the kids when we were together but they've very much taken it in their stride since separation. They see it as an adaptation because that's how we've presented it. But they're only 7 & 8 and very happy & well balanced kids who are part of a community with their dad as a neighbour. I think the characteristics that made the marriage harmful for me (rigid, always right) would have become more harmful for DC as they got older.

OP you sound like you genuinely love DH. I didn't and he didn't care a jot about the end of the marriage which I don't understand.

I think it's a tough call.

[mamhaf]

But courage - is/are your child(ren) grateful you're out of a stultifying marriage?
I have yet to see a marriage breakdown where there hasn't been a negative effect on the kids - although the best outcomes seem to be when the dc are.very young.

The impact on children has to be part of the equation.

[Couragedoesntroar]

IMHO I do not think kids are necessarily damaged by break ups if they're done respectfully. Kids are damaged by conflict within or outside an intact marriage. They are damaged by unhappy parents.

That said I also think it is worth working on a marriage very definitely if there is any love and willingness left.

[MoomieAndFreddie]

No, no, no

but life is too bloody short

take it from me. i have been there. its shit, soul destroying and no good for anyone - Especially the children as they WILL pic up on it if their mum and dad are unhappy.

I am now blissfully re married with another DC, to a man who was also stuck in a loveless marriage, and both of us still can't believe our luck in finding eachother, and finally being happy with someone, after the shit relationships we were in before.

[Couragedoesntroar]

I don't think you hijacked the thread tired, because this is what OP and others are facing up to. Underneath their uncertainty is that pain and fear which is what they're safe from - for now - whilst they stay in their relationships.

I feel wounded and alone too. I want something else that I don't yet have. But I am grateful I'm away from a stultifying marriage now rather than in 10 years (I'm 37). I do not miss STBXH at all but I miss the sense of safety it brought. I guess that's your choice now OP. Both possibilities are a compromise and carry their own losses and risks.

[mamhaf]

Children are always damaged by break-ups and I think there's a modern tendency for couples not to work hard enough at revitalising what they have.

The shine goes off any relationship after a while, and (unless there is abuse or unacceptable behaviour that cannot be resolved) it needs work by both partners to keep the relationship alive - and that can be done.

There's a lot to be said for friendship, love and companionship and not wrecking the lives of the children you've brought into the world.

[OpheliaPayneAgain]

What do the two of you want to teach your children about relationships?.

One would hope that you dont teach them that relationships are disposable as soon as one partner gets bored.

If the relationship is basically good, with mutual respect and no abuse within, then look at ways of salvaging it.

[tiredofwaitingforitalltochange]

Sorry for hijacking. I'm incapable of answering a question with a short answer, must be more succinct.

[tiredofwaitingforitalltochange]

Courage yes I do. It's all very new being on my own. I don't like it much but I don't know if that's because it is new and strange or if it is because it doesn't suit me.

The short relationship I described happened after my marriage had ended. But prior to that, a few years ago, I had a profound emotional connection with someone, which also showed me 'what I was missing' only in a different way. There was no physical unfaithfulness or even disloyal things said but it was very involving and the outcome was devastating.

I feel broken at the moment and don't know how to fix myself. I have been unhappy for so long I've forgotten what it is like not to be. I'm bored of my own unhappiness.

The experience I described earlier in the thread was a positive one and the man and I remain friends. He flirts with me occasionally and sometimes suggests we become lovers again but I think I would prefer to leave that aspect of the relationship as the brief interlude it was rather than change it. It was important in helping me to reconnect with myself, being held and touched and kissed.

Having someone to be tactile with is very important. It doesn't have to be sexual at all - there's nothing more nourishing to the spirit than snuggling up with a baby or a young child, smelling their hair, feeling their warmth.

My children are past the cuddly stage now though and I hope that one day I will find someone to be affectionate with. It's not even mostly about sex, what really makes me catch my breath in pain in when I see couples who are happy and at ease with each other, and touch each other casually. When you lose your sex life with your partner you nearly always lose being physically at ease like that, it becomes so sterile and the physical isolation is very painful.

I hope I won't always be on my own, but for the moment I think I need to be, to make sense of how the most important relationship of my life - except the one I have with my children - ended up being destroyed.

[Couragedoesntroar]

Hear hear tiredofwaiting your post made me cry totally unexpectedly this morning. It was particularly the part about bring starved of intimacy and the power in reconnecting with it. I echo that OP and also that it's not about sex per se. I am separated as of a year ago and also had a powerful experience with someone that faced me with what I longed for & had forgotten in my marriage. But I am alone. And OP, make no mistake it is true that ending a marriage is excruciatingly painful & not to be done lightly. tired, do you get scared that you'll never find what you long for with someone else?

[ajmc67]

Wow, fantastic post tiredofwaitingforitalltochange. I can fully identify with everything you've said. You put it brilliantly.

[georgessand]

tiredofwaitingforitalltochange, well done for taking such a brave decision. I am in a similar situation to all of you except that I am the one in the receiving end. I don't have any kind of intimacy with my husband of 10 years. We haven't had sex in 3 years since our son was born. He can't bring himself to touch me although he has never said anything or gave me any reason. We have never had a fantastic sex life but we had what you would call a healthy relationship. he is 50 and I am 35 so I thought it's probably an age thing, maybe he's just losing sexual desire, which would have been fine with me if he had come forward, but he just ignores my feelings, has never discussed the subject, never worried that I might be attracted to someone else and I find that a lot more hurtful than the lack of physical intimacy. But I can't leave unfortunately because my son and I are so dependant on him. My son loves him to bits and I can't think of the damage it might cause him if I took him away from his dad. Our lives would just crumble. So I have made my choice, which is to bury my sexual life and be content with what I have, I can't even remember what it feels like to be intimate with someone so It's not like i'm craving sex or something :) but it's sad because on the surface we are the envy of our circle of friends...if only they knew...

[dementedma]

Great post, tired of waiting, so very true and insightful. Resonates with me so much

[LonelyDad]

I am so taken with your post. i think you have touched something that i knew i felt. I have another thread (neglected by high flying wife) of rmy background. But, tired of waiting, thank you for what you said.

[tiredofwaitingforitalltochange]

Spent so long writing that I didn't see your answers to my earlier question. I am 41 too.

[TooMuchRain]

I think it depends to what extent it is a mutual agreement - if one side doesn't know that is the deal then I think it is very unfair because they are missing out on time they could have with someone who really wants them.