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?

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.

OP do you still have a sexual relationship with DH?

Great post Tired, hear hear!

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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!

This really helped me, thank you.