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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

Being with a man who you feel doesn't love you

95 replies

WhyWhyY · 28/05/2013 21:59

Hi mumsnetters, me again.

I'm having a really bad few days. Feeling very low, for the past few days my partner hasn't really talked at all to me. Usually he's very disinterested in me anyway but more so lately.

This morning I woke up early, got our daughter up and fed her, then went out to the shops to get him something nice for breakfast, which I duly made.

I then sorted out baby's feeds etc and played with babes. I then got ready for work.

In all that time my partner didnt talk to me once. Of course he replied to questions but didn't open his mouth to speak to me once.

I got ready, kissed my daughter and went to work. That's a normal day for us. It really feels like we go through the motions of a relationship, just without that binding factor of love. I feel very lonely all the time, and if it wasn't for my lovely daughter I wouldn't have anyone to hold or to talk to. Sure he talks sometimes, about his job, his friends, people he works with, his parents... but never about me.

He talks about how much my daughter loves his parents and how she smiles for them, he never talks about her and I. He always tells me about how interesting and intelligent his friends wives are (all foreign ladies, so very interesting) and I just feel so unworthy.

I really do feel like he must really not like me, deep down and is just stuck with me now. I don't understand how someone could be so disinterested and cold to another person unless that was the reason.

I'm sorry to always post such dull and sad topics for you all to read, it's just I'm home alone and I don't really have anyone else to talk to. I've just sat here with my dogs all night crying to myself and thought it might be good to write it all down.

yours sadly,
why why y

OP posts:

Original poster

WhyWhyY · 29/05/2013 21:02

The phone isn't hidden, per se, it's just a work mobile that rarely comes home from work and if it is home, its locked.

Even when I confront him with the things I feel are fact (he resents me, feels I'm not good enough etc) he'll say "no,no" but his actions are not the actions of a man in love with his girlfriend.

I know it really sounds like I know what I'm on about, but I just don't.

Today I looked at flats close to my job (as my car is actually HIS car so I'll have no transport) and realised how expensive they are. I'll have to find somewhere that will accept my dogs and the fact I'll probably be on some kind of benefit :( feels like a mountain to climb.

But the only thing(s) i feel i'll miss are the dogs that belong to him that i couldn't take with me. I wont miss him, because it's been such a long time since I remember us being a happy, loving couple. I've actually thought it might be nice, to get a chance at happiness.

OP posts:

Original poster

WhyWhyY · 29/05/2013 21:03

Just to add, he has to have a password lock on his phone, for his work. They all do. But not letting me have the password is not something normal, I feel.

OP posts:

MadBusLady · 29/05/2013 21:03

Well, there's only so much she can do to "unlock" things if he won't even acknowledge the problem. Counselling so that a third party is involved would be the only possibility, if he'd agree to it.

emstats · 29/05/2013 21:04

You said he's 14 years older then you... Any chance he's having problems 'getting it up' and is too embarrassed to tell you? Just a thought

MadBusLady · 29/05/2013 21:05

about the dogs.

Just take things one day at a time. You don't have to be out of the relationship with all your income sorted out and a new flat by breakfast tomorrow. You can only do it in bitesize chunks.

Original poster

WhyWhyY · 29/05/2013 21:06

Councelling looks very expensive :(

On the rare occasions we do, he never has any erectile problems.

OP posts:

Original poster

WhyWhyY · 29/05/2013 21:11

Its such a shame, I really did love the man I met. I used to sometimes feel he was "too much" because he loved me so much and I felt very special. He was the first to say the L word and I always had loving texts from him, fruity little ones sometimes too. When he used to fancy me, I used to wait on the stairs in undies!! Things that cringe me at the very notion now, he'd ask me why i was dressed stupid, or something. I can't remember the last time I felt we connected like we used to.

Now it feels very forced, very stagnant and very cold. I had used to bang on about doing things together, arranged dates (that he'd moan about) or try and get him to come out with me in the evening. But he'd always say how we couldn't, because of the baby etc. I'd ask him to arrange things and he wouldn't bother.

Then I threw myself into my show dogs and decided that i would make the best of a bad situation and be happy for the life I have. But every morning I wake up empty and drive to work feeling very lonely. How can someone feel so lonely, when they are meant to be THE most important person to someone else? :(

OP posts:

Ilikethebreeze · 29/05/2013 21:23

too.

Original poster

WhyWhyY · 29/05/2013 21:26

Thank you. I'm wallowing a little, sure once my little girl is old enough I can get all the loving I need from her, and shower her with my love too. Just feels like a lonely existence til then.

Thank you all for your kind words and suggestions, it has meant a lot to me.

OP posts:

badinage · 29/05/2013 21:38

It's actually too much of a burden on a child to get all your love from her.

It doesn't have to be like this, but you need to be brave and bring about a change. That's either instigating a final showdown and explaining that you'll leave if things don't improve and there is transparency about his movements and phone activity - or you cut your losses, find out what you'll be entitled to benefits wise and then leave. He'll have to pay for his child and you might not be as badly off as you fear, plus that situation won't go on forever.

If you do nothing, then either nothing will change or he'll leave you in the lurch anyway.

MadBusLady · 29/05/2013 21:42

I used to sometimes feel he was "too much" because he loved me so much

It's interesting you say that Why. I think coming on very strong in the early days is one of the red flags for emotional abusers. Not to say that some people can't fall in love very quickly, of course. But where it feels a bit uneven and one-sided - or "too much" - it can be an indicator that the abuser is putting on an overwhelming charm act to hook you in, so that you feel almost obliged to fall in with it. And by the time you surface from all this dizziness (having quickly married, had DC, or otherwise tied yourself to them), they revert to their true selves and it's much harder to get away from them.

Basically, it is all him and not you. Your expectations are totally reasonable. He is in some sense too cold, or too damaged, to treat you as another human being. (Or he is having an affair, which isn't mutually exclusive with the above).

Original poster

WhyWhyY · 29/05/2013 21:50

You are right B, she shouldn't be my crutch.

MBL - yeah he was very OTT, I felt. I was very happilly single and quite un impressed by him in the beginning. I had no desire to fall in love, but liked him as a person. Then after all the work he put in, I changed my mind and decided I could let myself love him. Now that I do, its all changed. I'm stuck now with a man that does not love me and I feel in an impossible situation.

I don't actually believe he is having an affair, but I am sensible enough to know, you never know. So i don't discount it.

As for the financial support he'd have to give me, he thinks that is a motivation for me to go. He forgets Ive stuck round for 10 months now, when I've been unhappy and just been begging for change..

OP posts:

Ilikethebreeze · 29/05/2013 22:01

Sorry, I dont understand about the financial bit.

[lets hope you did some good on the other post you and I are on].

Original poster

WhyWhyY · 29/05/2013 22:06

He thinks I want to go so he has to pay for me, like support me and his daughter. As if anyone wants that. Like I have trapped him!

I do hope so, no human deserves that - not the OW or the poor wife, oblivious at home. Makes me angry and sad that people can do this to each other. But probably more so because I am probably now, the sad sap "wife" sat at home waiting for the man who is "in work" or whatever else. While he humps some woman who really should know better. Men (and of course women who cheat) are beneath contempt.

OP posts:

Ilikethebreeze · 29/05/2013 22:14

She has done bad behaviour. I hope, from the thread, that she stops it.

I am not sure that is what your partner is up to.
I often think not on MN, but there are occasions when I have been proved wrong on that score.
If ever I got in that possible situation, I think I would hire a private detective, though have no idea how much they charge.
I hope that is not what is happening in your case.

Ah. You are saying that he is sort of afraid that you will try and claim off him, and that you are thinking to go so you can claim.
Hmm. tbh, that sounds like he may want you to stay, and he is actually afraid that you will leave him.

Heck. I am confused. No wonder you are confused.

badinage · 29/05/2013 22:26

I don't think it's confusing.

If a bloke only wants you to stay so that it's cheaper for him if you do, it's game over isn't it?

You seem like such a nice person OP. Please at least look into how you'd manage out of this relationship. Emotionally you'd be so much better off and it might not be as bad financially as you think it is.

Staying in a loveless relationship is really bad for children.

You have the opportunity of a much better life if you decide to make that change.

Rulesgirl · 30/05/2013 14:25

Sorry but just had to say.....could he be gay?

Original poster

WhyWhyY · 30/05/2013 21:14

Well of course, he could be, or be having an affair. But the sane applies, men don't admit these things readily and if be we be able to catch him doing anything so it just does t help :((

OP posts:

AnnaClaudia · 30/05/2013 22:30

Hi WhywhyY, Just found your thread. How old is your DD? You sound so down with it all, could it be post natal depression? It can come on many months after baby is born and it can make you feel so down that you can't see the good in anything. Not making light of your relationship problems, just can tell from your messages that you are feeling so alone. I think a woman feeling like this scares the hell out of a man, they are the weaker sex after all, lol. Could it be he just doesn't know how to deal with how you're feeling so just "goes into his cave"? Just a thought.....

Twattergy · 31/05/2013 00:32

Seriously Anna Claudia? don't you think OP is depressed because of the death of her relationship rather than because of her, by her account, very easy to care for baby? And poor man can't deal with it so retreats to his 'cave'? That's a really nice way to make it her problem not his.

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