Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
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

Original poster

Dont love or fancy DH. He is kind and gentle. We have 4 kids. Should I stay?

127 replies

Kitttty · 08/02/2014 17:34

No rows except when the frustration gets to me, or when he lets me down on tough life issues. He is very laid back, messy, unambitious - the opposite to me. After 30 years together (we met at school), 20 married, with a 7, 12, 13 and 15 year old - I just don't fancy him and I dint think I love him. I had a holiday in my own this time last year. I did not miss him one bit. We get on fine as friends we have many similar interests - but I would prefer to go out with my girlfriends. They make me laugh, entertain me and help me emotionally - he is emotionally inarticulate. Should I just gte through this until the kids are older for their sakes? I don't want anyone else.

OP posts:
Handywoman · 08/02/2014 17:40

What 'tough life issues' does he let you down on?

CogitoErgoSometimes · 08/02/2014 18:39

Is he happy do you think? Has he any idea how you feel? Or does his emotional inarticulacy & the emotional help you get from friends mean you are both unhappy but no-one's talking about it? I also think that the 'tough life issues' he lets you down with would be revealing.

Livingthedaydream · 08/02/2014 19:06

God, not quite the same situation family wise (not married, no kids) but everything else you wrote I could have written.
Two weeks ago I bit the bullet. I decided at work that that day was the day I'd end it. I spent the day feeling sick, knowing the conversation was to come. I just drove home, walked through the door, made him sit down and told him it was over.
The main thing for me was that I was not attracted to him. I did not want to have sex with him. Basically we did it about once every 2 months but i'd have been quite happy to have never done it again.
You cannot live like that!
Next: he wasn't motivated, didn't want to get anywhere in life, was happy just meandering a long. He is very quiet, difficult to speak to, i was always kind of embarrassed introducing him to people because he is do difficult to speak to! I am extremely confident, will speak to anyone, full of beans etc.

Now, i feel so much better, it was definitely the right decision. I did love him just not in love (cliche - yes but still true) I would really not recommend staying with him. This is your life, you have to think about yourself and your happiness. Don't just stay because you want to save him from being hurt. Time passes and he will be ok.

I think you know already xx

VivienStanshall · 08/02/2014 19:15

Get through what? If you're not looking for anyone else go for separate bedrooms. You have four children and you're looking at becoming a single mother to them because you find him a bit dull. Wow.

mercibucket · 08/02/2014 19:17

would you be fine with him finding someone else after you split up?
also, am wondering about how he has let you down

IshouldhavemarriedEwanMcGregor · 08/02/2014 19:21

I'm sorry but although Vivian has put it in a rather harsh way - I kind of agree.

Surely 50% (60%? 80%?) of women in long term marriages have lost the spark, don't 'fancy' their husbands. You know you can come back from the abyss - I have done it. I don't regret not leaving at all!

But, yes you stay for the children - not if there is abuse of course, not if you are terribly terribly unhappy because one part of the partnership is being seriously unreasonable...but you stay together because you are responsible for the stability and security and happiness of several other people ie the kids you brought into the world.

This view seems to be almost always ridiculed or dismissed on Mumsnet! The only bloody thing that is ever said about kids is 'they will be happier if you are happy/they are being damaged in the middle of a loveless marriage'. More than often comments are just about the husband and how he will get over it too...

Thank God in real life myself and my friends think otherwise.

CocoBandicoot · 08/02/2014 19:22

How long have you felt this way? Have you told him how you feel and tried to find a way to fix it together?

Nobody should stay in a relationship which makes them unhappy, but be careful you're not throwing a 30 year relationship away for a feeling that may pass.

StrawberryMojito · 08/02/2014 19:23

With all due respect Living, she is married with 4 kids and that takes her decision to a whole different level to yours. It is not just her if will affect. I'm not saying she she should stay, she hasn't given enough info but personally, on what she info she has provided (kind, gentle, father of her 4 children, she's has a life outside her marriage-holiday, time with friends etc) I would try and make it work.

dreamingbohemian · 08/02/2014 19:29

When did this feeling start?

Are you happy in all the other aspects of your life?

IshouldhavemarriedEwanMcGregor · 08/02/2014 19:31

I should add to my post above, I am talking in a general sense about the 'spark gone from marriage' and Mumsnet's view on it (on the whole) being 'why should you stay in a relationship that doesn't make you happy?'...

I'm not talking specifically about OP - I don't your specific circumstances OP and I don't know how unbearable things might have become for you.

What do you mean about his emotional inadequacy?

TawdryTatou · 08/02/2014 19:35

Surely, anyone who is saying "you have kids, stay" has never been in this situation.

I have. It's unutterably terrible. Dominates your waking thoughts and stops you sleeping.

Your children will adapt. I have mine 50/50 and it's worse for me than for them. I miss them all the time, but I know I am a better parent when I'm with them than when I was with their dad and living a half-life, trying to avoid my husband in our own house.

One life. One.

IshouldhavemarriedEwanMcGregor · 08/02/2014 19:37

Yes I have been in this situation.

Have you been a child of divorce? I have.

One life one - for your kids as well as you.

IshouldhavemarriedEwanMcGregor · 08/02/2014 19:44

We all say 'our kids will adapt'. I have said that to myself, at times when I thought we should separate.

Of course they will adapt! What choice do they have?

It is understandable why those who chose to divorce say their kids are happier or at least that they have adapted satisfactorily.

I acted like I was perfectly happy as a young teenager when my parents split. I really really wasn't. Maybe other kids are - I really hope so.

This will be seen as an outrageously hurtful post by some because I appreciate it's a very tough, awful decision to divorce but I'm saying this because this view is HARDLY EVER expressed on Mumsnet.

rainbowsmiles · 08/02/2014 19:52

I think it depends on whether you get on well. No rows is not the end game. I have a v close friend who stayed for kids. They lived in a home full of quiet seething resentment where communication was limited to necessary conversations.

They left it too late before they tried to fix it. By the time they had the big conversation the desire to fix it was gone.

I can see the result of the noxious home atmosphere on the kids. They are messed up by it. But then who knows how badly the break up would have affected them.

But I have another member of my family who very amicably lives separately together with her husband. Kids have all left and they stay together. She holidays separately and he holidays separately. She will have family parties and he will go out. But it works for them. Think they have been married 40 years.

tess73 · 08/02/2014 19:52

Love is a verb, to love, not a feeling. Can you try to love him more, see if it grows? Sounds like a lot to throw away without trying your very very best.

Livingthedaydream · 08/02/2014 19:54

If my mother or father was unhappy but chose to stay with the other for me, i would feel so guilty. I would not want them to do that. I would want them both to be happy.

I kind of think anyone who says they should stay together for the kids is actually a slap in the face towards single parents. Do single parents not give their kids as happy a life as those with their parents still married?

Ridiculous!

VivienStanshall · 08/02/2014 19:59

If it is an abusive or using relationship - go.

If there is DV or frequent rows - go.

If you have some vague dissatisfaction - stay.

One life for everybody.

ToTheTeeth · 08/02/2014 20:01

Do single parents not give their kids as happy a life as those with their parents still married?

No. Often they don't. I don't think you'd ever meet a child of divorce who wouldn't have preferred to grow up with two loving, happy parents.

But of course that's just not always possible, so if love and happiness are impossible difficult decisions have to be made. But I will not pretend that this is anything more than making the best of a bad situation.

And as we're voicing unpopular opinions tonight, this is about the billionth post I've read from someone who just isn't feeling the love for someone she decided to marry when she was barely mature.

SoonToBeSix · 08/02/2014 20:01

Of course you stay , do your marriage vows mean nothing to you ? Your poor dh. And yes put your dc before yourself.
One of the most self indulgent posts I have read on mumsnet.

Treaclepot · 08/02/2014 20:07

I'm not sure I would stay in a loveless marriage because ofsome vows.
I would for my children if it wasnt making me so unhappy that it was affecting them.
Hsving divorced parents is shit, having parents together that dont love each other is pretty shit too.

Liara · 08/02/2014 20:09

My sister was in that situation and I was amazed when she decided to go.

Now they live separately, she has the dc on weekdays he on weekends (she is self employed so can work from home and on weekends) and they get along better than ever before! He has been having work done on his house and comes over to hers every day for dinner, to do his laundry, etc. They chose the new kitchen for his house together.

What is more, both their relationships with their children have improved, and both of them are 'better' than they were before - doing better in their careers, more generous, positive and easy to be with than they were when they are together.

Some marriages just don't seem to get the best out of people, even when both the people are good, kind people.

In their case, it has truly been for the best (although everyone around them is totally baffled by their current relationship).

Liara · 08/02/2014 20:10

Oh, and I am the child of divorced parents (mother 3 times, father 4!) and still I would never tell anyone to stay 'for the children'.

It is an unfair burden to place on them, and liable to damage your relationship with them in the long term imo.

ToTheTeeth · 08/02/2014 20:13

It's not about just saying "stay for the children", it's about saying "try to make it work" and the children being a motivation. Who's to say your sister, for example, couldn't have had this improvement in her relationship with her husband within the traditional setting?

My personal view is you should be damn picky about who you have children with, and then you try damn hard to make it work.

MoominsYonisAreScary · 08/02/2014 20:16

It depends, are you incredably unhappy? Do you think it would be better for you all to split? If loving together is making you or him miserable in any way of course you should seperate.

Either way you should sit down and talk about it.

hoppinghare · 08/02/2014 20:18

I agree with those saying it sounds as though you should stay. It reads as though you are thinking of breaking your family up and throwing your children's lives into chaos because you don't fancy your husband anymore. Has he put on a bit of weight or something? Were you only with him because you fancied him? If a man leaves his wife and the mother of his children for similiar reasons everybody thinks he is a k**b. Try talking to him before you make any hasty decisions. Perhaps you have just not been making enough time for each other.