I don't really love him

[pleaseletmesmile]

My partner and i have a 3 yr old and a 5 month old child. We split up after the first child and got back together. We both love our kids but I have very little respect for my partner and although i love him for giving us 2 wonderful children, I am not in love with him. We argue a lot which cannot be good for our kids……..it certainly isn't good for me. I try so hard to try and love him, i make myself believe we can make a go of it and that he is the man i want to spend my life with but I can't even bring myself to kiss him let alone sleep with him.

My partner lives overseas and I moved here to be with him. I don't speak the language properly and feel far too dependant on him, which kills me having been very independent before meeting him.
I like the life out here and the people and culture are lovely but the thought of going it alone with the children scares me senseless. My partner has told me he doesn't care if i "go home" as he puts it and take the children with me, but i know it is said to hurt me and it would break his heart and mine to see them separated from their father.
Should i stay with him and try and learn to love him again (at very least tolerate the situation) or should i leave him? I can't eat or sleep for thinking about this.

I think you need, for once, to properly work through the consequences of your choices. Seems that you've both just ricocheted from one major life decision to another so far without very much thought at all. Children, emigration, dependency, even the relationship itself sounds like it was built on sand rather than anything more substantial. Whatever you decide, have a plan, get informed and do it for tangible reasons.

Leave this man and return to the UK with your children asap.

Why put yourself and by turn these children through yet more misery?. This is not at all tolerable for anyone and everyone here is unhappy.

What do you want to teach your children about relationships?. What do you think they are both learning here currently from the two of you?.
We learn about relationships first and foremost from our parents. Do you want them to learn that a loveless relationship is the norm and for them to emulate what you currently have?. I should bloody well hope not.

Staying with this person as well stops you from meeting someone new ultimately. Better to be apart and happier than to be together and miserable as you are now. If you do not love this man and only have stayed till now out of some innate fear of being on your own, then it really is no point in staying to further flog this dead horse. He has also told you that he does not care if you all go home; that is most damning. Your children won't appreciate being told either that you only stayed because of them or saying to them, "oh the sacrifices I made for you". They will call you daft for staying with him and could even accuse you of putting him before them.

You can't do it alone- save your marriage that is- and if you have got to the point of him telling you to leave and take the dc because he doesn't care, then I would say grab that opportunity whilst you can before he refuses to allow you to leave with the dc. Are you in Europe?

Do you have anywhere to go, temporarily?

Staying with him and making a go of it when you can't bear the thought of touching him, or him you presumably, isn't good. And if he doesn't care if you take the dc, then he won't be a good father figure anyway.

There's no shame in coming back to the UK. Better to face it now than 5 years down the line when your dc speak the local language, go to the local school and you're sitting crying and wishing you'd gone years ago and feeling more trapped.

Sit down with him again, no shouting, and talk through calmly the options. If he helps you return so much the better.

Thank you for your responses. I do think my partner and i need to sit down and work everything out like adults - mud slinging get's nobody anywhere and i don't want our kids to suffer.

We have both said a lot of hurtful things in the heat of the moment, his comment about me returning to the U.K was one of them and one which he has apologised for and told me he didn't mean once things had cooled down (it still stung and he probably meant it at that particular moment.)

I agree, it is better to get out of a loveless relationship before the children get too old and involved in life here in France. However i'm not sure if the combination of sleep deprivation caused by my 5 month old, a toddler throwing tantrums, trying to live within a new culture, speak a new language and make new friends plus be a stay at home mum is messing with my ability to think logically.

I did return to the u.k after the first child was born, it was a hard and lonely time. My partner would travel over to see his son and i would bring my son over to see his father every few months. Neither my partner or I met anyone else and the bond of our son kept drawing us back together. During a brief moment of reconciliation i fell pregnant again (i was taking precautions) and i just believe it was fate.

Thank you for all your advice, i am going to re read everything and try and sort the mess that is my head out once and for all.

Best of luck to everyone with your relationships :-)