Aged DP - am I horrible?

[isthisokornotenough]

No sex for years (my choice, because sex hurt after menopause and I haven't fancied him since he lost his figure in middle age, in fact I don't find him particularly pleasant to look at these days, and he was never good looking. (I am ordinary looking for my age so am not saying I have any sex appeal either.) He says he has less sex drive now anyway because of prostate trouble. I am 57, he is 63.

He is a very sweet, kind, gentle and tolerant man, easy to live with. He has lots of common sense, makes friends easily and is popular. I am an introvert.

I don't really respect him for some things, mostly because he has lived off me for years. (obviously I have chosen him and chosen to allow this, and I have big self esteem issues about this and loads of other issues.

We enjoy each other's company and doing hobbies together. I am fond of him. So my life is better with him in it rather than being alone. (Can't imagine having any other relationship because I can't imagine ever wanting sex with another man.)

However, I look at him and think - how did I end up with a man like you?

I wonder - What if he became permanently incapacitated, would I willingly care full time for him? I think 'no' in theory, you've lived off me for years, I've given you enough, I don't want to give up my last active years to you. And the reverse, I just don't know if he would look after me, he wouldn't be much good at it practically.

Am I selfish and ungrateful? Does anyone else ever think like this?

Sorry, cross-posted with a few others!

OP, I found your posts to be (painfully) honest. (Don't get hooked on the good looking children comment - too much focus on a very tiny piece of a huge puzzle).

Can you get away and take some time for headspace? Does your DO know how you feel? Counselling would, I think, be helpful in you making decisions as to how to move forward. (Not sure if Relate is any good - my personal experience with them hasn't been great).

Strikes me that you've admitted a lot here and now you have to deal with it. You need to deal with it, or I suspect you will regret it. Life really is too short.

Good luck.

LazyDays Congratulating posted on having good looking children. hmm Jeez.

It was meant lightheartedly, it was very late last night, I should have put a . No offence meant towards ohtheholidays
Yes I am materialistic. Money is important. He would have been bankrupt twice if not for me. I paid his debts. He hasn't been in trouble since because I have always helped him. I use money to give us both good experiences, like lovely hobbies, not clothes or similar things.

out2pasture Catpants I think I would find the pecks a lot less distasteful if I didn't have look at the huge bull neck and tiny face on top. I am seriously working on losing my own 20lbs overweight and trying to encourage him to lose weight. His brothers are slim and look a lot better for it. He says he wants to slim but doesn't seem to be trying that hard. I think he needs help, but he won't go to SW with me because of all the women there. I am going to try to do Myfitnesspal for him, he won't be able to do it as he cant type on the laptop well enough. We looked at his Mr Kiplings apple cake yesterday, he said he thought it would be about 60 calories, the packet says 210 per cake. Also he is doing a lot less activity recently, so needs to cut his consumption,but as we all know, it is very hard to lose weight if you are not in the right frame of mind.

Isetan I don't think your first paras are right, but of course you can only judge on what I have told you. The last two paras are a bit more accurate, though I didn't mean to infer I am a martyr. I am beating myself up because I think I am selfish to want him to make himself more attractive by losing weight, not kiss me when he has lots of saliva in his mouth, pull his own weight economically (too late for the economics bit now). And I am in a panic about not having that many healthy active painfree years left.

wannafreestressfree this is private venting, he has no idea I feel like this, though I have mentioned the superfluity of saliva a few times and I am encouraging him to lose weight. If I was that impossible, he would have gone long ago. He stays because he wants to. Day to day we are companionably happy.

So I need "insight." I think I am far too introspective and need a large degree of perspective, but may be you are right. I will think about it.

I never had a desire to have children as I didn't want to put a child through the experiences I went through. I always said to myself I would not have a child by accident, I would only have a child if I really really hungered for one and was confident I could be a good calm rational parent. I have always thought that the job of bringing up children is the most important in the world and I thought my own personality flaws meant I could never be a good mother. Yes I got pregnant once by accident and was in a huge panic, and had that thought about not wanting children if they were going to be ugly like him and subject to my emotional flaws. It was a time of heightened intensity. Sheer panic. I do not want to expand anymore on this.

My partner was and remains, a safe kind and unthreatening choice. Yes nooka I probably settled for someone with not particularly appealing looks (I don't always think of him as ugly, only at times of crisis.) but a kind personality because I found I couldn't attract anyone better looking and he was the only one interested in me and he was kind.

Incidentally he benefits hugely from the wisdom of MN. I have learned a lot from reading it over the years.

It would be interesting to know if everyone who thinks I am awful for worrying about disasters in the future, is in a happy relationship. Has anyone criticised me who is in an unloving relationship themselves?

However I think I am setting myself up for more criticism. So ok Yes I am guilty and horrible for these thoughts. I am alone in thinking this way. That's what I asked. Thank you for your input.
I am leaving the thread.

You probably won't find a match that you would be satisfied with if you leave him. It is really difficult to find the perfect, good looking, wonderful personality bearing and solvent-without-baggage man, particularly when you are in your fifties. There are not that many really good looking men in their fifties and sixties and any one you pick would probably have their own issues and complications.

You have been very,very honest and I think there are lots of couples in their fifties where the love has diminished and the attraction gone. Mind you, lots do get divorced or separate, while others settle for the kind of low level contentment you are describing.

So your choice is be alone and independent but have male and female platonic friends, probably including DP, or put up with your current situation and accept the uncertainty about what the future will bring health-wise. At least, I suppose, with a partner, when one gets ill the other can organise things even if they do not want to do the hands-on care.

I think you sound terribly unhappy and have quite deep rooted resentment. I think you deserve more.

Why don't you see a therapist, build your self esteem, work through how you ended up here - maybe with a view to going on alone or coming to peace with living with him.

It's possible a true friendship can be forged, it's equally possible you could find your needs met better elsewhere.

I think a lot of the posts are honest responses to your situation rather than criticism.
And, in fairness, why would you want to take advice from another person putting up with a miserable relationship?

Most posters are telling you, gently or not, that being in a relationship where you describe your partner in terms that are critical and where your tone is bleak, is not good for either of you.

What do you want to hear?

Surely everyone worries about the future?
Mostly I just put things out of my mind and don't dwell on them
Incidentally I'm in a ltr where we don't live together and I find it much easier than cohabiting, I like a lot of space and solitude.
Separate households, separate bills.
I'd be pretty pissed off if he got to bankruptcy and I was the only one who could save him and if he didn't look after his health, just let himself go and got fat I would be dismayed.
I should say that we are both very into health and fitness so it would be totally out of character for him to do that

you dont know how you would feel if he did become ill and need looking after.
your perspective may well change.
you could employ someone else to look after him
you could push him off a cliff

oh, i just saw you have left the thread before I put any opinion to it.

Can't believe all the pearl-clutching on here about the fact you wisely chose not to have children with this man. We are entitled to choose who we reproduce with, if we reproduce. And physical attroutes are absolutely part of that. Women have to be discerning in this respect seeing as we carry the baby too- nature seems to have given us more responsibility over reproduction in this respect.
OP I think you are a wise, kind and self-aware woman. Please leave him. Your life sounds like a living death. You sound so much more vital than him. I worry he won't leave . His gravy train has come to a halt. He won't leave quietly. You might have to pay him out just to be shot of him and so he doesn't keep coming back when he needs you.
As for evenings spent alone: BLISS!!!! Feng Shui your house , invite your friends round, make new friends, go away for weekends by yourself . You'll live a lot longer probably without this millstone around your neck.

Pearl clutching?

Is pointing out that saying 'my partner is too ugly to have children with' indicates that you probably don't like him much pearl clutching. Has someone changed the meaning?

I agree, he probably won't leave, the op is his benefactor

You could get a toyboy instead
Joking!
(Sorry that you felt you have to leave thread OP )

My partner was and remains, a safe kind and unthreatening choice

Of course he is
You don't bite the hand that feeds you....

"Don't tell me lots of women haven't decided not to have children with a man because they didn't think they wanted children like him. That's how we choose a fitting mate. I just never found a fitting mate."
I see where you're coming from OP. Thinking about the animal kingdom as a whole the females will chose the more physically attractive, strong, fit and capable males to breed with. It's always puzzled me how many humans aren't a lot more picky than they are. Since being on MN I've read that women are almost conditioned to give any man a chance, that it's better to be with someone a bit "meh" than to be single. Dating stories on here where women have said they don't really fancy the man they've had a first date with but he's pleasant enough, and posters telling her to give him a chance. Do you think men would be telling their mates the same? I don't think so. I've dated plenty of men who would be seen as punching above ther weight because I was so depserate for a relationship. No more. So now I will not go out with a man who I don't find physically and emotionally attractive which, of course, makes me sounds shallow.

OP, I'm not surprised you don't want to kiss him. Slobbery, drooly, kissing turns my stomach. I think you'd be better off getting some counselling to try and understand yourself better and then see how you feel. If you are still not happy then leave him.

I agree - I couldn't even kiss someone I didn't think was really good looking. Women do tend to put personality above looks far more than men, which is crazy really because then you just end up like the op ( feeling sick when your partner kisses you )

Sorry you felt you had to leave the thread OP. I think you have been very honest and have been given an unduly hard time.

I don't think it's unreasonable to not want to provide care for someone, whether you love them or not. I loved my H deeply but I also knew myself enough to say that when the time came that he needed personal care, professionals would be providing it, not me. Cleaning up someone's poo and pee 5x per day would be enough to kill any love stone dead.

I don't think you're horrible OP - you're just being honest. But I admit I'm baffled as to how you came to live with a man you found ugly from the outset - so ugly, in fact, that you didn't want to have DC with him. Your self-esteem issues must indeed be quite serious for this to have happened as most of us would far rather remain single until we found someone we were attracted to, rather than shack up with someone we found physically repulsive just to have a companion with whom to do hobbies.

You sound depressed to me, so please go and see your GP. You also, clearly need to see a counsellor to work through your feelings of inferiority and the baggage you're carrying from your childhood which is still damaging you in your sixth decade. I would suggest that these are two things you should tackle right now - not sometime this year - but now in January 2016.

As for this sad relationship you're in, I suggest you end it. It may be easier to do that once you've started work with a counsellor who should, hopefully, give you the tools to see that you are worth more than this. Your DP sounds utterly dreary, as well as unattractive, needy and insolvent. If another woman is prepared to take him on, fair play to him, but he doesn't sound like much of a catch to me.

I don't think you're horrible OP, and I wish you hadn't left the thread. You sound depressed and unhappy.

My interpretation of the children comment is that you don't love your partner and you never did. When we love people they are attractive to us regardless of physical flaws. And anyway, my cousin and his wife are lovely but no oil paintings and they have two stunningly good looking children.

I think you have low self esteem and confidence based, apparently, on a rather unpleasant childhood, and you're projecting that onto your partner and the whole motherhood issue. It's easier for you to think that you didnt have kids because he was ugly than address all the really painful beliefs about yourself behind it.

I infer you settled for this man due to low self esteem thinking this was the best you could do. You bankrolled him because you believed that you weren't good enough to have a man who would want to be with you for you. So you payed him to stay with you. But in the process you lost respect for him because he basically sponged off you. And you lost respect for yourself for putting up with it.

Now you wonder whether you actually had to make these big compromises just to have a relationship.

As others have suggested you may find it helpful to talk things through with a counsellor.

I spent my early 20s in a relationship with someone I found physically repellent because I thought I wasn't attractive enough for anyone else and I didn't want a lifetime of loneliness. It does happen.

I'm so sorry you feel like this, OP. The best thing I ever did was finally get the confidence to leave that perfectly pleasant and utterly devoted man. I still have nightmares occasionally that I'm still with him.

(For the record, I did attract quite a lot of other men after that.)

You didn't offend me OPI don't know why you think you did.

I do think you should leave your DP and let him find someone that loves him and doesn't see him as so ugly.

Ugh @ the "too much saliva" thing.

I know a bloke like that. Not that I kiss him; it's just that you get lightly sprayed when you talk to him. How do these people not know what they're doing?? 🙄

Can't you pointedly wipe your lips after he kisses you, maybe with a grimace? Frankly if people are too dim to realise without being told that they've slurped you like a Labrador then you need to make it clearer.

I think 'very honest' is not necessarily something to be applauded when that honesty is a stark list of the flaws and repulsive (to you) behaviour of your partner. I do think it's a wake-up call to OP though that something needs to change.

The OP seems to think that because other people are not saying 'Yes, I think exactly that way too about my DP', that the only people answering are blissfully happy in their relationships. I don't think that's the case. But I would say this chronic utter dislike without wanting to leave is unusual.

I think there is a lot more going on with OP than she is describing. With her rather than her DP. But she doesn't seem to want to get into any of that.

And I don't think the general sentiment of the replies is harsh.

You are clearly quite troubled OP and asking strangers if you are horrible, based on fleeting thoughts in moments of emotional intensity, is a poor idea.