Curious to hear from people who have left marriages that weren't AWFUL but just unsatisfying

[All0vertheplace]

Have you made the tough choice to leave a marriage -- not because of abuse or an affair, but just because you were mismatched and things weren't working out.

If so, how was that decision, and how have your life and relationships been since?

Diege. I've had a look at that Lundy Bandcroft book. Scary. One of my issues is the way dh gives me little respect. He doesn't think I know anything while expecting me to do everything. Because he's educated and can talk intelligently on anything and anyone it's so confusing. Don't get me wrong I'm also educated more than him. The public and private persona. I see him in company and I admire him. But in private or to me, I'm not sure how to describe it but he doesn't give me the time of day, doesn't even listen or answer me properly, talks over and for me. I'm not the most confident person but I'm not a wallflower just not the centre of the party.
What worries me is that we have daughters and he is similar with them, occasionally he bothers but often he doesn't or is impatient and dismissive. I feel for them.
But my traditional family and friends tell me he is great because he will occasionally cook and take dd out and I know others who's Dh's don't even manage that and they think it's fine. No more or less than any other bloke is what they say and to some extent I believe. But having no dh sounds preferable to this situation. But not sure dds would agree.

Shandy Personally, if your th is showing the same disrespect/disregard for your daughter's as he is for you, then leaving would be a good thing.
These girls are going to take their cues from you. They are going to learn how a man "should" treat them from your relationship.
So for them, you need to ask DH to change. Or leave.

Iron - I'm so sorry you went though that, it just sounds horrific. :( Who knows why we stay, or go on to marry men we know are not quite right for us - I think for me, it was a desperate need to just be stable and safe, and because I think I was brought up around a lot of women who were single but kept lamenting "I need a mannnn!" when things went wrong lol. Since getting a job that pays more than I was earning working from home, I was suddenly hit with the realisation that actually I don't "need a man" to pay for stuff, I just need to figure out how I can do that alone.

Shandybass - Relate do counselling specifically for the purpose of helping a couple deal with breaking up. I think me and dh are going to do it. I'm sure other companies do it too. Relate is fourty something quid a session, but i believe it's means tested and you can get a reduction if needed.
re. savings, if you have less than £15 000 , you are entitled to apply for Local Authority help so investigate that . If you have more than that, you are still entitled to Tax Credits so do the calculator and look at that, it counts towards acceptable income for both rent and mortgages I believe. As does child benefit and maintenance payments, so you may not be as badly off as you think. I was certainly surprised when I saw what I was entitled to. :) Also I would agree with Hiddlesnake re your husband's attitude and your daughters.

Update for me is that, my DH messaged me on Facebook today to ask how some work on the boiler had gone, and we ended up bizzarrely discussing everything on there. I almost wonder whether he found it easier not to do it face to face. He started off saying he does love me but I see it differently, but when I pointed out I just couldn't accept being in a relationship where there was no kissing and rarely any touching, and where we were both a bit unhappy, he actually ended up agreeing with me and admitted that he has been waiting for me to say it. He did say he was "gutted" so. At the end of the day I think we just both want something different from this and our wants are never going to meet in the middle. I don't think it's necessarily anyone's fault, we just became friends along the line somewhere and occasionally I cajoled him into being something more. I said that to him and he said, "sounds about right" well, what can you say?

Now I am waiting for him and the kids to come back. I guess I'm faced with starting to sort this out for real and I feel quite terrified, but I know it is the right thing to do. I'm worried about the kids, we both are. We have agreed to go to relate, to their end of relationship counselling, to see if we can do it in a less traumatic way I guess. I emphasised to him that I wanted him to live near by so he can be fully involved in the boys. Ideally I'd like him to be close enough that they can just walk round and see him whenever they want to. ugh, though, this is really horrendous. What a doubtful, stressful, no best case scenario situation.

Hope you're all ok. :)

"One of my issues is the way dh gives me little respect. He doesn't think I know anything while expecting me to do everything."
Yesss!!
I couldn't relate to that more.
Also monologing - he will stand and talk at me for 15 minutes at a time, on and on and on. Even if I blatantly pay no attention. I feel like a warm body around him. I wonder when he stopped seeing me as awoof and instead saw me as the woman at home.
Weird.
Bit of a shitty day for me. Went to see DM with dd and dh and got talked at. I tried speaking to my DM a while ago and she suggested date nights etc (scream!) And while we were visiting she kept asking dd 'did she want to stay so mummy and daddy could go out' blah blah blah.
I know she's trying to help but if she lived my day to day life then she would be running too.
Although my ducks in a row planning is going really well, the weekends really get me down.
Spending time with him makes me so sad. Constant small slights and criticisms that I notice more and more, and that I won't accept anymore.
Maybe it sounds mad but I hope he doesn't make this mistake with his next partner. I'm a nice person and I think I could have loved him for always if he hadn't have become this moody, selfish arse.
Hope everyone is okay. Best of luck WWKDD

Lurking on here since the beginning. What do you all count as your ducks in a row? Is it copies of paperwork? What else do I need??? I posted an open letter to my husband on here earlier. Some people on here (relationships) are lovely. I don't feel so quietly mad anymore.

We are back in separate rooms again as DH initiated sex and I went along with it but wasn't enjoying it enough or doing it right or some other perceived slight in his head so he ended it and he's back in the bunk beds with DS1

Someone said above that once the others were happy they felt that should be enough but we deserve to be happy in our own right too. My DH is in denial actually as there is no way he can be happy-sleeping in a bunk bed, a wife who is angry most of the time, no sex or crap sex and he must be lonely too. I think things have gone too far to be worked on now and I have actually said to him that he should leave for his own wellbeing too. I don't hate him, he's not bad to me -I just don't think I love him enough or at all at this stage.

Reading with interest. I am married to a man who is decent, hard working, adores his kids BUT is so fucking miserable most of the time that he has sucked the joy out of my life. He is a quiet man and an introvert. I can talk to him (just inane chat and he won't reply) it drives me crazy. Work dominates his thoughts, usually in a negative way. We've been together for 16 years and we should have separated years ago. We don't argue and I'm not desperately unhappy but I just don't see a future for us.

I can be financially independent so that's not an issue. The massive problem is the dc and their feelings if we split. They have no idea there are problems, they are 11 & 12. I don't know if I can live with the guilt of putting them through a separation because I'm unhappy. I'm not sure i would be any happier without him. Fuck I don't know!!! I don't have a single person I can confide in so its hard to get a perspective x

honey it's so difficult when there are kids involved. If we didn't have kids I'd have gone long ago.

floundering I know, I just wonder how much of our own lives we are to give up? I suspect I will do what I always do and brush it under the carpet for the next few years just suppressing those feelings

Lots of similar stories here. My dd 10 said to me one time after an argument, I know why don't you Mum get a house and Dad has a house. It'll be fun. We can live in two houses instead of one. The simple logic of a child. I reassured her things were fine we would work it out. Since then possibly a year, there are less arguments, but only because I've given up trying to make things work.
But I still remember that and take heart that dcs would just get on with it and not hate me for splitting the family.

Shandybass I think i would have taken her up on her suggestion!

I try and get on with my life and find some degree of happiness from it, The dc are wonderful and i have a good job. I work pt and love the days where i have solice. It just makes me so sad to have a husband who is so miserable. We still have sex about once every 2 weeks and i do not enjoy it but h would never know, i do it because if i didnt then he would be even more miserable. He had a shit childhood with parents who fought all the time and he was incredibly shy which maybe why he is like he is. I feel like i am suppressing all these unhappy feelings for the sake of everybody else & its no wonder i feel unhappy too.

I cannot figure out if i am a miserable person too, was i always this way or was it that i met h? Its incredibly hard to get any perspective when you are in the thick of it iyswim. I spoke to him last night about how i feel and that i cannot see a future for us, he put it down to work (as always). How can i break up a home in which our dc are perfectly happy and h seems to think this mediocre marriage is perfectly ok but i don't? What i will do is carry on until the dc are older then make the brea, but at what cost to myself i do not know, i already feel the resentment building.

shandybass instead of resentment can you put a time frame on it and a proper plan in place? That way you are working towards something even if it's 2/ 3/4/5 years away?

Just checking in -- we've had a few conversations in which the prospect of separating has become, shall we say, less and less hypothetical. But still, when the big moment comes, I always back away from it, just not wanting to Break Up The Family. So bonkers, isn't it.

I can identify with so many of these posts. I was looking at DH and kids yesterday and despite my unhappiness it feels like it would be pure selfishness on my part to break up this family. Completely torn at the moment and don't know what to do!

I'm feeling so detached right now.
DH has been a diamond. Since I told him I was unhappy he's been trying so hard to do everything right. But I just don't feel it. We are getting on, no arguments etc - from the outside I shouldn't have anything to complain about. But I just cannot see myself here in 5, 10, 20 years time.

I constantly struggle with feelings of 'how can I split the family up' and selfishness... But I'm not getting anything from this relationship. The more time passes, the more I feel like there's nothing left for us to work on... :(

My DH would also try a bit harder once we'd had a discussion about me being unhappy, but it would always be with stuff like helping more with the kids or housework, while still negletcting the relationship side, so still not really talking to me, wanting to go out with me or have sex with me.

Anyway, I guess I should start calling him ExDh now, because we have agreed to separate and divorce. He came back on Saturday, and after initially saying that he did love me and that "I just saw things different to him" , the more he drank he admitted, as I asked him,

1. he doesn't ever feel the need to spend time with me or want to.
2. he doesn't want to ever put the telly off and sit round the table with just me so we can catch up on each other's news/lives/talk
3. he doesn't want to go out with me
4. he never misses me
5. he doesn't want to have sex and doesn't fancy me any more

in a finishing cry, he said the classic statement of "I'm so sad that I'm not going to have the house or live with the kids any more, and I'm really sorry that I can't say the same for you!" wow. Ok. Kick me while I'm down lol.

So that's pretty much it for us. I've given up trying and I guess I feel that I don't love him like that any more either, so that really is the end.

Hes looking into buying me out of the house so he can stay in his beloved falling down house that he refuses to maintain, and Im going to rent nearby.

Dreading telling the kids and dealing out with the fallout, but so relieved for myself that I wont have to live in this life any more.

Sending you loads of support

Gosh WWKKD lump in throat stuff. Seemed to happen so quickly.

Ah big squeeze unmumsnetty hug your way WWKDD.
It's seems like it's for the best; fascinating they they are willing to put up with plodding along with a woman who they are so indifferent about.
I think that conversation will be happening any day for me. We spoke awhile ago and he promised all the extra effort but in reality it translated into a bunch of flowers and him occasionally making the bed. He still doesn't bother himself with having fun with me or listening when I speak.
I took my rings off last week and he hasn't said anything and last night was the first time he didn't say he loved me before we went to sleep so .. Urgh. Yep just feeling a bit sad and worn out by it all today

Oh wow WWKDD for you. But if he can say this then you know you are doing the right thing in the long run.
I have been given the name of someone to contact over here to see what my rights are being abroad. And now H is being all normal and nice and I feel like shit.

Big sympathy to WWKDD, but it does sound like you feel you've made the right decision. Things with me are still trending in that direction, but they're taking some time. Neither of us wants to be the one to flip the switch.

I've started counselling to see if some of my difficulties with relationships can be resolved. If I don't think I'm making progress I'll leave. DC2's last GCSE is 24 June. I won't announce any big decisions until then. I'm going to hurt everyone so much but can't face each day feeling like I'm suffocating.