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?

First night in my new place. I have quite literally made my bed, and am now lying in it.

How does it feel?

Hugs to you Allover. I hope you have found some peace and sleep ok.
I am back on track thinking of leaving although dh is slightly more chatty since the last talk, no 2015! But I've realised even though it's better it's still very circumstantial there is no depth to his chat. Insight or feeling expressed towards me so it's just surface okness.
What I'm wondering practically is we could afford two houses, but do I push for the capital in our house, a split of his pension or do I just think my stars I have inheritance to set myself up?
Also we have 3 dcs and I can't bear the thought of being without them, do people share the time out but split the children at all? Ie say I had them Friday night and he has them Saturday but dc 1&2 cone to me Sun and dc3 on Monday?
It would also mean having some 1:1 time!

You will be fine!

HowBad - sorry to read your post.
AllOver - how was your first night? Does it feel 'right'?
Shandy - some of your words - I could have written.

Well another weekend came and went and I feel extremely unattractive and unwanted. Talk is kept to 'about the children' with occasional banter thrown in but I'm feeling desperately lonely. The lack of touch or sex is killing me.. Not from him. Just that part of me that yearns for it. I feel so alone.

Iron you are not alone.
I have started a similar yet different thread (sorry don't know how to link and don't want to hi-jack All0ver's thread).
It's really tough isn't it, so much at stake, yet we all deserved to be loved in ways that matter to us.
I don't have any answers but given I've been dipping in and out of this (brilliant thread btw All0ver), I couldn't not offer to stand shoulder to shoulder to those of you, like me, who are struggling.
Take care all.

Thanks all, first night in new place was sort of troubled and restless. I've been busying myself with logistical stuff and haven't spent too much time on the emotional side, but it all sort of hit home last night. Not having the kids around is going to feel very weird like an amputation, really but all I can do is focus on getting the house in shape so that when they do come to me (half the time) they feel comfortable and welcome. The gut-churn is still there, but it's shifted a little. Change is happening, and change is painful. Hope it settles soon. Doesn't help that it's so grey and dreary today.

Have watched this thread for some time - I'm not at a leaving moment, but neither of us feel things can go on as they have been for much longer. The only really connecting conversations we have are the ones about why things are so bad, and how we both feel stuck - and I've come to realise that I provoke these, painful as they are, as they too often feel like the only times we really talk.

Anyway, we've been going to something called The Marriage Course, which is a Christian/Christian-based course intended to strengthen working marriages and heal damaged ones. I think, with quite a few caveats, that I hugely recommend it. I'm stuck over some of the Christian bits, and (although they say they aren't) actually they ARE fundamental to some of what they are talking about. But leaving them aside, it's full of very practical ideas which are helping us to communicate better with each other. It's also held a mirror up to my face, and made me acknowledge the ways in which I've got into the way of habitually hurting my husband - I'm very aware that he hurts me, but I'd got into a habit of justifying my own anger/bad behaviour etc. as always being provoked in some way.

I don't know yet whether this is going to be a step in leaving each other, or a step in learning/re-learning how to make each other happy. But whichever it turns out to be, it's been far the most productive thing we've done to try and make sense of what's going on (we went to Relate about 5 years ago, and this is far far far more useful - and the whole course costs about the same as a single Relate session!)

Hi Knotted.

I looked up The Marriage Course and there is a video showing a couple eating together at a little table. I absolutely howled. I am so sad. I can't think how I let things get like this. I know that P / XP and I are totally disconnected because he isn't interested in food or meal times really but it makes me really really sad that we will never eat together. I am remembering a time we had pizza together in a place near where he lived then and it was POURING and we were so happy. I can't remember the last time we ate together. I think it was dd2's birthday and I was so, so stressed, and the waiter was horrible to us - incredibly rude - and his mum was completely doing my head in - P was incredibly withdrawn and she was focusing on me and coming out with strings of well meaning and utterly bizarre non-sequiturs that I was so exhausted I struggled to understand, on the most basic level - wittering about the names of people or animals and I couldn't even tell which - telling stealth boast "funny" stories that I couldn't quite divine the correct reaction to - lI just felt awful and anxious and edgy. Everything has been like that for months and years. just cold and busy and anxious and scratchy. I wish wish wish I hadn't got everything wrong. I really messed up her birthday dd1's and it was the beginning of the end of us. I will never be able to forget that and it makes me feel so horrible inside. I used to feel so happy on their birthdays and this year I fucked everything up.

Hugs, how bad - not your fault!

One day I'm going to post properly on this thread rather than lurking.

Been away for a while so quite behind on the thread, it had actually dropped off my threads I'm on list.
I have just told H I no longer want to continue this way, he insists he's happy and doesn't want to split he has been drinking 4 nights in a row now and has even left work early to drink today which was the lasts straw for me, which is how it al came bursting out in anger that I'm not happy and want to split.
Not how I wanted that conversation to go but hey ho!
Will return later when I've had time to catch up on thread X

VK86. Welcome back.

DH has just said we should default on the mortgage (house was on market for 2 years and I took off when we had a ridiculous offer in Nov) and that I'm going to be on a debt management plan before I know it - like him. I said "It's not the right time". He was questioning why.

Why has nothing bloody sunk in? Does he seriously think I'm happy? FFS. I'm sad to say that him and DC are driving me mad. I wonder if I should remove myself - but he can't afford to take on the mortgage.

I got the train home with a girl from work who split from her BF last Thursday. I'd seen her a couple of weeks ago and she seemed happy and content. She said he was on drugs that Thursday so she ended it.

Is it because I have kids it seems impossible to break up a family for my own selfishness? I don't know how many times I have asked this. I'm literally going around in circles. Here I am living with an addict myself so normalised to it and feeling completely weak. I wish I knew strong women who were totally unsatisfied in every aspect and had broken the unit up. It's starting to affect work - seeping into everything.

Oh and again I've resolved to my addiction - brilliant. I am not having a good time at the moment. I don't want sympathy just identification..

How do you imagine your life being iron ? I mean, in an ideal world?

I honestly don't know chocolate. On top of the world? Romance. Feeling loved. No idea

Iron like one beautiful woman said to me 'be brave'! Take a look in te mirror and start that ball rolling and keep on going. Be brave.
It's my current mantra. Be brave.....

Nodding along, sadly.

So interesting to read your experiences, many of them are very familiar.

What I'd like to understand is why my DH thinks he deserves a round of applause for keeping the vow of faithfulness, but can't see that he breaks a heap of the others every single day like "sickness and in health" or "cherish". Those vows matter just as much.

I dream about being widowed. That's kind of depressing.

Me too, stealth. Not that I actually wish him dead, but it would simplify things so much if he just stopped existing.

I had my surgery yesterday. I was having a serious wobble while I was in hospital - he's trying to be supportive with getting me to hospital and back home, and the things that are bothering me were feeling really petty. I got home today to a dirty kitchen and unwashed laundry. He then sat himself down with his computer and headphones and left me to clean up. End of wobble.

AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH
I need to scream, I want to scream my head off for a bit just to let out the frustration or whatever it is making me grind my teeth and clench my fists repeatedly
He doesn't understand at all. He is giving it the "I'm never giving up, I'll try everything" Which is all well and good, but his logic sucks. He thinks I shouldn't be able to end our relationship because that would make him unhappy, that he'll do whatever it takes to make me happy. I feel selfish even thinking all it would take is for him to fucking listen and stop trying, let me go. I don't want to listen to drivel about weddings, but I'm not allowed to not want to marry him, because I wanted to marry him once upon a time. He just doesn't give in. I don't want sex, I don't want cuddles, I don't want him playfully trying to reignite a spark! It feels so wrong. There was NEVER intimacy in our relationship, so I have got used to that and it feels so wrong. But I can't NOT want sex, or to be groped, because he is trying to make our dead end relationship work
I'm sick of it all, I have no motivation to do anything, all I feel is despair and worried that I will start resenting the dc soon because I can't cope. This is probably just a dramatic wobble, but UGH! I'm sick of the word "us" whoever invented it needs shooting!
Hope everyone else is doing better.

Hi all... I remember when I broached the subject of separation by DH said..... 'You're tearing our family apart. How could you'
Never mind the fact that there wAs no spark, he wanted a housewife/wifey type, neither of which I am it have ever been.
I had him Sussex early on in our marriage because I said to him ' if you want a wifey, you've married the wrong woman'
Cue denials, tears etc. Then I'd try to forget the hurt and continue working at things.

Still, one person turning themselves inside and out will never make a marriage work. He was there in body, but not in spirit.

I knew I knew I knew. But I got so badly ground down that I didn't know my ass from my elbow.

2 years ago I had a breakdown. Didn't want to die but couldn't stand the pain any longer. 8 months off work. Zero compassion from you know who. It was an awful time.

Still, in the past year I've managed to gain a promotion, helped our daughter through her first year at grammar school, completed a CBT course, made some new friends.

You know what? I'm fabulous, we ALL are! Never ever will I let that happen to me again. I'm stronger than I ever thought possible, and that's good enough for me...

Instinctively I commend you, you sound amazingly strong now. I feel on the verge of breakdown myself, I can't keep going.
I honestly believe he just wants a wifey type too, he believes he loves me but really I think he just loves the fact that he doean't have to lift a finger, children are here for when he feels like a family man and I am here when he wants anything else. I can't be more grateful that he works, but I despise not working. Just saying that makes me feel guilty for not valuing the time with dc, but really I don't think they enjoy so much of me. It's boring, they're bored and it's always the same old. I feel if I returned to work then we would have better QUALITY time, rather than just massive QUANTITY of what we have now.
I tried explaining that his 'trying' is wearing me down, he doesn't understand.
UGH!

Could you write him a letter maybe? It's so difficult to communicate with someone as passive- aggressive as my XDH and you're probably in the same boat.
I truly think he doesn't know how to empathise with me. He's a pretty judgmental person (his family are too), so many annoying bloody traits.....

I am sure you are grateful your DH is working. Dies he see himself as 'the provider'? My DH fancied himself as the provider despite earning approx 5k more than me. When I took Carter break to look after 2 weans and worked in a shop, he refused to be 'the provider' then

I'm rambling. Somehow you need to get through to him. Even if it's for a short while during which time you can focus on improving your mental health, and resilience.
You matter.

Thanks Instinctively
Yes, he has said "I got to work to pay all the bills, what more do you want?" more times than I can count. Despite the fact that until I left working to be a SAHM a year ago, I took care of EVERYTHING, it was tight for me covering it all, but he kept every penny he earnt while I had nothing left for personal expenditure. I don't really spend anything on myself, yet he always says "what's mine is yours, whatever you want you can have..." the reality doesn't work like that though. I just feel as though it's all words.
I have trouble believing I matter, it makes me feel awfully guilty and selfish to put myself first when it comes to anything, so I don't. I can't count the number of meals I have skipped because he thinks we overspend on food shopping. When he asks why I have no dinner, I have started to tell the truth and say there wasn't enough. His reply is "You should get more then, you need to eat." and yet he'll ask how much the meal came to, then sigh. The next day he'll say we spend too much. It's so contradictory I give up. Words, that's all it is, words

hermoine that's financial abuse you are describing......

And I will quickly say that I do bulk buy, batch cook, use own brand and collect points etc. I learnt how to be super frugal and shopping savvy when I supported us all. I think money is a big contention between us, but I am too meek to say anything on that front because it is met with rebuttal of me wanting to return to work.

Sauvignon I think I know it is, but he is so lovely (and I mean he genuinely believes he is very generous etc) that I know it's not a purposeful thing. The going to work to pay the bills comment isn't even meant horribly, he honestly thinks that he does that so I can be happy at home with the children. His problem is that he doesn't ever think, he is just always a good person, to himself anyway. I have wondered for years if he has a personality disorder because he seriously doesn't understand how he comes across to others, only his own view on what he does. Example: At work he thinks he is so funny, yet I see all of his colleagues roll their eyes, I actually feel pained for him