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?

but madamehooch....what if it is the case you are not making him unhappy, that there is not something that can be fixed or resolved ?

I cannot explain very well without sounding harsh but many of us have said up thread we just did not want to fix it ...whatever it was, it wasn't a case of resolving differences or behaving differently towards each other, it is a case of really not wanting the relationship anymore.

Since speaking to my DH this week he has been trying too so hard. He wants to fix things, but I'm coming to realise there is little fixable. But also, it's not his job to make me happy. I don't want to put that pressure on him, because if I still decide to go, he's going to feel it really IS his fault.
I love him, but I'm not in love with him. You can't "fix" that, I don't think. But I'm going to give it some time, see if things can change. I'm also going to see a counsellor - think it's me that needs fixing!

My mother kept urging me to "make it work" which as others have said wouldn't have worked. Sometimes a relationship has run its course. I am a very different person now to the one I was at 22 when I got married and wouldn't have married that person and certainly wouldn't have got married so young. But that was the done thing back then - if you weren't married by 25, there was something wrong with you.

Btw the main reason my mother waanted me to make it work was to save her face amongst her friends.

Thanks Myson for the reply on how you split stuff, illuminating and yes probably another barrier I've put up to delay leaving.
Thanks hooch for your advice. I can understand what you're saying of course your owed an explanation and a chance but as others have said some things are not fixable. I read a great book recommended on here. To good to leave, to bad to stay. It may help you understand. I have tried and tried previously to get dh to see where we are going wrong but he's not interested and sees it as my problem. The will to fight has now left and indifference has replaced it. There's less tension but more sadness and misery.
Sorry I can't remember people's names, equi? Well done on leaving, you will get through and be at peace.
Danyellas I've been wrestling whether to tell my family but I've decided not to as I know they'll all put pressure on me to 'make it work'. I already have friends doing this who I have confided in and it's tough as I find it hard to explain in s way that doesn't sound quite trivial and everyday.
You know the savings thing of £16k. As I'm married would they count 50% of the house value as mine even after I move out and can't access its value until possibly the divorce settlement?

Personally I have come to love living alone... SP, DS early 20's.

All these men... get involved and before you know it - picking up his socks?! ODFOD!

• - (Oh Do Fuck Off Dear)

Just new to this thread but honestly find some of the comments distasteful and throwaway.

I can understand a lot of women wanting to walk away but to what? A horrible dating scene...starting over to find a Mr. Right...also probably out of a poor marriage or worse the cause of one. But I can relate to many women here as I was in that boat not so long ago. Its easy get resentful and blame DH for everything (kids being a pain, bored at home, career stalled) but often you have to work as a couple to keep the love alive. After twelve years with DH I wanted out and had an affair with a married friend who wanted the same (men get indifferent too). Anyway was leaving my DH (a decent, hard working, caring guy I did love but fell out of love with), running away with AP (who didn't leave his wife btw..do they ever) and nothing was going to change my mind...new life...greener grass...with a new man. DH tried everything to get me to stay but I knew better was was changing for a wonderful new life.

Of course the fantasy and reality was very different. Its hard in your forties with young kids...AP turned out was boring and we had nothing in common, only sex for a while and the relationship fizzled out after a few short months leaving me depressed, alone and cut off from former now disapproving friends. My marriage was ruined for a few quickies and what I thought was love, AP just kept telling me what I wanted to hear all the time which wore off after a while ...I ended up lonely and even more unhappy than I'd ever been as I had the kids mostly (and it is hard on your own). Trying to work full time again and juggle kids lives was no joke.

As me and DH shared the kids we constantly met up a lot...he was kind to me, despite how horrible and cruel I'd been to him and with the pressure gone we started being friendly again. I started to notice how he'd lost weight, was getting his life back together and was actually quite funny and interesting when I let him be. I dumped all my problems and woes on him ( and he listened ...didn't ever think he could ever do that). Thinking back my marriage actually was fine. We had a good life, I was just lazy, bored and indifferent. Felt no one listened to me (especially DH...my main adult contact). Really I had become lazy about my marriage and hadn't bothered to try myself and change things. I had said nothing ever to DH on how I felt so he couldn't know. Turns out DH had felt similarly bored but loved me and was too caught up in day-to-day to notice how far I'd checked out. Sex had become boring (blame the kids) and I pushed him away as I grew indifferent. After a few months we got talking after a nice summer day with the kids and I suggested coming over for dinner one evening. We ended up talking about how it went wrong. A awkward kiss did it...familiar, warm and soft. Just a goodnight one but it was enough. He started coming over more and me to his place. Just talking until I kissed him after after a glass or two. There was still something in there. In the end we agreed to go to Couples Counseling (NOT a marriage counselor) which helped us open up how we talked to each other, actually suggested ways to rekindle the spark (and it is in there if you let it), get over the affair and in the end showed us how to rebuild intimacy both in the bedroom and in daily life. We worked at it...was very awkward at the start but wasn't that hard either when you both want to try. Two years later I am back with DH and the happier than when we first got married.

DH was a really great guy...I just hadn't let him be one. My advice ...you want to leave fine but try save the marriage first if both of you are willing to try, its worth it. I learned the hard way that being lazy and walking away had a cost.I got lucky. DH was forgiving and still loved me enough to try. You can rekindle love (you loved them once right) but you have to open your heart to the possibility. People and emotions can change and a marriage doesn't have to stay the same if you both want it to change. Sometimes you just need a bit of outside help and willingness to try but you can find it again..took me a while but I do know it now.

Interesting read wassad but from my personal relationship, finding another partner has never even entered into it. I couldn't care less about it. My h is a good guy but as we've grown older we've moved apart. Doesn't help he's pretty much a workaholic. Our communication has never been great but when we do communicate and sit and chat our views and opinions have changed. I view it a bit like opposing branches on a tree. When the tree was little we were close to each other but as we've grown up we've turned into separate branches on opposite sides.
I've not decided what i'm going to do and i may not for some time. My situation is complicated by currently living abroad due to his work plus we still have our house in the UK which is rented out till we come home. It wouldn't be fair to him for me to up sticks back to the UK with the kids. Plus legally I have no idea how that would work.
What I am working on is becoming less of a yes person. I'm a people pleaser and I need to stand my ground a little more, especially with him. I guess i'll see what happens and how we grow as I do that!

Interesting read wassad but from my personal relationship, finding another partner has never even entered into it. I couldn't care less about it. My h is a good guy but as we've grown older we've moved apart. Doesn't help he's pretty much a workaholic. Our communication has never been great but when we do communicate and sit and chat our views and opinions have changed. I view it a bit like opposing branches on a tree. When the tree was little we were close to each other but as we've grown up we've turned into separate branches on opposite sides.
I've not decided what i'm going to do and i may not for some time. My situation is complicated by currently living abroad due to his work plus we still have our house in the UK which is rented out till we come home. It wouldn't be fair to him for me to up sticks back to the UK with the kids. Plus legally I have no idea how that would work.
What I am working on is becoming less of a yes person. I'm a people pleaser and I need to stand my ground a little more, especially with him. I guess i'll see what happens and how we grow as I do that!

Watching with interest

I agree with TooSassy that dating in late 30s with young children is hard. Men without DC often expect to meet younger child-free women and men with DC come with their own complications - like my current partner who, when with me, either needs a break from kids or misses his own.

Finances are also a huge worry and I don't know the future of tax credits.

The hardest part of divorcing my exH is the necessary continued contact to negotiate co-parenting and then the extra complications now he has a new partner with kids and their own family. You have to remain kind, respectful and flexible and there will be times you won't have your DC that you would never have imagined - Christmases, family occasions etc.

It's hard but for me was the right decision. Careful how you're making the decision- do it for the right reasons.

I'm so glad I found this. This is all that's consumed my mind everyday for around 3 months.

My husband is wonderful. He is kind, generous, funny, ambitious, supportive and sensitive. Seriously! On paper, he is my dream guy.

However, within a year of being married I started to panic that I had made a big mistake. I pushed this to the back of my mind as friends had told me the first year is the hardest.

But now we live like drumroll please, you guessed it, FLATMATES. I mean we get on so well, we laugh together, we're comfortable around each other and we have the same sorts of dreams and goals. But there is no spark, we never have sex. Not for his lack of trying. But I just can't! It's like having sex with a brother.

I often daydream about what it would be like to leave.

But I have no family and no siblings. He, on the other hand, has an incredible family who love me and support us. I feel as much married to them as to him and I would miss them terribly.

I don't know if my ingrained romantic unhappiness is enough to leave a stable marriage with a great guy and amazing in laws.

If we were just dating, I would have ended it by now which my friends say is reason enough to end it now?

Ps I'm only 24. No kids!

WasSad - your situation is different from the vast majority on here. You 'fell into' an affair, which is very, very rarely going to end well.

People posting on here want to leave, for the sake of leaving. Not to be with anyone else.

I'd wager many posting on here have no issue at all with being single - which is quite the opposite of the theme running through your post.

You are very lucky that your DH took you back, and you've been able to make it work. Wishing you well.

Mrshallloves you are 24. You have potentially about 60ish years of possibly being married in this situation. You need to either try to find the spark that has gone out or leave so you both find someone you have a more physical connection with. Was the spark there previously? What made it disappear?

Sometimes, whatever you (or your partner) does, or doesn't do, the relationship has died.

Not all relationships last, and nor should they.

Yes children (and their well being) are an important consideration. Do not place the responsibility of you staying in a poor quality relationship on them. If your relationship is dead, it's really best to end it and live a clearly separate life.

My mum stayed. She didn't want to break up the family, felt we kids deserved to grow up in a family with a mum and dad. So we lived a façade. I was envious of children whose parents had divorced. My home life lacked honesty.

I grew up with a hidden and deep distress. I could not and did not know how to articulate, but it was due to the dissonance. I knew that something was wrong with my family... Don't think you are saving your children from hurt by staying.

I felt somehow obligated to pretend to my parents that all was okay and that I was happy, because that is what they had modelled to me in the way they lived out their marriage....It has taken me a very long time to work out what was wrong with me and why/how.

I didn't know that marriages were not necessarily like the one I saw as a child.

Please excuse typos. I am sure you get the gist.

I wish you all well. There is no easy 'one size fits all' solution.

My ex-husband and I split up, a joint decision after a series of conversations that I started because I was unhappy, and he finished by saying he didn't want to try anymore, because he didn't love me anymore. The was after 10 years together, 8 of those years married, 2 kids and a cat etc. We married when we were still teenagers though - spot the problem right there!

Few years later, I am on great terms with ex-husband, we share the kids as closely to 50-50 as we can with no arguments, we arrange it so that we can both make the most of our time with them and still meet our other life commitments. I have remarried to a wonderful man who I consider my soulmate, and I realise now what I was missing - this is what it feels like to be married to someone who loves me and is attracted to me and vice versa. Ex-husband is in a relationship with an old mutual friend - bit odd for me but at least I know she's alright etc.

It's not always easy - I know ex-h found it hard when I remarried, but he wished me all the best anyway. I've ended up financially better off in a bigger house in a small village and I suspect he feels that I have upped and left him for a better life - even though it didn't happen like that at all, it has just worked out this way. I hate that he doesn't do things how I think he should - he lives in our old family home, it is filthy, he doesn't hoover which exacerbates DS's eczema, he washes DS's clothes in detergent that flares his eczema instead of the perfume free one we are meant to use (the other one is cheaper, sigh), the bathroom is so dirty I don't want them to take baths there and the toilet seat is snapped so other DS sometimes catches himself on it etc etc - but I can't do anything at all about it because I don't live there anymore so can't just take over, but I can't have a go at him about it because I don't want things to get nasty between us as I know that will impact the children more than anything else in the world.

I am so much happier though, infinitely happier, my boys love their step-dad and he adores them, so despite the sadness and loss of the 'family unit' and the stresses of divorced life, I am so glad it all happened.

FlounderingWildly Thank you for your response. Yes, of course it was there in the beginning but we married very quickly - all within a year. I know, I know, it sounds crazy to me too!

I don't want to spend another 10,20,30 years like this and get deeper into things only to never regain that spark, that connection and be forever glorified flatmates, resigned to things as they are now.

I am unhappy deep down. I long for that connection with somebody but wonder if I'm being stupid and thinking that the grass is greener. I have no family to go to if this does break down and so will be totally on my own. I know fear of the unknown isn't reason to stay in an unhappy marriage but it's certainly enough to make me worry.

Sorry to sound like such a wet lettuce. It's just nice to get this all out x

Dowager how right you are. I have no interest in moving on to another relationship. I will be very careful if it ever happens but I married later in life and know I can live a happy single divorced life.
Raining you are inspiring although the dirty issue must be hard.
I am so not looking for a few quickies and thrills but also I would say couples who don't have sex are not necessarily over, but there's a lot of variables. Most of us here have tried so hard they cannot try any more and yet it's still hard to leave.

8 years ago I moved from UK to Australia to be with my DH, I have been in and out of counselling ever since. He has been in rehab for his pot smoking, he was physically abusive to his ex wife and emotionally and verbally abusive to me. We have two children and they adore him. I am unhappy and want out, but he thinks he's happy apart from the lack of sex. I have no interest in him and he has never really had any interest in me other than sex. He sits on the computer every night ignoring me and watching TV and then wonders why we don't have sex. When he does spend time with me, he says things like "I spent time with you but you still won't fuck me!" It seems that I owe him constantly for sex, he prods and pokes me, gropes and forces kisses on me, sends me text and email all day telling me how horny he is, it's just a turn off. If I work a Saturday, he has the kids but does nothing with them or do any chores, such as cleaning up after breakfast and lunch, it's all left for me to do. Same as when I'm sick, he lets me sleep in but then does nothing to help around the house.

We did split when he went to rehab but I stayed (I was pregnant with DS at the time and no family over here) he came home and made a huge effort and things were good, then I found out he had tried to meet woman on a singles site - just for sex he said, in case I left him again! I still stayed (still pregnant!) we have been through the same cycles every year or 6 months or so, I told him last time that I'm not doing it anymore and although he isn't as bad as he once was, I have fought for 8 years for us to have a life together - we have nothing in common, although he tells me constantly that he does support me and want to do the same things as I do, but somehow we don't end up doing them. I'm already a single mum.

mrshallloves have you thought about counselling? Not necessarily for the two of you but maybe just for you, at least to start with? It might help put some things in perspective and explore different routes and possibilities or different ways to view your dh? You have my sympathy, these things are so hard when the other person has done nothing wrong.
APomInOz that sounds awful. It sounds like you get nothing out of the relationship. What are your options if you separated from him?

Hi Floundering
It's difficult, he break up with his is ex was awful and he was arrested for his behaviour. But the difficult thing is that the house we are in is his sisters and we pay rent so I would get nothing. I wouldn't get much help from the government, although I have looked and am tempted to go and sit with them and see exactly what I can get, money/support etc. I have no family over here. His family will completely side with him, as expected. I work one day a week for peanuts (love my job though) and have just enrolled on a course so that I can start working by the end of the year and then can see where I am at. Not even sure I can just up and leave and stay with a friend, I have one friend who has offered, but she is in a similar situation.

Loved all the advice, but I'm still not sure what to do.

Glad I found this. I have a thread on here at the moment which sounds very similar to some of you.

My husband is a lovely man, but we are not suited to each other. Different in so many ways. The thought of retiring with him (in my late twenties, so a long way off!) and being alone with him when the children leave fills me with dread! We just have nothing in common and I feel like we both deserve to achieve the things we want in life.

But I don't want to fall out with him. I don't want to dissapoint our families. I want to make a happy family for the children. And I really really don't want to see him suffer.

What a mess!

hello ladies, another one here drifting along in an unhappy marraige. Been married over 25 years and drifting along until our kids go to university next year. I really couldn't leave any sooner because I know he'll be nasty and it'll affect the kids A level rsults.
The 'black cloud' a few of you have mentioned really struck a cord, when he comes through the door all joy seems to be sucked out of us. I just love the time that he's away with work, the house is so much calmer and happier - marraige shouldn't be like that should it?
To be honest I don't think he'll be bothered by me leaving at all, what will break his heart is losing half the house and pension - he seriously believes that because he is the main bread winner everything is his and my contribution doesn't count for anything.

I came across this thread late at night & haven't been able to stop reading...
My dh is a workaholic but won't admit it - thinks he's providing for us so why am I complaining...
he thinks it's okay that I'm his mother, work mentor & cheerleader but I'm just being taken for granted... My love for him has faded but he still thinks we have a great marriage... Horrible rows, good sex but we're just repeating the same argument - he puts work b4 family.
I am so unhappy but again I can't leave because of the kids (one with SN)... Been together 12 yrs & yet again I'll be organising our anniversary if I want us to spend the day together....
I feel so sad al the time.. Sorry typing on phone, whilst alone in flat with 2 poorly kids... Please help - what do I do??

Same here ☹ Married for 14 years with controlling behaviour on his part. Penny finally dropped for me after Christmas and reading the Lundy Bancroft book. Having to play the long game for various reasons but am planning and getting my ducks in a row as they say.
I've found myself distancing emotionally since I've 'seen the light' and day to day living is really uncomfortable. He's currently away with work but back today and I'm dreading it. I'm lucky to have a great job and also a brilliant network of friends who are here for me, but need more time before having the conversation. Am starting driving lessons, saving up, and think about the future constantly (I have 6 children so taking some planning)
So sorry there are so many of us in the same boat but it does help to have this thread to come to.
Also have our wedding anniversary tomorrow. He's currently on a Mr Nice guy phase so not sure if I should get a card just for a quiet life...