I've been stupid. Give me a good talking to.

[caterpuller]

I'm in a long-term relationship (25 years) with 3 children, but my partner and I haven't had sex in over 6 years. His choice, not mine. He says he has no drive at all and is not capable of getting an erection. He's an alcoholic, who has functioned and kept it under control until about 6 months ago when it started to spiral. He's barely functioning right now, although managing to hold down his job, he is drunk unless he's in the office.

Anyway, about 6 months ago he confessed to having in the past paid for sex. I was shocked at first, but even more shocked by my lack of emotion. And hearing that news spurred me to seek a physical relationship with someone else. I crave intimacy - sex, kissing, the closeness of being naked with someone who is attracted to me. I can't bear never having that again. My partner was never intimate and there was never any type of foreplay. His idea of sex was straight penetration, until he came. There was never any enjoyment in it for me, and I regret bitterly now that I couldn't talk to him about it.

Anyway. Long story short. I met a man who lives overseas - in Europe - and we had passionate and intimate sex when he was visiting the UK on a fairly regular basis. I thought we had a real connection. But he has turned out to be a shit. Of course! And now I need to cut all ties with him and get over it. But I am finding it hard. I don't feel emotionally strong enough to do it. I hate that I am behaving like a doormat, and I know it's not good for me. I know it's actually the last thing I need, but I feel desperately lonely and unwanted.

I need someone to give me a good kick up the arse. So please give me some words of encouragement so dust myself off and find some self respect. I'm really struggling right now to muster the strength to do what I know is right.

Thanks for reading if you got this far.

TaylorP1234 Thank you for that. I needed to hear it and you are absolutely 100% right.

You could leave him for using a prostitute and withdrawing from your marriage though. It's easy to stay with people and hard to leave. It takes guts. It is an illness but it's not one you can do anything about and to a degree it is self inflicted unlike cancer (in the majority of cases). It's not really a great example to show your kids either. I'm amazed he holds a job down from what you have said.

I'm glad your life is so perfect and you are such a paragon of virtue that you can be so unpleasant to other people no. nope nope nope nope nope. Never claimed to be perfect. Now who's being judgemental?. Sorry if it came across as unpleasant, but I was aiming for reality check.

Thanks for your advice, but I'm going to ignore you.
Well super, good luck to you. But as I see it your options are:

1. Carry on living a sad life in a dead marriage with an alcoholic who won't help himself and dc growing up with this as their example of what a normal marriage is. (With or without a bit of shagging on the side, just to drag your self esteem down even further when that inevitably ends badly each time). Or
2. Get out of this marriage and the shit shaglationship with the OM and stop wasting your life making decisions which result in you being miserable. Start a new path in life where your priority is yourself and your dc, and be happy.

I don't know what you expected to hear if it wasn't that tbh. But by all means, feel free to ignore and carry on regardless. You can post again in 10 years time and say the same old thing if you like. Maybe I'll have some advice you'd like better then. Or a magic wand.

mytime he has a degree of control over the drinking some of the time. So he's not drinking during the daytime when he's working but starts drinking as soon as he gets home at around 7pm and drinks up to 2 bottles of wine before going to bed. He goes to bed around 9 - 9.30pm to stop himself drinking more, so that he can get up for work in the mornings. So I am sitting alone most nights at home while he's either drinking or sleeping. We rarely do things together in the evening any more.

The weekends used to be similar, but over the last six months he has increasingly started drinking earlier in the day both days, so around 12pm, drinks heavily for a couple of hours then sleeps it off all afternoon and then starts again around 5 or 6 in the evening. Over Christmas when he was at home, he was drinking heavily all day for most of the holidays. He can polish off 3 - 4 bottles of wine. He has kept his job because he has found ways to manage his drinking and has imposed rules in order to manage it……but as I said, he has begun to relax those rules and is losing the ability to control it. Hence the crisis last summer when he collapsed and we had to call an ambulance. Unfortunately, extensive health checks found no serious damage e.g. to any of his major organs including liver, and his doctor dismissed him telling him to take it easy at work to reduce stress and make an effort to moderate his drinking. When I say he is an alcoholic, he is not drinking all day, he doesn't drink in the mornings or drink while he's at work, but he is definitely dependent and increasingly so to a worrying degree. He could work from home a couple of days a week, but doesn't because he doesn't trust himself not to start drinking at lunchtime.

mytime yes you are right about the prostitutes. I could leave him for that. Many people - most people - would find that completely unacceptable. My ambivalence about it was a surprise to me. I didn't feel strongly enough about it to be angry or hurt or to end the relationship and take the children away from their father. At the time, we were discussing what was wrong in our relationship and what we could do about it. I suggested separation. He said he badly wanted our family to stay together, that he had no intention of having a relationship with anyone other than me, and that he felt too strongly about our shared history and all we had done together including having children to give up on it all just because we'd been having a few difficult years.

He isn't really having a relationship with you though is he? Just because he wants something doesn't mean you have to.

No he's not. His main relationship is with alcohol and his energy has been taken up with trying to control it. Thank you for your helpful comments. I need to read the thread again and start planning my next moves. Again, thank you for being constructive.

I have some experience of this through my parents and believe me it doesn't get better. I won't go into full detail here but I really do implore you to do something about this for your own sanity and for your children's long term welfare. I still have lots of negative memories of my mum and dads relationship and their love of alcohol (I know it's not you in this instance). Please think carefully and don't stay out of pity and habit

The absolute best thing you can do for your 12 year old is separate from your husband. It sounds like it would also be the best thing for you and probably the best thing for your husband too.
He is an alcoholic, you are an enabler. Yes alcoholism is described as a disease - some people are predisposed to it - but it's absolutely not comparable to cancer. You dont just go to the doctor and get a shock diagnosis of alcoholism. There is an active part that your husband is playing to keep his disease going. If you could cure cancer by cutting something out of your life I'm pretty sure most cancer sufferers would do it. So please do not stay by telling yourself you would support him through cancer.
Your dc are watching you accommodate and tiptoe round his drinking. This is extremely damaging.
There is plenty of experience on here of alcoholism. Please don't think your situation is any different, or special, or manageable. It really isn't.

No matter how much you want to, or feel obliged to, you can't help your DH. It is hard, but you have to accept that. Leaving him would probably be the best thing you could do for him, he needs to hit rock bottom before he can recover and all the while you're providing him with a cushion, he won't. If he didn't when he was hospitalised or when you wanted out, it's just not going to happen with you there.

Your children need you to take them out of that environment, don't kid yourself that this hasn't already had a massive affect on them, you need to get out for their sake. He is an adult with choices, difficult choices, but choices none the less. They are not.

You? Stop beating yourself up about the OM. Cut all contact with him, for YOUR sake. It wasn't a bad thing to have done (for you), it's given you a glimpse of intimacy & a better sex life. Now, it's time to let it go, because it's no longer making you feel good - whatever he's done, you're now feeling bad/sad/hurt. Don't cling onto it - use it as something to help you move forward.

You need to accept you can't help your DH by staying & your'e allowing him to destroy your children by staying. They deserve more & so do you. You have to find the courage to leave.

You can support your OH as a friend, as your children's father, without being in a relationship with him.

You can't allow financial implications to sway you, for all of your sakes, you need to take the children & leave. Well, preferably get him to leave.

What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here from the two of you?

Your parents also taught and showed you a hugely damaging relationship example. Its therefore of no real surprise to me that you felt ambivalent about leaving, unfortunately he suckered you in further with the "sunken costs fallacy".

We learn about relationships first and foremost from our parents. There is an awful lot of damaging stuff that you need to start properly unlearning before your children really do act out the same patterns as you have in their future relationships. I also think that the best thing you can do for your 12 year old is to separate from his alcoholic father.

Thank you Pinkbunny and Attila - I know everything you are saying is right I just needed to hear it from other people, and now I need to do something about it.