Hi, I just feel like getting stuff off my chest and hope that it might make me feel a bit better! I'm a 39-y-o guy who has had enough of a stupidly complex situation and just wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions. Or sympathy. Or to tell me to get a grip. Anything really.
My ex and I got together 10 years ago. We were happy for a time, although we never really had as much in common as either of us would have liked. We had a daughter stupidly early (she is almost 9 now). We stayed together for 3 years, but some pretty sad stuff happened around this time, unconnected to our relationship, although we were never the same after our daughter was born. The romance died quickly, far quicker that I would ever have wanted.
Anyway, we drifted apart and the final blow was over her wanting to move to another part of the country. For various, mainly family, reasons, I didn't feel comfortable doing so. In the end we split and she moved around 100 miles away while I moved in with my mum, temporarily. I visited every weekend, sometimes more often in holidays, and we got on very well. There were a few vague hints of romantic feeling, but these faded over time and I wasn't sure how I felt. Not quite sure how she felt, to be honest. It was all very jolly and cosy. We even shared a bed (although not in THAT sense as there was no physical romance pretty much since our daughter was born) and did a lot of family things together. It was fun, and in a way it felt like we were still a couple. Kind of. All very well, I suppose.
Fast forward nearly 6 years, and I'm still "temporarily" with my mum. I work scary hours during the week and I still visit every weekend. But other stuff HAS changed. We’ve drifted further apart and the fun has largely gone between us. I’m pretty sure, although she never talks about it, that she has been seeing other people, which is fair enough, and that she has absolutely no romantic feelings for me any more. I’m not sure she gives much of a thought to how I am or what I want. She does, however, take me for granted I think, for I do a lot for her. I call her every day and she unloads her problems and worries onto me. I help her financially, I help her with her work, I obviously help with our daughter (who I love to bits, and hate being apart from). I drive her around a lot, even to nights out in other parts of the country. We go on holiday together. I always listen to her and try to help with her problems. I help around her house with gardening, cleaning, etc. But… around 18 months ago, I was banished (I suspect when she was seeing someone else briefly) to the couch where I have slept for every weekend since. She visits her friends a lot, and I never played much of a part in her “other” life, her social life and her network of friends. Although I hear about them a lot, including how to help her when they’ve treated her badly. Now, I feel cut out of her life completely except when she needs something. It feels like she doesn’t really care about me at all, in any sense. If ever I try to talk about how I feel, or how badly I feel my life is going, I am dismissed with a sense of “My problems are worse than your problems”. If I talk about being taken for granted, or how I wish she showed a little more gratitude at times, she says that I’m only helping our daughter, which is what I should be doing. And part of me feels that she has a point, that I’m being unreasonable. I don’t know what I expect, and if what I expect is unfair. So I’m scared that I’m being really unfair, horrible and unreasonable, but I feel just… terrible and that I’m trapped in this weird rut of a situation. There’s a lot more I could say, but I think that’s enough for now.
I don’t THINK I have romantic feelings, but it does kind of bother me that she is (probably, and only occasionally when she goes away from home for weekends) seeing other people and living it up while I fester. And I don’t know what I want. Or what to do. But I feel trapped: I don’t want to cut ties (and not just because of our daughter) but I want a fresh start and I really, REALLY, want to feel wanted and appreciated. I’d love a romantic relationship. And I feel in this weird limbo, living at my mum’s in the week and having this second half-life at weekends. And that there is no way out of it. So… I don’t know what to say, do or think. And I’d really appreciate some advice or even a telling off.
There is a line from Peep Show, where one of the main characters says “I've started to get this feeling that I'm totally, totally fed. You know? Everything's fed.” And that’s where I am.