I want DH to make an effort

[Todayfrustratingday]

We're virtually separated. I feel lonely and isolated. I spent a good weekend with my brother, DSIL and their children. The moment I got home the loneliness hit me twice as hard. I want their closeness and their team spirit/connection. The knot in my stomach and heart come back harder when I've been in their company. I love them all. I can't have children. I desperately want a family of my own. I don't know how to lift this feeling of not having what I want so very much. I analyse it a lot. Is it grief? Is it jealousy? Is it some biological need to care for and nuture. Yes its all of those. I don't know what to do. Feeling 'stuck' like this is horrible. Every night I want to get to sleep quickly so that the day ends but I wake up in the middle of the night and lay there thinking I need small people in my life. I need to feel wanted and feel loved. I don't get to be to one person that a child wants most in the world. I don;t feel like my husband likes me as he spends no time with me.

So sorry to hear this.

I think the first thing to do is focus on why you and your husband are so divided. Does he have the same thoughts and feelings on children as you? Does he find it hard to express this perhaps?

You may have to accept you’re incompatible.

DH says that he was happy to have children if they came along naturally. Having said that we also had 5 ivfs but they all failed. Now we're drifting and had drifted apart so much. DH says casually it wasn't meant to be. I cannot live on that acceptance. What do i do? He works full time, as do I. He socialises a bit with male friends and i do one exercise class a week and college one night a week. He works weekends and his resting days are when I am at work all day.

DH seems to have taken himself away from me and out of my life so much that I feel lonely every day. DH is even sleeping in the spare bedroom. He gives me every impression that he wants me to leave him. I don't want to leave him but I DO think it is probably going to happen. He is cold and distant and will only say he does not hate me and will still care if we separate now. Been married 15 years.

Lots of different issues there

• grief form being unable to have children which is huge
• the distance between you and your DH.

These two might or might not be related (so many people end up divorced after going through something similar).

I would go and see a counsellor specialised in fertility issues (fertility hospital often have one) to be able to talk about your grief around infertility.
And then have a look at your relationship.

it sucks.

So in effect, your DH has sort of made a decision regarding your relationship but can’t actually go through it?

It sounds like you have reached the end of the road with your dh. I would put steps in place to actually follow through and split up for good.

You will feel less lonely without him than with him I suspect. The awful feeling of loneness within a relationship is very hard to take and somehow when you are actually on your own it is better.

Yes RAGING It feels like he wants out and wants me to be the one who takes action to make it happen. I hate these feelings I'm having. I'm not sleeping well and in the middle of the night feelings seem magnified. DH has a fairly solitary job and doesn't seem to need colleagues and support from others. I'm the opposite. I like working in a team, some days I have 6-8 colleagues around me and when half of them are off work e.g. on leave I get lonely then too. My parents are semi-retired and I seem them once or twice a week.I think I have to walk away from my marriage but only because there seems no reason to stay other than my pets and the 'saving face' of remaining married as opposed to being a divorcee. Does that make sense?

It does make sense.
Apart from the fact you have no reason to need to ‘save face’.

Marriages break down. Hi do have to force yourself to live with someone who doesn’t give a shit about you.
(See he cares and he doesn’t hate you but can’t actually say he loves you....)