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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Feel so lost

4 replies

Feellost2017 · 19/12/2017 10:19

First time poster but just feeling completely lost and hopeless now.
Married 2 years and have felt for the last year or so that I no longer love my husband. We have no children. I don't know what to do or how to change it. I have been lying to myself for a long time - I have a medical condition which makes sex impossible for me, extremely painful. Therefore, myself and my husband have never had sex. In my mind I kept telling myself I would fix the issue and all would be ok but I'm only now facing the truth that I'm not attracted to him and if we have any intimacy at all I have to force myself to do it. I feel so guilty the whole time and have a crushing pain in my chest. I am a horrible person for feeling this way about him.

I think deep down I was so relieved to find someone who didn't think I was a freak not to be able to have sex. I feel so worthless because of it and like I'm being punished for something.

On top of this, I have developed feelings for someone else - would never act on it and would never tell him. But it has hit me like a bus. I thought it might because of the problems myself and my husband are having and pushed it aside but in reality I'd felt like this about my husband before I developed these other feelings. I thought I wasn't capable of having feelings like this for someone so the guilt over this is eating me up and I don't know why I can't have these feelings for my husband.

OP posts:
GeeWhiz · 19/12/2017 12:16

I can relate. Although, my circumstances are slightly different. Do you think your partner still loves you? I often found that when the 'romance' dies, it's more often than not mutual.

GeeWhiz · 19/12/2017 12:24

Also, in what context did you get to know the other person? And how long afterwards did you start to feel attached?

Feellost2017 · 20/12/2017 11:25

Thanks for responding. I think he still loves me yes, he's very dependent on me. Sometimes I feel more like his mother. I've raised the sex issue numerous times but he is always so passive about it and just says it'll be fine.
Met this other person through a sport and developed feelings after a few months. I never had feelings like this for my husband or anyone else - I always thought it just wasn't my way to feel such a connection with someone so this has been very hard for me to comprehend.

OP posts:
GeeWhiz · 20/12/2017 12:31

Erm...well, let's first say feelings are hardly a thing you can control. So, there's no point trying to fully rationalise how you got attached to that person. Or, for that matter, flog yourself over it. That's said, do you think you find in that person a refuge from your own guilt towards your partner? I mean, since you cannot have sex with him, you probably feel burdened by that and perhaps worried he might look for somebody else. You might be jumping the gun, you're probably preempting the worst.
This is only my assumption, and I'm not saying it's necessarily true.

Then, there's that fact that your husband isn't bothered about the lack of sex. Erm, I'm quite sure whether this is how he actually feels or he simply doesn't want to hurt you? At the risk of putting suspicious ideas into your head, I personally, as a man, don't have full trust that a heterosexual man in a marriage would go on for years without sex, can he? Could he be asexual? Some men are, and some of us develop that temporarily due to circumstances related to stress, depression, shame...etc. Or, as you say, his emotional needs are similar to those between a mother and her child. Could this be a reason he's at peace with the idea of a sexless marriage? Is he looking for a mother's figure rather than a wife? Maybe you could gauge his family life, especially his relationship with his mother. This will probably give you some insight into his psychology...

Also, I understand you say you don't plan on acting on your feelings towards the other man. But, again, those are feelings...and there's only one way they'll go if you continue to see each other. At some point, it's possible that you'll become overpowered by your emotions towards the other man and end up in an affair with him. An emotional one to begin with. But what's next? Does the other man know you have an issue with sex? Will he be OK with that?

I'm sorry if I come across a bit harsh. I just identify with much of what you said, and I know it's really hard. I totally sympathise. But I try to give you my insight since I've been there at some point. Perhaps you can pick up some truth in what I say and build on it.

The question you should ask yourself, at the end of the day, is what YOU really want? I'm not suggesting a Machiavellian approach where you justify your own needs at the expense of your husband's, but something that would make you happy while keeping some fairness and balance.

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