“I don’t love you anymore”

[itsadventuretime]

Just a short question - did anyone get this speech served to them and then have their spouse turn around/take it back/go on to stay together?

Yes. A horrible truth to fallback on when you are yearning to contact them. Get rid and stay rid.

I don't love my H anymore, there is no-one else, I have my parents who have been married for 50 plus years telling me to stay for the kids, I can't knowing that everyday I will slowly hate him more and the urguments will start, the snotty texts from so called friends and family will start, but who stays in a loveless marriage/relationship just because it's easier.

CF43 I guess to each their own. I’m a strong believer that love isn’t something that happens to you, like a victim, especially in a LTR. I wake up every morning and even though my husband is not looking that great in that moment and he slams the bathroom door, which he knows I hate, I CHOOSE to love him today too. For the years and daughter he gave me. For our inside jokes. Etc... Am I gonna leave him because he doesn’t wanna fly more than 2 hours to go on holiday? No. It’s an attitude problem. His attitude is to not put anything in the marriage bank and let me fall away, mine is to be aware or us and invest what I want to get back. You can’t choose who you’re attracted to, but you can choose to do the work for a person you committed to (of course not the case for abuse!).

What a good post op. Women tend to be active in love even in hard times-we can endure and work through difficulty. Men seem to need it to be easy.

It's also sometimes the case that a man who says this doesn't have an OW, but wants his wife to put more effort in to the marriage (ie open her legs more often, stop asking him to do his share of the housework, etc) and thinks that scaring her with the prospect of losing him will make her try harder.
Which is another good reason to react to such a declaration with variations on 'Don't let the door hit you in the arse, then.'

I find even the least desirable me hold the deep set belief that they are a real catch and attractive to women.
Ugly women act as though they are ugly and punish themselves for it
Ugly men act as though they are stunning and punish others for it ie their wives and partnera

So do you think a H that doesn't do anything around the house, doesn't have anything to do with our S, doesn't even talk to me in the evenings, doesn't or hasn't made a move on you in six years, doesn't sleep in the same bed, doesn't stand up for you in family rows. Is worth keeping???

CF43 that is incredibly sad and by all means not a normal relationship. It’s not the case of my marriage though. We all do crappy things in relationships, on both sides. Valid for me and DH too. But I’m not okay with a marriage falling apart because one of the partners is bored or simply let their marriage slip on their priority list.

chavtastic truth is it’s easier for men to find a new partner at any age. I’m mid 30s and lost so much weight in the last months, I’m in late 20s shape now (thanks, stress). Thinking long term, DH could waste another 10 years on me and not miss a beat finding someone newer and younger. I’d obviously never go for a much younger man, but 10 years change a woman.

It's so much better to be single than stuck with a crap man, though. If you are single, you don't have to put up with a man's ego, the mess he makes, the expectation that you are less important than him...

What Reanimated says.

My DP said he was not sure if he loved me when he confessed he had a ONS. He retracted it and we have stayed together. This was nearly 4 years ago, he swears he loves me now. The pain of the ONS has faded away, but I will never unhear those words 'I am not sure if I love you', I will never feel the same about him as I used to. I have hardened my heart to protect myself. I can't envisage us being together in 10 years

Lots for you. It is soul breaking x

Lots, I know how you feel.
When ex said the same to me it was as if he had smashed to pieces something so precious that it would never mend.
I admire couples who can get past this. I couldn't, nothing could ever undo that pain.

I got this, along with the "I don't know what I want". After a week, I told him that he clearly didn't want me, so left, got on a plane and came back to the UK. The twunt has been married to the OW for twenty years this year.

I will tell you what I told myself twenty years ago: if he doesn't value you enough to know he wants to be with you no matter what, then you don't want to stay with him, because you deserve someone who really wants to be with you no matter what.

It sucks, and in my case, it was monumentally shit for years. But there is light at the end of the tunnel, and every day of suffering now is a day closer to being free of the shite.

Ruddy, I’m in the same boat as you. I told my H I didn’t love him any more ... his behaviour over the years has caused any love I did have to erode completely away. I don’t have an OM, and frankly don’t want one.

I do realise that often, when the phrase is uttered, though, the truth is that there IS someone else ....

Here's my choice: I can proceed with the divorce and possibly get enough money to start somewhere with just me and my son, I would need to get a job part time to fit with school, his D can visit at the weekends and holidays. My only concern there is that he might take our son to his parents for the weekend and they live 200 miles away. Or option 2: I stay here in a loveless marriage with a roof over my head, all the bills paid for me, no money of my own but can still get a job, but stuck, it's a dead end, I know he feels the same way sometimes but won't start the procedure off because then he is the bad guy in his family and he'll get the hassel where if he leaves it for me to do, I get the snotty phone calls from his mum, his sister, I get the hassel and the solicitior bills. But at the end of it I get my freedom back, I get my boy to myself with no urguments and no hassel, I get to feel safe at night and sleep for more than 3 hours. Come on people someone give me the guidance, What yould you do?

@CF43
Lovely, that sounds awful. Your penultimate sentence says it all - it sounds like a no brainer. You've worked out how you can do it alone. Feeling safe and sleeping has a value that you can't put a £ on.
You can block his mum and sister, if they can't be helpful (you never know, my ex's M hasn't acknowledged my existence in the last 2 years) or just not take the calls.
We only get one life, if you can see a way out, take it (I did and I felt mostly safe and had reasonable sleep, but I haven't looked back since)

CF43 Divorce. If the only thing stopping you is getting your bills paid, go now. He could stop paying those bills any time he chooses.

Just do it. Get a phone to screen those 'hassle' calls out, and enjoy your life!

Are you in individual therapy because he refused couples counselling? My ex's individual therapy turned out to be a quack counsellor that he was discussing his affair with, trying to help him make up his mind whether to leave. He had refused couples counselling because it would have meant discussing the fake problems he was claiming he had (all of a sudden; another clue), and he couldn't have kept up the pretence with a couples counsellor. I was confused by the mind games but she would not have been.

Took me 6 months to give him a proper ultimatum and another month of him refusing to do anything before I discovered his email password, got evidence and helped him make his decision.

My XP said this (after 12 years together). He'd met someone else a few months previously and although he still um-ed and ah-ed about whether he'd actually left for a while afterwards, I think delivering this line made him feel like it wasn't really cheating.

Divorce can take a long time, it 3 to 6 months to get to nisi, then the hassel over financial arrangements, i could be looking at a year at least.
I don't want anything to do with him anymore the shit i've put up with over the years from his family i can't take it, but my boy loves his nan and i feel mean (being a dormat). My sister in law threw me out of her house once on Xmas day for talking to he daughter in the wrong way. His mum ignored my the whole of a weekend away recently at centre parcs after i arranged it all, as she got to see her grandchild i wasn't needed anymore i felt stupid and worthless. Xmas just gone i drove 200 miles to cook xmas dinner, slaved away for 4 hours, just sat down and she said " i'm doing all the hard work here" meaning looking after my son. I could have thrown something at her.

It's my son, he is my heart, my sole, it took me ten years to get him, the risk of loosing him is killing me inside, i couldn't take the thought of him hating me.

I have very little savings that I am going to have to use to issue the divorce its £550, i live out in the sticks so getting a job is going to be hard. can i stop him taking my boy 200 miles away at the weekend as it would upset him.

CF43 I’ll be honest, I can take a lot of crap in the name of family harmony. Also, I am quite stubborn and lazy, so turning my and my kid’s life upside down physically hurts. The question is, when is enough, enough for you? Does staying hurt more than going? What’s his attitude?

CF43 you don't have to get divorced straight away and being separated doesn't mean he doesn't have to support you/your child. Have you seen a solicitor? Doing that was a huge step for me in actually realising how I could manage separation. 2 years later, not divorced yet, but finances are mostly sorted.