Unhappy husband needing advice

[FedUpFellaUK]

I’ve been unhappy with a few things in my marriage for many years. I briwng it up and we discuss but nothing ever changes. She doesn’t seem to think there are issues and is happy to carry on as we are which frustrates me.

In the last 12-24 months I’ve been under a huge amount of stress at work (I work for myself). She has been supportive, which is great but I can’t help but think it’s only because she sees me as a cash cow. I earn good money and she quit her career a couple of years ago and works part time in a job that’s a doddle for her and she finds it enjoyable.
We don’t have sex because she never initiates it and I’m fed up of getting rejected so I don’t bother. When we do have sex she’s just going through the motions and doesn’t enjoy it. I’ve gone through an emotional rollercoaster of thinking she’s having an affair but then I found out that she’s using sex toys on her own when I go out. She doesn’t know that I know.
So, in a nutshell, I earn money for our family and that’s all she needs me for.
I decided to have one more conversation with her, telling myself beforehand that if that didn’t work then I’d give up. It didn’t work. So maybe 6 months after that I decided to give her an ultimatum. I told her I’m still not happy and, if nothing changes, I need to end our relationship as we both deserve to be happy. She seemed upset and said things that made me think I’d finally got through to her. That was nearly 2 months ago and guess what? That’s right, nothing has changed and she’s never mentioned it since and I know she won’t bring this up ever.

There’s about 9 months left until my deadline is up. In that time we have 2 holidays booked. Summer holiday with her mother and winter holiday with another family with kids the same age as our kids. During the last conversation whene I gave the deadline to our marriage I told my wife that I would make the most of these two holidays before leaving. However, at night we get in bed, she falls asleep and I lie awake seething that she can just fall asleep without a care in the world whilst I lie there stressing over what this is going to do to our kids, our finances, etc. I don’t know if I can make it through the next 9 months.

I’ve had nights when I just wanted to get in my car with a bag of cash, drive into Europe and disappear. I’m only staying for my kids but we all know how that ends when couples get divorced. When she gets together with another man I won’t be able to stand the thought of seeing my kids every other weekend whilst some stranger gets to spend 13 out of 14 day’s with them. I can’t stand the thought of her being happy with another man when she doesn’t care enough to discuss our marriage and make it work. I can’t stand the thought of working in a stressful job and living in squaller whilst she remains in our family home. The entire thing just seems unfair so it’d be easier to just leave it all behind and start again.

Would love a women’s perspective and advice on this please.

Also, the way you talk about wanting to disappear or even kill yourself is very alarming. As are your comments about not wanting your wife to be happy with another man and your apparent jealousy about an imaginary ‘new dad’ who doesn’t even exist! It all makes me think there might be something else going on here. It sounds like you might be suffering from a lot of work stress and maybe depression, and you’re projecting all of that onto your wife and making it all her fault rather than face some of your own issues. Do you think there could be something in that?

Hi All,

Firstly, I just want to thank everybody who has posted on this thread. There’s been some great advice and some posts have hit the nail on the head. Equally, there’s some that are way off the mark. The difficulty here is that I posted looking for advice whilst I wasn’t in the best frame of mind, to say the least. So people reading my posts weren’t getting great information off me in the first place. Also, we all have different experiences in life which, I can see, has affected some of the responses on here. Regardless, it’s been good for me to get this all out of my head and to get feedback on my thoughts and situation.

I can’t answer all questions, sorry, but will touch on some that I feel it’s important to answer.

I just want assure those who mentioned it that I have never been in any way suicidal. Sorry if anything I said came across that way.

I also want to be clear that I never gave my wife an ultimatum to force her to have sex with me. That is clearly wrong and, I would’ve thought, tantamount to abuse? The ultimatum was to force her to discuss our marriage with a view to agreeing a way forward or agreeing to part ways. I just needed to know what was going on.

Somebody asked if I still love and/or like my wife. The answer here is “YES” very much. I’m acutely aware of how lucky I am to have found somebody like her. She is perfect for me and this is why I would be so bitter and jealous if we did split up.

So, over this weekend my wife and I have talked a lot. I now understand what’s been going on with her and the reasons behind it. We can both see how our actions and/or inactions have affected the other. We’ve discussed what we need to do, change and work on to get back on track. After another crazy family weekend we’ve spent this evening snuggled up on the sofa together, covered in a blanket, having a drink and watching tv. Something we’ve not done for a long time.

If anybody takes anything from this thread it should be the importance of communication. Not discussing things can be seriously damaging to a relationship. I didn’t know what my wife was thinking so I was just guessing and guessing badly.

I feel like we’re well on the way to fixing our problems.

Thank you once again to all that have posted.

That is so great to hear!! Really good to know that someone on these boards has a good outcome. Hope you and your wife turn things round from now on.

You were covered in a blanket in this weather 😳

Maybe you could invest in date nights and an hour a day just being together. Foreplay for women is massive and normal day to day intamacy (hugs, nice chats, back rubs) take time

Like a PP your mentions of disappearing (running away? Self harm?) concern me. Acting on those dark thoughts would be terrible and damaging for you, your DC and your wife. If you continue to have those kind of thoughts it’d be sensible to seek urgent support for your mental health.

If running your business is causing you stress you have options. Self care, mental health support, making changes to your work, eg sell or close the business and get a job as an employee.

It’s pretty sexist and nasty to suspect that your wife views you as a “cash cow”. Many women whose husbands work long hours and/or travels for work cannot or don’t want to both do a full on/full time job and manage the brunt of parenting (eg after school - much, much harder workwise than morning dropoffs) and domestic work. In those set ups, the fathers are facilitated to be a parent while still working and earning more, while the mothers’ earning power often greatly diminishes. Nothing wrong with that set up IF both partners are Ok and respect each other’s contributions.

If that set up is not working out for you - eg because you feel being the main breadwinner is too much pressure - and you want your wife to work/earn more, and you are willing and able to share the parenting and domestic work, that’s fair enough IMO. Worth a discussion.

A good, well qualified relationship counsellor may be able to help you a lot - saying you’re both “not the type” for this and dismissing it is unwise given your longstanding relationship problems, including with communication.