Is my marriage over? Can I bring this back?

[upstairsaterics]

Hello, I'm driving myself crazy trying to work out my feelings. Been married to my DH for 14 years. We have 3 DC ages 18, 13 and 3.

Recently I just feel like I want to be by myself. I feel like I love my DH like a brother now. I have been avoiding his advances for a while now, creating the most ridiculous scenarios to avoid having sexual with him. I don't think this is a loss of libido as I'm still helping myself, as it were! The thought of kissing him passionately is turning my stomach.

I don't want to upend our lives and I don't want to hurt him. I have tried thinking about what I truly want and if I could pick myself up and put myself 6 weeks in the future without dealing with all of the fallout, then I'd genuinely like to be on my own with the DCs.

I am reluctant to tell him how I feel as I would hate to see him try to fight for us if I know full well that there's no chance.

Has anybody felt like this before and did you manage to pull it back? Any words of advice would be most welcome:

Could be any number of reasons why you feel this way. Have you been so see your GP?

Have you anyone you can talk to in real life about this?

Do you have enough going on in your life that is for you? Would carving out more time for you help?

I feel EXACTLY the same as you. It's not a nice feeling. We have also been married 14 years (together for 18, since I was 17yo) and 3 kids aged between 7&14.
We've had so many issues over the past so I think I know where my feelings have come from but I still don't know what to do next.
I'm currently in counselling trying to work through it all but my biggest thing is I still love him to a point and care for him deeply and I don't want to see him in pain from my decision. Both of our lives are easier if we're in it together but I don't think I can continue this life until the kids leave home.

Yep I felt like this. Over the past 2-3 years I've felt like I hate him/dislike him/feel like a sister/hated the idea of any kissing or sex/wanted to move out/felt no depth to relationship....
It's all come back, I'm not even sure how or why really. I've just started appreciating him more and maybe had a bit more time together as my work has eased a bit. I think when I started feeling bad about us I just focused on all the annoying crap. He's really looked out for me recently and I've just been able to appreciate he's a top guy and am back to loving him in a more wifely manner. It's been a good 3 years though.

Could you talk to him about how you're feeling? Feelings can come back, it might just take some work and change of perspective.

Yes, I’ve felt like this several times in my 30+ year marriage. I think it’s normal to crave space and independence at times in a long marriage. I used to fantasise about how I would decorate and furnish my new flat exactly how I wanted it after I’d left him. No compromising - I could do whatever I wanted. But it was just a fantasy, like the winning the lottery fantasy and thank goodness I never actually did it. Things are good now.

Things which helped me get through the rough patches: a very fulfilling career, friends, my mum, a spare room I could escape to for some solitude, being assertive about needing space but not expressing some of my thoughts which would have been too hurtful, time, patience and a pragmatic rather than romantic attitude, not being afraid to put sex on the back burner for a while if you can’t face it right now, reading up about how normal this all is.

Yes, I’ve felt like this several times in my 30+ year marriage.

But have you been in the situation where his touch, or even the thought of him touching you, has caused your physical discomfort? That's where upstairsaterics is. This sort of this thing has been described here and elsewhere quite a lot. Its a very real phenomenon.

A woman has been married to a man for while, he's probably perfectly decent, but for some reason her brain seems to decide "that's it, time to move on". Is there anyway to recover from this and restore some kind of attraction? It would be very difficult. Its possible upstairsaterics your marriage is over, through no fault of you or your husband.
.

#feeling guilty
#all my fault

Want things to be different, but not sure how to make them so. Another #... "behaving badly"

@redhats - I’m not sure what you mean?

I think redhats is saying they're in a similar position. As am I. Interested to know if anyone has answers to Scott72's question. Following your thread with interest @upstairsaterics

upstairs,

If you want to be on your own with the DC then you want to be on your own with the DC. Your mind is not going to be changed easily if at all now and you're already avoiding sexual situations with your H. He needs to know the truth and its better to plan an exit now rather than say when your kids are that bit older and or leave for university. Too many women in particular hang on for far too long for the wrong reasons and use the kids as a reason to stay. They are not and should not be used as glue to bind you and he together. Divorces do not have to be adversarial and if your marriage is at an end for whatever reason, it is at an end. I would part whilst you are both on relatively good terms rather than years later where resentment could build in the meantime.

Counselling for your own self could be helpful to you too.

What do you want to teach your kids about relationships and what are they learning here from the two of you?. They pick up on all the vibes you know, they in all likelihood know that something is not quite as it should be at home or between you two. Would you want this type of relationship for them as adults, no you would not.

I think you would be wise to set a date by which, if you not feeling any different, see a solicotor, speak to him (don't mention the solicitor) and tell him you want to amicably divorce. Six months? A year?

No one can magic away the six weeks hence thing. You have to go through it to become the person you will be on the other side of all this.
I think this is normal.
Ask yourself questions like, "Do I want to grow old with this man?" "Would I nurse him if he was very ill and do it with an open heart and with kindness and empathy?" These thoughts with my ex made me shudder but with now DH I see all that as what I signed up for.

Better to leave now maybe than if something did go wrong and leaving made you look bad when in fact the reality is you have been mulling it over for months or years.

Great user name by the way, Great album too!

Perhaps you’ve just stopped seeing your DH as a person in his own right - with his own agency, choices and seperate identity. It’s hard to feel attracted to someone when your lives are inmeshed in each other and sibling feelings kick in.
If you were to discover that he wants things you don’t know about, and chose to live a more authentic life and that this was attractive, you might notice him again. If he didn’t have to depend on you for sexual fulfilment - and that perhaps he could find something closer, more intimate and reciprocal with someone else, perhaps you would start to feel a little hurt.

I think it’s just the curse of long term honest dependable men, that they can’t be dangerous and exiting and new.

And if only he knew he could be free, he could become who he needs to be, and ironically, who you need at this stage in your life.

I appreciate all of your replies. I think it's going to be difficult to come back from this. I am going to give myself a deadline and I'm going to try my best to get my old feelings back.

Dadaist - I think you've got a good point. However he does still have his own complete identity. He plays in a very successful band. I don't often get the chance to go and see them play but when I do I am often met with animosity by some of his female die hard 'fans' This should make me jealous and territorial. I used to find it amusing but now I find myself thinking 'oh she would be nice for you if we split' and that's without a hint of jealousy. I guess if I was actually faced with it as a reality, I may feel differently, but I do suspect not.

Also, I am only in my 30's but I don't want to be with another - ever. Don't get me wrong, I'm not condemning myself to a sexless or emotionless life but I do foresee my future alone. I don't want my DH but I don't want anybody else either. That's not making a sweeping statement, I genuinely feel that way.

I've just read your post and some replies and i feel exactly the same. I've been feeling like this for a while. I'm 32 been together for 14 years and 3 kids. I love him as a brother and feel like were flat mates and just co-parenting. I think about splitting up but then i don't want to hurt him and then if i regret it how do we go back. I wish someone could read my mind and tell me what to do.

I can relate to this; been with DP for 12 years we have a DS11. We’ve only lived together 7 years and i do find myself increasingly looking back to those days in my own little house with just me and my boy. It seems simpler. Now i have so much clearing up to do all the time! Our sexlife has dwindled and my feelings are changing since i found him on hookup sites/tinder looking for “friends”.

I think its natural for LTRs to have a lull; its just working out whether its a lull or whether it has run its course.. good idea to set a time limit to see if you feel the same and i guess actively try and rekindle it- and remember what you loved about him when you first met?

OP you said you imagine being content on your own with the DCs and that he has female admirers.
Can you imagine a future where he is happily in a r'ship with one of them? She is a step mum to your kids? They get to take them on fun days out while you are left with the day to day drudge of being a resident parent. He and she go off on exotic holidays while you are at home with the kids and can't afford holidays. What if he moves far away to be with some woman so your kids have to travel miles EOW to see him or he never sees them at all?
What if he gets married and wants your DC to be bridesmaid/page boy etc?

I think @chiararmini has a point - you do need to think this through. You’d said you weren’t experiencing a loss of libido - but also say you don’t ever imagine being with someone else.
Perhaps it is a lull - but then - the lack of even a hint of jealousy for DH isn’t a good sign.
Perhaps get some counselling and work through what you’re actually feeling.
The only thing I’d add is that, unless he’s having an affair, the lack of intimacy will affect him and your relationship the longer it goes on.
I hope you find a way through it. I can’t really advise on getting the spark back from a female perspective, but I often think it’s linked to the gap between fantasy and reality and the play of contradictions in your head (closeness and separation/familiarity and newness/confidence and vulnerability).
Good luck OP

You sound like you know your own mind well enough OP.
Chiara has some valid points but having been where you are, suffering any or all of those points might be worth it to have mental peace, the ability to be your own person and without the downside of the marriage. I allowed my situation to go on too long and the ex had an OW. At the point he left I felt grateful to her. She was very rude to me but I still see her as having done me a massive favour.
At the point I was left on my own I was so happy. I only had to take my own needs and wants into consideration and the relief of that was immense. Had he not gone off with OW I would have ended it anyway. He asked to come back and I laughed in his face and in a genuine way. Nothing was going to take away my new found light, air, space and oxygen!

Here’s my amateur psychologist guess: you were just getting your life back as the two elder children were becoming more independent; the new child has thrown you back into those early child-rearing years plus you’ve got the added stress of teenagers; your freedom is impacted much more than his; you’re resentful but don’t understand why or don’t think you have any right to be, and this is manifesting itself as physical rejection of him.

Possible?

Tbh I think if you've felt like this a while OP then the writing is on the wall. If you stay in a dead marriage then one or both of you is likely to stray. Don't have sex if it's making you feel so bad. Are you working? Can you afford to set up a new home, life and think about meeting someone new who you are attracted to?

I've had years and years feeling like this. Sex became non existent as I couldn't bring myself to sleep with H.

After deciding I could not live like this for the next 10 years whilst the DCs finished growing up, I'm not divorcing him. The relief was huge when I finally made that decision and told him. I don't regret it for a second and I'm looking forwards to my new life once he moves out in a few months time.

Now divorcing