Fallen out of love

[lbmum]

Hi everyone. I am so upset right now and am wondering if anyone here has been through what I am going through. I have been married for almost 15 years and for most of it we have been very happy. However, a few years ago I started to realise that I felt differently about my marriage. I didn’t want cuddles or attention from my husband. Then I would start to notice other men when I hadn’t before (just looking). I have left these feelings too long now and I am now in a position where I know I don’t love my husband anymore. I don’t want him touching me or kissing me, yet alone have sex with him. He, however still wants the physical closeness as he loves me. He instigated a conversation with me recently about how he still needs me physically and I told him I didn’t want sex. But the expectation is still there. The problem is, I am desperate to be loved and to love back but I know it’s not with him. I keep asking myself how this has happened. I don’t want to make it work, I don’t enjoy spending time with him and I feel violated when I let him be intimate with me. I feel very trapped as my mum lives in an annexe in our property and would be homeless if we split up. I have three children too. I feel very alone as we also relocated to another county 3.5 years ago and I still miss my good friends. I just don’t know where to start. For my own wellbeing I am certain I want to separate and give myself the chance of finding happiness again maybe one day. But how can I tear my family apart and make my mum homeless just because I fell out of love with my husband. I feel like the worst person in the world and just want to cry all the time but of course I can’t because my husband hasn’t a clue about how I am feeling. I don’t know where to start. He has asked me if I still love him and I told him I love him for our past and our children but I am not in love with him as I was before. He still took that as a positive though. I have been trying so hard but I just don’t want my husband’s attention. Please, is there anyone here who has been through this or am I the only one? Thank you.

hard situation, but you have to find a way to get out.

Thank you for your honest opinion. I was thinking that maybe I am being too selfish if I do that. My husband is also slightly controlling and i find it suffocating. Thank you so much. I am lost. X

The shoe is on the other foot here, after 25 years (20 years married) he no longer wants me. The good thing is that if you don't hate each other and there's no complications like an affair you can plan your uncoupling so no one is homeless. Would counselling help maybe? We are at the beginning of our journey, but others here have more experience

Talk to your mum and come up with a plan together. Is he the father of your children? Where were they born?

Thank you for your reply. I’m so sorry to hear you are on the opposite end of this. I do wish everyday that it never happened like this and want to feel like I used to but I just can’t. When he touched me I feel like I would if a stranger touched me. There isn’t nothing there for me anymore. I feel so bad. I think we would have to try counselling just so that we can say we tried. It’s all such a mess. I am so sorry for you too. Pathways of life certainly take us over all sorts of terrain. X

I have tried talking to my mum in the past about my feelings towards him and she doesn’t want to
Know. She sides with him and provides me with no emotional support. Yes he is the father of all my children and they were all born back where we used to live which unfortunately was London so there is no chance we could afford to move back again.

I'm in the same position for various reasons. I truly acknowledged it about a year ago and raised it with him. I don't think the gravity of what I was saying sunk in with him. And from what you say about your DH, I suspect it is the same with yours. I knew it was over emotionally for me, and I don't know if I'm dealing with it the right way, but I can tell you what I've done.
I felt suddenly frantic last year that I had to do something about it and seriously considered just pulling the plaster off and ending it, dealing with the consequences, but felt I wasn't in a good enough place mentally to make that decision.
I too spent a long time not WANTING to make it work. I have had to force myself to make an effort - try and see something good in him every day (record it so I had to acknowledge it) and try and do something nice for him every day that I wouldn't do. Maybe make a drink when I wouldn't, iron shirts or book something - anything big or small.
Try to spend time together doing something else, not just sitting and talking over dinner etc - that just highlighted how mismatched I felt. So activities here and there to distract you and give you something else to talk about.
We've had various conversations since and the severity of how I feel has finally sunk in. We stopped being intimate for a while but I recognised that that was only making me want to do it less (I felt the same as you about that) so I've tried again and it is getting easier.

Honestly, do I think I'll ever feel the same? No. But am I now finding it easier to imagine a future together where we are happy enough (we got along very well, rarely argue, and I enjoy his company well enough) for the benefits of shared finances, the positives that brings, shared parenting and both of us being able to raise our DC's as a partnership? Possibly.
I don't know if we'll make it, but these things have certainly made life a bit easier and my mind less frantic and he can't say I haven't given it my best.

Though to play devils advocate, will I look back in eighteen months and think I should have just bloody pulled the plaster off back when this started? Maybe. But at that time that felt unfair and cruel and it felt right to be honest and approach it as a pair.

I'm not sure if this is helpful since I'm by no means out the other side. But you're not alone. And these are my experiences so far.

*try do something nice for him every day that I wouldn't routinely do... Not think of something nice to do then go out of my way not to do it!! 😆

In fact reading that back I sound like a huge coward. Maybe I am. I hope you find the strength if you know you need to split to do so. It's not easy. Sorry you're in this position too.

Oh yes, I have been there, it was terrible. I loved him, he was my friend, but I was not in love with him anymore and felt exactly the same about intimacy. I just wanted to be alone but at the same time kept trying as I cared for him.

At the end... you can’t stay, and it is heartbreaking, because it comes to the point that everything they do annoys you, from what they say to the way they hold the cutlery. It is much better to part before the frustration puts you in a place that you start putting down each other or you fall for another person.

This is not giving up before you should, this is just giving up on time to give yourselves the best chance to co parent the kids in harmony even if it is in two separate households.

OP - I'm right here with you. I feel the same way.
I've decided to give myself a 3 year plan. To loose weight and get myself physically together, and to save enough money to pay for a rental place and deposit.

I'll be 52 by then. I would like to find love again, but not sure if at 52 that's likely to happen.

If your mum sides with your dh could you leave them both to get on with it and you move out? I’ve been in a similar situation and my mum siding with my now ex dh really destroyed our relationship, I couldn’t forgive her for it.

I feel the same.

I go from feeling brave and certain to thinking staying is the only way.

My situation is more complicated because I'm having an affair, but that's not the driver but a symptom.

Come and join lots of us in a similar situation www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3531439-Leaving-dh-anyone-else-in-this-boat-and-want-to-support-each-other

is your mum sincere or she is scared she will lose the place she lives in?

or is she old minded who thinks you have to continue your marriage whatever your feelings are?

Yes, she is scared of losing her house. She left where we lived before and gave up everything because she is on her own and I am her only daughter. She couldn't bare to be without her grandchildren so she followed us up a year later once we had taken extra money on the mortgage and done the annexe for her. She has a lovely place now but is so reliant on us supporting her. I have heard from a third party that she has been talking to DH about it too without me knowing so I feel betrayed a little too.

Misty9, thank you x

Mademybed123, thank you for your honesty. I am so sorry you are in this situation. I have PMd you. x

Fairylea, it has crossed my mind! I am tempted to let her move into the main house with husband and I move into her annexe!

11112222, I feel for you. I too have lost weight and tried to improve how I feel about myself. But DH thinks I am spending too much time on it and doesn't like it. Money is an issue with us now, we can't afford the house etc so I don't know what we will do. I am similar to you, I am 45 now and worry I won't ever find anyone again. But similarly, I could have another 40 years with someone and I desperately want to feel loved and love back. :-( x

Of course dm has been talking to DH about it! She's worried about what's going to happen, and that she might end up homeless! You've got people relying on you, OP. Would you really be happy in your new life, knowing you've devastated the lives of other people?

If you can't afford the house now, you'll have to look at downsizing or renting, and take dm with you.

You need to be absolutely ruthlessly honest with your husband here. Tell him how you cannot stand the thought of sex with him, how that's never going to change. He's probably living in false hope things will turn around at some point. You need to tell him the truth.

To all of you saying that you may not find love....my aunt and uncle split up in their 60's I think. Both went on to find the loves of their lives after.
I'm inspired by them. Of course you'll get love.

PS I'm newly single too, so I'm hoping some of that action comes my way too

I divorced for the same reasons as you are considering.

I went on to have a relationship with a horribly abusive man, and have been single since. But I am still 100 per cent sure I did the right thing, and am loving my life exactly as it is - I am happier than I have ever been before. It feels like life is just beginning every day.

My ex-husband is now married again to a lovely woman. We all get on well, and my son has grown up as part of two loving families.

Sometimes being 'selfish' is actually best for all concerned.