To want more from my relationship

[Fearingfor]

Wondering if I’m being a bit unreasonable in terms of what I want from my partner.

We have two kids, youngest is 2. Over the last year or two we seem to have drifted apart. I can only explain it by examples. We’ve been together 11 years.

So he works abroad fairly often for a week or two. Over there he is constantly out socialising after work (sometimes with friends, sometimes clients). He drinks most nights and goes to the hotel about 1am (not drunk every night but has a few drinks every night) gets up for work at 7-8am. I have very, very little communication with him during this time. He seems uninterested.

This means that when he comes home we’re just a bit off. I’m so busy with life with the kids and house and he lives an almost separate life. He goes away at least once a fortnight for a night or two and goes abroad at least every 2-3 months for 2 weeks.

Whilst he’s away I would just love to feel like we mattered to him. Sometimes I feel like his friends and colleagues over there don’t know anything about us. And there has been some things which have happened in the past over there (I won’t go into too much detail but partying and I found texts about visiting strippers over there) and id just like some reassurance from him.

This week I was upset by an email I received from someone which I thought was quite rude and uncalled for. I sent him a screenshot of it (there was a few screenshots) and he didn’t bother to read past the first one or comment on it or ask if I was ok. Not until I asked him a few days later. But in this time I’d been upset because of it.

When he’s home (he works from home), he’ll wake up at 8am, help me get the kids ready for school then head into the office til 6pm usually eating dinner 3/4 times a week in his office. He is busy with phone calls all day. We have little interaction.

In the evenings I’ll watch my programmes (which he doesn’t like). He’ll either sit with me on his work laptop or play on his computer in another room.

We went on holiday recently. The location was amazing and I thought it would be great to have family time but felt irritated as he wanted to relax and chill out and whilst I understood this as he works sooo much, he had to be nagged to help with anything. Kids suncream and pool stuff had to be done my me. Otherwise we sat in the room until lunchtime as he just wouldn’t get the energy to get up and organised. A few days he actually suggested we have a day in bed watching movies.

We were in a lovely location, fab weather massive pool and I wanted the kids to have an amazing time and he just couldn’t be arsed. He would brush his teeth, sit down, id hurry him up, he’d put on his swimming shorts, sit down. Honestly it drove me crazy and took so long to get out the hotel room.

We were on holiday for 2 weeks. On the second week he started to get busy with work and was on his phone most of the day (usually emails but a few times on conference calls). I just felt so deflated?!

On the other hand, am I unreasonable as he works hard has an extremely senior role which allows for me to stay home with the kids. I don’t know?

I’ve went majorly off sex in the last 6 months and don’t feel attracted to him. Although I know this could come back if I felt connected to him.

So is this quite normal when a man works away a lot in a senior role and the other person is at home with kids. Sometimes I just wish I could have him here, in a normal job, normal pay, me working too perhaps and just a normal family life. Maybe someone with a partner that works away can share their experience?

"I guess I hope we have a future as we’ve been together for so long, invested so much time with him, established a home for our kids etc. A future without him upsets all of that and puts us into a position where I have never been as an adult. I met him as a teenager so feel absolutely lost without him".

You met him when you were a teenager and thus had no real life experience behind you. Your whole life as an adult has also been spent with this one person and he has not given you the security you still crave (what was life at home like for you?. You do not have to answer that but my guess that it was not a happy time at all).

The rest of what you have written here is very much the "sunken costs fallacy" and that basically causes people to keep on making poor relationship decisions. You're hoping against hope that this is all going to work out and he is somehow going to come good but its falling apart already. You're unhappy at the whole thought of this wedding you are planning. He will throw money at problems but he is not there for you at all emotionally and is also a workaholic who basically prioritises his work life and friends over you people. How is marriage going to change that, it won't.

People get bogged down by focusing on their sunk costs.
There are two ways to understand this process, both involving avoidance. One is an avoidance of disappointment or loss when something doesn’t work out. When a relationship doesn’t succeed, especially after a long period, especially after many shared experiences and especially after developing a hope that the relationship would be a good one, it is a loss. It is a loss of what might have been and an acknowledgement that a part of one’s life has been devoted to this endeavour.

Another angle to evaluate is that focus on “sunk cost” creates a distraction from one’s inner truth. The sentence often goes like, “I’ve already invested to much, so I can’t notice my thoughts and feelings that are telling me to end or change this relationship.”
This is a type of insidious defense against noticing yourself. You enter into a neglectful relationship with yourself which divorces you from your inner thoughts and the quiet feelings that might guide you in your life. In other words, thinking about what already has been may prevent you from deciding what you want your life to be.

Do not put yourself through a marriage to him because if you are fool enough to marry this individual despite your own very real misgivings I can see you wanting to divorce him in short order.

You say things took a turn for the worse after he agreed to the wedding and you started planning for the wedding. I don't think that is a good sign of his commitment.

Why do you think he is so keen then for the wedding to go ahead? That seems a little counter-intuitive. Is he coming under family pressure to marry you and keep up appearances?

It probably wasn’t deliberate of him that it took a turn for the worse. I found messages on his phone about strippers/discovered he lied about the time he was going home/staying out all night etc. After this I started to put my foot down. He promised the world but continually let me down. So that’s why it took a turn for the worse.

You seem to think it is your fault that it took a turn for the worse. It is not - it stems from his continued selfish ad entitled behaviour and refusal to behave like any decent human would to his partner and mother of his children.

The deal in your relationship (in his eyes) is that you must turn a blind eye to all his shenanigans. This will be a theme throughout your marriage. I don't think he will change.

The question is: can you turn a blind eye. Some women do it for the lifestyle. Is it worth it/enough for you?

I don't understand your claim that it wasn't deliberate that things took a turn for the worse. Did he not deliberately go to strip clubs and stay out drinking with colleagues or did someone drag him kicking and screamingWhy are you shouldering the blame? Your reaction to finding those messages was completely normal.

Personally I would have cancelled the wedding after he ignored your ultimatum, breezily told his colleagues on group chat your relationship was over and proceeded to go out drinking until 10am. The fact that he felt able to share his lack of interest in your relationship with colleagues so easily is telling.

if his actions turned worse after he agreed to marriage then it doesnt look like he really wants marriage.