I need help & advice re failing marriage

[astuckinthemud]

Hello all, this may be a long one- I am looking for your help, advice, opinions, experience etc .

I have been with my DH for 12 years and we have 2 lovely boys together. For the last 18 months or so my feelings have changed greatly. I don't love him, I am not attracted to him at all, we haven't had sex for about a year now, I don't particularly enjoy his company - sometimes I do but its not often. He has done nothing wrong and is generally good to me and our boys worship him. The thing is I am so unhappy at home, we have talked about how I feel and he is always shocked that I feel this way, he seems to think I will get over it. But I have been feeling like this for so long now and I am unhappy and it affects my every day life. I am miserable and short tempered.
I have thought about leaving but feel I have nowhere to go as I don't work and have no family close by.
Please share your ideas and advice.....

What do you expect him to do to change the way you feel?

Is he the person you want to retire with?

What happened 18 months ago?.

What are you getting out of this relationship now?.

Do not stay together just because or for the sake of the children; doing that is really a terrible idea and teaches them too that a happy relationship is not their birthright. It puts a heavy burden upon them and one they will not thank you for doing to them.

Divorce is not failure; living in such unhappiness is.

Did anything happen 18 months ago to trigger this?

And has he really done nothing wrong? It's just I don't see how you got so unhappy all by yourself, esp if he's as good to you as you say.

Do not stay together just because or for the sake of the children; doing that is really a terrible idea and teaches them too that a happy relationship is not their birthright. It puts a heavy burden upon them and one they will not thank you for doing to them.

I've been the kid in this situation and this is absolutely bang on.

"I stayed for you" makes me feel heartbroken for my mum, guilty because I was the reason (it felt like) that she stayed unhappy and angry I was told they stayed for me because it made me feel all of the above.

Mums my best mate, she did what she thought was right and I am not in the slightest bit cross now I'm an adult but it was a really damaging thing at the time and also gave me the idea that no matter how bad things are, you should always just keep trying and do what you need to do to keep the peace.

It's taken until the age of 33 and a couple of abusive relationships to undo the damage it did.

I know that isn't the case for everyone but what I'm explaining, inarticulately, is that sometimes staying 'for the kids' is more damaging than leaving.

What happened 18 months ago?

Sorry but I think since it is only you that seems to have had this change and since you say he is good to you and the children and presumably they are happy, you have an obligation to try and work hard to save your marriage. You don't marry until you no longer fancy your partner or it no longer exciting. If you did fancied him once and don't now then either 1. Something has changed. 2. You have changed.

Are you certain you are not taking your husband and marriage for granted? It is easy to become complacent. Drift. Lose the spark. But avoiding the drift is the responsibility of both of you.

What does he say when you mention how you feel? What have you done to address things?

How long have you not worked for? Could this be a personal dissatisfaction with your own life progress that you are transferring onto everything?

Ignore spelling!!

Sounds like your own (midlife?) crisis and nothing to do with your DH. It is not a failing marriage, it is you failing your marriage.
Love is not something which you passively see leaving you, to love someone is to be proactive about it. You are having your own issues and blaming your DH because he is your nearest. It's not his job to make you happy, it's your job to make you happy.

Before you randomly start packing your bags please see a counsellor or a therapist to help you find out what's the real reason for your unhappiness.
Try to find a personally recommended one. There's a website where you can find all registered counsellors in your area

Btw I was the kid whose dad who had his own issues didn't leave "for the kids" until I was 17 and I was very grateful for being brought up in a full family. However my parents loved each other, it's just that my dad was unsatisfied with his life so he decided at 39 the solution was to emigrate and it was impossible to do without leaving.
We don't really have much of a relationship now but I'm grateful for my childhood.
Of course abusive situations are completely different....

How old are you? Your unhappiness c0uld be related to your life, especially if you have school aged children and not working.

Are you expecting your Dh to make you happy?

I would not leave until you had explored all avenues. You could leave and still be very unhappy, just with less money and less time with your children.

www.counselling-directory.org.uk/

Oh yeah, I just thought, having seen the question about your age - could it be peri-menopause? (Starts about 10 years before menopause, and depression and loss of sex drive could be one of the symptoms, search Mumsnet, there was a big thread recently)

Often on these threads, the first post talks of how blameless and flawless he is, a first-rate dad and husband, but then subsequent posts are more realistic and circumspect about his behaviour and it becomes clear why the OP’s feelings are altering.

That’s what I’m kind of expecting here, OP. The clarification.

Sorry you’re struggling - it’s an awful feeling. I’ve been through it.

Find a counsellor you can relate to.

Find a job.

Re-evaluate in a year or so.

How old are your children? Are you happy in all other aspects of your life?

Patch,

If she's married to a human, of course he can't be flawless 🧐

But a friend of a friend left her husband because he was just too nice and she found it boring(they didn't have kids)

The other was unhappy because her DH gained loads of weight and she found him physically repulsive and couldn't have sex any more.

Or OP herself might have found someone else she thinks she likes better and she realised she doesn't feel the same towards her DH, it's not necessarily going to turn out to be her DH's fault...

Your DH probably has some faults that you aren't happy with because no is perfect but it seems that you're quite unhappy in yourself and possibly fed up?

Would studying or getting a job bring more to your life, give you things to talk about with your DH and possibly make you focus less on your DH and how much you're falling out of love with him?

When your family, kids and DH are basically your life, it's easy to focus on it too much and find all the negatives.

I have a friend that has grown up children and one primary school aged one. She is fed up in herself and looks at her DH like he should be doing more to create her happiness. She doesn't work, isn't studying and the path she has taken is to have affairs instead of creating some happiness and meaning to her own life. She relies heavily on male attention to give herself purpose in life and I've gotten to the point where I'm sick of hearing about it to be honest. I'm happy to talk about her life, what she is unhappy about etc but I'm fed up of hearing about the affairs and stress she goes through with these idiots she gets involved with. She has so much time on her hands, I don't, so I've suggested things to make herself happier but they all get rebuffed! The grass isn't always greener, infact it rarely is to be honest. A lot of people think the source of their unhappiness is their partner but half the time it actually isn't. It's them, they just want to sit there and have happiness brought to them without doing anything to improve their own lives. I'm not saying this is you OP as I don't know what you do day to day but having a course, job, hobby etc outside of family life really does help keep a marriage ticking a long provided your partner is a good person and is good to you

Often on these threads, the first post talks of how blameless and flawless he is, a first-rate dad and husband, but then subsequent posts are more realistic and circumspect about his behaviour and it becomes clear why the OP’s feelings are altering.

That’s what I’m kind of expecting here,

Barring a few exceptions, abusive relationships etc; I take updates of this sort with a pinch of salt. Usually it means the OP is not happy with the response they are getting so resort to drip feeding further exaggerated details in order to bring the thread back to what they want to hear.

If there were major non-ignorable faults that were impacting on your life you would add these in your OP because they would be so frustrating they'd be at the forefront of your mind.

Hi everyone. Thank you for your replies. I will try and answer your questions.
I do not expect my husband to make me happy as someone suggested, it is not his responsibility and I do not blame him for my unhappiness or expect him to do something to change my feelings.
When we talk about it he is sad and says he hopes we will stay together.
Our kids are age 3 and 6. I have always worked part time since having the kids until September 2019 when I made the decision to take further qualifications. I have taken 3 study from home courses and have completed 1 so far. I am currently applying for teaching jobs and have had 2 unsuccessful interviews so far.
Nothing happened 18 months ago, I just try to put an estimate on how long I have been feeling like this. It is probably longer than that.
My dad died very suddenly 12 months ago and yes I am struggling with that very much but my feelings for DH changed long before I lost my dad.
X

Why did you stop having sex? Are you both happy about that? IMO sex is the glue in an LTR and when that goes much else can follow.

You make it sound as if your feelings are an external force that you can do nothing about. If your DH has not changed in any way it's hard to see why you no longer love him.

I think it's possible you fell out of love. But more likely you are unhappy and your feelings for your DH are suffering as a consequence.

I think you need to explore what's wrong in your life overall and try to get to the bottom of that. I'd also say ou should make an effort - what did you and DH do in the past together? try rekindle some of that.

Staying in a marriage in which you're unhappy is not a good idea. But leaving a marriage without really putting in the work to save it is equally bad in my opinion.

OP this sounds very distressing for you and all the more because there isn’t a logical reason you can point to.

Do you think you/your DH have changed? 12 years is a long time.

I always see advice to ‘do the work’ on your relationship but I’m never clear what this is. I’m also not sure that I’m totally convinced that making yourself do things you don’t find yourself drawn towards wanting to do is a recipe for success.

I hope you’re ok.

Are you depressed.

It doesn't sound like your husband is putting up much of a fight for you or taking you seriously.

Is this an underlying reason for the lack of sex in your marriage?

Do you think if that were better you'd feel happier in the relationship?