after much soul searching told my dp i don't love him.HELP ME!

[queenrollo]

this morning i couldn't hold it in any longer and told him i am not in love with him anymore.
he wasn't overly shocked, but we have been together 14 years and have a 2 year old.
we are both in pieces about our family unit being destroyed. Ds has just woken and dp asked if he could have some time alone with him, i can hear them cuddling in our bed and dp is sobbing.....
What the fuck have i done? i feel like i'm dying here........please someone help me......

QR - I've hopped over here from the AN club as I was worried about you. I haven't had much of a chance to read everything as DS or DD have been demanding so I apologise if any of this has been said before...

Would it be a possibility, in the short term (next few months, say until the new year) to live together as flatmates? If you generally don't hate each other and have no inclination to finding someone new then maybe a few months, with no relationship, would be a good way to see things more clearly. I'm not suggesting it would make you change your mind, but it might help the practicalities (where to live, how to explain to your DS) and it also might help your DP get used to the idea.

It sounds as if you're feeling really guilty about rocking the boat, but don't. If in needed to be said, it needed to be said and there is no point living a lie. But if you try to think about a few months down the line, in your own place with your DS what do you see? Are you happy? Happier? Are you feeling guilty? Are you feeling relieved but still feeling down?

I suspect that you may be depressed in general and see this as one thing you can make a fairly easy fix on. Are there other things bothering you?

My relationship with DH is under real strain at the moment, but we've both acknowledged that having 2 kids in the house (one who still doesn't sleep at 7 months) makes it a really 'artificial' environment for 'us' as a couple. We don't have a sexual relationship at the moment and it's been sparse for a while now. We don't even share the same bed (I share mine with DD). I guess what I'm saying is that if there are other things causing problems other than your relationship, it can be very easy to blame your relationship for everything. Hope you get what I mean!

Please do take things slowly whatever you do. You've been together 14 years. To split up in 14 days wouldn't seem fitting. Give all of you a little bit of time to come to terms with it. And if you think that there is any possibility of salvaging anything, please do get some counselling or outside help.

i'm not taking offence at anything that is said here.....it is all helping me think this through.
It's fine to say stay and work at the relationship......the issue over sex is that i do NOT want to have sex with this man. I do NOT love him in that way anymore. (Counselling will not fix that.) He cannot accept living in a relationship where that is the case and neither can I. I'm not a block of ice though and if we stay together i can't very well have sexual partners just to satisfy that urge.
He is in the spare room for now, but doesn't see us living like that long term.
Today he has sent me a message asking about the possibility of him having primary care of our son....which is a whole other discussion.

I have been careful to make sure this wasn't about me being depressed, or lonely..........
i do understand what you are all saying about not breaking up the family.
How do i stay with a man who wants me as a lover when i can't reciprocate. How do i stop needing that kind of fulfilment myself, because if i stay dp will not handle me having sex elsewhere.

i'm thinking out loud on here so to speak.........

if i go for counselling how will that help?
i don't think i'm not in love with him anymore......i KNOW i'm not. How will counselling make me fall back in love with him. How will counselling fix our relationship?

we came close to splitting twice before (a very long time ago) and both times he agreed to be more open, to stop being so suffocating with me. and he lapsed back into his old ways.

I don't want to break up my family. But i want to be happy.....saying my feelings come second to my childs is all very well, but i have become a shadow of the mother i should be because whatever i try to do to make my life better living within the relationship doesn't work.

Please keep giving me feedback....this i really helping me make sure i am thinking it all through.

So what is the main issue - the sexual issue? apart from the sexual issue - that being you don't want to have sex with him and he wants to have sex with you - everything else is at least workable? (a lot better than a lot of relationships then!!!)

Sounds like you've lost sight of yourself for a while, lost friends, not working etc so not feeling too hot about yourself. Chances are your blaming him for your loss of identity. Not terribly surprising your not wanting sexual relations. It sounds fairly typical of married life to me.

I think you've really done the hard bit - admitting things aren't right and demanding some change. The really good thing is he's agreed with you and is open to change. I'd say this is the start of an upward spiral not splitting up time.

I'd say the lack of sexual desire towards your partner is only a HUGE PROBLEM if you are both really happy and feeling good about yourselves individually and you still don't want to go for it with each other. Then you know there's no chance

it's not that counselling will make you love him anymore, its just that it might make you sit back and help you both deal with whatever issues you have in a more constructive manner which will hopefully result in 2 happier, more well balanced individuals. There's no guarantee that you'll fall in love again, but its worth taking a chance.

And from what you say about his problems with opening up and the issues with suffocating you - counselling could really help with that - especially if he is open and really wants change.

I think that since you're talking things through on here and asking questions, you have a lot of doubts. If you didn't have those doubts, you wouldn't be asking IYSWIM. Those doubts may not be about your DP as you may be 100% sure you don't want to be with him. But if those doubts are about splitting up, then you do owe it to yourself and your DS to at least try some things. If counselling will not work, where's the harm in giving it a shot? At the end of it you might be in exactly the same situation. But then again, it might highlight some things to both of you that you could work at or could use in future relationships.

If he's looking for primary care of your DS, then you might well have a custody battle ahead (I'm assuming you would want the same) and that's a messy, awful thing for you all to go through. Your DP might just be wanting primary care as he's hurting and trying to find ways to punish you or make you stay. But if that's the case, then you need to whatever you can to ease his hurting so this doesn't end up too messy.

On another note, I'm glad a lot of people have a married life of no sex, not feeling like they have a life of their own, not feeling themselves, just being 'mum'. Made me feel a lot more normal!

i do feel pretty good about myself.....and i do want sex. But not with him.

i know if i stay with him there is a pretty good chance i will cheat on him. He asked me if there was someone else and there isn't....which for me is a big part of why i know my feelings have really changed.

I did suggest the other day that we see counsellors but seperately........and he insists that now he has opened up to his friend he doesn't need to see a professional. He says me doing this is the wake up call he needed. I feel like everything i tried before to get him to take me seriously meant nothing at all to him, he has been a heavy cannabis user for years and just used that to dull his feelings.

I have been dealing with MY issues with myself.....it made me realise i stayed with him thtough habit and for (material) security.
It is so hard for me because he is a good man......and a good father. But we cannot make each other happy.
I could live under the same roof as him, quite easliy, but i would hate myself and eventually him if i did, because then i really would feel like i was being held back.

QR come over from PN for some support, you seem to be thinking things through well, though I am very worried about how upset you seem over this, I said before I went through the same with my X ds father though he wasnt what you would call a nice bloke, and when I finally got rid of him I laughed and skipped, not because Im raving mad but as because it was what I and DS really needed.

Can I run something by you, I have known of you as a MN'er since we had bumps and I remember you being very very low after your DS's birth-is it possible you havent recovered? you could have long festering PND? have you seen the doc yet and talked it though with a pro it is possible and help and councilling would help. Even if you tried a separation and councilling? but then again it could just be straight forward like you say and as nice as he is and great with you ds you cant stand to be with him.

Good luck hugs to you, hope your not annoyed by my suggestions xxx

yes i have doubts.........i can honestly say if ds was not here i would have just packed my bags and walked.
but i have ds to consider.

the custody issue is that soon dp will only be working weekends and the occasional evening during the week. if he has primary care then ds gets to stay in the home he has always known. Dp can easily afford to pay the bills there so there is instant stability. It would mean i could pursue an education/career.......as i would have the weekdays free to do so.
dp has said that he will agree to whatever i decided on this issue....so if i want primary care then he will not contest it.

Hi josey....i am upset, because i'm terrified of making the wrong decision.
every fibre of my being says LEAVE....... i am not happy with dp, i haven't been for a long time and i convinced myself otherwise. I was very low after ds was born, and i think i have blamed my lack of feeling for dp on everything from work pressures, to lack of social life to PND.....when the real issue was that my feelings had actually changed. Now i've been spending time on ME and realsied that it is not an outside issue at all but that i simply don't love him. I simply don't want to be with him. and as i said....my doubts are all based around my son.

..........but it sounds like you've given up already. IMO if you haven;t yet seen a counsellor, then you haven;t tried everything.
Look this is a quick post because OH is waiting for me to chat, so sorry if it sounds short.

You can say until you're blue in the face that you're not happy, that you don;t wAnt sex with him, and that if you do stay with him that you will have sex with others, but it doesn;t change the facts. The best thing for all concerned is that you stay together, you just need to find a way of doing it.

Seeing a counsellor could make you see your oh for the man he was when you met him, you may find him to be more surprising and interesting than you expected when he actually opens up, seeing his vulnerablilty may make you feel warmer towards him, and the considerable love he has for you may make him more attractive to you. On the other jhand he may be completely dissatisfied with you also, and you never know hearing that sort of thing may make you want to be different. My point is, I have no idea how counselling could help you, but I do know that you will never find out unless you try. You have NOTHING to lose

that makes it sound like i should stay in a relationship that makes me miserable and full of selfhatred............it feels like dp gets to 'keep' me......ds gets parents who will hate each other.

i am willing to try counselling.....but if he won't why the hell should i.
sorry if i sound mad.....but i have been round and round myself about this. I had to break the cycle (and he admitted he never would have in case it meant losing me, at least ignoring it kept me there for 14 years)

i'm at friends because dp needed space from me as much as the other way round......but i realise i have to go home sooner than planned to try and get his view on this. He seems to think that having a complete break from each other for a few months would be better than living under the same roof.

I agree about the counselling. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Even if it doesn't help you in this situation, it might make a difference to how you both view/pick future relationships which might make an impact on your DS.

QR, I don't think you should stay together for your DS and be miserable. But I do think you're having enough doubts about things to warrant some attempt at salvaging something. I would tell your DP that it's counselling and seeing where that takes you both, or separating.

Is he still smoking canabis on a daily basis?

he has said he will stop the smoking..........and i believe he will try although that presents the issue of him controlling his temper and emotions. because being stoned kind of kept him calmer......

i'm going to go home, he's going to stay in the spare room. it's counselling or no relationship. i'm sick of 'i'll change'......he's only doing it now because i'm leaving.....when he should have done it the numerous times before when i told him what a problem it was to me.

well if it were me the canabis use would have to stop now. That would be a small thing he could do on a daily basis to show you he really does want to change. And canabis use does not control anger etc, if anything it produces anger. Bit like the drunk who drinks cos he's depressed - its the drink that's making him depressed. Sounds like your dh really would benefit from some counselling. I wouldn't tolerate one slip up on this at all. For me this would be the best indication that his empty words of "I'll change" are now turning into action. And it'll be interesting to see whether a fresh head might actually make him wake up to himself.

He won't be the first man to need his wife to actually physically leave him before he wakes up to the fact she won't always be there and therefore has to change how things are.

It's not going to be an easy road.

What's your plan - how are you going to cope and move forward here and ensure he is moving forward too?

I'm not saying stay in a dreadful, destructive relationship. You don't sound like you're going to do that, I'm saying you need to try and fix it.
Keep us posted with how things are going. You sound so lovely, but so messed up about this whole thing.
Will be thinking of you xxx

QR, I agree to tell him if he's serious, then he'll quit the cannabis and go to some counselling. I do think that he'd benefit from counselling too, and that his future relationship with your DS will benefit too, even if you decide to not stay together.

Best of luck - keep us updated.

Hi Queenrollo

I just wondered if your dp suffers from any of the effects related to cannabis i.e. paranoia, depression maybe?

I also wonder if he came off the cannabis, totally, you would notice a change in him, to someone you might love and respect?

I hope you are ok today xx

QR if you trully believe that you do not love him and you have to leave then you cannont be making the wrong decision? Your DS will benefit from your happiness, wether he has weekend access to his dad or daily visits, your not the first person this will have happend to and you with not be the last, the most important thing is you dont loose the friendship with your DP for you DS sake that is easier said than done. I only speak to my X to tell him the next date to pick up DS, things turned very sour with us as he was turning up to pick DS up so stoned he couldnt remember how many kids he had. Things ended up in court for our access - do not let it get to that - My DS is a happy little boy but there is a change to his behaviour when he comes home and thats probably due to the hatred between me and his father.
Good luck with things xx

How are you doing QR? x

Having felt how you feel, its hard for me to make comment because something really makes me hope that your relationship will be okay for your DSS sake. But as I said, Ive been where you are, and if you feel there`s no choice for you, then that is the way it is.
You do really need to start recovering a sense of self, that is vital. You probably felt relief from the fact that he could no longer make demands on you or your time.

But as someone else said, the whole crap that comes with raising a kid on your own might not make things easier because you still have to do all the work on yourself anyway, recovering your sense of self, but you`ll have less money and time to do it, and possibly a lot more stress.

My DH sleeps separately to me (DD is 12 months). THis is a totally culturally acceptable thing where we are living. Many women I speak to wouldn`T consider having their husbands back in their bed until the baby is 2. Not ideal for everyone, I know, but if you have a relationship like ours, it really helps. Firstly the pressures off, secondly the "co-parenting" role takes precedence and theres no need for pretending everythings all romantic and great. Then I suppose it goes both ways. Some couples manage to rekindle something and find interests together, like travel or whatever, and some call it a day. Some people do continue living together unhappily forever though and these really are the saddest cases.
Would you consider just a co-parenting relationship with him? Or do you just feel too trapped for that?

dp has really opened up in the last two days......and thrown so many issues at me that i had no idea about. to be honest talking has made us both realise we were actually in love with people who don't exist.
He has agreed he needs professional help, and that it is not possible to live together anymore.
We are not rushing into any decisions about ds.....because as we are getting on so well, there is no urgency for either one of us to move out.
I do have to make a decision about whether to have primary care of ds, or whether to let dp have him. Practically it would be better for dp to have him, but emotionally very hard to deal with the thought of not being a full time mum.
We are taking our time over this, not rushing into anything at all. But this relationship is over, and we need to move forward.