Mid life crisis or time to leave my marriage? Please help!

[RubyD]

Hi all, I am 45 and married nearly 10 years with 2 young children. After a series of passionate, crazy and untrustworthy exes, I chose to marry a man who is loyal, who loves me, has a good job and is a good dad. But I am really bored. He has no libido so we only have sex if I push for it which is obviously very upsetting. He has to take viagra to get an erection with me and just tells me he hasn’t really any interest in that side of marriage. We have no shared interests other than the children and I am craving love, attention and intimacy. However, he is a good man. I am scared to leave for the sake of excitement and passion as I know the grass is always greener, our girls adore him, I hate the thought of upsetting him and also I have a history of making terrible decisions when it comes to men. I worry that my dreams of a soul mate are not realistic and I should be grateful for what I have. With my exes I didn’t trust myself, I was completely absorbed in them and I worry that if I met a man I felt passionate about that it would end in disaster or I will end up alone and penniless. At my age I feel it is now or never but I am really scared of the fallout and unsure what to do. Please help!!

Stay. I reckon most people will say leave but stay.

It sounds like he is asexual. Maybe you could have the best of both worlds by taking a lover? He may only care that you come back to him at the end of the day but if he doesn’t like sex, he probably won’t care if you seek it elsewhere.

Get counselling, take up a joint adrenaline fuelled hobby. Don't leave until you've (both) tried to make things exciting. Have you told him how you feel?

I would suggest you look at every way possible to try and make this marriage work. Have you tried counselling? Do you think your husband would try and make some changes if he knew you are considering leaving him? It doesn’t seem fair that you live in a largely sexless marriage with very little attention and intimacy. Do you think he might be depressed or has he always had a low libido?
If you are not happy though in the long run maybe it would be best to separate.

@threesecrets thank you, can I please ask why you advise this? I am so torn so would be good to know if you have had a similar experience.

@BubblyBarbara I did consider this but I have never been unfaithful and in my heart I know that if I did have an affair our marriage would be over. He is also quite jealous! Once thought I was having a fling with my yoga teacher so I don’t think that would work.

I think you need to perhaps look at your own issues first. You chose to marry him, you chose to have kids with him.

I’d stay too. I couldn’t break up a family over sex, but that’s a highly personal opinion.

Do you love him? Forgive me if I’ve missed that in your OP.

Would you want to be lurching into highly passionate and crazy relationships in front of your girls?

I’m sorry, it’s a crap situation either way.

@QuentinWinters Thank you and yes he knows how I feel. It is a recurrent theme for us and is why he actually has the Viagra as he thought there might be a medical reason. We have had counselling but only a few sessions. He is old school and found it awkward though it did help us be nicer to each other as before I was brimming over with resentment. I now see our marriage for what it is, not perfect but I see why I married him and the reasons are still valid. But my heart breaks when I see a soppy film. Do soul mates actually exist though? Maybe I expect too much. When I talk to him about it he understands, tries for a few weeks but it goes back to how it was.

@flatoutpanic I have grown to love him as a person but not passionately like a lover or how I think it should be anyway. I am comparing it to the crazy exes though which wasn’t really love either really. I worry I will end up bitter and resentful at 70. It is the intimacy I miss most not the actually sex. And feeling desired. We don’t kiss, hold hands, hug or anything

The other thing to consider is that you’re probably going to go through the menopause in the next decade and may well end up wanting exactly the sort of marriage you now have especially if you lose your libido as is common. But at a healthy 48 you sort of need to have your fill of excitement while you can, you only live once.

Though if it is really more about intimacy as you say then maybe you can work on it. You might need to consider going to a relationship counsellor though.

@Jay670 I know this and I understand why I did choose this at the time but now wondering if it has been a massive mistake. I wish I could be happy with my lot.

my heart breaks when I see a soppy film

Please don’t compare your life to a romantic film! You know life isn’t really like that. Especially after 10 years of marriage.

Leaving aside the sex, and the resentment about the sex, how is your relationship? Do you enjoy talking to him? Do you have things in common? Do you agree on most things? Do you work well together as parents?

@BubblyBarbara I think that might be best to see a specialist intimacy counsellor. The other sessions did help but maybe we need more of a specialism. I am definitely perimenopausal so aware this could be hormone related and last chance saloon so don’t want to make massive mistake. Thank you for taking time to reply to me.

@minipie haha no I don’t expect that but some intimacy and a little bit of romance would be nice , so that makes me sad. We are very different and poles apart in interests which is tricky. Like old school conservative sport watcher who eats pies versus new age liberal vegan reiki healer. We are that different! Our main and only shared interest is our children and we do work together well as parents. He is very personable, I don’t mind being in his company but we have little to say to each other, other than about the house and kids. When they are older I am not sure what we will talk about.

I think it’s probably fairly unusual to have the same passion you have with a short term lover in a long term marriage with children. I’m sure it exists though. Possibly not when step-parenting? Which means you would have a relationship separate from your children, which isn’t really sustainable either.

I’d be more concerned with love, things in common, respect etc that will sustain you into older age. Is that something you could work on?

@flatoutpanic I think we could try to at least before any big decisions are made. Constantly thinking about it is driving me mad so I guess more counselling is needed if I am unsure. I appreciate your advice :)

I left my partner of 10 years (3 young children) because of similar issues. No sex or intimacy or interest in me at all really, I was just there to make his life easier. We now share care (50/50) of the kids and I'm married to somebody who wants me and loves me in the way I need. It worked out well thankfully but it could of gone another way. And it was very very hard with the fallout of both families and the kids but it was about a year of struggles and a lot of different emotions before it started to get easier. Time is definitely a healer and I'm glad I did it while the kids were young as they were just so loved and unaware and now it's normal for them to have 2 homes. Hope this helps

I recently found out a few of my friend's are swingers and it's apparently very popular and modernised now. They are not as obsessive as many people think. My friend's have participated maybe 4 times in the last 5yrs but said it is very freeing for them individually and doesn't affect their marriage. Maybe have a word with your husband and see how he would feel if you visited a swingers club to see how you felt? You could go alone without him if he didn't feel like that sort of thing. You don't have to participate in clubs, you can just politely decline and spend the night talking to people and having a drink instead.

Is he on meds that may affect his ability to get an erection? He might be able to change them to something else which may increase his libido.

The problem is that men don’t like to go to the gp and talk about this stuff.

Erectile issues could put him off trying sex in case of failure. Nobody likes to be reminded they can’t always manage to dtd!

@africanantelope thank you for your message and I am really glad to hear it all worked out for you and the children especially. I think he does love me and ultimately I think it would all be ok eventually if I left just the thought of all the pain and anger I would unleash is horrifying. I wish I could skip that step and move ahead 2 years. I will try for a bit longer and hope there is an epiphany

We are very different and poles apart in interests which is tricky. Like old school conservative sport watcher who eats pies versus new age liberal vegan reiki healer. We are that different! Our main and only shared interest is our children and we do work together well as parents. He is very personable, I don’t mind being in his company but we have little to say to each other, other than about the house and kids. When they are older I am not sure what we will talk about.

I think this is just as big an issue as the sex tbh. Did you have more in common or at least more to talk about when you first got together? You must have done surely?

@Sciencebabe thanks for your message but if I am honest that would terrify me, it just isn’t me and I am looking for love more than sex really. But wow, go on your friends! :)

@minipie I think we just drank and went out a lot and then I stopped drinking after the kids and that was that. We married quickly. Says it all! But yes I agree that is probably at the heart of the matter