I think I want to leave. Should I?

[Dilemmaoftheday]

I think I’m really posting here to be given permission to leave my partner. He’s a good and kind person, caring and supportive. He looks after all our finances, works and earns more than me and is generous and unquestioning about how I spend money.

BUT he’s also kind of useless. For example he stays in bed with a cup of tea and his breakfast until 9am every morning when he logs on for work. He worked from home even before Covid so this is a long term pattern. I get the 2 dc ready and out to school or breakfast club if I’m working. He’ll shout bye.

I do absolutely everything to do with cooking, shopping, laundry, organising kids activities, clothing etc. I do almost all the other cleaning. I work 3 days so with the dc at school I do have time to myself in which to do these jobs. But I still don’t like it. I feel under pressure to keep things to a certain standard. It’s even worse at the moment because I’m still furloughed and now the dc are back at school he would like me to do things like repaint the kitchen.

We haven’t had sex for 4 years. This started when he had health problems but it’s got to a stage where I just don’t want to have sex with him. He feels like another child sometimes. I take care of all his needs. He says he couldn’t be more accommodating of me, meaning I have free time and I can do what I like with it. I can but I know he’d rather I was doing home improvements and keeping the house cleaner and tidier.

The dc have a loving relationship with him and he adores them but he’s almost like an older sibling sometimes rather than a father. They bicker over daft things and he takes it personally and gets upset if they do something he doesn’t like. He almost never takes them out anywhere on his own, maybe twice a year. He says he just prefers to be at home.

I had an affair 2 years ago which is over but we’re still in contact. I want to leave. I have somewhere I can go. He will never leave the family home. When I tell him this he makes me feel incredibly guilty. He says I’m depressed and need help. He knows about the affair but I think would forgive me literally anything. I have a strong desire to rekindle things with my affair partner. I’d have to leave to do that as he will not see me otherwise.

Sounds like you have made your mind up... no amount of agreement from posters here will change that

@Dilemmaoftheday I went to counselling, and she asked me if I was there to get permission to have these feelings, and yes, I was! So, I am in the same boat as you. I too do all the house and kids stuff, and work pretty much full time. He's wfh, so you'd think maybe he'd do a bit in the house, but he works non-stop, and even pretty much ignores the kids all day. The only difference between yours and mine is that I have all the money stuff to sort too, and he earns less than me, oh and he spends his money on records off ebay, whereas I spend mine on kids clothes.
Living with an adult child, no sex, never ever takes the kids out, it's all the same.
Your last paragraph is similar too. There's someone I know I could have a lovely life with, but while I'm stuck where I am, there's no chance of that. If we're ever going to get together he wants to do it right. I'm resentful enough of the situation with DH enough as it is, but if I've let this chance go to have real love in my life, all so that I stay as I am, I will kick myself forever.

@WakingUp55643

I was thinking of going to counselling and when I imagined how the conversation might go this is what it came down to. So I thought I might just post on here instead and see what happened.

It sounds like you've become a pseudo-mum.

You cook, clean, wash his clothes but have no intimacy, no shared responsibility, no true partnership. Your OH is happy to be waited on, making no effort, not caring whether he is making you happy. He seems supremely selfish.

Sorry, but that is not a life. And it's not depression either. I couldn't spend my days like that.

How far away is school from your house? If it's not far and he doesn't start work until 9 why doesn't he do the morning school run?

He won't change

You want a life

End the marriage and move on - but hold off on restarting the 'affair' until your DC are ok with the break up and move

Kids

Well it’s a good question and I don’t know why. Sometimes he did have to go into the office so we just got into this pattern. School is very close.

You don’t need permission from anyone. If you are not happy that’s enough of a reason to want to leave.
Leave him and move on, hopefully he will be more involved with the children but if he isn’t it won’t be much different to how you are living now.

I sort of feel the need to defend him a bit. He is a good person, but probably a bit immature emotionally. With regards to the children he is extremely interested in their well being and activities etc. It’s just that he doesn’t actually do anything about it, E.g. school says they need to read 4 books a week. He’ll tell me how important this is, how we have to do it, how he’s worried they might fall behind, but he won’t ever be the one to read with them or fill in the reading diary

Cheeky bastard giving it 'you're depressed and you need help'. Gaslighting much!

You just dont want to be running around after a lazy shiftless bastard anymore. Fair do's.

Get shot of him, he's dead weight.

You have my permission to leave him!

Seriously though he isn't contributing to your family life or your happiness. He has a free housekeeper

He could be Brad Pitt and doing all the housework. It doesn’t matter. You don’t need permission to leave. If you aren’t happy then you aren’t happy. You had an affair so you’re obviously not getting your needs met somewhere. Just leave and get a happy life that suits you. Some people are happy with a “cleaning the house, husband at home” kind of life. You’re not. That’s ok. Only you can make the life you want. A friend of mine was in your position and she left and she’s now really happy. There was nothing “wrong” with her husband. They just weren’t suited.

He contributes financially. He has a well paid job and we have a nice home and lifestyle.

Yes my needs aren’t being met but I do wonder if I had other things in my life I’d feel better and could make the relationship work. I don’t really enjoy my job and often feel like I don’t have the social life I’d like either.

@Dilemmaoftheday

He contributes financially. He has a well paid job and we have a nice home and lifestyle.

Yes my needs aren’t being met but I do wonder if I had other things in my life I’d feel better and could make the relationship work. I don’t really enjoy my job and often feel like I don’t have the social life I’d like either.

This is doubtful, as someone said before, you’re essentially a housekeeper not a wife, a partner, a lover.

You’re bringing up his children single handed, keeping his house, feeding him and so on. You have no sex life, from what it sounds like no physical intimacy either.

You have two choices, stay and be unhappy and sexless or leave and find your happiness. For me it’s a no brainer, leave.

You’re not depressed you’re fed up with being treated so badly.

I think you only need to give your own self permission to leave.

Why did you write this of him, "He’s a good and kind person, caring and supportive when all that you write of him subsequently show him as being none of the above. To me, this is yet another version of the "good dad" comment that so many women in poor relationships write about when they can think of nothing else positive to write about their man. The only person this lazy deadbeat of a manchild cares about is his own self.

You are indeed fed up with being treated so badly; he sounds like a shitty Disney Dad (so only there for the nice bits rather than putting any hard graft into raising his children. He cannot even be bothered into taking them out once in a while because he prefers to stay home).

What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here?. You would not want them to have such a relationship as adults would you?. No you would not and this is not good enough for you either. Would you want such an unhappy and loveless marriage to be their norm too because that is what you're both currently showing them.

The grass is greener regarding the affair. If you didn't have this other person waiting on the sidelines for you would you still be wanting to end your current relationship?

Sounds way too familiar. I didn't leave, I didn't have an affair, I resigned myself to my financially secure life - then when the youngest turned 18 he said he was bored with me and wanted a divorce, all those years of boredom to keep the family together pointless.

Leave, but ensure you do so before having an affair, you owe him that much, as you say he's a good man. Try and be amicable and put the kids needs central, ahead of another man. I'm happy now but feel I missed 10 years of potential happiness plus perhaps the chance to have more children, don't make my mistake

"The grass is greener regarding the affair. If you didn't have this other person waiting on the sidelines for you would you still be wanting to end your current relationship?"

This is a really important point.

But still, I think you should leave because your marriage is very lacking in the most important ingredients for a marriage and he doesn't seem to do any parenting. (Have you ever discussed that with him and tried to get him more involved? As a working mum, I always took my DC to school because it was the only involvement I could have in their school day and there were always lots of other working parents at the school gates for the same reason so the fact he was working needn't have precluded him from taking your children to school).

But you do need to be really certain that you're not leaving in anticipation of getting together with your AP and that you would rather live as a single woman than with your husband because you don't know how things will pan out with your AP if you're able to be together in real life.

I could have written your post OP. I was in pretty much the same position and I left for my affair partner. And yes, actually, the grass is greener TimelyManor I have a partner now, I'm in a relationship with a grown up who takes half the responsibility for our lives, someone who sees my needs and not just his own. Someone who loves me, not just loves how comfortable I make his life.

And I love my job and my social life, but my previous life still wasn't enough. I tried, I really did. But once you feel what it really is to be loved you can't really go back

I don't know about OP, but meeting this other man taught me that there is more to live for than the life I had accepted. I genuinely thought that it was normal for a married couple not to have sex much, or at all, and that it was all just a romantic fantasy you find in the movies. I had felt as if everything was switched off inside and this was my life forever. Then along came someone who set me on fire, it was amazing, just the spark from talking to him was enough to open my eyes. So, yes, I have worried that this has clouded my thoughts about separating from DH, but really it has given me the push I needed. Saying that, I still haven't done anything about it, and don't know if I ever will.

Most husbands feel like an extra child at times!

Yes - I didn't mean to suggest that it could never work out with OP's AP. I have a couple of friends who started out as OWs and are now decades into their relationships with the men in question. But I also know of cases where the affair collapsed and at least one instance where the person massively regretted leaving their marriage for the AP. Doesn't sound like that would be the OP but it's important for her to be comfortable that she would prefer to be single than with her H so that it doesn't all depend how things turn out with the AP.

@TimelyManor

The grass is greener regarding the affair. If you didn't have this other person waiting on the sidelines for you would you still be wanting to end your current relationship?

I don’t know definitively. It was something I thought/fantasised about but to be honest probably not. I’d probably stay for an easier life.

But as waking up says it just opened my eyes to what was missing. I know it could turn out to be a fantasy. We have only had the good bits of a relationship so far.

I am shocked you haven't been given a hard time for having a longterm affair. He had a medical issue and you went elsewhere. It is not acceptable to have an affair, you should have left.

He clearly isn't useless as works and provides well but it seems he thinks domestic chores and children are your responsibility . Some marriages might work well on this basis but both parties have to agree. What if you went into hospital, would he pick up childcare?

You shouldn't excuse yourself for the affair, you chose to have the affair as a coping strategy rather than deal with the issue.
I doubt the grass is greener but you are not commited to the marriage as chose an affair which meant your efforts and time must have been outside your marriage. You are entitled to be happy but have to accept responsibility for your actions.

For those who says he is gaslighting....his wife will have been acting differently when having an affair, its extremely common for partners to think the cheating spouse is depressed but they are actually having an affair. I don't blame him for this. No woman would be accused of gaslighting.

You can leave him, yes the fall-out will be significant and both of you will be financially worse off but I think you need to move on. He doesn't seem like a bad person just someone who assumes the split of responsibilities is more traditional.

Warning, don't move on straight away with OM. Your children will need to adjust to parenting separating